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The successful story of microfinance institutions is often tied to the practice and methods of credit delivery as evidence among international world class microfinance institutions across the globe. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of practice and methods of credit delivery employed by “non- profit” and “for-profit” microfinance institutions on financial sustainability and outreach programmes of the microfinance institutions in Nigeria.

The study adopts the survey research design and multi-stage stratified random sampling procedure to collect data from 372 senior management staff, managing directors and board members of microfinance institutions of both groups in Nigeria. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions analysis.

The findings suggest that the current practice and methods of credit delivery of microfinance in both “non-profit” and “for-profit” microfinance institutions have an inverse relationship with the financial sustainability and outreach programmes of the institutions. This study provides empirical evidence for the incessant failure of microfinance institutions in Nigeria.

The study therefore recommends an immediate overhaul of the methodology and practice of microfinance institutions in the country to align with international best practice.

In spite of the huge literature on microfinance in Nigeria, there is not enough evidence to empirically prove that the practice of microfinance has affected the performance of the industry in Nigeria. This study sets out to fill that gap in the literature. The paper examines the practice of microfinancing in Nigeria vis-à-vis the performance of the microfinance institutions, categorized into NGO and microfinance bank “for-profit” institutions using international best practices from countries where microfinance is highly successful as a benchmark for deployment of microfinance in Nigeria, in order to proffer policy direction to stakeholders on steps to take to ensure viability in the microfinance subsector in Nigeria.

Outgrower scheme as a contractual agreement between farmers and some funding entities has in recent times found proliferation among resource poor farmers in Ghana, especially in northern Ghana. This contractual arrangement, which involves the provision of farm inputs, and in some cases, technical support by the implementing company and the repayment by farmers with portions of their harvest, is often regarded as an effective way to mutually improve the outcomes of both smallholder farmers and outgrower companies. The study aims to analyse. the level of awareness, nature of input package, determinants of participation and intensity of participation in input credit scheme by smallholder rice farmers in the Mamprugu Moagduri District of Ghana’s North East Region, using the Integrated Water Management and Agriculture Development (IWAD) scheme as a case.

Using a quantitative analytical approach, the study gathers information from 233 randomly selected smallholder rice farmers consisting of 150 participants and 83 non-participants using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, as well as the Tobit model, are the methods used in the analysis.

The results show that while factors such as age, marital status, number of dependents and farming experience only influenced participation in the scheme, religion, age, sex, number of dependents and farming experience influenced intensity of participation.

This study calls for the adoption of sustainable approaches by input credit companies in their credit support to smallholder farmers rather than the current ad hoc support during each cropping season.

Credit is essential in the farm business because it facilitates the adoption of productive technologies such as irrigation. However, access to credit remains a significant hurdle for sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghanaian farmers. Therefore, the authors assessed credit utilization and the intensity of borrowing by irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East region. In addition, how extension moderates the amount borrowed was analysed.

The multistage sampling approach was used in the study. The Tono and Vea irrigation schemes were purposively selected. Proportionally, 318 rice farmers were sampled from the Tono irrigation scheme and 159 from the Vea irrigation scheme. Cragg's double hurdle and moderation analysis were used.

It was uncovered that gender, age, years of farming, total farm size, rice farm size, contract farming and off-farm employment explain farmers' decision to borrow. On the other hand, the intensity of borrowing was influenced by gender, age, years of farming, rice farm size, contract farming and the number of extension contact. The moderation analysis revealed that extension contact improves the amount borrowed by farmers.

While there are irrigated rice farmers in other regions of Ghana, this study was limited to rice farmers under the Tono and Vea Irrigation schemes in the Upper East region.

This study investigated the moderating role of extension contact on amount borrowed in Ghana. This makes a modest addition to the limited literature on the moderating role of extension and credit access.

This study aims to provide competitive e‐tailing strategies for fair trade organizations using a benchmarking approach.

A coding guide was developed to obtain information available on 28 fair trade web sites and 28 commercial web sites focusing on company information, product information, distribution channels, customer service, and web site structure/media service.

Results revealed several evidences that fair trade organizations presented limited information online, compared with commercial organizations.

Fewer commercial retailers benchmarked in the study sold handicrafts, compared with fair trade organizations. Discrepancies in the proportion of products carried by each organization may result in limited generalization of the findings across product categories.

Through benchmarking against profit‐making business leaders, fair trade organizations would be able to evaluate strengths and weaknesses for their current online business operations and explore opportunities and improvement in web site management.

This paper provides valuable managerial implications for fair trade organizations focusing on web site operations. Information availability and strategic web site management can attract customers to make purchases on fair trade web sites and, in turn, enable organizations to sustain and grow in the competitive marketplace.

The purpose of this paper is to study the architecture of holographic personalized portal, user modeling, commodity modeling and intelligent interaction.

In this paper, the authors propose crowd-science industrial ecological system based on holographic personalized portal and its interaction. The holographic personality portal is based on holographic enterprises, commodities and consumers, and the personalized portal consists of accurate ontology, reliable supply, intelligent demand and smart cyberspace.

The personalized portal can realize the information acquisition, characteristic analysis and holographic presentation. Then, the intelligent interaction, e.g. demand decomposition, personalized search, personalized presentation and demand prediction, will be implemented within the personalized portal.

The authors believe that their work on intelligent interaction based on holographic personalized portal, which has been first proposed in this paper, is innovation focusing on the interaction between intelligence and convenience.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

Key components of the logistics mix are described in an effort to create an understanding of the total logistics concept. Chapters include an introduction to logistics; the strategic role of logistics, customer service levels, channel relationships, facilities location, transport, inventory management, materials handling, interface with production, purchasing and materials management, estimating demand, order processing, systems performance, leadership and team building, business resource management.

This monograph covers a number of key articles and presentations by the author over the last decade. The points contained in them reflect a clear belief based on experience of creating significant cultural change so that banks become more market‐driven and customer‐orientated. Many of the forecasts made in the articles have become a reality in the marketplace. This monograph begins with a description of changes over the last decade: the introduction of the marketing function into banks, consumer responses, new competitors, technological developments, and the impact of Government. Marketing has faced many difficulties in the banking industry and competitive breakthroughs have not been easy to achieve. Many leaders in the industry believe in business/marketing strategy evolving in close association with IT planning – this is the second topic, IT support may be crucial. The importance of advertising and management of agency relationships is the subject of Chapter 3 – how can it be effectively used? Chapter 4 looks at the ways in which the consumer is presently getting a better deal; Chapter 5 describes the marketing success of the NatWest Piggy Bank within the context of a changing marketing culture. A wider repertoire of marketing techniques are used in the USA (Chapter 6) but if they are to be used in the same way here then the situation will need to approximate more closely to that of the USA – credit and credit cards are the particular focus and the US market is more aggressive. Chapters 7‐9 look at the future of financial services marketing from the retailer′s perspective – the retailer′s detailed approach to a possible new business has distinctive strengths, but their actual opportunities in this market may be restricted to an extent by, for example, inexperience and so lower credibility as vendors of some specialised services like investment management. Chapter 10 appraises the value and strategic nature of market research. Chapter 11 considers the movement of building societies into the wider personal financial services marketplace, the product′s role in the marketing mix, and the impact of the Single Market in Europe. Chapter 12 singles out the cost‐effective technique of automated vetting of customers′ creditworthiness from the special viewpoint of the building society. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the changing market and future prospects: the world of finance is no longer simple; money is no longer the common denominator; the consumer is now the focus; competition to provide services is fierce; the future is exciting!