November 2011
Craft routes for developing craft business in South Africa: Is it a good practice or limited policy option?
The establishment of themed routes by packaging together geographically disparate tourism products is an important issue in tourism planning. New interest has been raised around the potential of craft routes. This article examines the utility of craft routes for developing the craft sector. In the context of South Africa it is argued craft development is promoted through a number of existing initiatives,...
November 2011
Ammunition for the ‘war on poverty’ in South Africa
Poverty is a multi-faceted phenomenon that goes beyond mere paucity of income. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reflects an understanding of poverty as human deprivation by including indices for health and education in its Human Development Index (HDI). This article reflects on South Africa’s chequered HDI performance. It cites China’s record in reducing poverty and hazards the...
November 2011
Local economic development in sub-Saharan Africa: Defining potential roles for national government
Policy debates around local economic development (LED) are mainly focussed on the role of sub-national levels of government. Limited attention is given to the appropriate role of central or national government. Nevertheless, an important set of functions can be assumed by national governments in support of LED programming, not least in furnishing a coherent framework and guidelines for local planning...
November 2011
Can a takaful company reinsure with a reinsurance company?
Insurance is an important mechanism of risk management. However, due to the existence of Islamically unacceptable elements in its operation such as riba, ghararand maysir, insurance is considered prohibited. An Islamic alternative to insurance istakaful whose operations are based on Islamic acceptable contracts such astabarru’, mudaraba, wakala and waqf....
November 2011
Trust formation process in Islamic banking in Malaysia
An increasing number of citizens are doing transaction with Islamic banks and the numbers are likely to increase rapidly in the future. Research shows that trust is the key factor before undertaking transaction. However, much of our understanding about the trust is still in the embryonic stage especially in the Islamic banking industry. Hence, this study focuses on trust in the context of engaging in Islamic...
November 2011
Impact of online service quality on customer satisfaction in banking sector of Pakistan
This study formulated and tested a model for customer satisfaction based on service quality in e-banking. The research team developed the model on the basis of theoretical background. The research team used a structured questionnaire in order to collect data from e-banking customers of private sector banks in Pakistan using the convenience sampling method. The sample size of the study was 264. The research...
November 2011
Impact of job embeddedness on leave intention: An understanding from higher education (HE) system
Most of the researchers have focused on work-related attitudes and employment alternatives to explain leave intension (or turnover intention) of employees. Job embeddedness framework integrates both work and non-work related factors to explain employee’s turnover rather than only work related dimension. This paper presents the results of an empirical survey conducted in higher education institutions to...
November 2011
Environmental concern of South African cohorts: An exploratory study
Environmental issues receive ever increasing attention in society and a general level of concern is expressed in society, yet specific action-related programmes (such as recycling campaigns) do not experience the success that could be expected, given the level of attention and concern. This poses questions regarding the awareness and actions towards environmental issues. These are however, influenced by...
November 2011
Effects of labor conditions, socialization and personality upon student interns’ working willingness in hospitality industry
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of labor conditions, internship socialization and personality traits on students’ willingness to work in the industry. The questionnaire survey method was used in this survey, with hospitality interns as the subjects, with a total of 366 effective samples. The study found that students with prior part-time work experience had a higher level of...
November 2011
Short term and long term cash flow volatility and stock return: Empirical evidence from Iran
Long term operational cash flow has always been one of the most important items in financial statements. Researches which have been done to date, have focused more on the relative and incremental information content and have had less stress on short term and long term cash flow volatilities. This research studies the relevance of short term and long term cash flow volatilities. The annual percentage of cash...
November 2011
The impact of managers’ leadership behaviors on job satisfaction and performance of employees
The aim of this study is to determine the impact of the managers’ leadership behaviors over job satisfaction and performance of employees. In this way, a questionnaire was applied over the managers and employees who were working in the small and medium size business in the industrial zone of Ankara Ostim Turkey and 266 questionnaires were accepted as suitable for analyzing. The questionnaire was...
November 2011
The importance of project management in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the development of new products through E-collaboration
The research in this paper seeks ways for manufacturing companies to accomplish projects in real time with less cost. This paper describes a new model using critical success factors of implementing projects in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The factors in the conceptual model were identified in past studies and are validated from interviews with 20 project managers in the electronics industry in...
November 2011
Customer-based brand equity: A study on interrelationship among the brand equity dimension in Malaysia
Brand equity is a concept born in 1980s. It has aroused intense interest among business strategists from a wide variety of industries as brand equity is closely related with brand loyalty and brand extensions. Besides, successful brands provide competitive advantages that are critical to the success of companies. More recently, brand equity has increasingly been defined in customer-based contexts. The...
November 2011
Internet corporate reporting among public listed companies in Malaysia: An exploratory study
This study examines the utilisation of the Internet for disseminating corporate information among 100 top companies listed on Bursa Malaysia in the year 2007. These companies were chosen based on market capitalisation and relied on website observation and content analysis. An Internet disclosure index of 61 content items was categorised into four major groups: accounting and financial information,...
November 2011
Exploratory study of selected statistical techniques with special relevance to business
This paper examines selected statistical tools of correlation, regression analysis, t-test, Chi-square and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and their areas of relevance to business decisions. The method of research adopted is exploratory. In search for solution to the advocated research questions, near live examples were given and solved using both the stated statistical formula and computer SPSS. The study found...
November 2011
Intergenerational socio-economic mobility and national development in Nigeria
Nigeria is blessed with an abundance of human and natural resources. It is the 6thlargest exporter of crude oil, formerly the largest and now the third largest exporter of palm oil in the world. It has the largest gas reserves in Africa including a vast accumulation of other natural resources and a population of about 147 million people, but it is one of the poorest and least developed countries...
November 2011
Customer satisfaction, brand trust and variety seeking as determinants of brand loyalty
Loyalty is without doubt a crucial construct in marketing and has major implications for any businesses, since in the modern world it is not sufficient to merely attract new customers – retention and re-purchase is a key component of success. One of the most common determinants of loyalty is customer satisfaction and although it plays a major role, there are other variables, especially intrinsic to the...
November 2011
Cost X-efficiency in China’s insurance companies: A stochastic frontier approach
The efficiency of insurance companies directly reflects their core competitiveness. This paper uses a stochastic frontier approach to investigate the cost efficiency levels and their evolution of 23 insurance companies in China from 2005 to 2008. The main objective is to assess whether different risk levels and insurance intermediary’s development affect cost X-efficiency. A one-stage regression model...
November 2011
A risk management method for enhancing patient safety based on interval-valued fuzzy numbers
As the importance of patient safety increases for hospital management, improvements in patient safety are needed to reduce the high incidence of medical errors. Research on patient safety and medical errors shows that errors and the resulting adverse events are mainly the result of health-care providers, equipment and the quality management system. Most studies focused their research on the risk of the...
November 2011
Opportunities for a Romanian company’s business development in countries with cultural intelligence compatibility
The companies that intend to develop their businesses at the global scale are frequently confronted with situations which require cultural intelligence (CQ) winning approaches. The paper’s aim was to answer the following question: “How can a CQ web platform provide the consultancy necessary to choose a target country for business development purposes on the basis of cultural similarities?”...
November 2011
The application of Laozi’s DAODEJING to today’s maritime leaders: An empirical study from stakeholders’ viewpoints in Taiwan
This study looks at the twenty precepts of virtues set forth by the ancient philosopher Laozi’s DAODEJING (DDJ) related to a leader’s ethical spirit (LES) and leader’s social responsibility (LSR) and applies them to today’s leaders in China. We define two constructs of LES and LSR, referred to as ‘Dao’ and ‘De’ on the respective chapters in DDJ; we then...
November 2011
A taxonomy of supply chain innovations
In this paper, a taxonomy of supply chain and logistics innovations was developed and presented. The taxonomy was based on an extensive literature survey of both theoretical research and case studies. The primary goals are to provide guidelines for choosing the most appropriate innovations for a company, and help companies in positioning themselves in the supply of chain innovations landscape. To this end,...
November 2011
Comparative advantage analysis of bottled drinking water factory: A case study of Khorasan Region, Iran
In this study, the comparative advantage of bottled drinking water production in Khorasan province was investigated using dynamic reconfiguration connector(DRC) index and policy analysis matrix (PAM) in 2011. Data was collected from the site of External Trade Statistics Yearbook, FAO and annual foreign trade database. The nominal protection coefficient showed that there was an indirect tax on producers...
November 2011
Empirical research on relationships among enterprises’ internal market orientation, market orientation, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction
Internal market orientation focuses on employees’ strategic thinking and increases the effectiveness of the company’s response to any changes in the market. This orientation also allows the company’s management team to align its market objectives with internal capabilities in order to enhance the managerial performance. The goal of this study was to construct an integrative framework and...
November 2011
A literature review of the effect of science and technology parks on firm performance: A new model of value creation through social capital
Internal market orientation focuses on employees’ strategic thinking and increases the effectiveness of the company’s response to any changes in the market. This orientation also allows the company’s management team to align its market objectives with internal capabilities in order to enhance the managerial performance. The goal of this study was to construct an integrative framework and...
November 2011
Electronic below-the-line promotions and perceived intrusiveness to the end consumer: A Durban perspective
In light of increased competition in the retail environment, traditional means of promotion have proven to be less effective. Below-the-line promotions have begun to take on a more prominent role in gaining top-of-the mind awareness among consumers. The ability to target a specific consumer with a specific message is often deemed as having greater value than when compared to the consumer being bombarded with...
November 2011
Identifying critical service quality attributes for higher education in hospitality and tourism: Applications of the Kano model and importance-performance analysis (IPA)
This study aims to identify critical education elements using the Kano model andimportance-performance analysis (IPA), and thus provide recommendations for college hospitality and tourism programmes. It makes an empirical contribution to the question of quality in hospitality and tourism education. The population sampled was hospitality and tourism students in higher education. A total of 338 valid...
November 2011
The effective factors related with feelings, brand perception and purchase decision under a model
Nowadays, development of perfume from a luxurious item to a fashionable one due to different brands which are launched to the market selection is harder for customers. Also, the tremendous cost of companies to enter the market, studying and recognizing target groups and their preferences play an important role in positioning and decreasing the cost of perfume failure. Although various...
November 2011
Internet bookstore quality assessment: Iranian evidence
In websites that are designed for e-commerce like B2C, assessment of websites quality in view of users as being their customers is very important. WebQual is a tool for evaluating the usability, quality information and interactive service quality of websites, especially websites that offers e-commerce facilities. In the present study, we using version 4.0 WebQual to assess one of the most viewed bookstore...
November 2011
Using particle swarm optimization (PSO) to perform financial characteristic study for enterprises in Taiwan
Since Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has properties such as: fast convergence, the ability to search global optimum and very strong universal characteritistic, it is thus very suitable to be used in clustering analysis and parameter utilization of optimized neural network by the researchers. Therefore, in this article, it is used to applied in analyzing enterprise’s Financial Characteristic. First,...
November 2011
Management accounting: An instrument for implementing effective corporate governance
Management accounting is not given sufficient emphasis, at the board level, as a provider of timely and relevant information to facilitate the execution of good corporate governance. Without management accounting information corporations in Botswana may find it difficult to create sustainable corporate governance. A qualitative approach using questionnaires and interviews were used to establish the extent to...
November 2011
The development and application of a knowledge sharing behavior model for Taiwanese junior high school English teachers
The purpose of this study aimed to develop a knowledge sharing behavior model and to investigate junior high school English teachers’ knowledge sharing behavior in the southern Taiwan. The research method was questionnaire survey approach. Content validity and internal reliability were established through panelist review, item analysis, and factor analysis in the pilot study. The formal survey...
November 2011
Customer satisfaction modeling (CSM) in product planning according to quality function deployment (QFD) and Kano model
Service quality improvement and considering customers’ wants and requirements in designing and producing the products is one of the important business strategies in today’s competitive world. It is very important for maintaining the market, higher-quality activities and satisfying customers’ needs, since it can lead to increase in companies’ loyalty and success. Rapid changes in...
November 2011
Research on school organizational change and its impact on organizational effectiveness with organizational citizenship behavior and organizational culture as mediators
The primary purpose of this research was to verify the impact of a school's organizational changes on organizational effectiveness. The research object was a university of science and technology in Taiwan with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and organizational culture as the mediating variables. Convenience sampling was adopted to get samples from the population. SEM was used to verify the...
November 2011
Top management team characteristics, decision-making style, and organizational performance
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationships among top management team (TMT) characteristics, strategic decision-making styles, and performance. A pair of questionnaires was distributed for each firm; one is for the leader, and the other is for the follower. Using structural equation modeling with data collected from 198 pairs of samples in Taiwan, the results indicated that TMT characteristics,...
November 2011
Do creative marketing strategy and its effective execution promote business performance? An empirical assessment
The present study aimed at investigating the impact of creative marketing strategy and marketing strategy implementation effectiveness on business performance across diversified industries of Pakistan. Structured questionnaire was personally administered to collect the data from marketing and sales managers of business units from eleven corporate sectors of Pakistan. Bivariate regression analyses...
November 2011
The downside of organizational social capital in group knowledge creation: A study of Chinese high-tech organizations
This paper develops a measurement of organizational social capital by using three constructs - general trust, density of trust network and network structures. In the empirical testing of 67 separate groups, general trust had a very significant impact on group knowledge creation, while dense trust network had only indirect influence on a group’s performance. One of the downsides of organizational social...
November 2011
Globalization and economic growth in Iran
In this paper, balance relation and long term of four variables: Gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, growth rate of export of goods and services, the ratio of investment to GDP and population growth rate, and also their influences on each other in Iran for years 1971 to 2008 have been analyzed. For this purpose, vector autoregressive model (VAR) has been used. The first stability of variables by the use of...
November 2011
Effects of capital investment on working capital management: Evidence on Tunisian export small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
The main objective of this study is to investigate empirically the impact of companies’ capital investment on working capital management. For this purpose, data of 386 small and medium companies were collected from the Tunisian Export Center over the period 2001 to 2008. Capital, financial and operating expenditures are principally used to explain working capital management measured by net liquidity...
November 2011
How development of finance contributes to poverty alleviation and growth: A time series application for Pakistan
There is a well-recognized debate that financial sector development constitutes an important mechanism for long run economic growth. Through effective mobilization of domestic savings for productive investment, it also plays a crucial role for alleviation of poverty especially for developing nations. This study examines the cointegration and causality between development of financial sector, indicators of...
November 2011
The attitudes of donors towards non-profit organisations (NPOs) in Gauteng, South Africa: A generational perspective
Individual factors such as the demographic, socio-economic and psychographic characteristics of donors affect the levels of donations made to non-profit organisations (NPOs). As such, it is necessary for NPOs to have a better understanding of their donors’ psychographic characteristics and more specifically, their attitudes as this would enable NPOs to develop more effective marketing campaigns. The...
November 2011
Economics of Cash WAQF management in Malaysia: A proposed Cash WAQF model for practitioners and future researchers
Cash Waqf is a trust fund established with money to support services to mankind in the name of Allah. The gifted capital was “transferred” to borrowers who after certain period returned to the waqf the principal plus a certain “extra” amount, which was then spent on all sorts of pious and social purposes. It is recognized that there is no ample study in the area of Cash Waqf....
November 2011
Financial distress prediction: Comparisons of logit models using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis
The prediction of future financial condition of corporations has attracted the attention of financial researchers, and finding the alerting indexes of occurrence of financial distress has turned to be one of the most attractive and significant fields of financial and economic researches. Studying the history of researches shows that many of the researchers have focused on the financial ratios of the...
November 2011
The impacts of health and nutrition on wages in Ethiopia
The paper examined the impacts of health human capital indicators on wages using cross-section data from urban Ethiopia. The study took into account both measurement error and ability biases in the earning function using instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) to capture heterogeneous effects of a variable across the wage distributions. Nutrition status indicators as measured by height and body mass index (BMI)...
November 2011
Cultural influences on consumer values, needs and consumer loyalty behavior: East Asian culture versus Eastern European culture
The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of social culture on consumer values, needs and behavior which focus on the comparison of East Asian and Eastern European culture. Surveys are conducted with consumers in China and Korea (accounts for 88% of the region’s population and 82% of the region’s area) for East Asia and Russia and Uzbekistan accounts for 48% of the region’s...
November 2011
Online consumer buying behaviour amongst tertiary students in the greater Durban area
Electronic commerce is fundamentally changing the way consumers shop and purchase goods and services. Consumers have learnt how to act in an ever-changing electronic market environment. For some consumers, shopping and buying online have become part of their lives, whereas others consider it, without taking any action yet. The aim of this paper is to assess and investigate the online consumer buying...
November 2011
Assessment of institutional thickness in the Turkish context
The main objective of this study is to identify an indicator for the assessment of institutional thickness amongst various possible proxy measures in the Turkish context. Data for the creation of this indicator were collected at the provincial level after theorizing about studies of institutional thickness. The database includes the amount of public investment, the amount of investment incentives, the amount...
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