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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how technological innovations mitigate inefficiencies in marketing channels in the context of microfinance markets in emerging markets. By examining in detail, specific market inefficiencies that inhibit the efforts of micro and small enterprises to access microfinance in emerging markets and the use of technology to alleviate these failures, the authors bridge the literatures on marketing channel inefficiencies and technological innovation relevant to emerging markets.

The authors use a qualitative method in the form of phenomenological interviews and participant observation in Ghana, West Africa, to investigate the research question.

The three themes that arise from the findings are: channel structure and structure selection; power-dependence relationships and relational outcomes; and conflict mechanisms and control behaviors. Customerization of technology is observed to mitigate inefficiencies in mobile marketing channels by facilitating data sharing, reminders, peer referencing and other marketing strategies of awareness, affordability, access and scalability.

The limitations of this study are the fact that the context of the study is only one emerging market country – Ghana. This market is however experiencing dynamic changes in mobile technology innovations that is revolutionizing the microfinance industry.

Mobile money innovations have advanced the scope of marketing channels to the point that an updated perspective of the role of mobile technology in mitigating marketing channels inefficiency is both appropriate and timely.

The authors make the contribution of customerization as an aspect of mobile technology that is a key enabler in microfinance marketing channels, serving to mitigate microfinance market inefficiencies. Additionally, the study augments theories on the marketing channels framework by contributing perspectives on mobile technology.

Tax Identity Theft involves the illegal use of a potential taxpayer’s identity, usually the social security number, to fraudulently file a tax return and claim a refund. The victim is the real owner of the social security number who will have difficulties getting a tax refund, as the offender has already taken a refund for the year in question. This paper aims to investigate whether the increased use and adoption of electronic tax filing (i.e. E-Filing) technologies has inadvertently resulted in a corresponding growth in Tax Identity Theft.

Multiple regressions are used to analyze the data that is extracted from the Identity Theft complaint reports (maintained by the Federal Trade Commission) and the tax filing statistics (retrieved from the Internal Revenue Service).

The results indicate that E-Filing can indirectly but significantly increase Tax Identity Theft through the full mediation effects of individual Self-E-Filing and Direct Deposit adoption, after controlling for general Identity Theft, the number of Individual Tax Returns and Total Refunds.

The authors explore the association between the adoption of tax e-filing technologies and Tax Identity Theft. The findings suggest that the key loopholes in the Tax Identity Theft process are at the Self-E-Filing and the Direct Deposit points. Several practical recommendations for patching these loopholes are provided and discussed.

In January, 2007, TJX reported that it had suffered from a computer intrusion. The company was sure neither of the identity of the perpetrators nor of how many customers were affected. A deeper analysis revealed that the intrusion had started earlier and affected more customers than previously thought. Ensuing investigation concluded that TJX was collecting unnecessary information, keeping it for too long and employing obsolete and insufficient safeguards. TJX denied any wrongdoing but implemented most of the recommended remedies to strengthen their security.

The chapter addresses the questions surrounding the politics of the academe as a reflective process. The three authors’ experiences are very different – spanning from tenured professor to sessional instructor to professor in an African university. The narratives from the authors inform the readers of their goals to join the academy as faculty; their job search; being members of the staff and then; their experiences as members of the teaching force at various universities. The chapter is based on their experiences of navigating the politics of the academe. This chapter provides their narratives of what it means to be a professor, mentor, colleague, and researcher. Each story is told from their particular standpoint: two females and one male teaching in North American universities and Africa, respectively, two Black and one racialized female who can pass, but cannot because of her name. The analysis will address numerous complications involved in addressing expectations, establishing common grounds as educators from an international perspective, and providing narratives of how we have managed to maintain our goals and aspirations as members of the academe. The tensions involved will be problematized and explored from within the context of the academy and the associated constraints therein (Tatum, 1999). The objective of this chapter is to theorize the significance of navigating the politics of the academe to deflate arising tensions that may delay your passion for teaching. The chapter is informed by an anticolonial theoretical framework in light of converges and divergences of varying colonial contexts embedded in colonial Canadian society. The anticolonial framework draws on the specific settler-colonial Canadian context (Tuck & Yang, 2012). The chapter is divided into six parts: (1) introduction that provides a general overview of what it means to be faculty at a university, (2) situating ourselves, (3) theoretical framework, (4) Universities in general and more specifically, Canadian system and Kenyan, (5) discussion that provides an analysis or synthesis of our experiences, and (6) conclusion.