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There is currently a debate between NGOs and academia on the effectiveness of training microcredit recipients. One side suggests that merely supplying credit will stimulate entrepreneurial business. The other side proposes that training microcredit recipients in business skills will improve business performance and probably have other important effects. This study was undertaken with the cooperation Vietnam Women’s Union and PeaceTrees Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of business training programmes for women microcredit recipients in rural areas of Vietnam.

Using a questionnaire administered to 120 women business owners in several communes in Quang Tri Province, data were collected in 2012 on their business training programmes, perceptions of their business performance, motivation, factors for success, and several other indicators.

The findings suggest that business training can improve microenterprise performance and has a number of other positive results, such as increasing motivation, success, and perceptions of entrepreneurs.

The research is limited by the nature of the sample and sample size. Future research should focus on women entrepreneurs in other parts of Vietnam, other developing countries, and on male entrepreneurs, to help understand differences between regions, countries, and gender.

This paper provides empirical evidence to support the argument that business training is effective in improving the performance of microenterprises.

This paper aims to augment existing literature by examining how specific macroeconomic conditions (economic policy uncertainty and inflation expectations) influence micro-level (instead of macro-level) behavioral dynamics exhibited by the average consumer.

This study conducted empirical analysis using structural vector autoregressive estimation technique.

The average consumer tends to exhibit significantly varied micro-level expenditure behavioral patterns not readily observed at the macro- or aggregate-level expenditures. For instance, this study finds that in the short run, inflation expectations tend to have a significant positive impact on both non-durable goods and service expenditures; the same condition, however, tends to have a negative impact on durable goods. Additionally, this study also finds that economic policy uncertainty, unlike inflation expectations, tends to constrain consumption expenditures at all micro levels with very significant variations in decline in expenditures made.

Unlike legion of empirical work based on macro-level analysis, this study adopts a micro-level analysis and also engages two macroeconomic conditions (inflation expectations and economic policy uncertainty) not already examined in existing studies.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Explores the extent of employee surveillance in the western world and queries why the USA uses surveillance measures to a greater extent than other developed nations. Suggests that American managers choose surveillance methods which include the control of workers’ bodies in the production process. Lists the batteries of tests and monitoring to which US employees can now be subjected – including searching employee computer files, voice/e‐mail, monitoring telephone calls, drug tests, alcohol tests, criminal record checks, lie detector and handwriting tests. Notes also the companies which are opposed to worker and consumer privacy rights. Pinpoints the use of surveillance as a means to ensure that employees do not withold production. Reports that employees dislike monitoring and that it may adversely affect their performance and productivity. Argues that Americans like to address complex social problems with technological means, there are no data protection laws in the USA, and that these two factors, combined with the “employment‐at‐will” doctrine, have all contributed to make it possible (and easy) for employers to use technological surveillance of their workforce. Outlines some of the ways employers insist on the purification of workers’ bodies.

Excellenzen meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren liebe Kollegen Es ist mir eine besondere Freude und Ehre, erstmals einen AIEST Kongress in der Sozialistischen Republik der Tschechoslowakei zu eröffnen und dies in der prächtigen Stadt Prag, der Hauptstadt und dem kulturellen und politischen Mittelpunkt. Die Stadt ist durch ihr reiches Erbe an kulturellen Gütern besonders für unsern 34. Kongress geeignet. Auf den berechtigten Wunsch der Organisatoren des diesjährigen Kongresses hin haben wir das Thema “Tourismus und architektonisches Erbe — kulturelle, rechtliche, wirtschaftliche und marketing‐orientierte Aspekte” gewählt.

E‐commerce plays an important role in today’s business environment, and that role will continue to grow each year. eMarketer predicts that by “2004, world wide e‐commerce revenues are expected to total USD 2.7 trillion”. E‐commerce continues to grow in the United States. “The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e‐commerce sales for the first quarter of 2004, not adjusted for seasonal, holiday, and trading‐day differences, was $15.5 billion, an increase of 28.1 per cent (±2.9 per cent) from the first quarter of 2003.” “According to a new study by RoperASW and AOL Time Warner, Europeans spent on average EUR430 on line between August and October 2002.” This compares with an average spend of EUR543 per head in the US over the same period.

‐ One of the consequences of the present long period of economic depression, which has been felt with particular severity by most Third World countries, has been a necessary critical reassessement of many development strategies. Especially in Africa, the balance sheet between efforts and results has not been very encouraging. The massive industrialization programmes and the large projects of the last three decades have neither helped to achieve a more competitive production nor have introduced widespread prosperity, as hoped. Gradually the accent is now shifting toward new “soft options”, one of which is tourism. We remember that only 15–20 years ago many African governments or international development agencies were still considering tourism as a marginal economic activity, to be left to poor nations without much prospects for industrialization. Since then much has changed and ‐ especially in the present post‐industrial economies ‐ tourism and the whole gamut of other leisure industries have become one of the most dynamic fields of expansion, even in the developing world.