Published: June 13, 2016

Several studies have been conducted to examine the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow on economic growth. Indeed, the overall evidence is best characterized as mixed. This paper investigates the effect of FDI on economic growth in some randomly selected African economies from 1980 to 2013, using a modified growth model by Agrawal and Khan (2011). This model consists of Gross Domestic Product, Human Capital, International Technology Transfer, Labor Force, FDI and Gross Capital Formation (GCF). Ordinary least squares and generalized method of moments were used as the estimation techniques. Of all the results, only Gross Capital Formation, Human …

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Published: Sept. 18, 2014

Since its introduction more than 20 years ago the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has garnered the interest of both academics and practitioners. In the ‘official’ practitioner-oriented literature the BSC’s main proponents Kaplan and Norton have touted the concept’s potential performance enhancing effects. Academics have been more skeptical, and have not found a clear-cut relationship between the use of the BSC and organizational performance. It appears that some uses of the BSC may increase performance, while other types of BSC use might decrease it. Still, research has shown that the concept is widely used in practice, more than 20 years after its …

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Published: Oct. 21, 2014

This study examines the effect that age and business size have on business performance. A structured research instrument was used to collect data from 500 SMEs in retail industry through interviewer administrated and selfadministrated survey and 93% of questionnaires were returned. The results show that there is no statistical significant difference between the means of business size and business performance. There is no significant difference between the age categories; under one year and 20 years and more and business performance. Age is no longer a significant factor in a company’s performance after twenty years. Life cycle approach of the company …

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Published: Oct. 19, 2014

The present study highlights the importance of alignment between a business model (BM) and business processes. The authors employ a case study method and analyze a young company focused on R&D in high technology. In order to explicate the observations, the researchers invoke the newly developed ‘VIP framework’ (Solaimani and Bouwman, 2012). The research reveals that the business processes (BP) carried out in the company must fit the stated business model. The case study demonstrates how some of the processes are not optimal and efficient, and that the two main requirements for achieving a higher level coherence and consistency between …

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Published: Dec. 15, 2014

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and work engagement. Work engagement is shown to be powerfully linked to a range of business success outcomes. Although a large number of studies investigate the link between employees’ work engagement and organizational variables, there remains a dearth of scientific research on organizational culture and its impact on work engagement. A quantitative research design is undertaken in a South African ICT company. A total of 455 employees complete the South African Culture Instrument and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Correlation analysis shows that all the dimensions of …

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Published: Dec. 15, 2014

It has been widely advocated that SMEs create most of the jobs in an economy. However, studies from both the developed and developing world have shown that only a small amount of SMEs create most of the jobs in an economy. These set of SMEs have been termed high quality firms that grow and create the much needed jobs. While studies from the developed world have identified a number of factors that depict the quality of a firm, there is however, little empirical evidence from the developing world on firm quality. This study has as main objective to determine the …

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Published: March 11, 2015

The authors study the effect on performance of family endowment on the business from the perspective of socioemotional wealth (SEW), i.e. the stock of affect-related value which the family attaches to the business. The researchers analyze the impact of ownership and board characteristics on profitability, taking into account the possible moderating factors of the family generational stage, firm size, qualified presence of non-family shareholders and firm risk. The authors analyze 2,884 medium-large Italian private firms comparing 1,944 family and 940 non-family firms using correlation and pooling GLS regressions during 2001-2010. It is shown that in the first generational stage family …

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Published: March 11, 2015

Business failure may be the result of either voluntaristic (internal) firm actions/decisions, deterministic environmental (external) events or both given causes (integrative approach). This study examines the prevalence of these causes of business failure. Results indicate that the largest proportion of firm failures is explained by the integrative approach, although two other perspectives hold a prominent role also. Moreover, internal causes of failure are more frequent than external. The findings based on multinomial logistic regression revealed that the causes of failure also vary with the size and age of firms. The implications of the results for research and practice are discussed

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Published: April 10, 2015

This paper investigates how action-based entrepreneurship training influences entrepreneurial knowledge and personal attitudes, which in turn reportedly develop individuals’ entrepreneurship intentions. A cohort of students who had undergone social entrepreneurship training under the auspices of Enactus South Africa was studied to determine the relationship between these three key variables associated with entrepreneurship tendencies. The study, in particular, addresses the question of whether practical entrepreneurship training bears any consequences on developing students’ personal attitudes, entrepreneurship knowledge, and entrepreneurship intentions. Stratified sampling techniques were utilized to collect data from 355 Enactus South Africa students from the constituent 27 colleges and universities that …

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Published: Nov. 19, 2014

The article provides a direct test of the applicability of a western paradigm to Russia – a country with a different cultural and economic system. This article aims to give knowledge-intensive companies in Tatarstan (Russia) a better understanding about influence of their level of market orientation on business performance. This study validated Kohli and Jaworski’s market orientation scale in knowledge-intensive industries, particularly in small and medium knowledge-intensive companies in Russia. The findings show that the market orientation has a positive impact on nancial and non-financial business performance in knowledge-intensive industries. It is important for hi-tech companies to improve their performance …

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