Published: June 13, 2016

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have an important role to play in the development of the country. A strong SME sector contributes highly to the economy, contributing to the gross domestic product, by reducing the level of unemployment, reduction in poverty levels and promotion of entrepreneurship activity. In South Africa (SA), the growth of SMEs and prevalence of SMEs is significantly low. Therefore, the aim of the study is to identify the internal and external factors affecting the performance of SMEs in KwaZulu-Natal, SA. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 74 SMEs owners/managers who were members of the Durban …

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Published: June 1, 2016

The French Ecole Supérieure Libre des Sciences Commercial Appliquées (ESLSCA) in Paris is one of the most important global culturally diverse private business schools in terms of its number of branches and its history. ESLSCA has had a branch in Cairo in Egypt for about 17 years. This qualitative study seeks to focus on ESLSCA-Egypt branch to investigate the extent to which cultural diversity is included in its MBA curricula. The main methods for collecting data are document analysis, a number of semi-structured interviews, and a review of relevant literature. The study findings have meaningful implications for the practices of …

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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: March 28, 2017

“Employee turnover” as an expression is broadly used in business organization. Despite the fact that several studies have been performed on this topic, little research has been conducted on examining the causes and leading factors of turnover as well, as advising some feasible approaches, which can be applied by bosses to ensure that employees will continue in their respective organizations to enhance organizational effectiveness and productivity. The main purpose of this study is to determine the reasons and key factors in the perspectives of the relevant literature and identify to the intention of employee turnover. This conceptual paper also suggests …

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Published: March 2, 2016

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in all economies around the world, they are responsible for creating of jobs, alleviating of poverty, contributing to innovation and to the gross domestic product of a country. However, many of these businesses face challenges and often fail within a short period of time. The success of small businesses is not only having products and a market to sell them to but also effective marketing of these products to the targeted market. A vast array of studies have investigated SME marketing tool usage however few have looked to SMEs in emerging …

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Published: Oct. 29, 2016

This study identifies and discovers best practices in entrepreneurship education from highly-ranked universities and business schools globally. The study has been qualitative in nature, utilizing semi-structured interviews with 23 respondents at 12 higher education institutions. The study has made use of non-probability sampling by means of a convenience sampling approach. Data have been analyzed by means of thematic analysis. Results indicate that best practices in entrepreneurship education include little to no specialization at undergraduate level, with a strong preference for generic and widely applicable entrepreneurship modules. Individual entrepreneurship-related modules contain distinct individual themes. These modules are most commonly structured as …

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Published: May 11, 2016

High failure rate of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has been partly attributed to the use of inappropriate performance measures. This study seeks to determine the types of performance measures employed by SMEs, purpose for which performance measures are used, perceived effectiveness of performance measures used and factors that may inhibit SMEs from using both financial and non-financial performance measures. Data are collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of this study reveal that most of the sampled SMEs measure their performance using both financial and non-financial performance measures, albeit financial performance measures are …

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Published: June 13, 2016

Time after time, different economies, such as the world economy or a national economy, are exposed to diverse fluctuations of various origins. The reasons for this can be multifold. Thus, in the context of an economic crisis, staying ahead of competition is vital for any company’s survival. In addition, each year, the global competition becomes tougher. The fundamental question of modern management of an enterprise is how to achieve competitive advantage and hold it. Consequently, the effective management of an enterprise, based on a rational use of resources, comes to the fore. The goal of this research is to analyze …

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Published: Dec. 1, 2013

Management fashion theory is a growing research area in management studies. The focus of this management fashion literature is to understand why some management concepts spread quickly and widely, while others do not. However, doing research on fashionable management concepts is a difficult task, and many commentators have pointed out the limitations of the research methods used in extant research. A consequence of these difficulties is that the theory has many understudied areas and ‘blind spots’. This paper aims at providing a review of the research methods typically used in management fashion research, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of …

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Published: April 1, 2014

The balanced scorecard (BSC) is one of the most widely used and discussed management concepts in the world. Although many BSC success stories have been cited in the practitioner-oriented literature and in the business media, researchers have shown that the implementation of BSC can be a complicated process. There are many pitfalls and dysfunctional consequences associated with the implementation and use of the BSC. Still, little research is conducted on BSC implementation issues. This paper reports on a qualitative study of Scandinavian BSC users. Based on interview data, the paper identifies four main problem areas associated with the implementation of …

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