September 2016 (World Review of Business Research)

September 2016 (World Review of Business Research)

Total Articles - 12

Pages 1 – 12

Author: Andries du Plessis and Garikai Tachiwona

The balanced scorecard, if used correctly by managers could be used to transform low performing information technology service teams into highly productive and profitable units that meet customer service expectations. Two research questions are answered: Was it the balanced scorecard approach, that made a difference to employee productivity and business performance of the unit, and if so how? What management changes enhanced service delivery improvements which resulted in a change in customer satisfaction? An exploratory research was executed covering three years of the balanced scorecard implementation in a New Zealand Information Technology Service Organisation interviewing managers, employees and a customer director. Some findings are: a lack of process and management leadership; communication was poor; relationships between engineers, managers, Medicare and NZIS were also tensed and distrustful. Recommendations and conclusions form the last two sections.

Pages 13 – 27

Author: Ghassan Ossman

The study establishes relationships between profitability in the UAE construction industry and determines its contribution to economic growth. It sought answers to the problems of significant influence, independence, and how strongly profitability variations predict economic growth. Profitability rates of fifty construction firms in UAE used in the study, for a period of ten years. Findings reveal significant influence of profitability variations on economic growth. There is high degree of influence of construction tender price on economic growth and low positive correlation of industry output and labor rates. Profitability variations significantly influence economic growth and are not independent of each other.

Pages 28 – 45

Author: Mohamed Wahba

Talent is scarce, resulting in a tight labor market, hence it has numerous choices, especially in knowledge-based and service-driven organizations. The fundamental purpose of this study was to develop a practical as well as theoretically sound model to illustrate a link between a firm’s Talent Management and Employee Engagement. In addition, the study aims to evaluate nine critical success factors of Talent Management that are known to be attributed to employee engagement; they were developed based on the pre-existing literature. The study will also develop a conceptual model to measure the direct effects of Talent Management practices on General Employee Engagement in Logistics Companies in Egypt. The study is carried out by administering a questionnaire to 269 out of 500 employees working in multinational logistics companies in Egypt. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of 67 questions was used to collect the necessary data. To test the validity and reliability of the measurement scales, factor analyses were conducted. Results indicate that talent development is most affective on employee engagement. This opened up new questions to be explored by future research that should elaborate on the indicators of an organization’s performance that do or do not have direct effects, such as Indicators of Productivity, Quality Service, Customer Satisfaction, and Company ROI.

Pages 46 – 57

Author: Golam Mostafa

Concepts and ideas of economic integration in post-Soviet space are not new or uncommon. Numerous attempts were made to create some form of integration process either by involving most of the former Soviet Republics or on regional basis but there was hardly any success. The purpose of the paper is to review the economic integration process and attempts in the region, their success, failures and lessons learned. The paper highlights the problems, challenges and prospects of economic integration in Eurasia and argues that despite problems and challenges there are objective factors and prospects for success of integration in Eurasia.

Pages 58 – 65

Author: Mohammad Toufiqur Rahman

The purpose of this article is to find out the impacts of social branding on tourism business. The data have been collected through a structured questionnaire from 20 renowned tourism companies randomly from the different areas of Chittagong City, Bangladesh from the month of August to October, 2015. From the correlation analysis, it has been found that there is a positive correlation among all the factors related to promoting business that have been influenced by the social branding. From the paired sample t test we see that there is a significant difference between the effects on the arrangements for domestic & international tours by using social branding and without using social branding. Results of the study on the subject of social branding in the tourism industry suggest the organizations to have a strong presence on social media, allowing for consistent and effective two way communication between themselves and the consumers for expanding the business.

Pages 66 – 79

Author: Tasnim Rezoana Tanim

The perception on factors leading to job satisfaction changes constantly and it is very important for any organisation to have a good idea on which factors are prevailing in the market at the moment. This paper evaluates the relative importance of work-life balance compared to other job quality dimensions such as pay, job autonomy, work intensity and job security in terms of influencing job satisfaction of 75 call centre employees in the UK over the past three years. In order to do so, it gives the overview of the existing literature on these job quality dimensions and job outcome in the call centre context. It then considers the opinions of the customer service representatives working in a call centre regarding the importance of work-life balance compared to other job quality dimensions in influencing their level of job satisfaction in the organisation. Statistical tests such as correlation and ANOVA tests were carried out on the data to find out linear relationships. After taking the past research into consideration and analysing the responses from these employees, this study finds that the relative importance of work-life balance is more compared to other job quality dimensions in influencing the job satisfaction of these employees.

Pages 80 – 97

Author: Emiliano C. Villanueva and Liliana Girini

In recent times wine tourism has become important in Mendoza, Argentina. Current wine tourism strategies in Mendoza do not incorporate the landscape heritage dimension. The paper argues that new and heritage focus wine tourism strategies should be implemented in order to enrich the understanding of wine culture and promote the development of wine tourism in the Malbec region. In order to achieve so, the paper explores the heritage in the three wine areas of the province of Mendoza, Argentina, and proposes seven specific “Wine Heritage Trails” for the Malbec region. These trails represent distinctive historical assets and landscapes, emphasize a heritage perspective, and articulate a credible argument that reveals to the visitor the complex web of relationships and the meanings that originated them.

Pages 98 – 119

Author: Sandhya Sapkota and Ram Kumar Phuyal

Nepalese consumers are becoming the victims of food adulteration these days so we have made an attempt to study the buying behavior of general consumers related to rice grains adulteration by conducting a primary level survey through distributing structured questionnaire among 207 consumers in Kathmandu Valley. The study tested the effect of demographic variables and other input factors such as; price perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences that influence on purchase decision for the rice grains. It has also considered that the buying behavior of socially conscious consumers depend on their knowledge, attitude, beliefs, awareness and consciousness of the consumers. From the analysis, we conclude that consumers prefer local brands over foreign and unbranded items. Quality is perceived on the basis of specific standards of cleanliness, soundness and purity. Consumers identify adulterants by looking at the attributes of the rice grains before and after cooking. The study also reveals that legal awareness among the general consumers is really low. Many of them only check price, manufacturing date, and expiry date and ignore other important information in the packages. Finally, the outcome of the study has a significant relationship of price perceptions with age and family modes, knowledge on adulteration issues with education and monthly family income, and buying practices with the awareness, attitudes, and beliefs. Furthermore, we believe that this study will help different stakeholders in identifying the awareness level, and understanding the buying practices of the consumers. It is even useful for the policy makers and micro-economists to measure the consumer’s welfare level. In order to increase the social welfare, consumer’s surplus needs to be increased and this can only happen if the benevolent regulator takes initiation in imposing the minimum quality standards of rice grains ,and other concerned authorities should adopt certain action in order to minimize adulteration level.

Pages 120 – 141

Author: Benazir Rahman and Shirin Akhtar

Banking industry is one of the prime and highly competitive sectors of the economic as well as financial system of Bangladesh. Banks are competing with each other to create and retain their brand image and to ensure sustainable growth by increasing profitability. In Bangladesh commercial banks are using many marketing tools to capture the target market and retain customers for long time. This paper focuses on the marketing promotional tools and strategies used by banks to increase financial profitability and brand image and specifically shows the comparative study between the conventional and Islamic banks in Bangladesh in terms of using marketing promotional tools to create brand image, to retain goodwill in the financial market and to ensure financial profitability and growth. The study includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Two selected banks of each category has used for the study. This paper reveals that now-a-days conventional and Islamic both type of banks are engaged with promotional tools in a positive manner but may be their goals are a slight different. Conventional banks are more attentive to promote their services for creating brand awareness and image which affects their sales as well as financial return. The Islamic banks are very much conscious to increase their financial profit in comparison to brand image. But being a Muslim country, people are relying more on Islamic Banks in terms of various banking transactions from their religious perspective on the other hand, they are more attracted by the offers of the conventional bank. Such type of activities incurs huge costs on a regular basis which directly affect net profit (NPAT) and also regain revenue as impact of sales up growth. Outcomes of the paper may be used as an index by both type of banking categories for formulating their brand image and financial sustainability and growth through the promotional activities.

Pages 142 – 156

Author: Mohammad Nayeem Abdullah, Tarana Karim, Rahat Bari Tooheen and Taklima Nasreen Chowdhury

The study seeks to explore bank profitability as an indicator of economic stability in a developing country setting. This study examines the profitability determinants of listed private commercial banks on the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE). Data was compiled and analyzed from secondary sources of information. This paper applies Trend Analysis, Standard Deviation, Correlation and Regression as the statistical tools for the analysis.Information was gathered on Deposits, Advances, Total Assets, Equity, Net Income, Number of Branches, Number of Employees and Non-Performing Loans. The results demonstrate that Deposits, Advances, Total Assets, Equity and Net Income have significant impacts on bank profitability. Significance of the profitability determinants is also found to vary among generation wise private commercial banks.

Pages 157 - 169

Author: Rohani Mohd, Saadiah Mohamad, Norlin Nor and Badrul Hisham Kamaruddin

The purpose of this preliminary study was twofold: first to measure the reliability and validity of the instrument; second, to develop a financial intelligence (FI) logit ruler aimed at identifying Gen Ys’ classification in terms of their level of FI which, was determined by financial knowledge, financial attitude, level of trust and financial behaviour. To achieve these, Rasch analysis was employed after distributing.30 questionnaires to the working Gen Ys in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The results proved the reliability of the instrument. Further, the four different groups of Gen Ys were also identified with different level of FI. Implications of the findings were also discussed with respect to body of knowledge, practitioners and policy makers.

Pages 170 – 185

Author: Md. Mosharraf Hossain, Khairun Nahar, Salim Reza and Kazi Mohammad Shaifullah

Aggregate production planning (APP) involves the simultaneous determination of company’s production, inventory and employment levels which fall between the broad decisions of long range planning and detailed short range planning. A mathematical model is formulated to investigate the optimal decision on each planning period. The goal is to minimize the total relevant costs considering time varying demand, unstable production capacity and work forces, inventory control, wastage reduction, and proper incentive for work force. Genetic Algorithm Optimization (GAO) approach and Big M method are used for solving a real time multi-product, multi-period aggregate production planning (APP) decision problem. The practicality of the proposed model is demonstrated through its application in solving an APP decision problem in an industrial case study. Required values of decision variables are obtained by both Big M method and genetic algorithm optimization model using TORA version 2.00, Feb. 2006 software and MATLAB R2011a software respectively. According to cost minimization objective of Aggregate production planning, genetic algorithm optimization results better than Big M method.

Total Articles- 12

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