Search results for: entrepreneurial attitude

Authors: Jo Rhodes, Peter Lok, Zahra Sadeghinejad

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The aim of this study is to determine the impact of metacognition on top management team members and firm performance based on full team integration. A survey of 1500 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) was initiated and 140 firms were obtained in this study (with response rate of 9%). The result showed that different metacognitive abilities of managers [knowledge and experience] could enhance team decision-making and problem solving, resulting in greater firm performance. This is a significant finding for SMEs because these organisations have small teams with owner leadership and entrepreneurial orientation.

Keywords: metacognition, behavioural integration, top management team (TMT), performance

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Authors: Marzieh Nojomi, Azadeh Mottaghi, Arghavan Haj-Sheykholeslami, Narjes Khalili, Arash Tehrani Banihashemi

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Background and objectives: Domestic violence is a global problem with severe consequences throughout the life of the victims. Iran’s Ministry of Health has launched an intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention program, integrated in the primary health care services since 2016. The present study is a part of this national program’s evaluation. In this section, we aimed to examine spousal abuse victims’ knowledge and attitude towards domestic violence before and after receivingthese services. Methods: To assess the knowledge and attitudes of victims, a questionnaire designed by Ahmadzadand colleagues in 2013 was used. This questionnaire includes 15 questions regarding knowledge in the fields of definition, epidemiology, and effects on children, outcomes, and prevention of domestic violence. To assess the attitudes, this questionnaire has 10 questions regarding the attitudes toward the causes, effects, and legal or protective support services of domestic violence. To assess the satisfaction and the effect of the program on prevention or reduction of spousal violence episodes, two more questions were also added. Since domestic violence prevalence differs in different parts of the country, we chose nine areas with the highest, the lowest, and moderate prevalence of IPVfor the study. The link to final electronic version of the questionnaire was sent to the randomly selected public rural or urban health centers in the nine chosen areas. Since the study had to be completed in one month, we used newly identified victims as pre-intervention group and people who had at least received one related service from the program (like psychiatric consultation, education about safety measures, supporting organizations and etc.) during the previous year, as our post- intervention group. Results: A hundred and ninety-two newly identified IPV victims and 267 victims who had at least received one related program service during the previous year entered the study. All of the victims were female. Basic characteristics of the two groups, including age, education, occupation, addiction, spouses’ age, spouses’ addiction, duration of the current marriage, and number of children, were not statistically different. In knowledge questions, post- intervention group had statistically better scores in the fields of domestic violence outcomes and its effects on children; however, in the remaining areas, the scores of both groups were similar. The only significant difference in the attitude across the two groups was in the field of legal or protective support services. From the 267 women who had ever received a service from the program, 91.8% were satisfied with the services, and 74% reported a decrease in the number of violent episodes. Conclusion: National IPV prevention program integrated in the primary health care services in Iran is effective in improving the knowledge of victims about domestic violence outcomes and its effects on children. Improving the attitude and knowledge of domestic violence victims about its causes and preventive measures needs more effective interventions. This program can reduce the number of IPV episodes between the spouses, and satisfaction among the service users is high.

Keywords: intimate partner violence, assessment, health services, efficacy

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Authors: Rafael Santos Fischer, Aloísio Leoni Schmid, Amanda Dalla-Bonna

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The life cycle analysis and the energy life cycle analysis are useful design support tools when sustainability becomes imperative. The final phase of buildings life cycle is probably the least known, on which less knowledge is available. In the Brazilian building industry, the lifespan of a building design rarely is treated as a definite design parameter. There is rather a common sense attitude to take any building demands as permanent, and to take for granted that buildings solutions are durable and solid. Housing, being a permanent issue in any society, presents a real challenge to the choice of a design lifespan. In Brazilian history, there was a contrast of the native solutions of collective, non-durable houses built by several nomadic tribes, and the stone and masonry buildings introduced by the sedentary Portuguese conquerors. Durable buildings are commonly associated with welfare. However, social dynamics makes traditional families of both parents and children be just one of several possible arrangements. In addition, a more liberal attitude towards family leads to an increase in the number of people living in alternative arrangements. Japan is an example of country where houses have been made intentionally ephemeral since the half of 20th century. The present article presents the development of a flexible housing design solution on the basis of the Design Science Research approach. A comparison in terms of energy life cycle shows how flexibility and dematerialization may point at a feasible future for housing policies in Brazil.

Keywords: adaptability, adaptable building, embodied energy, life cyclce analysis, social housing

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Authors: Shreya Mishra, Manosi Chaudhuri, Ajoy K. Dey

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Workplace bullying is a social phenomenon which has proved to be hazardous not only for employees’ well-being but also organizations. Despite being prevalent across geographical boundaries, Indian organizations have failed to acknowledge its vices. This paper aims to understand targets’ perception on what makes bullying nurture in organizations. The paper suggests that person-led Indian work settings give birth to bullying behavior as it lacks professional acumen and systems. An analysis of 13 in-depth interviews of employees from the organized sector suggests that organizations, where decision making lies with single individual, may be a hub of hostile behavior due to the culture which promotes ‘yesmanship’, ‘authoritarianism’ and/or blind belief of leaders on certain set of employees. The study used constructivist grounded theory approach, and the data was analyzed using R Based Qualitative Data Analysis (RQDA) software. Respondents reported that bullying behavior is taken lightly by the management with 'just ignore it' attitude. According to the respondents, the behavior prolong as the perpetrator have a direct approach to the top authority. The study concludes that person-led organizations may create a family-like environment which is favored by employees; however, authoritative leaders are unable to gain the trust of employees. Also, employees who are close to the leader may either be a perpetrator or a target of bullying. It is recommended that leaders in such organizations need to acknowledge the presence of bullying which affects an employees’ commitment towards their job and/or organization. They need to have an assertive check on individuals who hide behind ‘yesman’ attitude. This may help employees feel safe in such work settings.

Keywords: constructivist grounded theory, person-led organization, RQDA, workplace bullying

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Authors: Apityan Tume, Sefater Gbashi, Stephanie Dillon

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The present study was aimed at investigating the weaning knowledge, attitudes and practices among mothers with infants in Benue and Zamfara States, Nigeria. A questionnaire consisting of both open and close-ended questions was adopted for this study. Socio-demographic information was captured with this questionnaire. This is in addition to capturing data linked to respondents' knowledge and attitude to weaning and the weaning practice itself. 400 questionnaires were distributed, and 329 was filled and returned. Results obtained from the study revealed that the mother's location; mother's level of education, her occupation, her age; and her level of education would have an effect on her practice of and attitude to weaning. Essentially, mothers based in Zamfara who were full-time housewives, tailor or trader were more likely to start weaning at a later age than mothers who have the same occupation but based in Benue. Furthermore, the results revealed mothers who were uneducated and based in Zamfara were more likely to wean their babies later than the uneducated mothers, mothers educated to primary, secondary or tertiary level based in Benue. It was also evident that mothers who were low-income earners and based in Zamfara were more likely to start weaning later than the low, average or high-income earning mothers in Benue. Moreover, younger mothers in Zamfara age 20-25 years were more likely to start weaning later than mothers of other age groups. In overall, mothers had a good understanding of best practices with regards to weaning. Notwithstanding, mothers could be further encouraged and educated about the advantages of exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices as well as the benefits therein to enhance the healthy growth of the children.

Keywords: breastfeeding, complementary feeding, socio-demographic, weaning

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Authors: Adedoyin Opeyemi Osokoya

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The study assesses the influence of social media on perceived learning outcome of agricultural science students in tertiary institutions in Oyo state, Nigeria. The four-stage sampling procedure was used to select participants. All students in the seven tertiary institutions that offer agriculture science as a course of study in Oyo State was the population. A university, a college of agriculture and a college of education were sampled, and a department from each was randomly selected. Twenty percent of the students’ population in the respective selected department gave a sample size of 165. Questionnaire was used to collect information on respondents’ personal characteristics and information related to access to social media. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square, correlation, and multiple regression at the 0.05 confidence level. Age and household size were 21.13 ± 2.64 years and 6 ± 2.1 persons respectively. All respondents had access to social media, majority (86.1%) owned Android phone, 57.6% and 52.7% use social media for course work and entertainment respectively, while the commonly visited sites were WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, Opera mini. Over half (53.9%) had an unfavourable attitude towards the use of social media for learning; benefits of the use of social media for learning was high (56.4%). Removal of information barrier created by distance (x̄=1.58) was the most derived benefit, while inadequate power supply (x̄=2.36), was the most severe constraints. Age (β=0.23), sex (β=0.37), ownership of Android phone (β=-1.29), attitude (β=0.37), constraints (β =-0.26) and use of social media (β=0.23) were significant predictors of influence on perceived learning outcomes.

Keywords: use of social media, agricultural science students, undergraduates of tertiary institutions, Oyo State of Nigeria

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Authors: Gayan Mapitiya

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Maintaining good occupational health and safety (OHS) performance is significant at the coalface, especially in industries such as mining, power, and construction. Coalface workers are vulnerable to high OHS risks such as working at heights, working with mobile plants and vehicles, working with underground and above ground services, chemical emissions, radiation hazards and explosions at everyday work. To improve OHS performance of workers, OHS key performance indicators (KPIs) (for example, lost time injuries (LTI), serious injury frequency rate (SIFR), total reportable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) and number of near misses) are widely used by managers in making OHS business decisions such as investing in safety equipment and training programs. However, in many organizations, workers at the coalface hardly see any relevance or value addition of OHS KPIs to their everyday work. Therefore, the aim of the study was to understand why coalface workers perceive that OHS KPIs are not practically relevant to their jobs. Accordingly, this study was conducted as a qualitative case study focusing on a large electricity and gas firm in Australia. Semi-structured face to face interviews were conducted with selected coalface workers to gather data on their attitude towards OHS KPIs. The findings of the study revealed that workers at the coalface generally have no understanding of the purpose of KPIs, the meaning of each KPI, origin of KPIs, and how KPIs are correlated to organizational performance. Indeed, KPIs are perceived as ‘meaningless obstacles’ imposed on workers by managers without a rationale. It is recommended to engage coalface workers (a fair number of representatives) in both KPIs setting and revising processes while maintaining a continuous dialogue between workers and managers in regards OHS KPIs.

Keywords: KPIs, coalface, OHS risks, case-study

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Authors: Zuwaira Abdullahi

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In this increasing changing world, it is important to be aware of the needs of clients when it comes to race and ethnic diversities. These diversities create difficulties for multicultural counselling: the counsellor’s own culture, attitudes, and theoretical perspective; the client's culture; and the multiplicity of variables comprising an individual's identity. This paper examines the level of realization, sensitization and attitude of counsellors towards individuals that come from different cultural, social and economic background.

Keywords: multicultural, diversities, counselling, needs

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Authors: Frederick Nyakudya

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In this paper, we examine the relationship between human capital, personal wealth and social capital to explain the differential start-up rates between female and male entrepreneurs. Since our dependent variable is dichotomous, we examine the determinants of these using a maximum likelihood logit estimator. We used the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database covering the period 2006 to 2009 with 421 usable cases drawn from drawn from the Lower Layer Super Output Areas in the East Midlands in the United Kingdom. we found evidence that indicates that a female positively moderate the positive relationships between indicators of human capital, personal wealth and social capital with start-up activity. The findings have implications for programs, policies, and practices to encourage more females to engage in start-up activity.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, star-up, gender, GEM

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Authors: Theng Theng Ong

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This study adopts a multidisciplinary method by combining the corpus-based discourse analysis study and language attitude study to explore the construction of Malaysia airline tragedies: MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 in the selected Malaysian and United Kingdom (UK) online news. The study aims to determine the ways in which Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 are linguistically defined and constructed in terms of keyword and collocation. The study also seeks to identify the types of discourse that are presented in the new articles. The differences or similarities in terms of keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media will also be examined. Finally, the language attitude study will be carried out to examine the Malaysia and UK university students’ attitudes toward the keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501. The analysis is divided into two parts with the first part focusing on corpus-based discourse analysis on the media text. The second part of the study is to investigate Malaysians and UK news readers’ attitudes towards the online news being reported by the Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to the Airline tragedies. The main findings of corpus-based discourse analysis are essential in designing the questions in the questionnaires and interview and therefore led to the identification of the attitudes among Malaysian and UK news. This study adopts a multidisciplinary method by combining the corpus-based discourse analysis study and language attitude study to explore the construction of Malaysia airline tragedies: MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 in the selected Malaysian and United Kingdom (UK) online news. The study aims to determine the ways in which Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 are linguistically defined and constructed in terms of keyword and collocation. The study also seeks to identify the types of discourse that are presented in the new articles. The differences or similarities in terms of keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media will also be examined. Finally, the language attitude study will be carried out to examine the Malaysia and UK university students’ attitudes toward the keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501. The analysis is divided into two parts with the first part focusing on corpus-based discourse analysis on the media text. The second part of the study is to investigate Malaysians and UK news readers’ attitudes towards the online news being reported by the Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to the Airline tragedies. The main findings of corpus-based discourse analysis are essential in designing the questions in the questionnaires and interview and therefore led to the identification of the attitudes among Malaysian and UK news.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, news media, tragedies study

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Authors: Shailendra Kumar Mishra

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In this paper, we focus on how contextual factors like the physical presence of other perceivers and then developed induced emotional empathy towards a person with disabilities may reduce the automatic negative stereotypes and then response towards that person. We demonstrated in study 1 that negative attitude based on negative stereotypes assessed on ATDP-test questionnaires on five points Linkert-scale are significantly less negative when participants were tested with a group of perceivers and then tested alone separately by applying 3 (positive, indifferent, and negative attitude levels) X 2 (physical presence condition and alone) factorial design of ANOVA test. In the second study, we demonstrate, by applying regression analysis, in the presence of other perceivers, whether in a small group, participants showed more induced emotional empathy through stronger prosociality towards a high distress target like a person with disabilities in comparison of that of other stigmatized persons such as racial biased or gender-biased people. Thus results show that automatic affective response in the form of induced emotional empathy in perceiver and contextual factors like the presence of other perceivers automatically activate stronger prosocial norms and egalitarian goals towards physically challenged persons in comparison to other stigmatized persons like racial or gender-biased people. This leads to less negative attitudes and behaviour towards a person with disabilities.

Keywords: contextual factors, high distress target, induced emotional empathy, stronger prosociality

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Authors: Imam Taufiqurrahman, Anugrah Adiwilaga, Egi Hidayat, Bambang Riyanto Trilaksono

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Autonomous Underwater Vehicle glider is one of the renewal of underwater vehicles. This vehicle is one of the autonomous underwater vehicles that are being developed in Indonesia. Glide ability is obtained by controlling the buoyancy and attitude of the vehicle using the movers within the vehicle. The glider motion mechanism is expected to provide energy resistance from autonomous underwater vehicles so as to increase the cruising range of rides while performing missions. The control system on the vehicle consists of three parts: controlling the attitude of the pitch, the buoyancy engine controller and the yaw controller. The buoyancy and pitch controls on the vehicle are sequentially referring to the finite state machine with pitch angle and depth of diving inputs to obtain a gliding cycle. While the yaw control is done through the rudder for the needs of the guide system. This research is focused on design and implementation of control system of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle glider based on PID anti-windup. The control system is implemented on an ARM TS-7250-V2 device along with a mathematical model of the vehicle in MATLAB using the hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) method. The TS-7250-V2 is chosen because it complies industry standards, has high computing capability, minimal power consumption. The results show that the control system in HILS process can form glide cycle with depth and angle of operation as desired. In the implementation using half control and full control mode, from the experiment can be concluded in full control mode more precision when tracking the reference. While half control mode is considered more efficient in carrying out the mission.

Keywords: control system, PID, underwater glider, marine robotics

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Authors: Abdulmjeid Aljerawi

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This study aimed to investigate the students' attitudes towards the use of social networking in education. Due to the nature of the study, and on the basis of its problem, objectives, and questions, the researcher used the descriptive approach. An appropriate questionnaire was prepared and validity and reliability were ensured. The questionnaire was then applied to the study sample of 434 students from King Saud University.

Keywords: social networks, education, learning, students

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Authors: Ghiwa Dandach

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By challenging the anti-failure bias and contributing to the theoretical territory of the attribution theory, this thesis develops a comprehensive process for entrepreneurial learning from failure. The practical implication of the findings suggests assisting entrepreneurs (current, failing, and nascent) in effectively anticipating and reflecting upon failure. Additionally, the process is suggested to enhance the level of institutional and private (accelerators and financers) support provided to entrepreneurs, the implications of which may improve future opportunities for entrepreneurial success. Henceforth, exploring learning from failure is argued to impact the potential survival of future ventures, subsequently revitalizing the economic contribution of entrepreneurship. This learning process can be enhanced with the cognitive development of causal ascriptions for failure, which eventually impacts learning outcomes. However, the mechanism with which entrepreneurs make sense of failure, reflect on the journey, and transform experience into knowledge is still under-researched. More specifically, the cognitive process of failure attribution is under-explored, majorly in the context of developing economies, calling for a more insightful understanding on how entrepreneurs ascribe failure. Responding to the call for more thorough research in such cultural contexts, this study expands the understanding of the dimensions of failure attributions as perceived by entrepreneurs and the impact of these dimensions on learning outcomes in the Lebanese context. The research adopted the exploratory interpretivism paradigm and collected data from interviews with industry experts first, followed by narratives of entrepreneurs using the qualitative multimethod approach. The holistic and categorical content analysis of narratives, preceded by the thematic analysis of interviews, unveiled how entrepreneurs ascribe failure by developing minor and major dimensions of each failure attribution. The findings have also revealed how each dimension impacts the learning from failure when accompanied by emotional resilience. The thesis concludes that exploring in-depth the dimensions of failure attributions significantly determines the level of learning generated. They are moving beyond the simple categorisation of ascriptions as primary internal or external unveiled how learning may occur with each attribution at the individual, venture, and ecosystem levels. This has further accentuated that a major internal attribution of failure combined with a minor external attribution generated the highest levels of transformative and double-loop learning, emphasizing the role of personal blame and responsibility on enhancing learning outcomes.

Keywords: attribution, entrepreneurship, reflection, sense-making, emotions, learning outcomes, failure, exit

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Authors: Nonso Ochinanwata, Patrick Oseloka Ezepue

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This paper explores the process of creating and capturing born-global firm opportunities. It reviews the key constructs that underpin the establishment of born-global firms in sub-Saharan Africa. These include entrepreneurial orientation, resources and capabilities, collaboration, and contextual influences. The paper discusses how individuals and entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa can establish home-based born-global firms that seek early international markets from inception. The paper suggests that sub-Saharan African governments should make a favourable microeconomics policy that will enable entrepreneurs and firms to acquire some certain minimal resources and capabilities, in order to develop global products and services.

Keywords: born global-firms, collaboration, internationalisation, dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurship, sub-Saharan Africa

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Authors: Aditya Soni, Nimesh Parikh, R. A. Thakrar

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Background: A cross-sectional study looked to focus body image satisfaction, heretofore under investigated arena in our setting. This study additionally examined the relationship of body mass index, influence of media and self-esteem. Our second objective was to assess whether there was any relationship between body image dissatisfaction and gender. Methods: A cross-sectional study using body image satisfaction described in words was undertaken, which also explored relationship with body mass index (BMI), influence of media, self-esteem and other selected co-variables such as socio-demographic details, overall satisfaction in life, and particularly in academic/professional life, current health status using 5-item based Likert scale. Convenience sampling was used to select participants of both genders aged from 17 to 32 on a sample size of 303 participants. Results : The body image satisfaction had significant relationship with Body mass index (P<0.001), eating attitude (P<0.001), influence of media (P<0.001) and self-esteem (P<0.001). Students with low weight had a significantly higher prevalence of body image satisfaction while overweight students had a significantly higher prevalence of dissatisfaction (P<0.001). Females showed more concern about body image as compared to males. Conclusions: Generally, this study reveals that the eating attitude, influence of the media and self-esteem is significantly related to the body image. On an empowering note, this level needs to be saved for overall mental and sound advancement of people. Proactive preventive measures could be started in foundations on identity improvement, acknowledgement of self and individual contrasts while keeping up ideal weight and dynamic life style.

Keywords: body image, body mass index, media, self-esteem

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Authors: Chux Gervase Iwu, Simon Nsengimane

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Entrepreneurship stimulates socio-economic development in many countries, if not all. It creates jobs and decreases unemployment and inequality. There are other benefits that are accruable from entrepreneurship, namely the empowerment of women and the promotion of better livelihoods. Innovation has become a weapon for business competition, growth, and sustainability. Paradoxically, it is a threat to businesses because products can be duplicated; new products may decrease the market share of existing ones or delete them from the market. This creates a constant competitive environment that calls for updates, innovation, and the invention of new products and services. Thus, the importance of higher education in instilling a good entrepreneurial mindset in students has become even more critical. It can be argued that the business environment is under enormous pressure from several factors, including the fourth industrial revolution, which calls for the adoption and use of information and communication technology, which is the catalyst for many innovations and organisational changes. Therefore, it is crucial that higher education students are equipped with relevant knowledge and skills to respond effectively to the needs of the business environment and create a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem. In South Africa, entrepreneurship education or some form of it has been a privilege for economic and management fields of study, leaving behind other fields. Entrepreneurship should not be limited to business faculties but rather extended to other fields of study. This is perhaps the reason for low levels of entrepreneurship uptake among South African graduates if they are compared with the graduates in other countries. There may be other reasons for the low entrepreneurship uptake. Some of these have been documented in extant literature to include (1) not enough time was spent teaching entrepreneurship in the business faculties, (2) the skills components in the curricula are insufficient, and (3) the overall attitudes/mindsets necessary to establish and run sustainable enterprises seem absent. Therefore, four important areas are recognised as crucial for the effective implementation of entrepreneurship education: policy, private sector engagement, curriculum development, and teacher development. The purpose of this research is to better comprehend the views, aspirations, and expectations of students and faculty members to design an entrepreneurial teaching model for higher education institutions. A qualitative method will be used to conduct a purposive interview with undergraduate and graduate students in select higher institutions. Members of faculty will also be included in the sample as well as, where possible, two or more government personnel responsible for higher education policy development. At present, interpretative analysis is proposed for the analysis of the interviews with the support of Atlas Ti. It is hoped that an entrepreneurship education model in the South African context is realised through this study.

Keywords: entrepreneurship education, higher education institution, graduate unemployment, curriculum development

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Authors: Samira Boussema, Ben Hamed Salah

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Entrepreneurship was always considered to be the most appropriate remedy for various economies’ symptoms. It is presented as a complex process that faces several barriers thereby inhibiting a project’s implementation phase. In fact, after a careful review of the literature, we noticed that empirical researches on reasons behind non-developing entrepreneurial projects are very rare, suggesting a lack in modeling the process in general and the pre-start phase in particular. Therefore, in this study we try to identify the main environmental barriers to developing business projects in Tunisia through the study of a representative sample of undeveloped projects. To this end, we used a quantitative approach which allowed us to examine the various barriers encountered by young entrepreneurs during their projects’ implementation. Indeed, by modeling the phenomenon we found that these managers face barriers of legal, financial, educational and government support dimensions.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, environmental barriers, non-implementation of projects, structural modeling

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Authors: Hanh Thi My Nguyen

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The purpose of this research is to examine the experiences of parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing in supporting their children to access education in Vietnam. Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children to gain full access to education. It was widely reported that parents of those children confronted a range of problems to support their children to access education. To author’s best knowledge, there has been a lack of research exploring the experiences of those parents in literature. This research examines factors affecting those parents in supporting their children to access education. To conduct the study, qualitative approach using a phenomenological research design was chosen to explore the central phenomena. Ten parents of children who were diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing and aged 6-9 years were recruited through the support of the Association of Parents of Children with Hearing Impairment. Participants were interviewed via telephone with a mix of open and closed questions; interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. The research results show that there are nine main factors that affected the parents in this study in making decisions relating to education for their children including: lack of information resources, perspectives of those parents on communication approaches, the families’ financial capacity, the psychological impact on the participants after their children’ diagnosis, the attitude of family members, attitude of school administrators, lack of local schools and qualified teachers, and current education system for the deaf in Vietnam. Apart from those factors, the lack of knowledge of the participants’ partners about deaf education and the partners’ employment are barriers to educational access and successful communication with their child.

Keywords: access to education, deaf, hard of hearing, parents experience

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Authors: Dhaksha Vivekanandan

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DeFi is a network that avoids reliance on financial intermediaries through its peer-to-peer financial network. DeFi operates outside of government control; hence it is important for us to understand its impacts. This study employs a literature review to understand DeFi and its emergence, as well as its implications on transparency, social impact, and regulation. Further, 3 case studies are analysed within the context of these categories. DeFi’s provision of increased transparency poses environmental and storage costs and can lead to user privacy being endangered. DeFi allows for the provision of entrepreneurial incentives and protection against monetary censorship and capital control. Despite DeFi's transparency issues and volatility costs, it has huge potential to reduce poverty; however, regulation surrounding DeFi still requires further tightening by governments.

Keywords: DeFi, transparency, regulation, social impact

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Authors: Nnedum Obiajuru Anthony Ugochukwu, Emmanuel Ezechukwu

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This study was designed to investigate into Nigerian consumers’ preference for foreign products. Studies have discovered that Nigerian consumers like their counterparts in most developing countries have an insatiable preference for foreign products especially those from more technologically advanced countries (Okechukwu & Onyema, 1999; Agbonifoh & Elimimian, 1999). This attitude of the Nigerian consumers has resulted in many problems which challenge the industrial sector in Nigeria – lack of patronage resulting to, non-performing firms, endemic unemployment, underdeveloped industries and general lack of industrial growth. The major objective of this study is to investigate the reasons behind such attitude, and the factors that drive consumer preference for foreign products among Nigerian consumers. The study investigated specifically the psychological dimensions (personal values, self-concept, lifestyle and prestige), and demographic factors (age, gender, level of education, income and occupation) that impact consumers’ preference for imported products in Nigeria. The study was cross-sectional and used survey method to collect data from one hundred and eighty-six respondents among postgraduate and part-time students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and consumers from Awka metropolis. The results of the study indicated that all the psychological variables used to measure consumer preference for foreign products were largely positive and significant determinants of consumer preference for foreign products. Demographic variables of age, gender, and income were not significant determinants of preference for foreign products. The results of the study, however, showed that level of education and occupation has the significant effect on consumer preference for foreign products.

Keywords: country of origin, xenocentrism, Nigeria, ethnocentrism, foreign products, consumer preference

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Authors: Anupriya Sharma, Sapna Narula

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Over the past decade, sustainability has gone mainstream as more people are worried about environment-related issues than ever before. These issues are of even more concern for industries which leave a significant impact on the environment. Following these ecological issues, corporates are beginning to comprehend the impact on their business. Many such initiatives have been made to address these emerging issues in the consumer-driven textile industry. Demand from customers, local communities, government regulations, etc. are considered some of the major factors affecting environmental decision-making. Research also shows that motivations to go green are inevitably determined by the way top managers perceive environmental issues as managers personal values and ethical commitment act as a motivating factor towards corporate social responsibility. Little empirical research has been conducted to examine the relationship between top managers’ personal environmental attitudes and corporate environmental behaviors for the textile industry in the Indian context. The primary purpose of this study is to determine the current state of environmental management in textile industry and whether the attitude of textile firms’ top managers is significantly related to firm’s response to environmental issues and their perceived benefits of environmental management. To achieve the aforesaid objectives of the study, authors used structured questionnaire based on literature review. The questionnaire consisted of six sections with a total length of eight pages. The first section was based on background information on the position of the respondents in the organization, annual turnover, year of firm’s establishment and so on. The other five sections of the questionnaire were based upon (drivers, attitude, and awareness, sustainable business practices, barriers to implementation and benefits achieved). To test the questionnaire, a pretest was conducted with the professionals working in corporate sustainability and had knowledge about the textile industry and was then mailed to various stakeholders involved in textile production thereby covering firms top manufacturing officers, EHS managers, textile engineers, HR personnel and R&D managers. The results of the study showed that most of the textile firms were implementing some type of environmental management practice, even though the magnitude of firm’s involvement in environmental management practices varied. The results also show that textile firms with a higher level of involvement in environmental management were more involved in the process driven technical environmental practices. It also identified that firm’s top managers environmental attitudes were correlated with perceived advantages of environmental management as textile firm’s top managers are the ones who possess managerial discretion on formulating and deciding business policies such as environmental initiatives.

Keywords: attitude and awareness, Environmental management, sustainability, textile industry

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Authors: Paridhi Agarwal, Kusum M. George

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A cynic is someone upset about the future prematurely. In today’s highly competitive workplace, cynicism has become a prominent concern. It is a controversial issue that brings about psychological disengagement and antagonism towards the management. In organizational sciences, scientific investigation of this negative work behavior is lacking, and so there is no universal definition so far. But most commonly, Organizational Cynicism (OC) has been characterized as an unfavorable attitude towards the organization, encompassing a belief that the organization has low integrity, negative affect, and depreciative behavioral tendencies. Given its prevalence, this study aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on OC. This research examines the predictability of OC from two factors- Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and Emotional Intelligence (EI) among millennials in India as well as identify contradictions in today’s scenario. Standardized Organizational Cynicism Scale comprising of three components, Perceived Organizational Support Questionnaire and Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Test are used on a convenient sample of 104 corporate sector employees in the age range 22-35 years. Correlation test elucidated the relationships, and regression analysis revealed the level of influence of the above variables on OC. Surprisingly, Emotional-Social Awareness had stronger relationships with all dimensions of OC in males as compared to females. It was also seen that EI and POS, together with predicted OC, but separately, only POS accounted for variability in OC, and this impact was much stronger for males, implying that there are other important factors that make females cynical at work. Thus, the over-emphasis on EI training for the millennial generation has also been challenged in this study. It can be said that there are avertible preconditions to the negative attitude- OC. This research has important managerial implications in areas of recruitment, training, and organizational environment.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, millennials, organizational cynicism, perceived organizational support.

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Authors: Getnet Gedefaw, Fentanesh Endalew, Bitewush Azmeraw, Bethelhem Walelign, Eyob Shitie

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Introduction: The issue of menstrual hygiene is often overlooked and has not been sufficiently addressed in the fields of reproductive health in low and middle-income countries. Inadequate menstrual hygiene practices can increase the risk of various infectious and chronic obstetric and gynaecological complications for girls and adolescents. Hence, this study seeks to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to menstrual hygiene, along with the factors influencing them, among high school students. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted involving a total of 423 study subjects. A systematic random sampling technique was utilized. Data was entered and analyzed through Epi data 3.1 and SPSS 22, respectively. Both univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were employed. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: This study revealed that 365(89.2%), 200(48.9%) and 196(47.9%) of the study participants have good knowledge, good practice, and good attitudes about menstrual hygiene, respectively. Being higher grade students (grade 10) [AOR=3.96, 95% CI =2.0-7.8] and having good practice of menstrual hygiene (AOR=2.52, 95% CI= 1.26-5) had a positive association with menstrual hygiene knowledge. Whereas maternal education level (AOR=1.86, 95% CI=1.18-2.9) and being a grade 10 student (AOR=2.3, 95% CI=1.48-3.56) were associated factors for practising menstrual hygiene. Additionally, being higher grade students (AOR=1.9, 95% CI=1.2-2.8), age ≥18 years (AOR=1.67, 95% CI=1.09-2.55) were statistically and positively associated with the attitude of menstrual hygiene. Conclusion: The study findings indicated that the knowledge of the study participants regarding menstrual hygiene was high, while their attitudes and practices towards menstrual hygiene were low. It is suggested that raising awareness among reproductive health groups and educating their families and parents could potentially lead to a positive change in their poor practices and attitudes towards menstrual hygiene.

Keywords: menstrual hygiene, menstruation, students, reproductive health

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Authors: Vishal D. Pandya

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A great deal of perceptible change has been taking place in the way our institutions of higher learning are being managed in India today. It is believed that managers, whose intuition proves to be accurate, often tend to be the most successful, and this is what makes them almost like entrepreneurs. A certain entrepreneurial spirit is what is expected and requires a degree of insight of the manager to be successful depending upon the situational and more importantly, the heterogeneity as well as the socio-cultural aspect. Teachers in Higher Education have to play multiple roles to make sure that the Learning-Teaching process becomes effective in the real sense of the term. This paper makes an effort to take a close look at that, especially in the context of the management of English language teaching in Higher Education and, therefore, focuses on the management of English language teaching in higher education by understanding target situation analyses at the socio-cultural level.

Keywords: management, language teaching, English language teaching, higher education

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Authors: Dorothy Kagazi

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The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) remains one of the most crop-damaging species around Kibale National Park, western Uganda. Elephant crop raiding deprives communities of food and incomes, consequently impacting livelihoods, attitude, and support for conservation. It also attracts an aggressive reaction from local communities including the retaliatory killing of a species that is already endangered and listed under Appendix I of the Convention on Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES). In order to mitigate against elephant crop raiding and minimize conflict, a number of interventions were devised by the government of Uganda such as physical guarding, scare-shooting, excavation of trenches, growing of unpalatable crops and fire lighting all of which have over the years been implemented around the park. These generated varying degrees of effectiveness but largely never solved the problem of elephants crossing into communities to destroy food and shelter which had a negative effect onto sustainable tourism of the communities who often resorted to killing these animals and hence contributing the falling numbers of these animals. It was until government discovered that there are far more effective ways of deterring these animals from crossing to communities that it commissioned a study to deploy the African honeybee (Apis mellifera scutellata) as a deterrent against elephant crop raiding and income enhancement for local people around the park. These efforts led to a number of projects around Kibale National Park where communities were facilitated to keep bees for human-elephant conflict mitigation and rural income enhancement through the sale of honey. These projects have registered tremendous success in reducing crop damage, enhance rural incomes, influence positive attitude change and ultimately secure community support for elephant and park conservation which is a clear manifestation of sustainable tourism development in the area. To address the issue of sustainability, the project was aligned with four major objectives that contributed to the overall goal of maintaining the areas around the parks and the national park itself in such a manner that it remains viable over an infinite period. Among these included determining deterrence effects of bees against elephant crop raiding, assessing the contribution of beekeeping towards rural income enhancement, determining the impact of community involvement of park conservation and management among others. The project deployed 500 improved hives by placing them at specific and previously identified and mapped out elephant crossing points along the park boundary. A control site was established without any intervention to facilitate comparison of findings and data was collected on elephant raiding frequency, patterns, honey harvested, and community attitude towards the park. A socio-economic assessment was also undertaken to ascertain the contribution of beekeeping to incomes and attitude change. In conclusion, human-wildlife conflicts have disturbed conservation and sustainable tourism development efforts. Such success stories like the beekeeping strategy should hence be extensively discussed and widely shared as a conservation technique for sustainable tourism.

Keywords: bees, communities, conservation, elephants

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Authors: Dorcas I. Adeoye

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Disclosure experience of people living with HIV/AIDS has been a public health concern, it has also been attributed to effective way of limiting the spread of the disease. However, among working people living with HIV, it is a great issue that attracts several consequences, it is also a way of managing HIV and balancing their emotional, physical and social aspect of life. The economic, social and political aspect has been affected since the emergent of HIV. It is also not a medical problem that only needs a medical approach; it is a psychological problem that needs not to be ignored. Work attitude model and consequential theory were used to understanding the experience of disclosure or non-disclosure in the workplace. Work attitude model explains the job satisfaction and the organisational commitment of an employee that have effect on the decision and well-being in the workplace; it can also influence a decision to disclosure one’s health condition, however, consequential theory comes to play when a decision is being made, either to disclose or not, and that will attract consequences (either negative or positive) in which ever decision made. A phenomenological study was conducted among employed people that are infected with HIV/AIDS in a south-eastern region of Nigeria where unemployment rate is high. A one-to-one semi-structured interview was used to gather in-depth information about the experience of 20 working people living with HIV. Participants were recruited in a hospital and for some, hospital serves as their workplace. The outcome of the research shows that participants’ experiences vary. One thing that stood out and was found similar among all participants including participants that have disclosed, planning to disclose, or never intended to disclose, is that workplace is a place not to be trusted despite the positive outcomes disclosure could give in the workplace, and disclosure decision needs to be carefully taken. The study was concluded with recommendations that cover various aspects; however, clearer policies should be followed by all organisations to protect people living with HIV in the workplace.

Keywords: disclosure, employment, HIV/AIDS, Nigeria, workplace

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Authors: Mulu G. Gencha, Gebremedhin Simon, Menna Olango

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This study was conducted at Hawassa University (HwU) in the Southern Nation Nationalities Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) of Ethiopia. The prime concern of this study was to examine the writing performances of experimental and control group students, perception of experimental group students, and subject instructors. The course was blended learning (BL). Blended learning is a hybrid of classroom and on-line learning. Participants were eighty students from the School of Computer Science. Forty students attended the BL delivery involved using Face-to-Face (FTF) and campus-based online instruction. All instructors, fifty, of School of Language and Communication Studies along with 10 FGD members participated in the study. The experimental group went to the computer lab two times a week for four months, March-June, 2012, using the local area network (LAN), and software (MOODLE) writing program. On the other hand, the control group, forty students, took the FTF writing course five times a week for four months in similar academic calendar. The three instruments, the attitude questionnaire, tests and FGD were designed to identify views of students, instructors, and FGD participants on BL. At the end of the study, students’ final course scores were evaluated. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-tests. A statistically, significant difference was found between the FTF and BL (p<0.05). The analysis showed that the BL group was more successful than the conventional group. Besides, both instructors and students had positive attitude towards BL. The final section of the thesis showed the potential benefits and challenges, considering the pedagogical implications for the BL, and recommended possible avenues for further works.

Keywords: blended learning, computer attitudes, computer usefulness, computer liking, computer confidence, computer phobia

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Authors: O. Esmen, A. Beduk, K. Eryesil, F. Karacelebi

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Entrepreneurship is crucial for the economy of countries in development of economy, creating new jobs and increasing employment; therefore improving welfare and a modern point of view in the society. In the development of a country encouragement of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial qualities also play a paramount role. The increase in the world population results in more production, which brings excessive use of resources and inevitably shortage of them. In addition to this; development in technology, mismanagement in production and deficiency of waste system cause negative effects on the environmental ecological balance. Nowadays, with the societies getting awareness of environment while buying products and services, they prefer companies which are careful about environment. And as a result of this, ecoentrepreneurship gains importance. In this study; ecoentrepreneurship, which we think will gain more importance in the world and Turkey, is presented with the examples from the world and Turkey.

Keywords: ecoentrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, environmental awareness, development of economy

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Authors: Bhavna Malik

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The study is build on a theoretical framework that links characteristics of job, key attitudes and intention to leave, why faculty may be disengaging from institutional service. The literature indicates that job characteristics, key attitudes and intention to leave are very important for effective organizational functioning. In general, the literature showed that some job characteristics might be the antecedents of job satisfaction and the aggregate variable job scope was positively associated with organizational commitment, and these key attitudes predicted intention to leave negatively. The present study attempted to propose a new integrative model of the relationships among job characteristics, key attitudes, and intention to leave. The main purpose of the present study is to examine the effects of job characteristics on intention to leave. While examining the role of job characteristics, the mediating roles of key attitudes were taken into account in order to better understand how job characteristics affect the exhibition of intention to leave. The secondary purpose is to investigate the effects of job characteristics on key attitudes, and the effects of key attitudes on intention to leave. Job characteristics of remuneration, resource for professional activities, career opportunities were positively associated with the work attitude of job satisfaction. The aggregate job scope was positively associated with the work attitude of organizational commitment although no single job characteristic was significantly associated with organizational commitment. Commitment, however, did not significantly affect time spent on institutional service. Two job characteristics—time spent on research and time spent on teaching—were negatively associated with this behavior. In general, the literature showed that some job characteristics might be the antecedents of job satisfaction and the aggregate variable job scope was positively associated with organizational commitment, and these key attiudes predicted intention to leave negatively. In turn, job satisfaction and organizational commitment were negatively associated with the intention to leave. In addition to these, organizational commitment was negatively associated with the intention to leave. However, no significant direct association was found between job characteristics and intention to leave.

Keywords: Job Characteristics Model, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to leave

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