This paper extends the research on stock return volatility in the Philippines. It presents evidence on the asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks on the volatility of market returns in the Philippines. The empirical findings of the study provide additional support to the so-called leverage effect at the aggregate level. A drop in security returns lowers market value of equity and increases the leverage of firms. The change in financial leverage raises the risk and is reflected in increased volatility.

This paper provides an overall characterization of the Philippine business cycles covering the period 1981 to 2003 in terms of volatility, co-movement and persistence. The period under investigation brought about three cycles: 1983-1989, 1989-1997 and 1997-2000 with initially very erratic but over time smoother fluctuations.

In resemblance with industrialized economies, investment turns out to be the most volatile and consumption the least volatile national expenditure component, potentially pointing at Keynes’ assertion of “animal spirits” of investors as the source for the former phenomenon. Further, with the exception of prices, inflation and the terms of trade, all variables have strong and positive correlations with GDP. The strong negative price-output correlation and the weak positive inflation-output correlation identify supply shocks as the triggering factor for observed business cycles, pointing at either technological change or drastic changes in the weather as possible spurring factors. Moreover, the investigation clearly reveals procyclical fiscal and monetary policy interventions, contradicting theoretical prescriptions of countercyclical stabilization policies to swiftly overcome economic recessions. Finally, all key macroeconomic variables show fairly low persistence, substantiating the Philippines’ popularity for its boom-bust cycles.

This study looked into the extent of adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) in the Philippines. Using the Quality Management Input-Output system as the framework of analysis, the study also examined the relationship of TQM adoption on quality, business, and organizational performance of Philippine manufacturing companies. Sixty-four (64) manufacturing companies comprised the sample.  Results show that TQM adoption works in a third world environment like the Philippines. TQM adoption was found to be highly associated with performance. Significant improvements in organizational performance were observed indicating the critical role of TQM in influencing human behavior. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on TQM, especially on how it can be a source of competitive advantage.

This paper investigates toothpaste brand choice behavior of consumers in urban Philippines. It proceeds from an earlier paper which utilized discriminant analysis and discusses another approach to the problem using logistic regression. Consumers’ evaluation of toothpaste brands and their preferred brands were used to estimate logit models. With the exception of Colgate brand, the goodness of fit of the estimated models is generally high as shown by the prediction rates and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) numbers. Finally, the comparable prediction rates, AICs, and Schwartz Criterion (SC) numbers have also shown that the last brand bought is a significant predictor of brand choice. This variable can also replace the brand most frequently purchased as a dependent variable of the brand choice models.

Organizational culture studies have proliferated in the management literature in recent years.  This is largely because the study of the culture concept prompts researchers to question commonly held assumptions about organizations and their value to society.  This study seeks to describe and characterize, at an exploratory level, the culture in Philippine organizations.

Results of a questionnaire survey of 136 Philippine managers regarding their firms’ organizational culture show that specific industries may share common cultural characteristics along the organic-mechanistic and integration-differentiation continuums, and that some of those commonalities might be explained by similarities in their competitive environment, customer requirements, and societal expectations.  These results, however, have yet to be verified by similar explorations into other demographic variables such as company size.

This study can be extended by exploring the relationships between the resulting cultural variables and such organizational characteristics as: firm size, financial performance, stock price performance, ethical behavior, work satisfaction, corporate success factors, firms’ market-orientedness, success in mergers and acquisitions, various other performance variables, etc.  

This paper aims to look at the financial performance of the Social Security System (SSS), the government’s social welfare program for employees in the private sector. 

SSS faces the risk of a fund deficit in the near future due to poor operating results.  The latest actuarial study done in 1999 indicated  the life of the SSS to last until the year 2015 and reserves expected to decline starting 2008 even without benefit enhancement.

This study reviews the financial performance of the Fund for the seven year period from 1998 to 2004 to see signs of this.   Performance was examined along the lines of membership, benefits granted, compliance with regulations, and financial performance.

The study showed that SSS faces the risk of fund deficit in the near future due to poor financial performance, especially with benefits consistently exceeding contributions.  SSS has been maintaining an actuarial reserve below what is required and this poses a risk on its ability to pay future benefit claims.  However, the deficit has been narrowing since 2002.  While the financial viability of the SSS is questionable, the situation is not hopeless.  With a good management and a resolute resolve to collect members’ contributions, pursue sound investment decisions, and institute operational reforms, the Fund can survive.

The study presents a methodology for calculating the direct cost of undergraduate instruction, and applies this methodology in estimating the cost of undergraduate instruction at the University of the Philippines.  Unlike previous studies made on the topic, this study explicitly considers the cost of facilities (i.e., existing library holdings, computer, teaching and research laboratories) in the estimation and finds that this cost comprises a material component approximately 25% of total direct cost of undergraduate instruction at the University of the Philippines.