Search results

The study presents and evaluates a proposition that there is market information bundled with the mobile money (m-money) system. Also, that such information is disseminated to farmers in the process of their normal financial transactions and business interactions. This market information is important to mitigate the price uncertainty of farm products.

The empirical analysis is conducted with a two-stage econometric procedure. First, a probit model is used to estimate the likelihood of m-money take-up by farm entrepreneurs. Second, the ordinary least squares model is used to regress the farming price uncertainty index on the m-money take-up, which is quantified with a set of predicted values from the probit model in the first stage. The data used in econometric estimation come from Kenya's FinAccess Household Survey published in 2016.

The results of this paper show a negative effect of m-money service take-up on the price uncertainty index. A one unit increase in the m-money system is associated with a 12% reduction in the price uncertainty index. The authors interpret this as saying that access to the m-money system by farm business has a beneficial spillover effect on product risk mitigation, ceteris paribus.

The implication of this research is that policy initiatives which support farm entrepreneurs to access the m-money system should be encouraged not only for their financial inclusion advantage but also for their positive externality on product risk amelioration for rural farm businesses.

The paper introduces an idea that the m-money system is bundled with relevant information for mitigating price risk to the benefit of rural farm businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the acceptance of mobile-money (m-money) among target populations, i.e. below-poverty-line citizens in India, using the technology acceptance model (TAM). The m-money service is a major initiative that can enable the provision of low-cost and speedy money transfer through mobile phones, especially in developing countries such as India. For a large section of the population in India, m-money can act as a way to achieve financial inclusion. However, for m-money to succeed, users should accept the initiative wholeheartedly.

The survey data were collected from 225 actual and prospective m-money users and analysed using partial least square technique.

The findings imply that the trust and the core constructs of TAM such as perceived usefulness, trust and attitude towards usage contribute in influencing the intention to accept m-money. Perceived ease of use neither impacts perceived usefulness nor attitude towards usage.

This research also provides possible explanations for the significant relationships between the constructs and discusses how this information can be used to enhance the acceptance of m-money among poor Indians.

This research is original and is based on primary data collection and its interpretation. It provides thorough empirical insights on the acceptance of m-money among poor Indian citizens which is currently a weakly addressed and empirically less explored area of research.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which low‐income migrant workers in emerging Asia are aware of and are likely to use mobile phones for remitting money to family members at home.

Data were obtained through a survey of 1,500+ local and overseas migrant workers at the bottom of the socio‐economic pyramid and subsequent qualitative research in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand.

Findings reveal that less than a quarter of respondents in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were aware of such services. However, the Philippines and Thailand reported awareness of levels of over 40 percent. Using a logit model to assess socio‐economic characteristics of those aware of such services (versus those who are not), findings revealed those aware of such services tended to enjoy higher standards of living, in terms of both income and education and ownership of mobile phones and bank accounts. Barriers to use are also explored.

This study is likely one of the first of its kind in attempting to empirically estimate socio‐economic characteristics of those aware of such services versus those who are not. Such findings can, undoubtedly prove useful to operators in deciding how best to market such services, including addressing potential barriers to use, such as perceived ease of use and trust and reliability issues.

Opinion leaders are increasingly important as a source of information, with consumers judging them to be more credible than other media and more influential than other consumers. Thus, companies have an interest in engaging opinion leaders to post about products and brands, and the authors analyse different incentives for encouraging them to spread the word on social media (via electronic word-of-mouth [e-WoM]).

A 2 × 3 between-subjects experimental design was developed in which 359 technological opinion leaders (bloggers) participated. The authors manipulated the monetary incentive (money vs no money) and non-monetary incentives (information only vs return product vs keep product) offered in exchange for a brand post.

Various techniques for approaching opinion leaders are effective, but to differing degrees. Providing a product free of charge increases the likelihood that opinion leaders will post about it, and the highest intention to post is observed when they are allowed to keep the product. In contrast, giving money to opinion leaders could have an indirect negative impact on their intention to post through the expected negative reaction of followers.

It remains unclear how opinion leaders can best be encouraged to spread e-WoM, as incentives used for consumers may work differently for opinion leaders, who have followers that they want to maintain. The main contribution of this paper lies in its explanation of why opinion leaders react differently to monetary versus non-monetary incentives.

Gillette’s historically successful “razor and blade” business model (RBM) has been a promising benchmark for multiple businesses across diverse industries worldwide in the past several decades. The extant literature deals with very few nuances of this business model notwithstanding the fact that there are several variants of this business model being put to practical use by firms in diverse industries in grossly metaphorically equivalent situations.

This study adopts the 2 × 2 truth table framework from the domains of mathematical logic and combinatorics in fleshing out all possible (four logical possibilities) variants of the razor and blade business model for further analysis. This application presents four mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive possibilities on any chosen dimension. Two major dimensions (viz., provision of subsidy and intra- or extra-firm involvement in the making of razors or blades or both) form part of the discussion in this paper. In addition, this study synthesizes and streamlines entrepreneurial wisdom from multiple intra-industry and inter-industry benchmarks in terms of real-time firms explicitly or implicitly adopting several variants of the RBM that suit their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of evolution in situations that are grossly reflective of the metaphorically equivalent scenario of razor and recurrent blades. Inductive method of research is carried out with real-time cases from diverse industries with a pivotally common pattern of razor and blade model in some form or the other.

Several new variants of the razor and blade model (much beyond what the extant literature explicitly projects) have been discovered from the multiple metaphorically equivalent cases of RBM across industries. All of these expand the portfolio of options that relevant entrepreneurial firms can explore and exploit the best possible option chosen from them, given their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of growth.

This study has enriched the literature by presenting and analyzing a more inclusive or perhaps comprehensive palette of explicit choices in the form of several variants of the RBM for the relevant entrepreneurial firms to choose from. Future research can undertake the task of comparing these variants of RBM with those of upcoming servitization business models such as guaranteed availability, subscription and performance-based contracting and exploring the prospects of diverse combinations.

Smart entrepreneurial firms identify and adopt inspiring benchmarks (like razor and blade model whenever appropriate) duly tweaked and blended into a gestalt benchmark for optimal profits and attractive market shares. They target diverse market segments for tied-goods with different variants or combinations of the relevant benchmarks in the form of variegated customer value propositions (CVPs) that have unique and enticing appeal to the respective market segments.

Value-sensitive customers on the rise globally choose the option that best suits them from among multiple alternatives offered by competing firms in the market. As long as the ratio of utility to price of such an offer is among the highest, even a no-frills CVP may be most appealing to one market segment while a plush CVP may be tempting to yet another market segment simultaneously. While professional business firms embrace resource leverage practices consciously, amateur customers do so subconsciously. Each party subliminally desires to have the maximum bang-to-buck ratio as the optimal return on investment, given their priorities ceteris paribus.

Prior studies on the RBM have explicitly captured only a few variants of the razor and blade model. This study is perhaps the first of its kind that ferrets out many other variants (more than ten) of the razor and blade model with due simplification and exemplification, justification and demystification.

The purpose of this paper is to make a unified approach in identifying the issues affecting usage intention of mobile-based payment services. The work aims to analyze the reduced factors from data obtained from a survey to highlight the influencers of usage intention mobile-based payment in an integrated manner by incorporating the technical characteristics, technology-specific characteristics, user-specific characteristics and task-specific characteristics.

A nationwide primary survey was conducted using validated questionnaire requesting response for 11 factors obtained from published literature. In all, 196 respondents participated in the survey in India. Valid responses were analyzed using Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing Map (GHSOM) model. The interactive GHSOM application was applied to automatically determine the filtering rules for clustering.

The hierarchical structure of clusters as obtained by applying GHSOM is mainly influenced by factors like innovativeness, discomfort, system quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, task-fit, connectivity, absorptive capacity and structural assurance.

Increasing trend of online and mobile-based payment has been observed and reported by several studies in India. The frequency of online transactions by women have shown a steady increase over a short period of time. But the survey obtained higher percentage of data from males. Thus future researchers could focus on this aspect to study the influence of this rising trend on adoption of services like mobile-based payment. Trust and existence of physical institutions seem to affect the perception and usage intention. Future researchers may explore the influence of these two issues in situations where there has been some reported cases of breach of trust.

There has been very few studies conducted which reported mobile-based transfer payment adoption issues where-in the transfer mechanism is independent of formal banking. Also no other study adopted the GHSOM approach to analyze the data. The findings would be beneficial for service providers of mobile-based payment services to understand their subscribers and roll out value-added services.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between monetary policy and economic growth in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on Malaysia. Primarily, the research will concentrate on the interactions between interest rates, inflation, money supply and growth in GDP, which will serve as the instrument for measuring economic growth.

The research will apply quantitative analysis to determine the relationship between GDP growth and monetary policy instruments, particularly interest rate, money supply and level of inflation. Given the advancement and achievement in econometric analysis and computer software creation, the least-squares estimates analysis will be used to investigate the relationship and significance between these variables.

It is observed that relationship between economic growth and inflation is positive. This entails that a 1 percent change in inflation will result in a 77 percent increase in the level of economic growth in this economy. The linkage between economic growth and interest rates has also been observed to be positive. A positive nexus can be observed between economic growth and money supply. The coefficient value of 0.02 for money supply growth shows that it has the smallest effect on economic growth amongst the variables tested in the model.

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations can be made, which could serve as policies instruments for Malaysian economic development. This does not mean that the findings can be generalized for other developing economies.

Observations from the test for economic application significance are based on the signs of the parameters. It was observed that inflation, interest rates and money supply all have a positive relationship with economic growth, which is in line with the a priori expectations. This means that monetary policy has positively affected the economic growth.

The results of the OLS analysis reveal that the monetary policy instruments used for the model demonstrated that monetary policy has a positive relationship with economic growth in Malaysia. A breakdown of the individual monetary policy instruments shows that the interest rate, inflation and money supply all have individual positive relationships with economic growth.

A positive relationship exists between economic growth in Malaysia and all selected monetary instruments, namely, inflation, money supply and interest rate. The results show that the results show that inflation, interest rate and money supply will cause the economy to grow but their contribution to the developments is affected from other policy instruments which are used by the governments.

The present article aims to estimate an autoregressive vector model covering the period of 1990–2021 to analyze the effect of public spending and monetary supply increases in economic activity in Morocco.

A literature review on the policy of recovery with fiscal and monetary tools and its theoretical foundations was established. Then, an empirical study on the Moroccan context was executed to study the effectiveness of these instruments in Morocco from 1990 to 2021, using autoregressive vector modeling.

The results present a state of a positive relationship and statistical significance of public spending, money supply and economic growth. The impulse response function analysis and the forecast error variance decomposition showed that public spending does not have a large impact on gross domestic product, while the money supply has a real power to stimulate the growth of economic activity in Morocco.

This study aims to demonstrate the positive effect of the coordination of public spending and monetary supply increases on gross domestic product in Morocco. Additionally, the analysis using vector autoregressive modeling, impulse response functions, variance decomposition techniques and causality tests, provides crucial insights to guide researchers, practitioners and policymakers in developing more effective and resilient economic strategies. The findings from this study not only illuminate immediate recovery strategies but also contribute to strengthening the resilience of economies against potential future shocks.