Letter from the editor-in-chief

Dear WCCI friends and IJCI readers,It is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce the first online issue of WCCI International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (IJCI).Since we are in the era of technology, we felt that it would be time saving, fast and environmentally friendly way to change the format of our journal from hard copy to soft copy via an electronic system. Thanks to the new format of IJCI the articles published in the journal will be easily accessible in all parts of the world by much more number of audience and researchers for their further or related studies. Meanwhile, IJCI will continue to hold its distinguished academic status in the international indexing systems.The first online issue of IJCI comprises four outstanding articles all passed through blind review and accordingly revised by their authors. The articles have the following characteristics;The article with the title “The intersection of pragmatics and applied linguistics in teaching speech acts: Apologies perspective” is on the implication of a pragmatics research exploring the effect of implicit teaching of apology speech act by native English speakers in elementary, intermediate and advanced English Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. This study puts forward the fact that intermediate and advance levels of EFL learners make different use of apology strategies depending on the situation. In most cases, advance level learners approach native speaker norms better than intermediate level learners; however, in some cases, intermediate learners seem to use apology speech acts closer to native speaker norms. The subjects in both groups changed their use of making apologies after some classes with native speaker teachers in an implicit manner.The second article titled “Parental socio-economic-status as predictor of vocational aspirations of secondary school students in Nigeria: Implications for peace, curriculum planners and special educators” is a quantitative study investigating parental socio-economic status as an indicator of vocational aspirations of secondary school students in Nigeria. The study concludes that financial background of parents is not a strong predictor of vocational aspirations of students since parents of some students may be so occupied with work that they may not have much time to deal with their children or they may not know the right way to go about helping their children.The third article, which is titled “Strategies for peaceful problem solving in Nigeria” aims to identify some strategies for peaceful problem-solving in Nigeria. The author states that peace and harmony could only be achieved in a society with the provision of basic infrastructure, employment of youths, good governance and gainful skill acquisition for effective co-existence and individual self-reliance.The fourth article has the title “The green chemistry and Filipino approach to high school experiments in Saint Paul College Pasig” and is a call for teachers to initiate measures in improving the quality of high school chemistry education with some practical laboratory work with in the Philippines. The author discusses that integrating green chemistry concepts in the design of high school chemistry experiments makes students aware of the responsibility that goes with the use and production of chemicals.As always, the IJCI continues to publish the very best articles and reviews in education and to strengthen its editorial perspective. As Editor-in-Chief, I am happy to field your questions about potential articles, forum articles and notes, newsletters, field reports, necrologies, and reviews.I strongly encourage you to submit your work for consideration for publication in IJCI. We have adopted a simple Online Submission System for Authors and Reviewers. Starting immediately, all manuscripts and editorial communications should be sent via our Online Submission System by logging on to the journal website and following the instructions. First-time users are required to register before making submissions.I truthfully hope that you will find future issues of interest, and that you will enjoy and benefit from reading the articles in IJCI.Sincerely,Prof. Dr. Ismail Hakki MiriciEditor-in-Chief

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

We now begin our eighth year of editorship of The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance & Business Ventures with some changes. Chunchi Wu has left the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and is now the Jeffery E. Smith Missouri Professor of Finance at the University of Missouri-Columbia. There have, in addition, been some changes to our editorial board over the last year. We welcome Wolfgang Bessler, at Justus Liebig University - Giessen, Susan Coleman of the University of Hartford, and Jinliang Li from Tsinghua University - Beijing, as editorial board members. Also of note was the last annual meeting of the Academy of Entrepreneurial Finance, which was hosted by Rassoul Yazdipour from the California State University, Fresno. We trust that our 20th annual conference, September 24-26, 2008 in Las Vegas, coordinated by Susan Coleman of the University of Hartford will be just as successful as our meetings of the past. Dean Melvin Stith of the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, has continued to provide excellent guidance as well as financial support

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

With the present issue I\u27ve assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance and Business Ventures, with my colleagues at the School of Management, Syracuse University, David Wilemon and Chunchi Wu carrying on as Editors. In addition, Yochanan Shachmurove, who was instrumental in helping us put together our two previous issues, joins our Board of Editorial Advisors, as do William J. Baumol, and Lawrence R. Klein. Reflecting the diversity of the field itself, the present issue of the Journal is charactericized by many different concerns and approaches to the area of entrepreneurship. Accordingly, in the first article, Bathala, Bowlin and Dukes look at corporate governance, illiquidity, and valuation issues as they are reflected in privately held firms. They find that family owned firms predominate in the ownership structure of privately held companies. Also, insiders of such enterprises own a much larger proportion of the equity than insiders of publically held firms and have CEOs who are their largest shareholder to a far greater extent. In the next article Vos and Smith look at the relationship between risk, return and the degree of ownership involvement in privately held firms. They note that for financial theory to be valid market information must be easily visible and obtainable. This is rarely the case for privately held firms. The authors use data for 100 small firms and find that there is no significant relationship between financial returns and risk. However, the authors do find a relationship between the level of control exercised by small firm owners and the financial returns of the firm. Next, Blaži?, Nikoli? And Pe?ari? Study the consumption-based tax that has recently been instituted at the business level in Croatia. Croatia is the first country in the world to seek to apply a consumption-based tax at the individual as well as at the business level. The authors analyze the efficiency of this tax with regard to its neutrality as well as its cost effectiveness. Then, Akta?, Karan and Aydo?an look at the question of forecasting short run performance of initial public offerings on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. After considering various models, they find that only the logit models beat the outcome of naïve strategies. In the following article, Ciner explores the connection between trading volume and price movements using evidence from the trading of the stocks of small firms. Using data from both the U.S. and France he finds that trading volume does indeed forecast the returns of small capitalization stock indices. In the next offering, Dubil examines the liquidity risk of a private equity firm that decides to dispose of a large holding of its portfolio. Finally, Ho, Chan and Tompkins note that hospitals have had to become increasingly entrepreneurial in today’s difficult health care environment in order to survive. They note that hospitals have found that long term asset investment decisions are critical and that there has been an increasing use of the payback criteria among hospitals