Search results

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are the live wire of construction industry in developing countries. These classes of establishments are most affected by economic contraction and turmoil, thus affecting their performance and survivability. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate and prioritize the survival determinants of construction consulting organization during economic contraction in Nigeria using quantity surveying firms as a focal point.

The study adopted the descriptive-survey design and quantitative data were collected through questionnaire purposely administered to quantity surveying firms in the Southwestern part of Nigeria. The data obtained from 99 quantity surveying firms on survival determinants were analysed using various statistical analysis such as mean score, standard deviation, Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis H test, and so on. Principal component analysis was used to identify the principal components of survival determinants, while the factors were prioritized using fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

The result of the analysis reveals eight factors that significantly determines the survival of firms during the period of economic contraction. Furthermore, the eight grouped factors were prioritized accordingly namely firm's innovation and diversification, ownership structure and networking, education level and management skills, and so on.

This study investigated the survival determinants of quantity surveying firms and prioritized it with the opinions of principal partners in quantity surveying establishments. As against obtaining large survey responses from all quantity surveyors in the study area that may not have practical experience of managing firms, the limited responses received provide valid basis to broaden the horizon of professionals and other stakeholders on the key determinants for firms to survive economic turmoil.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing information on prioritized factors that must be considered in an appropriate order by quantity surveying firms to survive economic contraction.

Managers are constantly making decisions that affect profit. One of the decision‐making areas which is crucial to all managers concerns profit planning. Attempts to show how cost‐volume‐profit (CVP) analysis, aided by the computer spreadsheet, can be applied to the practical profit planning situation in the hospitality industry. Paradoxically, CVP analysis is one of the most widely referred to techniques in managerial accounting, but all too often it is not used to its full potential in the operating environment. Aims at encouraging greater use of the CVP approach to hospitality profit planning.

Communication quality is repeatedly listed among the top success factors to consider when implementing an ERP system. Analysis shows its role is more complex. It helps some aspect of success but has no influence on others. The aim of this paper is to conduct a case study to determine the role of communication quality in the success of an ERP project implementation.

A case study was conducted to determine the role of communication quality in the success of an ERP project implementation.

Results suggest that different aspects of communication quality impact different dimensions of project success. Some dimensions of project success did not seem influenced by communication quality. Results also show that, for the dimensions of project success that are influenced by communication quality, the form might be as important as the content of communication.

The literature may be repeating an “accepted truth” without actually testing it. The evaluation of the regularity of the patterns observed will require additional observations. Also, the reasons behind the association between the communication quality attributes and the different components of success will need to be further investigated.

For managers, the findings highlight that communication is not a silver bullet when conducting ERP projects. Managers should also be aware that the form of the communication efforts will likely have as much impact as the content of the communication process. The results specially emphasized the importance of openness in communication.

The study considers nine dimensions of communication quality. By examining the separate effects of the communication content and form on the components of ERP project success, the paper provides a deeper understanding of the role of communication in the implementation of ERP systems.

Spiegel Online (www.spiegel.de) is the leading news Web site in Germany. The site was first designed to accompany Der Spiegel, one of Europe's largest and Germany's most influential weekly magazine, which has a weekly circulation of around one million. The site's content is produced by a team of more than fifty journalists writing in several categories: politics, business, networld, panorama, arts and entertainment, science, university, school, sports, travel, weather, and automobiles. The original content is complemented by articles purchased from news agencies and selected articles from the print edition. Spiegel-Verlag is a major contributor to the Hamburg Media School, which offers professional master's degree programs in Media Management (MBA), film, and journalism. In their second year, MBA students typically engage in consulting projects with major media companies. In a recent assignment, Spiegel Online posed two questions to the MBA team: are there any chances for an economically successful entry into the market for interactive classifieds? And if so, what should the business model look like in detail? A student team analyzed markets for classified ads and found one market segment that appeared to be particularly promising: the market for art objects. During the development of a business plan for a new venture in this market it became apparent that there is much uncertainty about the key input parameters to the business plan. As a result, it is very difficult to assess the viability of the business idea. How can the team properly account for the uncertain input parameters? What is the impact of this uncertainty on the bottom line? Will a Web site for art objects earn or lose money? How can the team communicate this uncertainty to a group of high-level decision makers who want a simple “go or no-go” recommendation?

The objective is to make students aware of the applicability of Monte Carlo simulation to the analysis of complex business plans. Students should learn how to explicitly account for uncertain inputs in a business plan, how to assess the impact of uncertainty on the bottom line via Monte Carlo simulation, and how to communicate the results of their analysis to high-level decision makers.

This paper aims to examine the causation linking financial technology to economic growth in the East African Community states from 1997 to 2019.

Autoregressive distributed lag is used. Gross domestic product per capita proxies economic growth, automated teller machines, point of sale, debit card ownership and mobile banking measure financial technology.

The results unveil a significant relationship between financial technology and economic growth. The findings show bidirectional causality between automated teller machine and economic growth, with unidirectional causation from economic growth to point of sales and internet banking, mobile banking and government effectiveness to economic growth. The error correction term is negatively significant, demonstrating a long-term convergence between Fintech measures and economic growth.

The governments should effectively enact and implement policies that protect investments in financial technologies to boost economic growth in the East African Community countries. The government should reduce taxes on financial technology equipment and related services. The use of automated teller machine, debit card ownership and internet banking should be encouraged through cashless transactions. Financial institutions should adopt cashless operation policies to encourage the use of financial technologies.

Research results on the bond between financial technology and economic growth are not conclusive. These studies demonstrate that technological innovations are double edged-swords, with both positive and negative sides. The results are conflicting; some reveal positive relationships, while others show negative links. Hence, research is required to fill the lacuna.

Introduction: Financial development has a direct impact on the housing market by facilitating access to credit. The increase in housing loans resulting from the relaxation of the credit constraint causes an increase in housing demand and house prices. Purpose: This study aims to examine the relationship between financial development and house prices in Turkey, using the variables: the domestic credit to the private sector and total housing and consumer credits. Methodology: To determine any long-run relationship between financial development and house prices, the autoregressive distributed lag methods are used, covering the selected variables such as real GDP, inflation, mortgage interest rate, and stock price from 2010Q1 to 2020Q2. Findings: The study’s findings show that both variables representing financial development have a statistically significant and substantial positive effect on house prices. Besides, the selected macroeconomic variables have the theoretically expected impact on house prices.

There has been an increase in the number of multinational banks (MNBs) in India and Nigeria. While the literature is replete with analysis of multinational banking in developed countries, not much is known about the drivers of multinational banking in developing countries. This chapter uses the linear probability estimation technique and a sample of 57 Indian and Nigerian banks to investigate firm-level determinants of bank internationalization, as well as inter-bank variations in the number of foreign branches/subsidiaries. The empirical results suggest that the decision by banks from India and Nigeria to internationalize is influenced by firm-level characteristics such as after-tax profit, capital adequacy ratio (CAR), total assets (TA or bank size), volume of customer deposits (CD) and the number of domestic branches. A bank’s decision to establish a given number of foreign branches and subsidiaries depends on variables such as CAR, CD and TA. Based on the empirical results, the chapter proposes some hypotheses about bank internationalization in developing countries.

This study aims to investigate the impact of energy access on foreign direct investment (FDI) in an emerging market.

The study uses the two-stage least square instrumental variables estimation approach to compute the parameters of the model to account for any potential endogeneity and time persistence in energy access.

The results show that energy access significantly influences FDI inflows in Ghana. The results of the study also revealed that natural resources and macroeconomic variables such as real interest rate, gross domestic product growth rate are significant determinants of FDI inflows in Ghana.

The practical implication of this study is that there is a need for energy sector policy reforms in Ghana that would guarantee a secured and continued supply of energy to enhance energy access to boost FDI. Ghana should aim for a cost-effective, stable and environmentally friendly source of energy as an alternative to hydro energy as the main source of its power generation to promote FDI. Also, Ghana should initiate and implement policies aimed at creating an enabling and stable macroeconomic environment, as macroeconomic factors in this study are found to be drivers of FDI.

This study provides firsthand information on energy access and FDI from the Ghanaian perspective.