NAVIGATING THE INFLUENCE OF MARKETING ORIENTATION ON UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE

Author(s): Bakae Aubrey Mokoena,Chengedzai Mafini,Manillal Roy Dhurup / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

This study is part of a broad stream of continuing research examining market orientation within higher education and its potential impact on university performance. The study examined the influence of marketing orientation on the performance of South African universities. The sample consisted of 507 academics who were conveniently selected from six universities of technology, located in various provinces of South Africa. Seven marketing orientation elements, namely, market intelligence generation, inter-functional coordination, customer orientation, market intelligence dissemination, intelligence response design, intelligence response implementation and interdepartmental dynamics that exert an impact on university performance were identified using the exploratory factor analysis technique. A Pearson Correlation analysis revealed positive and significant associations between all seven market orientation elements and university performance. Mean score ranking of the seven elements showed that intelligence response design was the most important market orientation element. Subsequent multiple regression analysis revealed that inter-functional coordination, customer orientation, market intelligence dissemination, and intelligence response design predicted university performance. Using the results of this study, marketing practitioners in universities may be able to address university performance challenges by applying a right mix of the seven marketing orientation dimensions examined in this study. The results of this study can be used to develop appropriate marketing strategies that are useful in the diagnosis and rectification of performance challenges in universities.

THE MEDIATING INFLUENCE OF PASSENGER SATISFACTION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PASSENGER LOYALTY PROGRAMMES AND PASSENGER LOYALTY

Author(s): Maxwell Sandada,Bright Matibiri / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The dynamic nature and the intense competition in the airline industry result in a need to craft innovative mechanisms that enforce customer loyalty. The study focuses on the mediating effect of passenger satisfaction on the relationship between loyalty programmes and passenger loyalty in the airline industry. The study complements previous research by producing evidence on customer loyalty in the airline industry in a developing country context. The regression findings confirm the hypothetical prediction that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between loyalty programmes and customer loyalty. The results reveal that customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty and that loyalty programmes positively impact customer satisfaction. The findings have implications for managers of airlines fling routes in Southern Africa who are encouraged to invest in loyalty programmes in order to enforce passenger satisfaction and loyalty. Although previous research has examined customer loyalty and its antecedents, the mediating role played by customer satisfaction on the relationship between customer loyalty programmes and customer loyalty remains to be further investigated particularly in the context of the airline industry in Southern Africa.

Rola kluczowych kompetencji organizacji w realizacji strategii biznesu

Author(s): Kamila Siwak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

In the age of globalization, it appears that a good strategy should include the perspective of the future situation of the industry and orientation on the existing capacity in the form of tangible and intangible assets. Modern concepts of strategic planning place an increasing value on the intangible resources, it concerns particularly people and their knowledge, intellectual values incorporated in the patents, documentation, databases. It exposes the role of intellectual capital as a key success factor. The core competencies of the organization that can be configured to create a real economic value play an important role in this process. Their biggest advantage is the fact that they are rare, unique and irreplaceable by other resources, hence they are difficult to copy by the competitors. The aim of this article is to present the characteristic of the core competencies of the organization and their assignment to the various functions of the strategies that can be identified in the process of its creation. The results of the literature research are a list of the key features of functional strategies and a presentation of the impact of competence on individual tasks strategy.

Nowe metody zarządzania procesowego w ochronie zdrowia

Author(s): Marek Szelagowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

Healthcare facilities are increasingly drawing on modern management methods and tools to raise effectiveness of performed therapeutic processes, and to optimize their costs, duration and resources. This article aims at demonstrating the possibilities and the advantages resulting from using business process management tools in practice of healthcare centers. The presented process models described the independent decisions that the medical personnel made in their day-to-day operations and - from the process modeling phase - mechanisms of controlling and obtaining knowledge on the actual performance of a selected therapy. In the subsequent stages, by using process mining tools, it will be possible to recreate selected therapeutic processes and use them as knowledge sources during similar cases. The main aim of this research set at the beginning - searching for the „ideal” therapeutic process, was abandoned during the implementation. After the first failed attempts to create a detailed model of a process, the objective of the project was changed to modeling processes in a way to enable their adaptation to the needs of a specific performance, while still retaining the possibility of obtaining practical and useful knowledge.

Społecznie odpowiedzialny projekt - opracowanie definicji na podstawie przeglądu literatury z zakresu społecznej odpowiedzialności i zarządzania projektami

Author(s): Katarzyna Jakubczyk,Przemysław Kitowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

Social Responsibility concept applies to business, university and individuals. It is assumed that socially responsible thinking supports sustainable development through operations for the sake of stakeholders, who represent groups of interest from three kinds of environment - social, economic and ecological. Usually, there are some balance problem between integration of objectives from those three fields. They appear during project management process, exactly like during company operation processes. Due to this similarity, an idea of integrating Social Responsibility philosophy with project management appeared. The lack of literature connecting those two concepts, resulted in need of creating definition of a socially responsible project as a basis for discussion about socially responsible project approach. Firstly, authors analyzed twenty Polish and twenty English definitions of a „social responsibility” and a „project” by using Google Scholar source. Secondly, by comparing definitions of discussed issues, some new categories were identified and also, the frequency of their occurrence was measured. The research resulted in identifying common features of both definitions and, eventually, creating a definition of a „socially responsible project” - the main purpose of this publication.

Psychologia przedsiębiorczości – sylwetka psychologiczna przedsiębiorcy

Author(s): Zbigniew Piskorz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2009

VALUE STREAM PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND THE LEAN BUSINESS CONCEPT

Author(s): Bojana Novićević Čečević,Ljilja Antić / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

Lean business concept is characterized by providing value required by customers, prompt delivery of products, eliminating all forms of waste from production process as well as from all business processes in the company, etc. In order to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, it is appropriate to carefully consider and apply the basic principles of lean business concept and establish a value stream. Value stream is a basis for creating value for the customers, on the one hand, and for the enterprise, on the other hand. In that context, it is necessary to choose a set of performance measures for assessment of the value stream success, which is named Box Score.

Mid-Sized Italian Manufacturing Firms: A Panel Data Analysis on Profitability

Author(s): MIGLIARDO Carlo,SCHILIRÒ Daniele / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2016

This paper aims to provide an empirical analysis concerning the different aspects of profitability of the Italian manufacturing firms of intermediate size, namely medium and medium-large size companies, for the period 2004-2010. Itanalyzes various aspects of firm profitability relating corporate structures, that is, capital structure, risk component, asset composition, and growth opportunities. The study investigates firm profitability by using econometric panel-data techniques,such as the system dynamic GMM estimator that assures the robustness of our empirical analysis. One of the main results ofour investigation is that we find asignificant and negative impact of capital structure (i.e. leverage and tangibility) and risk component on firm profitability.

Impact of Domestic Institutional Investors on Indian Stock Market

Author(s): SALAR S.A. Atif / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2016

Indian stock market used to see investments from two major types of Institutional Investors. One is Domestic Institutional Investors and other is Foreign Institution Investors. There have been many studies on Foreign Institutional Investors but none of the study focuses on the role Domestic Institutional Investors used to play in Indian Stock Market. Thispaper tries to examine the relationship between Domestic Institutional Investors and India stock market (SENSEX). Thecausality between the investments made by Domestic Institutional Investors and movement of Sensex has been analyzedusing Granger causality test. The data from 2009 to 2016 has been analyzed by taking the net investments made by DIIsand closing value of Sensex index.Various econometric tools have been used to establish the causal relationship between Domestic InstitutionalInvestor flows and Sensex return. The analysis includes Vector Auto Regression (VAR) and Granger causality which showsthat DIIs does not have any positive influence on Sensex return but the vice-versa i.e. the movement of sensex definitelymakes an impact of the investment strategies of DIIs. The reason behind that is that the DIIs are not influencing the Indian Stock market but rather Foreign Institutional Investors might play an important role in influencing the Sensex. Other thanVAR, impulse response and Variance Decomposition have also been used to give more strength to the results.

SURFING ON THE TIDE? LEAST-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES TRADE DURING THE GREAT GLOBAL TRANSITION

Author(s): Escaith Hubert,Tamenu Bekele / Language(s): English Issue: 09/2014

The rebalancing of global demand towards large emerging countries and the resulting long-lasting cycle of high international commodity prices had a profound impact on LDC trade. This process contributed to a wider geographicaldiversification of LDCs' exports but led also to a greater reliance on those highly priced commodities. LDCs remainparticularly vulnerable to external shocks; the 2008-2009 global crisis and the bumpy transitional recovery that followed illustrate the fragility of the recent trends. A slowdown in the growth of large emerging countries may end the commodity"super-cycle", deepening LDCs' structural trade imbalances. In such a perspective, renewed efforts towards extensive product diversification are called for. Fostering diversification has been supported for many years by preferential marketaccess to develop and --more recently-- to emerging countries. But preferences alone are not sufficient to improve thesupply-side capabilities of most LDCs. The new business models related to global value chains offer new opportunities to LDC s for export diversification and trade facilitation is one of the key components of this diversification strategy.

THE DEMAND FOR CURRENCY IN MALTA

Author(s): Aaron George Grech / Language(s): English Issue: 09/2014

This article studies the demand for one particular component of the money stock, currency, in Malta in the light of the existing theoretical and empirical frameworks. In particular, it argues that the commonly applied analytical framework needs to be tweaked slightly for it to explain better the reasons underpinning the relativelyhigh currency demand in Malta compared with other euro area countries. In particular, the presence of a largetourism sector is likely to be boosting demand beyond what one would expect. Similarly the presence of asignificant shadow economy appears to be exerting some influence on the magnitude of currency holdings. That said, this study suggests that there is scope for a number of policies which could lead to lower demand for notes,particularly measures to facilitate the use of electronic means of payment and efforts to discourage the shadow economy.

Analyzing the Dynamics of Gross Domestic Product Growth. a Mixed Frequency Model Approach

Author(s): Franco Ray John Gabriel,MAPA Dennis S. / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2014

Frequency mismatch has been a problem in time series econometrics. Many monthly economic and financial indicators are normally aggregated to match quarterly macroeconomic series such as Gross Domestic Product when performing econometric analysis. However, temporal aggregation, although widely accepted, is prone to informationloss. To address this issue, mixed frequency modelling is employed by using state space models with time-varying parameters. Quarter-on-quarter growth rate of GDP estimates are treated as monthly series with missing observation. Using Kalman filter algorithm, state space models are estimated with eleven monthly economic indicators as explanatory variables. A one-step-ahead forecast for GDP growth rates is generated and as more indicators are included in the model, the predicted values became closer to the actual data. Further evaluation revealed that among the group competing models, using Consumer Price Index (CPI), growth rates of Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi), Exchange Rate, Real Money Supply, Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Merchandise Exports are the more important determinants of GDP growth and generated the most desirable forecasts (lower forecast errors).

ESTIMATES OF INCOME INEQUALITY ARE BIASED OR MISINTERPRETED

Author(s): KITOV Ivan / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2014

We consider definitions and measuring procedures of personal income used by three U.S. agencies as well as the evolution of household size distribution and reveal major quantitative inconsistencies in the reported figuresof personal and household inequality. The problem with the inequality estimates reported by the Internal RevenueService consists in the changing proportion of people with lower incomes. The increasing proportion of low-income population is misinterpreted as the growth in income inequality. The Census Bureau provides personal incomedistributions scaled from a small subset of households to the whole population. Surprisingly, the Gini coefficientestimated from the Census Bureau data for people with income does not depend on the dramatic change in income definition in 1977, when the share of working age population with (likely low) incomes increased by 10%. Whencorrected to the population without income, the Gini coefficient demonstrates a significant decrease in 1978. Thechanging composition of households in the U.S. is the effect explaining the reported increase in Gini coefficient for households since 1967. When corrected for actual decrease in the average household size the relevant Gini coefficient returns to that of personal incomes. According to the Census Bureau, the latter coefficient has beenhovering in a very narrow range between 0.50 and 0.51 since 1974. Evaluating the evolution of labour and capitalshares of the U.S. personal incomereported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis we found that the increasingshare of income of the top 1% households does not affect the labour share income. The growth in the incomeshare of richest families is related to the increasing share of the consumption of fixed capital which is convertedinto private money though the reduction in taxes on production and imports.

Bubbles, Bluffs and Greed

Author(s): Harashima Taiji / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2015

A rational bubble cannot theoretically exist if people have infinite horizons. This paper shows that a bubble-like phenomenon can be generated by a “bluff” even if people are rational and have infinite horizons. A bluff is defined as the behavior of an agent who pretends to possess private information to gain profits, particularly (false or misleading) information that the representative household’s rate of time preference (RTP RH) has changed. An alternative definition of the representative household indicates that households must ex ante generate an expected RTP RH to behave optimally, but the expected RTP RH has to be generated based on beliefs about the RTP RH. Bluffers exploit the opportunities derived from the fragile nature of the expected RTP RH. The driving force behind bluffs is greed because bluffers do not work hard to gain profits by producing and selling better goods and services more cheaply, but by disseminating contaminated information, or acting in such a way to mislead people into believing the expected RTP RH has changed.

A New Keynesian Framework for Monetary Policy Analysis in Iran’s Economy. A Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Approach

Author(s): AfshinQ Heidarpour,PAHLAVANI Mosayeb,SHAHIKI TASH Mohamadnabi,TAYEB Seyedkomail / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2015

This paper focuses on New Keynesian framework for monetary policy analysis of Iran. It considers a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. This article expands a sensitivity analysis of the optimal rules to deep structural parameters and investigating properties of an optimal simple rule with respect to prevailing type of shocks which is the main purpose of the article. Finally, the study highlights how an optimal policy rule depends on model structure, on the model calibration and nominal rigidities. According to the research findings, based on the theoretical expectations, the effect of a positive shock inflicted on the government investment leads to an increase and gradual accumulation of fixed capital formation in the public sector. Among estimated parameters, consumption is the first affected and reduces, then employment increases consequently, finally production will also be affected. Also with the shock of oil revenues, increased oil revenues which results in public investment at first, because of the increase in oil revenues, the government enhances development expenditure. Though, increase in development expenditure is more than increase in current expenditure. Enhancing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14505/tpref.v6.2(12).01 Volume VI, Issue 2(12), Winter 2015 97 development expenditure and construction spending causes total spending increase. As a result of increased production of oil income, consumption and total investment will rise. This leads to inflation too.

From Charity to Investment

Author(s): Marhieu-Claude Chaboud,Guillaume Biot-Paquerot / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

This exploratory article aims at discussing the implementation of crowdfunding projects organized by charitable organizations for the funding of developing country based entrepreneurial projects. The recourse to this type of financing is known to be structurally related to an inability of the promoters of such projects to use bank loans or venture capital. Crowdfunding, and increasingly equity crowdfunding specifically, is indeed based on trust mechanisms similar to the rationales for the use of donations by similar project bearers and non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the past. Classical regulatory mechanisms usually presented in the context of charitable organizations seem ineffective when applied to the crowds supporting these projects, mainly because of the low financial commitment of resource providers from supporting communities and their atomicity. Beyond the issue of identification of stakeholders present during the emergence of such crowdfunding projects, it is the question of the regulation and effects of potentially deviant behaviors in this transition period from donation to equity based crowdfunding that is discussed. Therefore, reducing the organizational involvement of NPOs, crowdfunding platforms could offer a set of control mechanisms in this economic context, but also operate an actual change in financing leverage operations for emerging countries’ projects.

Management of Searching Process in Inventory Activities

Author(s): Sorin Dincă / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2016

In the last years, the library is less and less found in people’s life style. Due to the decreasing interest in the printed books as opposed to technology, which answers the people’s questions very easily, a flexible app that would not only manage the inputs and outputs from a library, but also create a bridge between the library – librarian – reader by offering the management team the possibility to deal with this bridge so that the reader crosses it as often as possible is mandatorily necessary.

Middle Management Involvement in the Process of Strategic Decision Making in Middle Enterprises in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author(s): Nedim Čelebić,Aziz Šunje,Dženan Kulović,Ermin Cero / Language(s): English Issue: 7/2016

Strategic decisions are of crucial importance for any company since they determine direction of its development and growth. Strategic decisions determine the direction of the company and are made by high-ranking managers in the organization. From the point of view of the importance and complexity, these decisions are crucial for the success of the organization. Although strategic decisions are generally associated with top management, middle management plays serious role in some phases of strategic decision making. Therefore, adequate cooperation between the middle and top management in strategic decision-making process becomes very important in order to make the right decisions. Purpose of this paper is to test theoretical model of strategic decision making which defines and involves middle management roles in the process of decision making in emerging markets such as Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The goal is to research in which extent middle managers participate in different phases of strategic decision making. We used ‘’management science’’ method of decision making which has seven phases among which three are considered as strategic role of middle management. Those phases are implementation of decisions, synthesizing information from environment and adoption of alternatives for decision making. For the purpose of empirical model testing, we surveyed 135 middle and top managers from 30 middle enterprises in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Correlation and regression are used as statistical methods. Based on the model, research revealed that middle managers only participate in phases of defining the problem, implementation of de cisions and analysis of results while other four phases are generally associated with top management. Analysis of results confirmed that characteristics of middle managers do not correlate with the degree of their involvement in the process of decision making.

Franšiza kao oblik disperzije biznisa u BIH (primjer Economic d.o.o. Vitez)

Author(s): Zenaida Varupa,Rifet Đogić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 7/2016

Franchising is one of the three basic forms of starting a new business. It has advantages and disadvantages compared to takeover and starting a new business. In 2000 Economic Ltd. Vitez has, as first domestic company, introduced the franchise mode of business. Today, this franchise network has 56 stores in all major cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Objective of this research is to determine correlation between number of franchise stores and sales revenue of the observed company. This general objective will be realized by regression equations that representatively describes interdependence - correlation between one independent (number of franchise stores) and one dependent variable (sales revenue). This will enable forecasting of sales revenue as a function of number of franchise stores, in one hand, and estimating marginal changes in sales revenue, resulting from unit change in the number of franchise stores, in other hand. The following scientific methods are used in research: statistical methods, methods of analysis (quantitative and qualitative analysis, content analysis-tables and graphs), increment method, method of abstraction and concretization, modeling method, method of generalization and specialization and inductive method. As a result, this paper provides an equation of simple regression model which represents the best linear model for predicting sales revenue for a given number of franchise stores.

Obelodanjivanje informacija o sistemu upravljanja rizicima u godišnjim izveštajima o poslovanju durštava iz oblasti rudarstva

Author(s): Jelena Krpić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 8/2016

Companies operating in the mining industry disclose detailed information on their risk management systems in their annual reports. This information includes details on the nature of risks and the risk management process at the corporate level. Disclosed information indicates that these companies manage their risk in conformance with the professional guidelines that reflect best business practices.