Search results for: business opportunities

Authors: Mohammad Mehdizadeh

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COVID-19 forced marketers to change their marketing strategies, focusing less on reactive approaches and more on proactive approaches, primarily social media. The next few years will be dominated by employee engagement and customer experience, leading to businesses focusing more on "long-term customer relationships." A large number of marketing strategies need to be employed in an ever-evolving online environment, which is both filled with opportunities and dangers, as well as being an intimidating platform to use, incorporating new and exciting opportunities for businesses and organizations as it constantly evolves. In this article, we examine the effect of social networks on marketing in post-pandemic environments. A descriptive survey is used as the research method. The results show that social networks have a positive and significant impact on marketing in a post-pandemic environment. Among the social networks studied, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have the most positive effect on marketing advancement.

Keywords: COVID-19, customers, marketing, post-pandemic

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Authors: Gulbakhyt Sultanova

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Business education institutions assess the progress of their students by giving them grades for courses completed and calculating a Grade Point Average (GPA). Whether the participation in these courses has led to the development of competences enabling graduates to successfully compete in the labor market should be measured using a new index: Employment Readiness Assessment (ERA). The higher the ERA, the higher the quality of education at a business school. This is applied, empirical research conducted by using a method of linear optimization. The aim of research is to identify factors which lead to the minimization of the deviation of GPA from ERA as well as to the maximization of ERA. ERA is composed of three components resulting from testing proficiency in Business English, testing work and personal skills, and job interview simulation. The quality of education is improving if GPA approximates ERA and ERA increases. Factors which have had a positive effect on quality enhancement are academic mobility of students and staff, practical-oriented courses taught by staff with work experience, and research-based courses taught by staff with research experience. ERA is a better index to measure the quality of business education than traditional indexes such as GPA due to its greater accuracy in assessing the level of graduates’ competences demanded in the labor market. Optimizing the educational process in pursuit of quality enhancement, ERA has to be used in parallel with GPA to find out which changes worked and resulted in improvement.

Keywords: assessment and evaluation, competence evaluation, education quality, employment readiness

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Authors: Takashi Nakamura

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In the Tokyo metropolitan area, traffic congestion and long commute times are caused by overconcentration in the central area. To resolve these problems, a core business city development policy was adopted in 1988. The core business cities, which include Yokohama, Chiba, Saitama, Tachikawa, and others, have designated business facilities accumulation districts where assistance measures are applied. Focusing on Yokohama city, this study investigates the trends in the number of offices, employees, and commuters at 2001 and 2012 Economic Census, as well as the average commute time in the Tokyo metropolitan area from 2005 to 2015 Metropolitan Transportation Census. Surveys were administered in 2001 and 2012 Economic Census to participants who worked in Yokohama, according to their distribution in the city's 1,757 subregions. Four main findings emerged: (1) The number of offices increased in Yokohama when the number of offices decreased in the Tokyo metropolitan area overall. Additionally, the number of employees at Yokohama increased. (2) The number of commuters to Tokyo's central area increased from Saitama prefecture, Tokyo Tama area, and Tokyo central area. However, it decreased from other areas. (3) The average commute time in the Tokyo metropolitan area was 67.7 minutes in 2015, a slight decrease from 2005 and 2010. (4) The number of employees at business facilities accumulation districts in Yokohama city increased greatly.

Keywords: core business city development policy, commute time, number of employees, Yokohama city, distribution of employees

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Authors: Sher Ali

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Organic agriculture has gained significant momentum globally as a sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practice. In Pakistan, amidst growing concerns about food security, environmental degradation, and health issues related to conventional farming methods, the adoption of organic agriculture presents a promising pathway for agricultural development. This abstract aims to provide an overview of the status, opportunities, challenges, and future directions of organic agriculture in Pakistan. It delves into the current state of organic farming practices, including the extent of adoption, key crops cultivated, and the regulatory framework governing organic certification. Furthermore, the abstract discusses the unique opportunities that Pakistan offers for organic agriculture, such as its diverse agro-climatic zones, rich biodiversity, and traditional farming knowledge. It highlights successful initiatives and case studies that showcase the potential of organic farming to improve rural livelihoods, enhance food security, and promote sustainable agricultural practices. However, the abstract also addresses the challenges hindering the widespread adoption of organic agriculture in Pakistan, ranging from limited awareness and technical know-how among farmers to inadequate infrastructure and market linkages. It emphasizes the need for supportive policies, capacity-building programs, and investment in research and extension services to overcome these challenges and promote the growth of the organic agriculture sector. Lastly, the abstract outlines future directions and recommendations for advancing organic agriculture in Pakistan, including strategies for scaling up production, strengthening certification mechanisms, and fostering collaboration among stakeholders. By shedding light on the opportunities, challenges, and potential of organic agriculture in Pakistan, this abstract aims to contribute to the discourse on sustainable farming practices at the upcoming Agro Conference in the USA. It invites participants to engage in dialogue, share experiences, and explore avenues for collaboration toward promoting organic agriculture for a healthier, more resilient food system.

Keywords: agriculture, challenges, organic, Pakistan

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Authors: Han-Mei Chen, Rongxin Zhou, Taige Wang

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Glass is widely used in everyday life, from glass bottles for beverages to architectural glass for various forms of glazing. Although the mainstream of used glass is recycled in the UK, the single-use and then recycling procedure results in a lot of waste as it incorporates intact glass with smashing, re-melting, and remanufacturing. These processes bring massive energy consumption with a huge loss of high embodied energy and economic value, compared to re-use, which’s towards a ‘zero carbon’ target. As a tourism city, Liverpool has more glass bottle consumption than most less leisure-focused cities. It’s therefore vital for Liverpool to find an upgrading approach for the single-use glass bottles with low carbon output. This project aims to assess the feasibility of industrial symbiosis and upgrading the framework of glass and to investigate the ways of achieving them. It is significant to Liverpool’s future industrial strategy since it provides an opportunity to target economic recovery for post-COVID by industry symbiosis and up-grading waste management in Liverpool to respond to the climate emergency. In addition, it will influence the local government policy for glass bottle reuse and recycling in North West England and as a good practice to be further recommended to other areas of the UK. First, a critical literature review of glass waste strategies has been conducted in the UK and worldwide industrial symbiosis practices. Second, mapping, data collection, and analysis have shown the current life cycle chain and the strong links of glass reuse and upgrading potentials via site visits to 16 local waste recycling centres. The results of this research have demonstrated the understanding of the influence of key factors on the development of a circular industrial symbiosis business model for beverage glass bottles. The current waste management procedures of the glass bottle industry, its business model, supply chain, and material flow have been reviewed. The various potential opportunities for glass bottle up-valuing have been investigated towards an industrial symbiosis in Liverpool. Finally, an up-valuing business model has been developed for an industrial symbiosis framework of glass in Liverpool. For glass bottles, there are two possibilities 1) focus on upgrading processes towards re-use rather than single-use and recycling and 2) focus on ‘smart’ re-use and recycling, leading to optimised values in other sectors to create a wider industry symbiosis for a multi-level and circular economy.

Keywords: glass bottles, industry symbiosis, smart re-use, waste upgrading

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Authors: Salma Ahmed, Anil Kumar

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This paper develops and estimates a model for understanding the drivers and barriers for Omni-Channel retail. This study serves as one of the first attempt to empirically test the effect of various factors on Omni-channel retail. Omni-channel is relative new and evolving, we hypothesize three drivers: (1) Innovative sales and marketing opportunities, (2) channel migration, (3) Cross channel synergies; and three barriers: (1) Integrated sales and marketing operations, (2) Visibility and synchronization (3) Integration and Technology challenges. The findings from the study strongly support that Omni-channel effects exist between cross channel synergy and channel migration. However, it partially supports innovative sales and marketing operations. We also found the variables which we identified as barriers to Omni-channel retail have a strong impact on Omni-channel retail.

Keywords: retailing, multichannel, Omni-channel, emerging market

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Authors: Daphne Ashley Sze, Kenneth Santos, Ariane Gabrielle Lim

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As women are now given more freedom and choice to pursue employment, the world’s over-all fertility has been decreasing mainly due to the shift in time allocation between working and child rearing. As such, we study the case of the Philippines, where there exists a decreasing fertility rate and increasing openness for women labor participation. We focused on the distinction between fertility and fecundity, the former being the manifestation of the latter and aim to trace and compare the effects of both fecundity and fertility to women’s employment status through the estimation of the reproduction function and multinomial logistic function. Findings suggest that the perception of women regarding employment opportunities in the Philippines links the negative relationship observed between fertility, fecundity and women’s employment status. Today, there has been a convergence in the traditional family roles of men and women, as both genders now have identical employment opportunities that continue to shape their preferences.

Keywords: multinomial logistic function, tobit, fertility, women employment status, fecundity

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Authors: Omolade Adeleke, Jonathan Olusegun Famoroti

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This study empirically examined the monetary policy and economic growth in the classical cycles in 8 member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), using the Markov switching model for the Two-phase Regime, covering the period 1980Q1 to 2020Q4. Our estimates suggest that these countries demonstrate to have similar business cycles, and the economies stay more in an expansion regime than a recession regime. The result further shows that the union has an average duration period of 3.1 and 15.9 quarters for contraction and expansion periods, respectively. The business cycle duration, on average, suggests 19 quarters, varying from country to country. Therefore, the formulation of policies that can enhance aggregate demand by member countries in the union is an antidote for recession and is necessary to drive the economy into equilibrium. Also, a low-interest rate and reduced inflation rate would ginger long-run economic growth.

Keywords: monetary policy, business cycle, economic growth, Markov switching

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Authors: Edi Artono, Budi Tamtomo, Gema Wahyudi Purnama

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The world energy demand increasing extreamly high time by time, including domestic demand. That is impossible to avoid because energy a country demand proportional to surge in the number of residents, economic growth and addition of industrial sector. Domestic Oil and gas conventional reserves depleted naturally while production outcome from reservoir also depleted time to time. In the other hand, new reserve did not discover significantly to replace it all. Many people are investigating to looking for new alternative energy to answer the challenge. There are several option to solve energy fossil needed problem using Unconventional Hydrocarbon. There are four aspects to consider as a management reference in order that Unconventional Hydrocarbon business can work properly, divided to: 1. Legal aspect, 2. Environmental aspect, 3. Technical aspect and 4. Economy aspect. The economic aspect as the key to whether or not a project can be implemented or not in Oil and Gas business scheme, so do Unconventional Hydorcarbon business scheme. The support of regulation are needed to buttress Unconventional Hydorcarbon business grow up and make benefits contribute to Government.

Keywords: alternative energy, unconventional hydrocarbon, regulation support, management strategy

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Authors: Kimberley Kershaw, Denis Hyams-Ssekasi

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Although there is a wealth of information about refugees and Asylum seekers, Refugee job opportunities continue to be one of the most hotly contested areas and less researched within the social sciences. Refugees are a vital asset in the society due to their experiences, skills, and competences. However, society perceives them differently, and as such, their prior lived experiences are often underutilised. This research study gleans from the work conducted during the Refugee Employment Support Clinic delivered for 12 weeks within a University setting in the North West of England. The study is conducted using three perspectives, refugees, students, and researchers, allowing for identification of the challenges encountered by the refugees concerning job opportunities. Through the utilisation of the qualitative research method, the study has found that refugees experience a wide range of issues unrelated to their skills, prior experience, and education but rather due to the red tapes connected to their legal identity labelling. Refugees struggle to build reliable employment networks that appreciate and acknowledge their capabilities and talents, impacting their ability to navigate the labour market and classism. Notably, refugees are misunderstood within their new societies, and little care is taken to understand the unique struggles they face with respect to securing paid work in their industry or field of work due to their lack of experience in the UK. Unlike other European countries, it is evident that the UK has no strategic approach to enhancing the chances of paid or voluntary work for refugees. A clinic like this provided lenses for comprehending how refugees can be better supported with employment related opportunities. By creating a safe and conducive platform for honest and open discussion about employment and through collaborative approaches with local community agencies, doors were opened for social and professional networks to be built. The study concluded that there is a need for local communities and education establishments to be more aware of the prevailing challenges and in a position to support at all stages of their asylum claim in order for the perceptions of distrust and uncertainty around refugees to be minimised.

Keywords: refugees, employment, community, classism, education

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Authors: Bamidele Wale-Oshinowo, Doris Akyere Boateng, Lebura Sorbarikor

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Women play significant roles when it comes to the survival of family businesses; however, their efforts are less acknowledged across the developing world. In the case where these businesses are started by husbands, women in many instances work as hard as the men to build up the business. In spite of this, the benefits women receive are not equal to their inputs. For instance, the profits accruing from ownership of these businesses are mainly enjoyed by husbands, as they are deemed to be the legal owners of family businesses in most developing economies. Though the number of women involvement in the ownership, management, and direction of family businesses keeps increasing over the years, their efforts sometimes are ‘invisible’ and not rewarded. Using a phenomenological approach, this study purposively selected 20 businesswomen each from Ghana and Nigeria for in-depth interviews on the different roles they play in ensuring the success of their family businesses (FBs). This study also explored the challenges and opportunities that these women have within their family businesses. Among the major findings of this study is the important strategic direction that women give in terms of providing both tangible and intangible resources such as transfer of transit knowledge to the next generation. Women were also found to play a significant role in the implementation of entrepreneurial orientation within small family businesses in Ghana and Nigeria. However, the study revealed that women experience various challenges as stakeholders in family businesses, among which are: work-life balance issues, succession issues, and culture-related presuppositions about gender roles both within the business and in their families. In the light of the study’s findings, critical recommendations made include encouraging founders and/or owners of family businesses to create a conducive and viable platform for women to grow into key leadership positions within Family businesses; doing this would impact strongly on the growth rate of these form of businesses within the African Region.

Keywords: emerging economies, control, management, resources, strategy, women

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Authors: Ariane C. Lim, Daphne Ashley L. Sze, Kenneth S. Santos

Abstract:

As women are now given more freedom and choice to pursue employment, the world’s over-all fertility has been decreasing mainly due to the shift in time allocation between working and child-rearing. As such, we study the case of the Philippines, where there exists a decreasing fertility rate and increasing openness for women labor participation. We focused on the distinction between fertility and fecundity, the former being the manifestation of the latter and aim to trace and compare the effects of both fecundity and fertility to women’s employment status through the estimation of the reproduction function and multinomial logistic function. Findings suggest that the perception of women regarding employment opportunities in the Philippines links the negative relationship observed between fertility, fecundity and women’s employment status. Today, there has been a convergence in the traditional family roles of men and women, as both genders now have identical employment opportunities that continue to shape their preferences.

Keywords: multinomial logistic function, tobit, fertility, women employment status, fecundity

Procedia PDF Downloads 618

Authors: H. Nakamura

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This study analyzes international strategic alliances in the information industry. The purpose of this study is to clarify the strategic intention of an international alliance. Secondly, it investigates the influence of differences in the target markets of partner companies on alliances. Using an international strategy theory approach to analyze the global strategies of global companies, the study compares a database business and an electronic publishing business. In particular, these cases emphasized factors attributable to "people" and "learning", reliability and communication between organizations and the evolution of the IT infrastructure. The theory evolved in this study validates the effectiveness of these strategies.

Keywords: database business, electronic library, international strategic alliances, partner selection

Procedia PDF Downloads 365

Authors: Howard Prosser

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This paper examines how critical thinking is framed, especially for primary-school students, in the recently established Australian Curriculum: History. Critical thinking is one of the curriculum’s 'general capabilities.' History provides numerous opportunities for critical thinking’s application in everyday life. The so-called 'history wars' that took place just prior to the curriculum’s introduction in 2014 sought to bring to light the limits of a singular historical narrative and reveal that which had been repressed. Consequently, the Australian history curriculum reflects this shifting mindset. Teachers are presented with opportunities to treat history in the classroom as a repository of social possibility, especially related to democratic potential, beyond hackneyed and jingoistic tales of Australian nationhood. Yet such opportunities are not explicit within the document and are up against pre-existing pedagogic practices. Drawing on political thinker Cornelius Castoriadis’s rendering of the 'social-historical' and 'paidea,' as well as his mobilisation of psychoanalysis, the study outlines how the curriculum’s critical-thinking component opens up possibilities for students and teachers to revise assumptions about how history is understood. This ontological shift is ultimately creative: the teachers’ imaginations connect the students’ imaginations, and vice versa, to the analysis that is at the heart of historical thinking. The implications of this social imagination add to the current discussions about historical consciousness among scholars like Peter Seixas. But, importantly, it has practical application in the primary-school classroom where history becomes creative acts, like play, that is indeterminate and social rather than fixed and individual.

Keywords: Australia, Castoriadis, critical thinking, history, imagination

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Authors: Christopher Meyer, Laima Gerlitz

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European ports are facing high political pressure through the implementation of initiatives such as the European Green Deal or IMO's 2030 targets (Fit for 55). However, small and medium-sized ports face even higher challenges compared to bigger ones due to lower capacities in various fields such as investments, infra-structure, Human Resources, and funding opportunities. Small and Medium-Sized Ports (SMPs) roles in economic systems are various depending on their specific functionality in maritime ecosystems. Depending on their different situations, being an actor in multiport gateways, aligned to core ports, regional nodes in peripheries for the hinterland, specialized cluster members, or logistical nodes, different strategic business models may be applied to increase SMPs' competitiveness among other bigger ports. Additionally, SMPs are facing more challenges for future development in terms of digital and green transition of their operations. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the own strategical position and apply management strategies alongside the regional growth and innovation strategies for diversification or specialisation of own port businesses. The research uses inductive perspectives to set up a transferable framework based on case studies to be analysed. In line with particular research and document analysis, qualitative approaches were considered. The research is based on a deep literature review on SMPs as well as theories on diversification and specialisation. Existing theories from different fields are evaluated on their application for the port sector and these specific maritime actors, paying respect to enabling innovation incorporation to enhance digital and environmental transition with fu-ture perspectives for SMPs. The paper aims to provide a decision-making matrix for the strategic positioning of SMPs in Europe, including opportunities to get access to particular EU funds for future development alongside the Regional In-novation Strategies on Smart Specialisation.

Keywords: strategic planning, sustainability transition, competitiveness portfolio, EU green deal

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Authors: Maja S. Todorovic

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This paper aims to promote entrepreneurial storytelling by exploring new ideas and learning practices. An entrepreneur needs to be a ‘storyteller’, an ‘epic hero’, capable of offering an emotional connection to his audience, a character with whom audience can identify with, rejoice, suffer, celebrate, fail – simply experience everything. In other words, a successful entrepreneur is giving tangible experience through his business story and that’s what makes his story and business alive. Use of mythology, eulogy, metaphor, epic, fairytales and cartoons, permeated with humor and sudden twists is a winning recipe for a business story that captures attention. In the business case of the Greenesignit! Card game, (educational and brainstorming tool for development of sustainable products) we will demonstrate how an entrepreneur successfully used visual narrative to communicate his story and at the same time as a vehicle to transmute his message in learning tool and product development.

Keywords: animating narrative, entrepreneur, Greeneisgnit! card game, visual storytelling

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Authors: A. Hol

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21^st century brought waves of business and industry eTransformations. The impact of change is also being seen in education. To identify the extent of this, scenario analysis methodology was utilised with the aim to assess business transformations across industry sectors ranging from craftsmanship, medicine, finance and manufacture to innovations and adoptions of new technologies and business models. Firstly, scenarios were drafted based on the current eTransformation models and its dimensions. Following this, eTransformation framework was utilised with the aim to derive the key eTransformation parameters, the essential characteristics that have enabled eTransformations across the sectors. Following this, identified key parameters were mapped to the transforming domain-education. The mapping assisted in deriving a cognitive eTransformation framework for education sector. The framework highlights the importance of context and the notion that education today needs not only to deliver content to students but it also needs to be able to meet the dynamically changing demands of specific student and industry groups. Furthermore, it pinpoints that for such processes to be supported, specific technology is required, so that instant, on demand and periodic feedback as well as flexible, dynamically expanding study content can be sought and received via multiple education mediums.

Keywords: education sector, business transformation, eTransformation model, cognitive model, cognitive systems, eTransformation

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Authors: Avishkar Gawade, Omkar Bansode, Ketan Bhambure, Bhargav Deore

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In recent year wide range of business intelligence technology have been applied to different area in order to support decision making process BI enables extraction of knowledge from data store. BI tools usually used in public health field for financial and administrative purposes.BI uses a dashboard in presentation stage to deliver information to information to end users.In this paper,we intend to analyze some open source BI tools on the market and their applicability in the clinical sphere taking into consideration the general characteristics of the clinical environment.A pervasive BI platform was developed using a real case in order to prove the tool viability.Analysis of various BI Tools in done with the help of several parameters such as data security,data integration,data quality reporting and anlaytics,performance,scalability and cost effectivesness.

Keywords: CDSS, EHR, business intelliegence, tools

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Authors: Pongsiri Kamkankaew

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This paper experiments to consider brand equity thought in Thai academic works. This essay employs that the first emerging of brand equity in Thai academic works and the components of brand equity which explore the extent to the convoluted approach with other Thai social condition. In Thailand, brand equity is supposed to provide branding and brand management replacement. However, the commitment of brand equity imposes in its proposal for seemly application in Thai context – to develop the brand equity framework by the Thai social – culture and Thai utilization style which it is questionable whether the brand equity in western conception is useful for characterizing the brand equity in Thailand context. In this position, brand equity also aspects several major questions: How can western conception lead to apply in Thai business? How can diversification be given within Thai SMEs business running? Can corporate brand valuation approach adopt in real business doing? So this paper argues that Thai brand equity notion should reduce disturb over improvement of its self-restraint and business area. Instead, Thai academic who are interested in brand equity can harmonize different mature bodies of discipline and other investigative a frame of references to complete and open the recognizing of brand equity.

Keywords: Thai brand equity, knowledge critical, brand management, branding

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Authors: Batuhan Kocaoglu

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Nowadays digital transformation is a hot topic both in service and production business. For the companies who want to stay alive in the following years, they should change how they do their business. Industry leaders started to improve their ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) like backbone technologies to digital advances such as analytics, mobility, sensor-embedded smart devices, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and more. Selecting the appropriate technology for the related business problem also is a hot topic. Besides this, to operate in the modern environment and fulfill rapidly changing customer expectations, a digital transformation of the business is required and change the way the business runs, affect how they do their business. Even the digital transformation term is trendy the literature is limited and covers just the philosophy instead of a solid implementation plan. Current studies urge firms to start their digital transformation, but few tell us how to do. The huge investments scare companies with blur definitions and concepts. The aim of this paper to solidify the steps of the digital transformation and offer a roadmap for the companies and academicians. The proposed roadmap is developed based upon insights from the literature review, semi-structured interviews, and expert views to explore and identify crucial steps. We introduced our roadmap in the form of 8 main steps: Awareness; Planning; Operations; Implementation; Go-live; Optimization; Autonomation; Business Transformation; including a total of 11 sub-steps with examples. This study also emphasizes four dimensions of the digital transformation mainly: Readiness assessment; Building organizational infrastructure; Building technical infrastructure; Maturity assessment. Finally, roadmap corresponds the steps with three main terms used in digital transformation literacy as Digitization; Digitalization; and Digital Transformation. The resulted model shows that 'business process' and 'organizational issues' should be resolved before technology decisions and 'digitization'. Companies can start their journey with the solid steps, using the proposed roadmap to increase the success of their project implementation. Our roadmap is also adaptable for relevant Industry 4.0 and enterprise application projects. This roadmap will be useful for companies to persuade their top management for investments. Our results can be used as a baseline for further researches related to readiness assessment and maturity assessment studies.

Keywords: digital transformation, digital business, ERP, roadmap

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Authors: Igbekoyi Olusola Esther, Olurankinse Felix

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This paper examined the factors that militate against Will writing among entrepreneurs in Ondo State Nigeria and the effect of intestate death on business continuity after the exit of the entrepreneurs. The paper was written with a view to providing information on the reasons why intestate death is common among entrepreneurs in Ondo State and the effects on continuity of business after death of the initial owners. Data were obtained from primary source through the administration of questionnaires to entrepreneurs drawn from 50 registered manufacturing companies. These companies have been in existence for a minimum of 10 years with minimum staff strength of 20 workers each. These companies were selected using the purposive random sampling technique in order to capture firms that meet the requirements of this paper. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square and regression analysis. The findings of the paper revealed that administration of Will, traditional beliefs, Will execution procedures, age and non- admissibility of Wills in court are the major factors that militates against Will writing among entrepreneurs in Ondo State. It was also discovered that chaos and instability in business, reduction in sales and productivity, poor succession planning, polygamous nature of marriages, difficulty in sourcing for funds and gender preference are joint predictors of business continuity in event intestate death which is evident in the result where R2 =.954;(F 6, 26)= 89.644; (P < 0.01). The individual beta co-efficient, t- statistics and significance of each variable revealed that gender preference (.735; 7.031; .000) and poor succession plan (.402; 2.840; .009) have significant positive effect on business continuity; while reduction in sales and productivity (-.059; -.335; .740) and difficulty in sourcing for funds (-.217; -1.367; .188) have negative effect; other variables also have positive relationship but they are not significant. It is therefore concluded that business continuity after the exit of the entrepreneur is highly dependent on the rebuilding of confidence on Wills administration in ondo state Nigeria, proper succession planning and elimination of gender preferences.

Keywords: intestacy, business continuity, entrepreneurs, will, succession planning

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Authors: Veronika Antoniou, Rene Carraz, Yiorgos Hadjichristou

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The Green Urban Lab took the form of public installations that were placed at various locations in four cities in Cyprus. These installations - through which a series of events, activities, workshops and research took place - were the main tools in regenerating a series of urban public spaces in Cyprus. The purpose of this project was to identify issues and opportunities related to public space and to offer guidelines on how design and participatory democracy improvements could strengthen civil society, while raising the quality of the urban public scene. Giant inflatable structures were injected in important urban fragments in order to accommodate series of events. The design and playful installation generated a wide community engagement. The fluid presence of the installations acted as a catalyst for social interaction. They were accessed and viewed effortlessly and surprisingly, creating opportunities to rediscover public spaces.

Keywords: bottom-up initiatives, creativity, public space, social innovation, urban environments

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Authors: Aminu Fagge Muhammad

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The digital economy is fast becoming the most innovative and widest reaching economy in the world, especially in developing countries. The paper aimed at examining role of digital economy in the emerging countries like Nigeria. The methodology used in the study is Business Model Perspective: lying between the process and structural perspectives, bring in the idea of the new business models that are being enabled e.g. e-business or e-commerce. The paper concluded that, the policy objectives and measures, and processes and structures necessary to enhance digital economy growth and its contribution to socio-economic development. The finding reveals that, digital infrastructure is in part incomplete, costly and poorly-performing in emerging economies like Nigeria. The wider digital ecosystem suffers a shortfall in human capabilities, weak financing, and poor governance. It is also found that, Growth in the digital economy is exacerbating digital exclusion, inequality, adverse incorporation and other digital harms. It is recommended that, government in partnership with private sector should build strong local infrastructure to enable broadband availability and accessibility and to create an enabling environment for strong competition in the telecom and technology ecosystem.

Keywords: Digital Economy, Emerging Countries, Business Model , Nigeria

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Authors: Kashif Laeeq, Zubair A. Shaikh

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The paradigm of education is drastically changing from conventional to e-learning model. Due to ease of learning with various other benefits, several educational institutions are adopting the e-learning models. Some institutions are still willing to transform their educational system on to e-learning, but due to limited resources, they are still compromising on the old traditional system. The cloud computing could be one of the best solutions to overcome this problem by providing hardware, software, and infrastructure resources with cost efficient manner. The adoption of cloud computing in education will bring revolution in this paradigm. This paper introduces various positive features of e-learning and presents a way how cloud computing technology can be provisioned e-learning model. This paper also investigates the numerous challenges and opportunities that would be observed in cloud computing adoption in e-learning domain. The concept and knowledge present in this paper may create a new direction of research in the domain of cloud-based e-learning.

Keywords: cloud-based e-learning, e-learning, cloud computing application, smart learning

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Authors: Jeonghwan Jeon

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Recently, the industry and academia have been planning development through industry/university cooperation (IUC), and the government has been promoting alternative methods to achieve successful IUC. Representatively, business cultivation involves the lead university (regarding IUC), research and development (R&D), company support, professional manpower cultivation, and marketing, etc., and the scale of support expands every year. Research is performed by many academic researchers to achieve IUC and although satisfaction of their results is high, expectations are not being met and study of the main factor is insufficient. Therefore, this research improves on theirs by analysing the main factors influencing their satisfaction. Each factor is analysed by AHP, and portfolio analysis is performed on the importance and current satisfaction level. This will help improve satisfaction of business participants and ensure effective IUC in the future.

Keywords: industry/university cooperation, satisfaction, portfolio analysis, business participant

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Authors: Balram Bhushan

Abstract:

The emergence of social entrepreneurship challenges the strict categorization of not-for-profit, for-profit and hybrid organizations. Although the blurring of boundaries helps social entrepreneurial organizations (SEOs) make better use of emerging opportunities, it poses a significant challenge while mobilizing money from different sources. Additionally, for monetary resources, the legal framework of the host country may further complicate the issue by imposing strict accounting standards. Under such circumstances, the resource providers fail to recognize the suitable engagement strategy with the SEO of their choice. Based on the process of value creation and value capture, this paper develops a guiding framework for resource providers to design an appropriate mix of engagement with the identified SEOs. Essentially, social entrepreneurship creates value at the societal level, but value capture is a characteristic of an organization. Additionally, SEOs prefer value creation over value capture. The paper argued that the nature of the relationship between value creation and value capture determines the extent of blurred boundaries of the organization. Accordingly, synergistic, antagonistic and sequential relationships were proposed between value capture and value creation. When value creation is synergistically associated with value creation, the preferred nature of such action falls within the nature of for-profit organizations within the strictest legal framework. Banks offering micro-loans are good examples of this category. Opposite to this, the antagonist relationship between value creation and value capture, where value capture opportunities are sacrificed for value creation, dictates non-profit organizational structure. Examples of this category include non-government organizations and charity organizations. Finally, the sequential relationship between value capture opportunities is followed for value creation opportunities and guides the action closer to the hybrid structure. Examples of this category include organizations where a non-for-profit unit controls for-profit units of the organization either legally or structurally. As an SEO may attempt to utilize multiple entrepreneurial opportunities falling across any of the three relationships between value creation and value capture, the resource providers need to evaluate an appropriate mix of these relationships before designing their engagement strategies. The paper suggests three guiding principles for the engagement strategy. First, the extent of investment should be proportional to the synergistic relationship between value capture and value creation. Second, the subsidized support should be proportional to the sequential relationship. Finally, the funding (charity contribution) should be proportional to the antagonistic relationship. Finally, the resource providers are needed to keep a close watch on the evolving relationship between value creation and value capture for introducing appropriate changes in their engagement strategy.

Keywords: social entrepreneurship, value creation, value capture, entrepreneurial opportunity

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Pornnapat Berndt

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to explore challenge and opportunities to establish cultural learning center of Wayang Artwork for creative tourism within the house of Mr. Sa-ngat Jaiprom. To accomplish the goals and objectives, qualitative research will be applied. The research instruments used are observation, questionnaires (pretest and posttest), basic interviews, in-depth interviews and interviewed of key local informants. The study also uses both primary data and secondary data. From research result, it is revealed that the sample groups more realized valuable heritage value after learning about the history of wayang and the way to practices. The sample group indicated that it not too difficult for them to carving Wayang artwork as they have knowledge about Thai art before. However, in their opinion, they comment that it might difficult for others who have no basic knowledge to learn to carve wayang artwork.

Keywords: creative tourism, local community, cultural learning center, wayang artwork  

Procedia PDF Downloads 358

Authors: Achim Kampker, Heiner H. Heimes, Mathias Ordung, Christoph Lienemann, Ansgar Hollah, Nemanja Sarovic

Abstract:

Electric cars with their fast innovation cycles and their disruptive character offer a high degree of freedom regarding innovative design for remanufacturing. Remanufacturing increases not only the resource but also the economic efficiency by a prolonged product life time. The reduced power train wear of electric cars combined with high manufacturing costs for batteries allow new business models and even second life applications. Modular and intermountable designed battery packs enable the replacement of defective or outdated battery cells, allow additional cost savings and a prolongation of life time. This paper discusses opportunities for future remanufacturing value chains of electric cars and their battery components and how to address their potentials with elaborate designs. Based on a brief overview of implemented remanufacturing structures in different industries, opportunities of transferability are evaluated. In addition to an analysis of current and upcoming challenges, promising perspectives for a sustainable electric car circular economy enabled by design for remanufacturing are deduced. Two mathematical models describe the feasibility of pursuing a circular economy of lithium ion batteries and evaluate remanufacturing in terms of sustainability and economic efficiency. Taking into consideration not only labor and material cost but also capital costs for equipment and factory facilities to support the remanufacturing process, cost benefit analysis prognosticate that a remanufacturing battery can be produced more cost-efficiently. The ecological benefits were calculated on a broad database from different research projects which focus on the recycling, the second use and the assembly of lithium ion batteries. The results of this calculations show a significant improvement by remanufacturing in all relevant factors especially in the consumption of resources and greenhouse warming potential. Exemplarily suitable design guidelines for future remanufacturing lithium ion batteries, which consider modularity, interfaces and disassembly, are used to illustrate the findings. For one guideline, potential cost improvements were calculated and upcoming challenges are pointed out.

Keywords: circular economy, electric mobility, lithium ion batteries, remanufacturing

Procedia PDF Downloads 352

Authors: Ari Alamäki, Timo Kaski

Abstract:

The value of co-creation has gained much attention in sales research, but less is known about how salespeople and customers interact in the authentic business to business (B2B) sales meetings. The study presented in this paper empirically contributes to existing research by presenting authentic B2B sales meetings that were video recorded and analyzed using observation and qualitative content analysis methods. This paper aims to study key elements of successful sales interactions between salespeople and customers/buyers. This study points out that salespeople are selling value rather than the products or services themselves, which are only enablers in realizing business benefits. Therefore, our findings suggest that promoting and easing open discourse is an essential part of a successful sales encounter. A better understanding of how salespeople and customers successfully interact would help salespeople to develop their interpersonal sales skills.

Keywords: personal selling, relationship, sales management, value co-creation

Procedia PDF Downloads 387

Authors: Kartina Sury Kariman

Abstract:

Brand-to-customer (B2C) engagement has been well established through the traditional platform such as direct sales, advertising, customer service center, customer hotline as well as brand usage experiences. Increasingly, interest to B2C has evolved to include customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction analysis aligned with the vast growth of web 2.0. Hence, discussion on C2C interaction and brand strategy have captured social media as it enables brands and C2C interaction to be connected in various ways, providing opportunities for marketers to shape their brand engagement strategy while reaching C2C as the targeted outcomes. The objective here is to provide a preliminary review of C2C interaction consisting the antecedents and consequences while highlighting areas of research interest within the context from marketers perspective and the business outcomes. This paper discusses how C2C interaction defines marketers’ brand and communication strategy and how social media trend shapes the strategy when promoting the awareness of life insurance industry and educating the target market.

Keywords: social media, brand engagement, customer interaction, customer engagement, brand strategy, life insurance

Procedia PDF Downloads 453