Search results

The aim of the research is to examine the role of property tax in land and building administration and to develop a dynamic model. The paper investigates the extent to which local governments take advantage of property tax in generating revenue and encouraging certain life cycle assessment-oriented land and building speculation patterns in Shashemene, Ethiopia.

The study was conducted using case study and survey research strategies. Shashemene's administrative area (i.e. specific to four peri-urban villages) was purposively selected as the case study area. A combination of different data collection instruments was employed: questionnaires and field observation. Moreover, an extensive survey of owners of undeveloped land and building, throughout the study area, was conducted. Multiple regression analysis was applied to the analyzed data as well as the use of dynamic modeling of land and building via qualitative and numerical analysis of property.

Results indicate that speculators will hold land and building for a marginal period only if the difference between present net rates of return exceeds the difference between discounted expected percent return.

This paper provides a simple model to recognize the optimum length of time to hold a parcel of land and building from the market by land speculators.

The introduction and potential implementation of dynamics modeling to the local government calls for controlling speculation that has resulted in local revenue enhancement.

Technological outsourcing requires possessing the technological capability level by enterprises taking the outsourced activity and further mandates build-up capabilities. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing nations such as Ethiopia are usually equipped with low level of technological capability and could benefit from government-supported or government-initiated outsourcing networks. The current study aims to preliminarily assess performance of outsourcing initiative taken by the Hibret Manufacturing and Machine Building Industry, a subsidiary of a national corporation, in developing technological capability of SMEs in Ethiopia.

The study used a qualitative research approach through interviews with the parent company officials and owners of SMEs and site visit to these SMEs. Findings are organized in a way to draw lessons to be learned from technological outsourcing examined.

Technological learning, acquisition of new technologies, market access and process innovation are few capabilities achieved by the involved SMEs. To facilitate and harness these opportunities and further assist in policy ratification, a conceptual framework has been presented and elaborated.

Further investigation into outsourcing procedure and biases are expected to shed further light onto the outsourcing initiative by the parent company. This study drew results from investigation of the SMEs involved. Additional investigation of other SMEs is expected to reveal additional insights.

There is a dearth of literature focusing on exploration of technological outsourcing in low-income developing countries, such as Ethiopia, to build SMEs’ technological capabilities. This research presents insightful contribution to strategic outsourcing to build local technological capability in developing economies.

This study aims to predict the behavior of donors to give to the health sector compared with other sectors in Shiraz city, South Iran, using the revised theory of planned behavior (TPB).

This was a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. A standard questionnaire, which comprising 32 items, was used to survey 277 donors affiliated with various charitable associations in the city of Shiraz, South of Iran, in 2018. Participants were selected using stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques. The authors used a revised TPB, a general model to predict and explain behavior across various types of behaviors and predict behavior based on an individual’s attitudes and beliefs. This model was used to examine the influence of eight social-psychological variables (attitude, perceived behavioral control [PBC], subjective norm, descriptive norm, moral norm, past behavior, intention behavior, self-reported) on an individual’s intention to donate to health sector charity. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 22.0.

The score of all constructs of TPB in the health sector was significantly higher than in the non-health sector (P < 0.001), except for the PBC. This indicates that it does not influence the donors’ behavioral intention in selecting of charitable activity domains (e.g. health and non-health). The constructs of the moral norm, descriptive norm and past behavior in the health sector donors; and the constructs of attitude, moral norms and the variables of the annual income, and work experience in the non-health sector donors were identified as significant predictors of donors’ intention behavior. Moreover, attitude, moral norm, descriptive norm, past behavior, male gender and the annual income were the significant predictors of donors’ intention to give to health charity initiatives.

One of the most important mechanisms to compensate for the shortage of resources of the health system is the use of donors’ participation capacity. However, different donors act differently in selecting charitable activity domains, including the health sector and non-health sector (e.g. school-building donors’ association, house-building donors’ association, city-building donors’ association, library-building donors’ association, etc.). To attract donors’ participation in the health sector, some interventions to change the behavioral intention of donors towards the health sector through constructs of TPB should be taken.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the contextual work factors in Ethiopia and to evaluate the relative influence of each of these factors on job satisfaction (JS) of employees.

The study draws on a sample of shop floor workers from the leather products manufacturing industry in Ethiopia. Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire and focus group discussions. After testing scale reliability and validity, multiple linear regression was used for the analysis.

The study results suggest that the JS is mainly explained by extrinsic factors. Pay is found to influence overall job satisfaction (OJS) at least four times of other work factors. Training opportunity and ethnic diversity showed unexpected negative relationship with OJS.

Given the importance of understanding JS in labor-intensive industries, and paucity of research on the topic in Ethiopia, the study provides practical insights and groundwork that can guide practitioners to understand the drivers of JS in the region. Moreover, the study adds to the empirical literature that may yield important insights on organizational behavior for under-researched emerging economies, particularly for the eastern part of Africa, where nations share similar cross-cultural norms, economic and ethnic settings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the proportion of farmers with constrained and unconstrained participation in the agricultural credit market and estimate the parameters that determine agricultural credit market participation in Finoteselam town, Ethiopia.

The study followed cross‐sectional study design where primary data were collected from 210 households through a questionnaire survey in Finoteselam town, north western Ethiopia. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was employed. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the proportion of farmers with different levels of participation in the agricultural credit market. The bivariate probit model was estimated to identify the parameters that determine smallholder credit market participation.

The study revealed that 48 percent of smallholder farmers are constrained non‐participating (i.e. rationed out) from the agricultural credit market due to lack of access to the service, 44.8 percent of them are constrained participating, 2.4 percent unconstrained participating and 4.8 percent of them are unconstrained non‐participating. Estimation results of the bivariate probit model indicated that variables such as high dependency burden, large landholding size, household's labor endowment, participation in off‐farm employment activities and incurring unforeseen expenses increased the probability of households to participate in agricultural credit markets. On the other hand, village dummy variable, old age of household head and borrowing from other sources decreased the probability of households participating in the agricultural credit market.

The findings raise policy concerns to devise a mechanism for creating a functioning rural insurance market, improve the labor market for encouraging off‐farm employment activities, devise wealth‐creating schemes and address the credit need of those smallholder farmers who are still rationed out from the agricultural credit market.

Little has been done on the subject of agricultural credit market participation in Ethiopia. Hence, this research will add to the thin literature on the subject.

Women’s empowerment remains a key development challenge in Kenya. The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the status of women’s empowerment and the key contributors to their disempowerment in Kenya’s aquaculture sector.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 534 male and female fish farmers from 300 households drawn from six counties in Kenya (Kakamega, Kisumu, Kisii, Kiambu, Meru and Nyeri). The Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) was adapted to Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries and Aquaculture Index (A-WEFI) to suit the aquaculture and fisheries sub-sector. The adapted A-WEFI was then used to estimate and the status of women’s and men’s using five domains of empowerment (5DE) and a gender parity index (GPI). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Cramer’s V and sensitivity analysis as test statistics.

About 86% of the men and 80% of the women were classified as empowered. The mean score of the 5DE was 0.93 and 0.95 for women and men, respectively. In addition, 82% of the households achieved gender parity, suggesting that for such households, empowerment of men was no greater than that of women. Overall, the results suggest no major differences between the empowerment of women and men. Findings suggest areas of improvement in empowerment: when observed separately, women report lack of agency in production, resource, time-use and allocation and leadership.

This paper adapts the A-WEAI to the fisheries and aquaculture context, in bid to bridge the gap in standard women’s empowerment measurement methods in this area. Also, there are limited empirical studies on the multifaceted empowerment of women in aquaculture in Kenya. The findings are meant to serve as a point of reference for policymakers, as they develop gender-responsive intervention programmes, and in implementing gender mainstreaming in Kenya.

The current paper's goal is to examine the productivity of the closed banking sector evidenced from Ethiopia. In addition, the inclusion of intangibles on productivity was examined in the current paper.

First, the standard Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) was employed for 13 commercial banks for both stages. Second, by excluding the state-owned commercial bank, the analysis employed a bootstrapped MPI for the robust and comprehensive conclusion. Furthermore, from 2010 to 2019, the fixed effect Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression with balanced panel data was used.

The standard MPI in both stages shows that the productivity of Ethiopian commercial banks is declining. The technological shock was the main reason for the loss. The catch-up in both stages scored above unity, mainly due to the pure efficiency change. Besides, when combined with tangible resources, the inclusion of resource-based view (RBV) proxy variables reduces technological shock regress and ultimately improves productivity change. The bootstrapped MPI also reveals that technological shock is the primary source of the productivity decline. However, efficiency change also contributes to the productivity decline based on this estimation.

Future research could examine the more extensive productivity analysis by considering the primary sources of data collections for resource-based variables.

According to the study's results, banking regulatory authorities and bank management, including the shareholders, should continue to invest in cutting-edge technology to improve the productivity of the banking sector.

This is the first comprehensive study of productivity for Ethiopian commercial banks based on the standard MPI, bootstrapped MPI, and OLS by incorporating all resources into the analysis.

Malaria still remains a significant public health problem in Myanmar and it has a complex epidemiology. Evidence-based community awareness raising interventions are also particularly needed. This cross-sectional study was organized to explore the basic characteristics associated with knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding malaria among people living in the most malaria-endemic villages of the Banmauk Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The Banmauk, one of the most malaria-endemic townships, was selected purposively in order to represent the survey results for people living in malaria hotspots. During the peak malaria season (July 2018), 250 household leaders were invited to be interviewed with structured questionnaires. In addition to descriptive data, the associations were determined by χ²-test and correlation.

Overall KAP indicated considerably low percentages of good levels, especially in practice, only 21.6 percent showed good practice, 38.4 percent had good knowledge and 56.8 percent had good attitude. Age (p=0.022) and annual family income (p<0.001) were significantly associated with the knowledge level, whereas having fever attacks among family members in the last two weeks (p=0.023) showed statistical association with attitude at a p-value <0.05. Surprisingly, there were no associated variables with malaria practice. In addition, there were negative correlations between knowledge with attitude and knowledge with practice; however, the results were not significant.

The overall KAP regarding malaria was at relatively poor levels among people living in malaria transmission areas. Therefore, new approaches to improve malaria KAP are promptly needed in this community.