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Showing 50 results for Investment
Volume 0, Issue 0 (1-2024)
Abstract
Designing the flexible investment strategies for maximizing returns under spatial variation and considering uncertainty in beef cattle investment decision-making are vital. Therefore, the objectives of the study were (i) to explore the real options and its values spatially for beef cattle investments in Türkiye, and (ii) to evaluate the adequacy of government support for beef cattle investment spatially. Research data were collected from randomly selected 385 beef cattle farms by using questionnaires. The valuation of real options was assessed by using Binomial Valuation, Black-Scholes Method and Monte Carlo simulation. Tornado diagram was used for exploring sensitivity of decision variables for beef cattle investment. The results of the research showed that the classical net present value (NPV) value was -200,82 thousand US $. The NPV values of the options of wait, expand and input-output change for the beef cattle investment were 102,37 thousand US $, 43,87 thousand US $, and 24,50 thousand US $, respectively. The research findings also showed that the value of real options and adequacy of government subsidies varied spatially. Based on the resuts of the sensitivity analysis, the most important variables affecting the investor's decision are carcass meat price, yield rate, capacity utilization rate and fattening feed price, respectively. The research suggests that policy makers should consider the spatial distribution of investment subsidies and policies to the specific needs of different regions to increase efficiency of investment support policy.
Volume 1, Issue 3 (11-2011)
Abstract
Today most experts agree that in a highly competitive world, product lines or technology are not considered as competitive advantages for organizations, whereas, HR and manager’s ability to manage people in an organization brings about superiority for an organization among competitors. Therefore, the development of this valuable resource is considered to be vital for organization’s success. Staff training and Development constitutes a strategic and important issue for an organization and through it organizations’ human capital is transformed into permanent capital. While the importance and necessity of designing and implementing training in organizations has become popular and well accepted, what has become extremely important is the effective evaluation of training programs. In the present study we used the return on investment model to assess training courses at Saipa Company’s Maintenance unit. Results showed that the rate of return on investment for these courses was 35.6%. In addition, reduction in employee transfers, increased employee job satisfaction, increased customer satisfaction, reduction in employee absenteeism, increased employee progress, reduction in employee turnover, increased employee engagement and decreased rate of occupational accidents has brought about intangible benefits for the organization. rn
Volume 5, Issue 1 (7-2021)
Abstract
Research subject: Mazut is widely used in petrochemical, power, and marine industries. The use of these fuels, in addition to causing widespread air and sea pollution in the country, has also led to severe international penalties, rising costs, and corrosion of equipment. Therefore, the use of mazut fuel with sulfur compounds of up to 0.5% in the world, as a refining mazut fuel at the origin (in refineries) and taking into account all aspects, is more important. There are limited industrial methods for the hydrotreating of mazut (Due to the heavy oil cut and the complexity of sulfur compounds in it), the most common of which is hydrogen desulfurization (HDS).
Research approach: The goal of this research, The simulation and economic evaluation of the hydrotreating plant from Mazut fuel with a capacity of 13.75 million barrels per year. The simulation of this process was performed in Aspen HYSYS petroleum refinery software. In this simulation, the effect of effective operating parameters such as pressure, hydrogen to mazut ratio, and finally catalyst consumption on the removal of sulfur compounds, production of by-products, net production costs, and total investment costs are investigated.
Main Results: The results showed that for the hydrotreating process of this mazut with sulfur compounds 3.5%, total capital investment is 308.9 million US$ and the net production cost of treated mazut fuel is estimated to be 114.5 million US$ per year. Also, economic sensitivity analysis showed that the operating parameter of the hydrogen to mazut ratio had the greatest effect on increasing the total capital investment and net production cost, which should be minimized as much as possible.
Alireza Kazerooni,
Volume 8, Issue 1 (4-2008)
Volume 8, Issue 1 (4-2008)
Abstract
In this research , the effect of Iran’s government’s expenditures on private sector’s investment during the period between 1971 to 2005 has been investigated . The results of the Cointegration vectors derived from the johansen method indicates that government investment expenditures have complimentary effects on the private investment expenditures while the government consumption expenditures have competing effects
Yeganeh Mousavi Jahromi, Ayat Zayer,
Volume 8, Issue 3 (10-2008)
Volume 8, Issue 3 (10-2008)
Abstract
Budget deficit and ways of its financing,have different economic implications.The private consumption as one of the major components of the aggregate demand alongside with the private investment are also under the effects of the deficit.The total effects of the deficit can be separated into the primary and secondary effects.The primary effects of the defict is attributed to the causes of the deficit,while the secondary effects is related to the ways of deficit financing.The final effect is the sum of these two effects,which might be positive,negative or zero.The results of the study by the ARDL approach for the time period of 1342-1384 indicates that although the effect of the deficit on private consumption is positive but there is no longrun relationship between them.On the other hand effects of the deficit on private investment is negative.These results also show that the effects of the deficit on investment may last or endure for a long time and therefore it can be said that there is a longrun relationship between deficit and private investment.
Seyed Komail Tayyebi, Karem Azarbayegani, Batool Rafat,
Volume 8, Issue 4 (1-2009)
Volume 8, Issue 4 (1-2009)
Abstract
Based on the early theories of the foreign direct investment (FDI), trade and FDI are substitutes while the new international trade theories emphasize the complementary relationship between trade and FDI. This introduces new aspects to model fundamental concepts such as increasing returns to scale, product differentiation, and technology differences among countries. This paper is an empirical study of the interaction between trade and FDI using data on inward FDI to the ECO and D8 countries. To end this, we use instrumental variable and generalized two-stage least squares (G2SLS) techniques for panel data models. The results show that there is a complementary relationship between trade and FDI. Moreover, GDP, exchange rate, population, inflation, and some convergences variables have significantly influence on trade and FDI.
Mir Faiz Falah Shams, Shahryar Azizi,
Volume 8, Issue 4 (1-2009)
Volume 8, Issue 4 (1-2009)
Abstract
For identifying factors effect Individuals Investment intention in Tehran Stock Exchange, we employed a 28-items questionnaire among 450 persons. Cronbachs alpha was equaled 0.871 and depicted a good reliability. Based on SEM methodology via using LISREL8.7, we found that proposed conceptual model and the entire hypothesis confirmed. Findings indicated that financial-accounting information (FAI) and general information (GNI) directly and indirectly via investor expectation (EXP) effect investing intention (INTENT). Investor need (NEED) directly effects investing intention. The order of total effects of factors effect Individuals Investment intention in Tehran Stock Exchange is (from high to low): GNI (0.5461), FAI (0.4702), EXP (0.31) and NEED (0.24).
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Volume 9, Issue 1 (4-2009)
Volume 9, Issue 1 (4-2009)
Abstract
This paper investigates the determinants of private investment in Iran over the period of 1382-2004. First, the variables are tested for unit root and then the long run private investment equation is estimated using cointegration technique. The variables considered in the model include GDP, government investment, inflation, infrastructure and institutions such as rules and regulations, property rights, corruption and social Securities. The results indicate that GDP and infrastructure positively affect private investment while the institution factors such as rules and regulations, property rights, social securities and corruptions negatively affect private investment.
Volume 9, Issue 20 (10-2005)
Abstract
The role of research in the process of economic development has been proved to be very effective and investment on research has varying effects on economic variables including value added and productivity. These impacts are of importance in industry & mine. In this paper several hypotheses are tested with the aid of various models such as Johnson & Striner, Zakazit, cobb doglas- transendental and linear models. Among them cobb doglas model has proved to be best model implying that: 1- One percent increase in per capita research expenditures in industry sectors increases per capita value added around 0/041 percent after one year. 2- The effect of physical investment of industry & mine sectors on per capita production (average per capita value added ) in these sectors is higher than research expenditure. This paper contains several parts: The first part refers to literature of the subject and examines the relevant indexes of Iran.Then it examines the trend of industrial research expenditures in Iran and some other countries and it tests relation between research expenditures and value added in industries and mines sectors. Finally it explains the problems in these sectors and provides needed proposals.
Volume 10, Issue 3 (7-2008)
Abstract
Conjunctive use of ground and surface water can increase reliability of the water supply by providing independent sources. In this study, corrected utility-efficient pro-gramming that allows for more than one seasonal irrigation depth for each crop was used to determine the amount of utility maximizing investment in the well capacity for conjunctive use. Results showed that optimum investment at the 15% discount rate for the small, medium and large representative farms with a low degree of risk aversion is 150341, 531592.7 and 1084648 thousand Rials, respectively, which decreases as aversion to risk increases.
Volume 10, Issue 20 (6-2006)
Abstract
The increasing trend of manpower and financial investments have made information technology productivity more important than before. Researches show various results of information technology productivity. While some of the researches attribute the improvement and increase of productivity and profitability to the information technology, others consider the real profits of information technology disappointing and even pretend that information technology has not been able to increase productivity and create economic advantage. The present research covers the information technology productivity at the economy level (industry level) and has a different assessment of information technology productivity criteria through studying whole economic guidelines as well as industrial guidelines. The results of the field research and surveying the records and valid statistics made it clear that although there is not a meaning ful disparity between manpower and financial investments, there is a gap between existing information technology productivity and the prospective one. In this article, besides stating the study criteria and presenting hypotheses and research findings, the different criteria of assessing information technology productivity have been taken into consideration.
Jafar Ghaderi, Karim Eslamloueyan, Sakineh Owjimehr,
Volume 11, Issue 3 (10-2011)
Volume 11, Issue 3 (10-2011)
Abstract
An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), approach to cointegration analysis is used to study the short- and long-run determinants of housing investment in Iran over the period of 1375:3-1385:4. The explanatory variables include house price index, construction cost, household income, money supply, bank’s deposit interest rate, exchange rate, stock price index and gold coin price. The short and long run results indicate that house price index, household income, exchange rate and money supply have positive and construction cost and stock price index have negative effects on housing investment. However, the housing investment is not affected by gold coin price and bank’s deposit interest rate. This research also indicates that the eslasticities of housing investment with respect to house price index, construction cost, money supply and household income are greater than one. However, it was found to be inelastic with respect to other variables.
Volume 11, Issue 3 (7-2004)
Abstract
Mining and metallurgical projects are among those that require the most sizeable invest-ments undertaken in Iran. One target of the current development plan and the Ministry of Mines and Industries has been to attract foreign investment in mining projects. A survey of world-class mining companies was conducted to determine their expectations and in order to recommend a frame work for Iran aimed at attracting foreign investment This paper exam-ines and reports on the important factors and issues influencing major mining companies’ decision to invest in the mineral sector of Iran, and other developing countries, by extension.
Volume 11, Issue 20 (12-2007)
Abstract
Capital markets play important roles in economic development of countries and financial policy makers are very interested to have more information about the stock markets attractiveness for investors. One of the most important questions about the stock markets is about the relationship between the attraction of stock market investments with out-of-stock market investments. This paper aimed at investigating the relationship between the out of stock investments (bank deposits and governmental industrial development bonds investments) with the attractiveness of investing in Tehran Stock Exchange (market liquidity and capitalization). The results, at 95% confidence level, revealed that there is a significant positive association between these two markets (monetary and capital markets). The results also implied that investment in these two markets not only is not competitive but complementary.Accordingly, it is concluded that out-of-stock market investments do not reduce stock market investment attraction. This finding is very important when investors will build up a portfolio investment in Iranian markets.
Abbas Shakeri, Maryam Afhami,
Volume 13, Issue 2 (7-2013)
Volume 13, Issue 2 (7-2013)
Abstract
The estimation of Tobin’s Q Investment function is the aim of the present paper. One of the most important challenges of investment for a firm is finance. In the real world, since there is no perfect capital market, the costs of financing through internal and external resources are not equal and friction problem occurs in investment decisions. In this paper, a dynamic investment model is estimated in context of Tobin’s Q theory. This model accounts for 3 identifiable financial frictions, i.e., convex costs of issuing equity, overhang from outstanding debt and collateral constraints. The model is estimated with reference to capital and financial markets in Iran based on Hennessy et al (2007) approach using panel data of 19 companies during 2000-2009. The GLS and GMM methods are used for estimating and comparing the models.
Volume 14, Issue 1 (2-2007)
Abstract
During the past two decades business and manufacturing have observed significant and radical changes. Companies have used automation in the manufacturing, in order to improve quality and competency. It was expected that along with these changes, management accounting systems, which focus on monitoring and analyzing management decisions, should adapt with and encourage the changes. Many authors have claimed that management accounting systems have not helped the suitable business and manufacturing strategies in the new environment. Some even claim that it has hindered investing in advanced manufacturing technology and productivity. This research, by analyzing information collected from 101 Iranian business units from various industries and manufacturing settings, investigates justification basis for capital investment in advanced manufacturing technology. The study demonstrates that there is more correlation between qualitative factors such as; manufacturing capabilities, improved product quality and, competition position with investment justification than quantitative bases such as; accounting rate of return (ARR), internal rate of return (IRR) and, net present value (NPV).
Hossein Panahi, Parviz Mohammadzadeh, Azra Jamshidi,
Volume 14, Issue 4 (1-2015)
Volume 14, Issue 4 (1-2015)
Abstract
Political instability as one the domestic factors has the nearest interaction with the concept of economic security in influencing on production factors. In developing countries, uncertainty is created in an unstable political environment and violent behavior atmosphere. It results in reduction in the investment levels, failure in attracting foreign capital, and capital flight. Terrorism is one of the important political risk indicators. This study examines the effect of terrorism on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Middle East region. The statistical sample includes Iran, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey over the period 1970-2008. Using panel data method, findings show that Terrorism has negative impact on FDI in selected countries. Adversely, GDP and Openness degree have positive impact on FDI.
Parviz Rostamzadeh, Hosein Sadeghi, Abbas Assari, Kazem Yavary,
Volume 14, Issue 4 (1-2015)
Volume 14, Issue 4 (1-2015)
Abstract
Sports and recreations as a forward industry play direct and indirect roles in national development processes. Sport increases the level of social health, reduces health care expenditure, and raises employment. It increases economic growth by incoming capital flows. Currently, sports and recreation activities industry is of main and influential influence on economic growth in the developed countries. Many countries have paved economic growth path with constructing infrastructure for global and continental events. In Iran, the presence of government in sport sector is very sensible. This paper examines the effect of government investment in sports on economic growth in Iran over the post-Revolution period (1979-2010). To this end, an Auto Regressive Distributed Lag method (ARDL) model is used. Estimation results show that government investment in sport has no significant effect on economic growth. Hence, it is recommended that government would invest in infrastructure and education related to sports for creation of public and professional sports with high efficiency.
Volume 14, Issue 4 (10-2023)
Abstract
This study intended to investigate identity and its ramifications in the light of investment theory (Norton, 2000). Seventeen participants from different language institutions in Mashhad, Iran, 10 females and 7 males, were selected and interviewed according to their level of proficiency (C1 and C2) and the level of their involvement. Using MAXQDA software 18, the researchers employed the three levels of the open, axial, and selective coding of the grounded theory methodology to analyze the data and bring in the results. The results showed that some significant factors directly affected investment such as working hard, fear of failure, and personal interest in learning English. Moreover, the findings of this study indicated that those with high levels of involvement had high levels of being hardworking and their attitude towards language, class, teacher, and learning was positive. Another finding of the study was that describing the target community for the learners increases their motivation which in turn leads to increase in their level of investment. The results proposed some new insights into the relationship between the sub-constructs of investment and the factors that reinforce it as well as some practical premonitions for teachers and practitioners of English specifically as a foreign language.
1. Introduction
In the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2019), the great English poet, philosopher, and co-founder of the romantic literary movement, identity is multifaceted and the result of a series of factors that are intertwined: “I do not call the sod under my feet my country, but language-religion-government-blood-identity in these makes men of one country” (p. 145).
The concept of identity, for many years, had been regarded as a psychological issue (Balistreri et al., 1995; Erikson, 1959, 1967; Hall, 1996). Psychological factors can be separated into two categories: affective or emotional, and cognitive.
The tides have changed in the past few years, in favor of a more sociological perspective toward identity especially concerning language (Adel et al., 2015; Canagarajah, 2007; Norton, 2000; Talmy, 2008) which in turn has led to a change from micro-level investigation to macro-level studies in this realm. We can provide the image of identity from two more lenses; one as a photo and one as a video. In the first one, identity is considered as a unitary and fixed concept (Hall, 1996), and from the latter point of view, it is a multimodal, dynamic construct (Norton Peirce, 1995). Norton (2000) defines identity as the question of how an individual perceives their relationship to the world, how this relationship is constructed according to time and place, and how it is going to be shaped in the future. Duff (2002) believes that identity never stops reconstruction but, it continues changing in interaction with other people and gaining experience. Therefore, when students are entering English language programs at universities or private institutions, their identity will be affected.
According to Norton (2000), we need a more holistic view toward identity which also takes into account the language and the immense effects it might have on identity or vice versa. In the realm of identity and language, however, things have taken a turn in favor of more sociological perspectives that refute binaries and dichotomies.
This study mainly revolves around Norton’s notion of investment. This theory has altered the way many scholars consider motivation and identity in a social sense and their influence on language learning and the classroom. Norton Peirce (1995) asserted that the role of investment was more important than motivation when it comes to depicting the complex relationship between social context and language learning involvement and those Second Language Acquisition theories had not touched base with the ramifications of social inequality on language learning. She provided a hypothesis that was based on social identity and factored inequality into the equation while she tried to delineate that one simple reason cannot be the reason for learners to stay motivated. Rather, the learners will invest more in learning, in case they realize that by learning language and acquiring a wider range of symbolic and material resources, they shall be able to enhance their cultural capital.
Motivation is at the heart of investment, as a static specification of a language learner, and Norton Peirce (1995) assumed that unsuccessful students in acquiring the target language did not have enough (or appropriate) aspiration to learn the language. The point that Norton Peirce (1995) discovered was that high levels of motivation did not essentially cause decent language learning, and that inadequate interplay of power between language learners and target language speakers were regularly noticeable in her learners’ explanations. A learner might be extremely interested, however, they might not be invested in the activities of a class if the activities are sexist, racist or homophobic. Since identity is flowing, manifold and a site of struggle, the way students can invest in a target language depends on the dynamic work of power on various grounds, and hence, investment is complex and fluid (Norton, 2013).
In the past two decades, educational research in the realm of learning motivation has changed its perspective, from superficial study of motivation to the investment and how a learner’s identity interacts with their own learning background and the influence that the learners have on each other. With the advent of Norton Peirce’s (1995) theory of investment, investigations have been done to put to test the sociocultural nature of language learning, identity, and investment in different places and contexts.
1.2. Research Questions
2. Literature Review
The theory of investment was developed from the concepts drawn from the works of academics such as Bourdieu (1977), Weedon (1987), and Ogbu (1978). Weedon’s (1987) work on social identity pursued feminist post-structuralism but highlighted the important role that language has in the association between society and the individual. Furthermore, she was known for her work on the theory of subjectivity that she illustrated as an individual’s thoughts whether conscious or unconscious, their emotions, and how they comprehend themselves concerning the world. Norton draws greatly from Weedon’s work to formulate her hypothesis.
Norton and McKinney (2011) defined their identity approach to language learning as related to a sociocultural theory approach (Lantolf, 2000). The dominant idea of Norton Peirce’s (1995) study was the investment which she coined concerning the economic metaphor of cultural capital derived mostly from the work of Bourdieu. Cultural capital denotes the products of education such as qualifications, knowledge, and methods of thinking which are strange to a specific class or group. Norton’s investment is affected by social theory and Bourdieu’s various kinds of capital. Capital makes troubles in investment, reflect how the values of a person change in dissimilar linguistic settings, leading learners to lose or gain power (Darvin & Norton 2015). Moreover, through the notion of capital, investment allows us to observe how learners see their linguistic means and cultural capital as affordances that will be improved over the process of language learning, enabling them to form or reform their identity and their imagined identities.
Norton adheres to the post-structuralists declaration that language creates our intelligence of self, and that identity is manifold, altering, and a site of the struggle (Norton Peirce, 1995). By hypothesizing the complex association between the language learner and the community, she tries to improve the prospect based on which SLA scholarship observes the dealings of power related to the language learning process. This vision tests educational foundations of material circumstances and physical environment that let learning happen, and how the right to speak is given to or taken from students by gender, social class, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Investment keeps an important footprint in language learning for indicating the socially and historically-built association between learner identities and learning commitment. According to Kramsch (2013), investment underscores how agency and identity play an important role in acquiring symbolic and material capital. In other words, learners invest in learning with the knowledge that taking up this task will increase their material and symbolic capital and that, in turn gives prominence to social and cultural capital.
The concept of investment shows that students frequently have different requirements to involve in a variety of social communications and practices they are placed in. Former studies on motivation had commonly considered learners as having unitary, fixed, and ahistorical personalities while investment, perceives learners as having complicated identities that vary through different settings, and are made based on both social and individual experiences. Therefore, though motivation can be asserted as a psychological construct, investment is a sociological attempt to acquire a language through assuming various identities.
The investment approach keeps the research emphasis of the current study in that it develops the outlook of what pushes learners to contribute to language learning keenly and why they frequently resist. It does so by containing the idea of identity concerning its social and historical setting as part of the idea of motivation. The investment attitude might also contribute to giving a more comprehensive clarification for subjects associated with learners’ resistant classroom performance other than brushing it off as an absence of motivation.
The three foremost theoretical pillars of investment are identity, capital, and ideology. As said by Darvin and Norton (2015), anywhere the three pillars meet, the student’s investment in acquiring the target language happens. Norton (2013) describes that learner identity may vary constantly through time and space. Current research employs Norton’s model and applies the tenets of poststructuralist method to the research on the relationship between language and identity.
Figure 1
Investment Theory (Darvin & Norton, 2015)
3. Methodology
3.1. Participants
Seventeen advanced, adult English learners in private institutes in Mashhad, Iran, were selected to participate in this study. Dornyei (2007b) believed that “an interview study with an initial sample size of 6-10 might work well” (p. 127).
3.2. Procedure
The researchers started each interview with some easy factual and personal questions (Dornyei, 2007b). Based on the fundamental issues of investment and identity which were reviewed in the existing literature, the following central topics were considered in the interview questions: attitude toward language learning, English learning, teachers and the class, motivation, playing social roles, mark, identity as a learner, investment, imagined community, ideology, positioning, affordances, capital, and systematic patterns of control.
Then, these qualitative data were analyzed thematically through the principles of grounded theory (Creswell, 1998; Glaser, 1998). The individual interviews were transcribed integrally, coded, and analyzed with the MAXQDA 18. Grounded theory was utilized in this section to lead us towards exploration which might have resulted in theory making and shed light on prospective new constructs or confirming and analyzing the existing constructs of the theory that was our base for carrying out the qualitative section.
Grounded theory’s technique of evaluation includes three phases. The first phase is open coding which involves a cautious, comprehensive reading and coding of the data to construct the analysis outcomes inductively. The researchers employed their pre-determined theoretical ideas to make questions and particular codes. Various grounded theory methods let the combination of pre-conceptual groups in this first phase, on the condition that it does not affect the procedure signifying the investigator’s preconceptions (Seaman, 2008).
Then, several of the pre-determined codes were classified, and others were suited as part of a category that comprised the variables. The data analysis ultimately did not reject most of them. As the present researchers were pondering the data, they began classifying related matters to search more. This phase likewise includes classifying and defining the features of each code. A property is an important and expressive feature. A dimension identifies and collects disparity among perceptions (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The open coding activity took incalculable hours of systematic wondering and reflection on the data over the questions and the extra devices, in addition to the writing of several valuable notes. Slowly this coding led to classifying the notions and arranging their assets and scopes.
The second phase was the axial coding. Here, codes were changed into groups contingent on their position and substantiality. This procedure indicates a profound analysis of the properties and dimensions of the categories, by inductive and deductive reflection on concepts that appeared from the subtleties between the analysis procedure and the theoretical outline. These concepts and opinions happened via memoing, the action of writing portions of reflective work recognized as memos (Clarke, 2005). The last result of axial coding is the recognition of associations among groups. Memoing was extremely positive since it was a regular method of materializing all the opinions (e.g. the replies that were provided to each of the uncountable questions; and thoughts that unexpectedly entered the researchers’ minds). Reflecting on each excerpt of data, the researchers compared all the participants’ data under a code based on associations they discovered between codes and categories.
Selective coding was the last phase that suggested a procedure close to the preceding stage but on a more intellectual analytical level. The main group was chosen by related criteria. The entire construction of the ideas’ associations settles around such groups.
4. Results
4.1. Codes and Meanings
In this part, codes are going to be introduced. Eight initial codes acted as variables for this phase of the study, and 35 more codes were later added during the process of coding. Over 800 vignettes contributed to the emergence of these codes. The relationship between these codes and their intersections are the key to understanding more about investment and its contributing factors. The variables which were taken from the theoretical framework are illustrated in Table 2 including Investment (In.), Identity (Id.), Capital (Ca.), Ideology (Ideo.), Affordances (Af.)/ Benefits (Be.), Positioning (Po.), Systematic Patterns of Control (SP of C), Imagined Identity (II.)/ Community (Co). The intersections between these and the other codes are the glow-in-the-dark material of investment.
After the open coding stage, the intersection between the codes and the variables was ascertained to explore the relationship between them. Codes were categorized based on their intersections and 6 categories were derived that indicated the constructs of investment. These main categories (themes) were as follows: Attitude, Motivation, Purpose, Identity and Thought, the Past and the Future, and Hard Work and Success. These categories reflect the core category of the study i.e. EFL learners’ perceptions of investment. In this section, these main categories and their sub-categories, illustrated in Figure 1, will be discussed along with some extracts from learners’ interviews supported and verified by literature.
Figure 2
A proposed Model of EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Investment
4.2. Conclusion and Implications
This study employed grounded theory to explore how the investment model is perceived in the EFL context. The present researchers proposed a model (Figure 2) that delineated the main constructs of investment in light of EFL context learners’ perspectives. The proposed model added the affective factors such as attitude and motivation, and practical aspects such as involvement and hard work to the existing model (Darvin & Norton, 2015). The present researchers also tried to suggest ways to increase the level of investment among adult EFL learners based on the proposed grounded theory that was derived from the experience of successful, advanced learners with high levels of investment.
The pedagogical implications of this study are that a learner’s investment has more to do with their achievement than merely their motivation status. How investment is affected by multiple, complex factors surrounding the learners is an element often ignored or not noticed by the instructors. The implications may go beyond the confines of the classroom and involve the policy-makers as well. The learners of this study refer to the inefficiency of the state school systems in teaching English on numerous occasions and almost unanimously believed fundamental changes were in order. Learners also should realize the gravity of paying attention to their investment level as a thrusting force in the process of learning English.
1. Introduction
In the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2019), the great English poet, philosopher, and co-founder of the romantic literary movement, identity is multifaceted and the result of a series of factors that are intertwined: “I do not call the sod under my feet my country, but language-religion-government-blood-identity in these makes men of one country” (p. 145).
The concept of identity, for many years, had been regarded as a psychological issue (Balistreri et al., 1995; Erikson, 1959, 1967; Hall, 1996). Psychological factors can be separated into two categories: affective or emotional, and cognitive.
The tides have changed in the past few years, in favor of a more sociological perspective toward identity especially concerning language (Adel et al., 2015; Canagarajah, 2007; Norton, 2000; Talmy, 2008) which in turn has led to a change from micro-level investigation to macro-level studies in this realm. We can provide the image of identity from two more lenses; one as a photo and one as a video. In the first one, identity is considered as a unitary and fixed concept (Hall, 1996), and from the latter point of view, it is a multimodal, dynamic construct (Norton Peirce, 1995). Norton (2000) defines identity as the question of how an individual perceives their relationship to the world, how this relationship is constructed according to time and place, and how it is going to be shaped in the future. Duff (2002) believes that identity never stops reconstruction but, it continues changing in interaction with other people and gaining experience. Therefore, when students are entering English language programs at universities or private institutions, their identity will be affected.
According to Norton (2000), we need a more holistic view toward identity which also takes into account the language and the immense effects it might have on identity or vice versa. In the realm of identity and language, however, things have taken a turn in favor of more sociological perspectives that refute binaries and dichotomies.
This study mainly revolves around Norton’s notion of investment. This theory has altered the way many scholars consider motivation and identity in a social sense and their influence on language learning and the classroom. Norton Peirce (1995) asserted that the role of investment was more important than motivation when it comes to depicting the complex relationship between social context and language learning involvement and those Second Language Acquisition theories had not touched base with the ramifications of social inequality on language learning. She provided a hypothesis that was based on social identity and factored inequality into the equation while she tried to delineate that one simple reason cannot be the reason for learners to stay motivated. Rather, the learners will invest more in learning, in case they realize that by learning language and acquiring a wider range of symbolic and material resources, they shall be able to enhance their cultural capital.
Motivation is at the heart of investment, as a static specification of a language learner, and Norton Peirce (1995) assumed that unsuccessful students in acquiring the target language did not have enough (or appropriate) aspiration to learn the language. The point that Norton Peirce (1995) discovered was that high levels of motivation did not essentially cause decent language learning, and that inadequate interplay of power between language learners and target language speakers were regularly noticeable in her learners’ explanations. A learner might be extremely interested, however, they might not be invested in the activities of a class if the activities are sexist, racist or homophobic. Since identity is flowing, manifold and a site of struggle, the way students can invest in a target language depends on the dynamic work of power on various grounds, and hence, investment is complex and fluid (Norton, 2013).
In the past two decades, educational research in the realm of learning motivation has changed its perspective, from superficial study of motivation to the investment and how a learner’s identity interacts with their own learning background and the influence that the learners have on each other. With the advent of Norton Peirce’s (1995) theory of investment, investigations have been done to put to test the sociocultural nature of language learning, identity, and investment in different places and contexts.
1.2. Research Questions
- How are the investment and its sub-constructs perceived by advanced adult Iranian EFL learners?
- What are the factors that enhance the level of investment in EFL learners?
- How does the identity of EFL learners change through the process of learning?
2. Literature Review
The theory of investment was developed from the concepts drawn from the works of academics such as Bourdieu (1977), Weedon (1987), and Ogbu (1978). Weedon’s (1987) work on social identity pursued feminist post-structuralism but highlighted the important role that language has in the association between society and the individual. Furthermore, she was known for her work on the theory of subjectivity that she illustrated as an individual’s thoughts whether conscious or unconscious, their emotions, and how they comprehend themselves concerning the world. Norton draws greatly from Weedon’s work to formulate her hypothesis.
Norton and McKinney (2011) defined their identity approach to language learning as related to a sociocultural theory approach (Lantolf, 2000). The dominant idea of Norton Peirce’s (1995) study was the investment which she coined concerning the economic metaphor of cultural capital derived mostly from the work of Bourdieu. Cultural capital denotes the products of education such as qualifications, knowledge, and methods of thinking which are strange to a specific class or group. Norton’s investment is affected by social theory and Bourdieu’s various kinds of capital. Capital makes troubles in investment, reflect how the values of a person change in dissimilar linguistic settings, leading learners to lose or gain power (Darvin & Norton 2015). Moreover, through the notion of capital, investment allows us to observe how learners see their linguistic means and cultural capital as affordances that will be improved over the process of language learning, enabling them to form or reform their identity and their imagined identities.
Norton adheres to the post-structuralists declaration that language creates our intelligence of self, and that identity is manifold, altering, and a site of the struggle (Norton Peirce, 1995). By hypothesizing the complex association between the language learner and the community, she tries to improve the prospect based on which SLA scholarship observes the dealings of power related to the language learning process. This vision tests educational foundations of material circumstances and physical environment that let learning happen, and how the right to speak is given to or taken from students by gender, social class, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Investment keeps an important footprint in language learning for indicating the socially and historically-built association between learner identities and learning commitment. According to Kramsch (2013), investment underscores how agency and identity play an important role in acquiring symbolic and material capital. In other words, learners invest in learning with the knowledge that taking up this task will increase their material and symbolic capital and that, in turn gives prominence to social and cultural capital.
The concept of investment shows that students frequently have different requirements to involve in a variety of social communications and practices they are placed in. Former studies on motivation had commonly considered learners as having unitary, fixed, and ahistorical personalities while investment, perceives learners as having complicated identities that vary through different settings, and are made based on both social and individual experiences. Therefore, though motivation can be asserted as a psychological construct, investment is a sociological attempt to acquire a language through assuming various identities.
The investment approach keeps the research emphasis of the current study in that it develops the outlook of what pushes learners to contribute to language learning keenly and why they frequently resist. It does so by containing the idea of identity concerning its social and historical setting as part of the idea of motivation. The investment attitude might also contribute to giving a more comprehensive clarification for subjects associated with learners’ resistant classroom performance other than brushing it off as an absence of motivation.
The three foremost theoretical pillars of investment are identity, capital, and ideology. As said by Darvin and Norton (2015), anywhere the three pillars meet, the student’s investment in acquiring the target language happens. Norton (2013) describes that learner identity may vary constantly through time and space. Current research employs Norton’s model and applies the tenets of poststructuralist method to the research on the relationship between language and identity.
Figure 1
Investment Theory (Darvin & Norton, 2015)
3. Methodology
3.1. Participants
Seventeen advanced, adult English learners in private institutes in Mashhad, Iran, were selected to participate in this study. Dornyei (2007b) believed that “an interview study with an initial sample size of 6-10 might work well” (p. 127).
3.2. Procedure
The researchers started each interview with some easy factual and personal questions (Dornyei, 2007b). Based on the fundamental issues of investment and identity which were reviewed in the existing literature, the following central topics were considered in the interview questions: attitude toward language learning, English learning, teachers and the class, motivation, playing social roles, mark, identity as a learner, investment, imagined community, ideology, positioning, affordances, capital, and systematic patterns of control.
Then, these qualitative data were analyzed thematically through the principles of grounded theory (Creswell, 1998; Glaser, 1998). The individual interviews were transcribed integrally, coded, and analyzed with the MAXQDA 18. Grounded theory was utilized in this section to lead us towards exploration which might have resulted in theory making and shed light on prospective new constructs or confirming and analyzing the existing constructs of the theory that was our base for carrying out the qualitative section.
Grounded theory’s technique of evaluation includes three phases. The first phase is open coding which involves a cautious, comprehensive reading and coding of the data to construct the analysis outcomes inductively. The researchers employed their pre-determined theoretical ideas to make questions and particular codes. Various grounded theory methods let the combination of pre-conceptual groups in this first phase, on the condition that it does not affect the procedure signifying the investigator’s preconceptions (Seaman, 2008).
Then, several of the pre-determined codes were classified, and others were suited as part of a category that comprised the variables. The data analysis ultimately did not reject most of them. As the present researchers were pondering the data, they began classifying related matters to search more. This phase likewise includes classifying and defining the features of each code. A property is an important and expressive feature. A dimension identifies and collects disparity among perceptions (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The open coding activity took incalculable hours of systematic wondering and reflection on the data over the questions and the extra devices, in addition to the writing of several valuable notes. Slowly this coding led to classifying the notions and arranging their assets and scopes.
The second phase was the axial coding. Here, codes were changed into groups contingent on their position and substantiality. This procedure indicates a profound analysis of the properties and dimensions of the categories, by inductive and deductive reflection on concepts that appeared from the subtleties between the analysis procedure and the theoretical outline. These concepts and opinions happened via memoing, the action of writing portions of reflective work recognized as memos (Clarke, 2005). The last result of axial coding is the recognition of associations among groups. Memoing was extremely positive since it was a regular method of materializing all the opinions (e.g. the replies that were provided to each of the uncountable questions; and thoughts that unexpectedly entered the researchers’ minds). Reflecting on each excerpt of data, the researchers compared all the participants’ data under a code based on associations they discovered between codes and categories.
Selective coding was the last phase that suggested a procedure close to the preceding stage but on a more intellectual analytical level. The main group was chosen by related criteria. The entire construction of the ideas’ associations settles around such groups.
4. Results
4.1. Codes and Meanings
In this part, codes are going to be introduced. Eight initial codes acted as variables for this phase of the study, and 35 more codes were later added during the process of coding. Over 800 vignettes contributed to the emergence of these codes. The relationship between these codes and their intersections are the key to understanding more about investment and its contributing factors. The variables which were taken from the theoretical framework are illustrated in Table 2 including Investment (In.), Identity (Id.), Capital (Ca.), Ideology (Ideo.), Affordances (Af.)/ Benefits (Be.), Positioning (Po.), Systematic Patterns of Control (SP of C), Imagined Identity (II.)/ Community (Co). The intersections between these and the other codes are the glow-in-the-dark material of investment.
After the open coding stage, the intersection between the codes and the variables was ascertained to explore the relationship between them. Codes were categorized based on their intersections and 6 categories were derived that indicated the constructs of investment. These main categories (themes) were as follows: Attitude, Motivation, Purpose, Identity and Thought, the Past and the Future, and Hard Work and Success. These categories reflect the core category of the study i.e. EFL learners’ perceptions of investment. In this section, these main categories and their sub-categories, illustrated in Figure 1, will be discussed along with some extracts from learners’ interviews supported and verified by literature.
Figure 2
A proposed Model of EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Investment
4.2. Conclusion and Implications
This study employed grounded theory to explore how the investment model is perceived in the EFL context. The present researchers proposed a model (Figure 2) that delineated the main constructs of investment in light of EFL context learners’ perspectives. The proposed model added the affective factors such as attitude and motivation, and practical aspects such as involvement and hard work to the existing model (Darvin & Norton, 2015). The present researchers also tried to suggest ways to increase the level of investment among adult EFL learners based on the proposed grounded theory that was derived from the experience of successful, advanced learners with high levels of investment.
The pedagogical implications of this study are that a learner’s investment has more to do with their achievement than merely their motivation status. How investment is affected by multiple, complex factors surrounding the learners is an element often ignored or not noticed by the instructors. The implications may go beyond the confines of the classroom and involve the policy-makers as well. The learners of this study refer to the inefficiency of the state school systems in teaching English on numerous occasions and almost unanimously believed fundamental changes were in order. Learners also should realize the gravity of paying attention to their investment level as a thrusting force in the process of learning English.
Volume 15, Issue 4 (2-2012)
Abstract
This paper aims at studying the strategic alignment between financial strategy and subsystems including investment strategy, financing strategy, dividend strategy, and working capital strategy based on a comprehensive model (based on strategic reference points, SRP's). Three alignment models could be identified in the strategic management literature: rational, natural and comprehensive. The comprehensive model is based on process view in strategic management that its implementation is a function of formulation (focus, internal or external– SRP1) and control (low or high – SRP2). In this paper, at first, we identify typologies of financial and subsystem strategies based on SRP, and then the relationship between these strategies are studied. Using the case study strategy, Exir Drug Company was selected for empirical study and types of financial and subsystem strategies were calculated in 2001-2008. The results showed that, when the financial strategy type of Exir is moderate willing to risk taking, the performance (Tobin's Q and ROA) is more than when the financial strategy type is moderate willing to risk avoidance. The conclusion is that when there is alignment between financial and subsystem strategies, there is high performance (Tobin's Q and ROA).