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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 …
Published: Oct. 15, 2016
The main purpose of this study is analyzing the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and market orientation. This study is an applied research in terms of the purpose based on a descriptive correlational method. The statistical population included all employees of Agricultural Jihad Organization of Mazandaran province consisting of 1923 persons. 391 people (male and female) were selected using random stratified sample. Data were collected through two standard questionnaires: Podsakoff’s (2003) organizational citizenship behavior (24 questions) and Fazel’s (2012) organizational performance (13 questions). Validity of questionnaires was confirmed by experts and reliability of them was confirmed using Cronbach’s coefficient alphabet. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …