Search results for: civil society organizations

Authors: Soumya Rajan

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While delving into the heart of any organization, the structural pre-requisites which form the framework of its system, allures and sometimes invokes great interest. In an attempt to understand the ecosystem of Knowledge that existed in organizations with diverse ownership and legal blueprints, Cooperative Societies, which form a crucial part of the neo-liberal movement in India, was studied. The exploration surprisingly led to the re-designing of at least a set of premises of the researcher on the drivers of engagement in an otherwise structured trade environment. The liberal organizational structure of Cooperative Societies has been empowered with certain terminologies: Voluntary, Democratic, Equality and Distributive Justice. To condense in Hubert Calvert’ words, ‘Co-operation is a form of organization wherein persons voluntarily associated together as human beings on the basis of equality for the promotion of the economic interest of themselves.’ In India, largely the institutions which work under this principle is registered under Cooperative Societies Act of the Central or State laws. A Worker Cooperative Society which originated as a movement in the state of Kerala and spread its wings across the country - Indian Coffee House was chosen as the enterprise for further inquiry for it being a living example and a highly successful working model in the designated space. The exploratory study reached out to employees and key stakeholders of Indian Coffee House to understand the nuances of the structure and the scope it provides for engagement. The key questions which formed shape in the mind of researcher while engaging in the inquiry were: How has the organization sustained despite its principle of accepting employees with no skills into employment and later training and empowering them? How can a system which has pre-independence and post-independence (independence here means the colonial independence from Great Britain) existence seek to engage employees within the premise of equality? How was the value of socialism ingrained in a commercial enterprise which has a turnover of several hundreds of Crores each year? How did the vision of a flat structure, way back in the 1940’s find its way into the organizational structure and has continued to remain as the way of life? These questions were addressed by the Case study research that ensued and placing Knowledge as the key premise, the possibilities of engagement of the organization man was pictured. Understanding that although the macro or holistic unit of analysis is the organization, it is pivotal to understand the structures and processes which best reflect on the actors. The embedded design which was adopted in this study delivered insights from the different stakeholder actors from diverse departments. While moving through variables which define and sometimes defy bounds in rationality, the study brought to light the inherent features of the organization structure and how it influences the actors who form a crucial part of the scheme of things. The research brought forth the key enablers for engagement and specifically explored the standpoint of knowledge in the larger structure of the Cooperative Society.

Keywords: knowledge, organizational structure, engagement, worker cooperative

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Authors: Theresa Robinson Harris

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Small businesses are important to the United States economy, yet the majority struggle to remain relevant and close before their fifth year. This qualitative study explored small business failure by comparing the experiences of small-business owners to understand their involvement with leadership during the early stages of the business, and the impact of this on the firms’ ability to survive. Participants’ experiences from two groups were compared to glean an understanding of the leadership process, how leadership differs between the groups, and to see what themes or constructs emerged that could help to explain the high failure rate. Leadership was perceived to be important when envisioning a path for the future and when providing a platform for employees to succeed. Those who embraced leadership as a skillset were more likely to get through the challenges of the early developmental years while those ignoring the importance of leadership were more likely to close prematurely. These findings suggest a disconnect with regards to the understanding, role, and benefits of leadership in small organizations, particularly young organizations in the early stages of development.

Keywords: leadership, small business, entrepreneurship, success, failure

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Authors: Fatemeh Jaferi, Moslem Parsa, Seyed Mehdi Sajadi

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The project-oriented organizations are more appropriate for sustainable environments. Any effective project-oriented organization should institutionalize its project management processes in such a manner to yield the greatest possible profits. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between the project management PMBOK guideline (Project Management Body of Knowledge) and simulation technology in project-oriented organizations. The methodology involves using five steps for applying these two tools aimed at enhancing project management processes in the Lorestan Gas Corporation, as one of the project-oriented organization. Results show the implementation of such management approach leads to a 5% performance improvement and using PMBOK can be instrumental in effective delay management. The implementation of the aforementioned improvement package was effective in improving the efficiency of organizational processes; in terms of optimizing the resource utilization that has manifested itself in resource losses and cost reductions.

Keywords: project-orientation, processes, PMBOK, optimization, organization, management

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Authors: Sajjad Azeez

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The Leadership of prophet(PBUH) indicates the basic norms of leadership to the society to be lead in the best possible manner. The prophet (PBUH) manifests the world with Justice, equality, humanity, and respect. Because of his leadership strategy, the companions who had to be depicted in the history as uncivilised and ignorant people became someone who caught the eyes of the world. Therefore, it is need of the today to understand the strategy of prophetic leadership in order to construct a good and generous society. However, this paper discusses some of the modern problems which can be solved through implementing the prophetic leadership strategy. References for preparing this paper are taken mainly from the traditions of the prophet (PBUH)

Keywords: prophet Muhammad PBUH, leadership strategy, modern problems, solutions

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Authors: Sapfo A. Mortaki

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From the early 1960s and until the middle of the next decade, the lack of favorable conditions for the development of art along with the imposition of the 1967 military dictatorship resulted in a great flow of Greek artists abroad. The fall of the dictatorship and the change of the political scene after 1974 constitute crucial milestones in the cultural life of the country. In the field of visual arts significant changes are attempted in the state's effort to formulate a national cultural policy. This article examines the presence of Greek migrant artists (painters and sculptors) in Paris during the 1970s. Since the mid-1970s, and particularly in the early 1980s, Modern Greek Diaspora undergoes a new transition phase, when the concept of immigration changes. The aim of this study is to record and give prominence to the presence of the Greek artists -through archival research in the daily and periodical press- as well as present the impact of their artistic activity on French intellectual life and on the country’s society during this period. Furthermore, the presence and work of these artists are discussed in an environment of cultural coexistence which, to a certain extent, can be regarded as the result of the social phenomenon of their migration in the era of postmodernity. Finally, their contribution to the development of the cultural life of Greece, inside and outside its borders, is also being examined.

Keywords: art and society, cultural policy, Greek artists, postmodernity

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Authors: Albert T. Akume, P. D. Dahida

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This paper examines the effect of various epochs of governments on policy making in Nigeria. The character of governance and public policy making of both epochs was exclusive, non-participatory and self-centric. As a consequence the interests of citizenry were not represented, neither protected nor sought to meet fairly the needs of all groups. The introduction of the post-1999 democratic government demand that the hitherto skewed pattern of policy making cease to be a character of governance. Hence, the need for citizen participation in the policy making process. The question then is what mode is most appropriate to engender public participation so as to make the policy making process functional? Given the prevailing social, economic and political dilemmas the utilization of the direct mode of citizen participation to affect policy outcome is doubtful if not unattainable. It is due to these predicament that this paper uses the documentary research design argues for the utilization of the indirect mode of citizen participation in the policy making process so as to affect public policy outcome appropriately and with less cost, acrimony and delays.

Keywords: governance, public policy, participation, representation, civil society

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Authors: Sudha Arlikatti, Laura Siebeneck, Simon A. Andrew

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The objective of this research is to measure organizational resiliency through five attributes namely, rapidity, redundancy, resourcefulness, and robustness and to provide recommendations for resiliency building in flood risk communities. The research was conducted in Thailand following the severe floods of 2011 triggered by Tropical Storm Nock-ten. The floods lasted over eight months starting in June 2011 affecting 65 of the country’s 76 provinces and over 12 million people. Funding from a US National Science Foundation grant was used to collect ephemeral data in rural (Ayutthaya), suburban (Pathum Thani), and urban (Bangkok) provinces of Thailand. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted in Thai with 44 contacts from public, private, and non-profit organizations including universities, schools, automobile companies, vendors, tourist agencies, monks from temples, faith based organizations, and government agencies. Multiple triangulations were used to analyze the data by identifying selective themes from the qualitative data, validated with quantitative data and news media reports. This helped to obtain a more comprehensive view of how organizations in different geographic settings varied in their understanding of what enhanced or hindered their resilience and consequently their speed and capacities to respond. The findings suggest that the urban province of Bangkok scored highest in resourcefulness, rapidity of response, robustness, and ability to rebound. This is not surprising considering that it is the country’s capital and the seat of government, economic, military and tourism sectors. However, contrary to expectations all 44 respondents noted that the rural province of Ayutthaya was the fastest to recover amongst the three. Its organizations scored high on redundancy and rapidity of response due to the strength of social networks, a flood disaster sub-culture due to annual flooding, and the help provided by monks from and faith based organizations. Organizations in the suburban community of Pathum Thani scored lowest on rapidity of response and resourcefulness due to limited and ambiguous warnings, lack of prior flood experience and controversies that government flood protection works like sandbagging favored the capital city of Bangkok over them. Such a micro-level examination of organizational resilience in rural, suburban and urban areas in a country through mixed methods studies has its merits in getting a nuanced understanding of the importance of disaster subcultures and religious norms for resilience. This can help refocus attention on the strengths of social networks and social capital, for flood mitigation.

Keywords: disaster subculture, flood response, organizational resilience, Thailand floods, religious beliefs and response, social capital and disasters

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Authors: Mairaj Salim, Asma Zaheer

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Oman has accomplished as much or more than its fellow Gulf monarchies, despite starting from scratch considerably later, having less oil income to utilize, dealing with a larger and more rugged geography, and resolving a bitter civil war along the way. Of course, Oman's progress in the past 30-plus years has not been without problems and missteps, but the balance is squarely on the positive side of the ledger. Oil has been the driving force of the Omani economy since Oman began commercial production in 1967. The oil industry supports the country’s high standard of living and is primarily responsible for its modern and expansive infrastructure, including electrical utilities, telephone services, roads, public education and medical services. In addition to extensive oil reserves, Oman also has substantial natural gas reserves, which are expected to play a leading role in the Omani economy in the Twenty-first Century. To reduce the country’s dependence on oil revenues, the government is restructuring the economy by directing investment to non-oil activities. Since the 21st century IT has changed the performing tasks. To manage the affairs for the benefits of organizations and economy, the Omani government has adopted E-Business technologies for the development. E-Business is important because it allows • Transformation of old economy relationships (vertical/linear relationships) to new economy relationships characterized by end-to-end relationship management solutions (integrated or extended relationships) • Facilitation and organization of networks, small firms depend on ‘partner’ firms for supplies and product distribution to meet customer demands • SMEs to outsource back-end process or cost centers enabling the SME to focus on their core competence • ICT to connect, manage and integrate processes internally and externally • SMEs to join networks and enter new markets, through shortened supply chains to increase market share, customers and suppliers • SMEs to take up the benefits of e-business to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, improve client referral and attract quality partners • New business models of collaboration for SMEs to increase their skill base • SMEs to enter virtual trading arena and increase their market reach A national strategy for the advancement of information and communication technology (ICT) has been worked out, mainly to introduce e-government, e-commerce, and a digital society. An information technology complex KOM (Knowledge Oasis Muscat) had been established, consisting of section for information technology, incubator services, a shopping center of technology software and hardware, ICT colleges, E-Government services and other relevant services. So, all these efforts play a vital role in the development of Oman economy.

Keywords: ICT, ITA, CRM, SCM, ERP, KOM, SMEs, e-commerce and e-business

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Authors: Raja Asad Zaheer, Aisha Tanveer, Hafza Mehreen Fatima

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Global Software Development (GSD) is becoming a common norm in software industry, despite of the fact that global distribution of the teams presents special issues for effective communication and coordination of the teams. Now trends are changing and project management for distributed teams is no longer in a limbo. GSD can be effectively established using agile and project managers can use different agile techniques/tools for solving the problems associated with distributed teams. Agile methodologies like scrum and XP have been successfully used with distributed teams. We have employed exploratory research method to analyze different recent studies related to challenges of GSD and their proposed solutions. In our study, we had deep insight in six commonly faced challenges: communication and coordination, temporal differences, cultural differences, knowledge sharing/group awareness, speed and communication tools. We have established that each of these challenges cannot be neglected for distributed teams of any kind. They are interlinked and as an aggregated whole can cause the failure of projects. In this paper we have focused on creating a scalable framework for detecting and overcoming these commonly faced challenges. In the proposed solution, our objective is to suggest agile techniques/tools relevant to a particular problem faced by the organizations related to the management of distributed teams. We focused mainly on scrum and XP techniques/tools because they are widely accepted and used in the industry. Our solution identifies the problem and suggests an appropriate technique/tool to help solve the problem based on globally shared knowledgebase. We can establish a cause and effect relationship using a fishbone diagram based on the inputs provided for issues commonly faced by organizations. Based on the identified cause, suitable tool is suggested, our framework suggests a suitable tool. Hence, a scalable, extensible, self-learning, intelligent framework proposed will help implement and assess GSD to achieve maximum out of it. Globally shared knowledgebase will help new organizations to easily adapt best practices set forth by the practicing organizations.

Keywords: agile project management, agile tools/techniques, distributed teams, global software development

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Authors: Shutchapol Chopvitayakun

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Internship program is a compulsory course of many undergraduate programs in Thailand. It gives opportunities to a lot of senior students as interns to practice their working skills in the real organizations and also gives chances for interns to face real-world working problems. Interns also learn how to solve those problems by direct and indirect experiences. This program in many schools is a well-structured course with a contract or agreement made with real business organizations. Moreover, this program also offers opportunities for interns to get jobs after completing it from where the internship program takes place. Interns also learn how to work as a team and how to associate with other colleagues, trainers, and superiors of each organization in term of social hierarchy, self-responsibility, and self-disciplinary. This research focuses on senior students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand whose studying major is information technology program. They practiced their working skills or took internship programs in the real business sector or real operating organizations in 2015-2016. Interns are categorized in to two types: normal program and special program. For special program, students study in weekday evening from Monday to Friday or Weekend and most of them work full-time or part-time job. For normal program, students study in weekday working hours and most of them do not work. The differences of these characters and the outcomes of internship performance were studied and analyzed in this research. This work applied some statistical analytics to find out whether the internship performance of each intern type has different performances statistically or not.

Keywords: internship, intern, senior student, information technology program

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Authors: Bijan Nahavandi, Navid Jafarinejad, Somayeh Mehrafzad

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Strategy maps represent the way of value creation in in each organization. Nowadays, implementation of strategy is the main concern for all organizations. Strategy map establishment is the start-up point of strategy implementation and this shows the critical importance of this concept. After some years past since emergence of strategy map, there are some shortcomings in its methodology that frequently quoted by many of researchers. One of these shortcomings is the shortage of a mechanism for refinement of objectives candidate for entrance to map. Organizations in practice have obsession and avidity to determine more number of objectives in strategy map. This study wants to represent a step by step approach to help obviate this problem using quality function deployment (QFD) as a helpful tool and fuzzy screening method. Finally, represented approach applies in a practical case and conclusions have been explained.

Keywords: balanced scorecard, fuzzy screening, house of strategic objectives (HoSO), quality function deployment, strategy map

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Authors: N. Amruth Raj, Suja S. Nair

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The last six decades have borne witness to a radical change in the private sectors relationship with both the state and civil society. Firms have been increasingly called upon to adopt strategies beyond the financial aspects of their operations and consider the social and environmental impact of their business activities. In this context, many companies have modified their policies and activities and engaged into Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) especially on Rural development in India. At the firm level, CSR is implemented through various practices, which aim to enhance the company’s social and environmental performance and may cover various topics. Examples of CSR practices are abundant in Andhra Pradesh relevant literature. For instance, in India especially at Andhra Pradesh companies like Amara Raaja requires from its suppliers to prohibit child labour, Nagarjuna Cements applies a series of programs for reducing its CO2 emissions, LANCO group of Industries addresses health and safety issues in the workplace whereas GVK works limited has adopted a series of policies for addressing human rights and environmental abuse related to its operations.

Keywords: CSR, limitations, need, objectives, rural development

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Authors: Bassam Istanbouli

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Organizations are living in a very competitive and dynamic environment which is constantly changing. In order to achieve a high level of service, the products and processes of these organizations need to be flexible and evolvable. If the supply chains are not modular and well designed, changes can bring combinatorial effects to most areas of a company from its management, financial, documentation, logistics and its information structure. Applying the normalized system’s concept to segments of the supply chain may help in reducing those ripple effects, but it may also increase lead times. Lead times are important and can become a decisive element in gaining customers. Industries are always under the pressure in providing good quality products, at competitive prices, when and how the customer wants them. Most of the time, the customers want their orders now, if not yesterday. The above concept will be proven by examining lead times in a manufacturing example before and after applying normalized systems concept to that segment of the chain. We will then show that although we can minimize the combinatorial effects when changes occur, the lead times will be increased.

Keywords: supply chain, lead time, normalization, modular

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Authors: Troy A. Tyre

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Organizational behavior and organizational change are elements of the ever-changing global business environment. Leadership and organizational behavior are 21st century disciplines. Network marketing organizations need to understand the ever-changing nature of global business and be ready and willing to adapt to the environment. Network marketing organizations have a challenge keeping up with a rapid escalation in global growth. Network marketing growth has been steady and global. Network marketing organizations have been slow to develop a 21st century global strategy to manage the rapid escalation of growth degrading organizational behavior, job satisfaction, increasing attrition, and degrading customer service. Development of an organizational behavior and leadership theory for the 21st century to help network marketing develops a global business strategy to manage the rapid escalation in growth that affects organizational behavior. Managing growth means organizational leadership must develop and adapt to the organizational environment. Growth comes with an open mind and one’s departure from the comfort zone. Leadership growth operates in the tacit dimension. Systems thinking and adaptation of mental models can help shift organizational behavior. Shifting the organizational behavior requires organizational learning. Organizational learning occurs through single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop learning. Triple-loop learning is the most difficult, but the most rewarding. Tools such as theory U can aid in developing a landscape for organizational behavioral development. Additionally, awareness to espoused and portrayed actions is imperatives. Theories of motivation, cross-cultural diversity, and communications are instrumental in founding an organizational behavior suited for the 21st century.

Keywords: global, leadership, network marketing, organizational behavior

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Authors: Feride Eskin Bacaksiz, Aytolan Yildirim

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Practices voluntarily performed by organizations for their employees well-being, create an emotional imperative for employees in accordance with reciprocity norm. Changes in desired course occur in organizational outputs and attitudes towards organization among employees perceiving their organizations as virtuous and supportive. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of organizational virtuousness on performance and organizational identification levels of employees and mediating role of perceived organizational support in this relationship. The data of this descriptive and methodological study were collected from 336 nurses working in a public university hospital in 2015. Participant information form, Organizational Virtuousness, Perceived Organizational Support, Organizational Identification, and Employee Performance scales were used to collect the data. Descriptive, correlative, psychometric analyses and Structural Equation Modeling were performed for the data analysis. Most of the participants were female, under 30 years of age, graduated degrees and staff nurse. Mean scores obtained by the participants from scales were calculated as 3.43(SD=.99) for organizational virtuousness, 2.99 (SD=1.16) for perceived organizational support, 3.18 (SD=1.03) for organizational identification and 3.84 (SD=0.66) for employee performance. It was found that correlation between organizational virtuousness and employee performance regressed from r=0.64 to r=-0.01 and correlation between organizational virtuousness and organizational identification regressed from r=0.55 to r=-0.16 and became statistically non-significant (p < 0.05) via mediating role of perceived organizational support. According to the results, perceived organizational support assumes full mediation on the impact of organizational virtues of employee performance and organizational identification levels. Therefore, organizations, which intend to positively affect employees attitudes towards organization and their performance, should both extend organizational virtuous activities and affect perceptions of employees; whereas, employees should perceive that they are supported by their organization.

Keywords: employee performance, organizational identification, organizational virtuousness, perceived organizational support

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Authors: Abiodun Oluwaseun Ibude

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Every now and then we hear of companies closing down their operations due to unethical practices like an overstatement of company’s balance sheet, concealing company’s debt, embezzlement of company’s fund, declaring false profit and so on. This has led to the liquidation of companies and the loss of investments of shareholders as well as the interest of other stakeholders. As a result of these ugly trends, there is need to put in place a formidable mechanism that will ensure that business activities are conducted in a healthy manner. It should also promote good ethics as well as ensure that the interest of stakeholders and the objectives of any organization is achieved within the confines of the law; wherein law exists to provide criminal penalties for falsification of documents and for conducting other irregularities. Based on the foregoing, it becomes imperative to ensure that steps are taken to stop this menace and face the challenges ahead. This calls for the practice of good governance. The purpose of this study is to identify various components of corporate governance and determine the impact of it on the performance of established organizations. A survey method with the use of questionnaire was applied in collecting data useful for this study which were later analyzed using correlation co-efficiency statistical tools in generating finding, making a conclusion, and necessary recommendation. From the research conducted, it was discovered that there are systems within organizations apart from regulatory agencies that ensure effective control of activities, promote accountability, and operational efficiency. However, some members of organizations fail to explore the usage of corporate governance and impact negatively of an organization’s performance. In conclusion, good corporate governance will not be achieved unless there is openness, honesty, transparency, accountability, and fairness.

Keywords: corporate governance, formidable mechanism, company’s balance sheet, stakeholders

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Authors: Auliya Adzilatin Uzhma, Ismu Rini Dwi, I. Nyoman Suluh Wijaya

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme in Pantai Harapan Jaya village is cultivation of mangrove and fishery capital distribution, to achieve the goal the CSR programme needed participation from the society in it. Moeliono in Fahrudin (2011) mentioned that participation from society is based by intrinsic reason from inside people it self and extrinsic reason from the other who related to him. The fundamental connection who caused more boundaries from action which the organization can do called the social structure. The purpose of this research is to know the form of public participation and the social structure typology of the villager and people who is participated in CSR programme. The key actors of the society and key actors of the people who’s participated also can be known. This research use Social Network Analysis method by knew the Rate of Participation, Density and Centrality. The result of the research is people who is involved in the programme is lived in Dusun Pondok Dua and they work in fisheries field. The density value from the participant is 0.516 it’s mean that 51.6% of the people that participated is involved in the same step of CSR programme.

Keywords: social structure, social network analysis, corporate social responsibility, public participation

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Authors: Yan Liu

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The Gini coefficient indicates that the inequality of income distribution is rising in China. How individuals viewing the equality of current society is an important predicator of social turbulence. Perceptions of social justice may vary according to the social stratification. People usually use socioeconomic status to identify divisions between social stratifications. The objective of this study is to explore the potential influence of socioeconomic status on citizens’ perceptions of social justice in China. Socioeconomic status (SES) is usually reflected by either an SES indicator or a composite of three core dimensions: education, income and occupation. With data collected in the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), this study uses OLS regression analyses to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and citizens’ perceptions of social justice. This study finds that most Chinese citizens believe that the current society is fair or more than fair. Socioeconomic status (SES) has a positive impact on citizens’ perceptions of social justice, which means individuals with higher indicator of socioeconomic status prefer to believe current society is fair. However, the three core dimensions which are used to measure socioeconomic status (SES) have different influences on perceptions of social justice: First, income helps enhance citizens’ sense of social justice. Second, education weakens citizens’ sense of social justice. Third, compared to the middle occupational status, people of both higher occupational status and lower occupational status have higher levels of perceptions of social justice. Though education creates a negative influence on perceptions of social justice, its effect is much weaker than that of income, which indicates income is a determining factor for enhancing people’s perceptions of social justice in China’s market society. Policy implications are discussed.

Keywords: education, income, occupation, perceptions of social justice, social stratification, socioeconomic status

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Authors: Somesh Kumar Sharma, Sunanad Gupta

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The contribution of aviation to society and economy is undisputedly significant. The aviation industry drives economic and social progress by contributing prominently to tourism, commerce and improved quality of life. Identifying the amount of fuel consumed by an aircraft while moving in both airspace and ground networks is critical to air transport economics. Aviation fuel is a major operating cost parameter of the aviation industry and at the same time it is prone to various constraints. This article aims to develop a model for fuel consumption of aviation product. The paper tailors the information for the fuel consumption optimization in terms of information development, information evaluation and information refinement. The information is evaluated and refined using statistical package R and Factor Analysis which is further validated with neural networking. The study explores three primary dimensions which are finally summarized into 23 influencing variables in contrast to 96 variables available in literature. The 23 variables explored in this study should be considered as highly influencing variables for fuel consumption which will contribute significantly towards fuel optimization.

Keywords: fuel consumption, civil aviation industry, neural networking, optimization

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Authors: Bellinda R. Chinowawa

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As part of a wider strategy to stifle civil society, Governments routinely resort to judicial harassment through the use of civil and criminal to impugn the integrity of human rights defenders and that of perceived political opponents. This phenomenon is rife in militarised or autocratic regimes where there is no tolerance for dissenting voices. Zimbabwe, ostensibly a presidential republic founded on the values of transparency, equality, freedom, is characterised by brutal suppression of perceived political opponents and those who assert their basic human rights. This is done through a wide range of tactics including unlawful arrests and detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman degrading treatment and enforced disappearances. Professionals including, journalists and doctors are similarly not spared from state attack. For human rights defenders, the most widely used tool of repression is that of judicial harassment where the judicial system is used to persecute them. This can include the levying of criminal charges, civil lawsuits and unnecessary administrative proceedings. Charges preferred against range from petty offences such as criminal nuisance to more serious charges of terrorism and subverting a constitutional government. Additionally, government sponsored individuals and organisations file strategic lawsuits with pecuniary implications order to intimidate and silence critics and engender self-censorship. Some HRDs are convicted and sentenced to prison terms, despite not being criminals in a true sense. While others are acquitted judicial harassment diverts energy and resources away from their human rights work. Through a consideration of statistical data reported by human rights organisations and face to face interviews with a cross section of human rights defenders, the article will map the incidence of judicial harassment in Zimbabwe. The article will consider the multi-level sociological and contextual factors which influence the Government of Zimbabwe to have easy recourse to criminal law and the debilitating effect of these actions on HRDs. These factors include the breakdown of the rule of law resulting in state capture of the judiciary, the proven efficacy of judicial harassment from colonial times to date, and the lack of an adequate redress mechanism at international level. By mapping the use of the judiciary as a tool of repression, from the inception of modern day Zimbabwe to date, it is hoped that HRDs will realise that they are part of a greater community of activists throughout the ages and should emboldened in the realisation that it is an age old tactic used by fallen regimes which should not deter them from calling for accountability.

Keywords: autocratic regime, colonial legacy, judicial harassment, human rights defenders

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Authors: Perpetual Nwakaego Ibe

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), were an integrated project formed to eradicate many unnatural situations the citizens of the third world country may found themselves in. The MDGs, to be a sustainable project for the future depends 100% on the actions of governments, multilateral institutions and civil society. This paper first looks at the political views on the MDGs and relates it to the current electoral situations around the country by underlining the drastic changes over the few months. The second part of the paper presents ICT in tertiary institutions as one of the solutions in terms of the success of the MDGs. ICT is vital in all phases of educational process and development of the cloud connectivity is an added advantage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for sharing a common data bank for research purposes among UNICEF, RED CROSS, NPS, INEC, NMIC, and WHO. Finally, the paper concludes with areas that needs twigging and recommendations for the tertiary institutions committed to delivering an ambitious set of goals. A combination of observation, and document materials for data gathering was employed as the methodology for carrying out this research.

Keywords: MDG, ICT, data bank, database

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Authors: Ejaz Ali, Muhammad Younas, Tahir Saeed

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In this age of information technology, organizations are revisiting their approach in great deal. E-administration is the most popular area to proceed with. Organizations in order to excel over their competitors are spending a substantial chunk of its resources on E-Administration as it is the most effective, transparent and efficient way to achieve their short term as well as long term organizational goals. E-administration being a tool of ICT plays a significant role towards effective management of HR practices resulting into optimal performance of an organization. The present research was carried out to analyze the impact of moderating role of e-administration in the relationships training and performance appraisal aligned with perceived organizational performance. The study is based on RBV and AMO theories, advocating that use of latest technology in execution of human resource (HR) functions enables an organization to achieve and sustain competitive advantage which leads to optimal firm performance.

Keywords: e-administration, human resource management, ict, performance appraisal, training

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Authors: Deepika Verma, Runa Sarkar

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One of the prominent debates in the social entrepreneurship literature has been to establish whether entrepreneurial work for social well-being by for-profit organizations can be classified as social entrepreneurship or not. Of late, the scholarship has reached a consensus. It concludes that there seems little sense in confining social entrepreneurship to just non-profit organizations. Boosted by this research, increasingly a lot of businesses engaged in filling the social infrastructure gaps in developing countries are calling themselves social enterprise. These organizations are diverse in their ownership, size, objectives, operations and business models. The lack of a comprehensive definition of social enterprise leads to three issues. Firstly, researchers may face difficulty in creating a database for social enterprises because the choice of an entity as a social enterprise becomes subjective or based on some pre-defined parameters by the researcher which is not replicable. Secondly, practitioners who use ‘social enterprise’ in their vision/mission statement(s) may find it difficult to adjust their business models accordingly especially during the times when they face the dilemma of choosing social well-being over business viability. Thirdly, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship attract a lot of donor funding and venture capital. In the paucity of a comprehensive definitional guide, the donors or investors may find assigning grants and investments difficult. It becomes necessary to develop an exhaustive and objective definition of social enterprise and examine whether the understanding of the academicians and practitioners about social enterprise match. This paper develops a dictionary of words often associated with social enterprise or (and) social entrepreneurship. It further compares two lexicographic definitions of social enterprise imputed from the abstracts of academic journal papers and trade publications extracted from the EBSCO database using the ‘tm’ package in R software.

Keywords: EBSCO database, lexicographic definition, social enterprise, text mining

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Authors: Ana María Velasco Molpeceres

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With this work, we try to offer a complete digest of female fashion magazines edited in Spain from the XVIII century to today. During the XIX century Spain developed an important journalistic industry and the feminine press was very popular. In addition, a lot of women wrote and directed fashion magazines which tried to improve women’s status and education. In the XX century, fashion magazines reflected the ideological conflicts and the history of Spain. Before the Civil War (1936-1939), women get many rights and the modernization was clear. In the Franco’s dictatorship, fashion magazines portrayed ideals of a conservative femininity. But, in the sixties, the media helped to connect Spain with the rest of the world, being at the same time under the censorship of the regime. After the dictatorship, fashion was a very important part of the Transition’s culture and the ‘Movida’ (reflected in Almodovar’s films) contributed and expressed the new ideals of citizenship for men and women. Fashion magazines showed the changes of the society. In the XXI century, today, these magazines are a part of a global culture and Vogue or Elle live with Spanish magazines as Telva or Hola. The objective of this research is to study the history, meaning and evolution of the fashion magazines in Spain. And, of course, the ideal of women reflected on them.

Keywords: fashion, Spain, magazines, women

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Authors: Abdurrahim Guler

Abstract:

Immigrants who came to a new country experience some socio-cultural difficulties which are different from theirs. The study aims to investigate how Syrian Refugees manage their life in Turkey and the relationship between acculturation profiles and demographic background of Syrian refugees who came to Turkey after civil war has intensified in Syria. Data are collected from 280 adult Syrian refugees who were born in Syria. The study adopts bi-dimensional acculturation approach stating that both heritage and dominant host cultures can live together. Results suggest that demographic backgrounds, religion, and religiosity are significantly linked to both heritage and dominant host culture. Syrian refugees who are not affiliated with Islam are found to significantly preserve their ethnic/heritage culture. Generally, Syrian refugees are more willing to integrate Turkish society but not to assimilate. The results also confirmed acculturation process as a bi-dimensional, not a zero-sum game since we found a significant positive correlation between the heritage and the dominant host cultures which assume the independence and orthogonal of involvements in the dominant host and heritage cultures.

Keywords: acculturation, demographic backgrounds, heritage culture, religion, Syrian refugees

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Authors: Milene Magalhães Pinto, Irlen Antônio Gonçalves

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This paper is within the area of History of Education in Brazil, having a descriptive and exploratory nature. It has been built on the belief that professional education is organized under political guidelines and solidifies through institutionalized discourses, allowing to know its mission concerning the society in which it operates by studying these speeches. Our purpose is to analyze how the Republican political culture yielded changes in public education through reforms to professional education in the First Republic, based on seven procedures of law that occurred in the Legislature of State of Minas Gerais. The Republican effort to reform the teaching was the result of a conception of society that aspired to advance the country by way of the national worker.

Keywords: professional education, republican political culture, education reforms, Brazil

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Authors: Laraba Bala Mohammed

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Education is a very vital tool in enhancement of the general development of individuals in the society who would participate effectively in national development processes, including people with special need, educating children with special needs is one of the greatest challenges of this millennium, this is because professionals in the field of special education are operating in an exciting and rapidly changing phenomenon. Inclusive education in Nigeria is not a new development in the teaching and learning process, but the most important aspect is the utilization and effective integration of people with special needs in the society. This paper focuses on the need of parents, government, professionals in the field of special education and stakeholders to work together for the full implementation of inclusive education in Nigeria.

Keywords: inclusive education, national policy, education, special needs

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Authors: Doaa Nounou

Abstract:

This research examines the public policy energy subsidies reform efforts in Egypt since 2014. Egypt’s widely used energy subsidies have been controversial since they were first introduced, as they inadequately target the poorest part of the population. Also, their effect on economic development and democratic transition became very challenging in recent years. This research argues that although subsidy reform is a highly politicalized issue in democratizing countries, there are still a number of pragmatic public policies that can be applied to make the subsidy system function more efficiently and at the same time decrease inequality which could facilitate a more orderly and peaceful transition to democracy. Therefore, this research attempts to study the role of the executive branch in reforming the subsidy programmes to support the poor and bring about structural changes to achieve social justice and economic growth. This research also attempts to analyze the role of the military and civil society in reforming the subsidy system. Moreover, it attempts to discuss the role of the state media in social mobilization to rationalize consumption and its contribution to subsidies reform.

Keywords: subsidies, public policy, political economy, democratization, equality

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Authors: Farzam Chakherlouy, Amirmehdi Dokhanchi

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Nowadays organizations have to identify, evaluate and manage intangible assets which enable them to provide maximum requirements to achieve their goals and strategies. Organizations also have to try to promote and improve these kinds of assets continuously. It seems necessary to implement developed strategies in today’s competitive world where all the organizations and companies spend great amounts of expenses for developing their own strategies. In fact, after determining strategies to be implemented, the management process is not completed and it will not have any effect on the success and existence of the organization until these strategies are implemented. The objective of this article is to define the intellectual capital and it components and studying the impact of intellectual capital on the implementation of strategy based upon the Bozbura model. Three dimensions of human capital, relational capital, and the structural capital. According to the test’s results, the correlation between the intellectual capital and three components of strategic implementation (leadership, human resource management, and culture) has not been approved yet. According to results of Friedman’s test in relation with the intellectual capital, the maximum inadequacy of this company is in the field of human capital (with an average of 3.59) and the minimum inadequacy is in the field of the relational capital (customer) with an average of 2.83. Besides, according to Friedman test in relation with implementation of the strategy, the maximum inadequacy relates to the culture of the organization and the corporate control with averages of 2.60 and 3.45 respectively. In addition, they demonstrate a good performance in scopes of human resources management and financial resources management strategies.

Keywords: Bozbura model, intellectual capital, strategic management, implementation of strategy, Modiran Ideh Pardaz company

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Authors: Mahdi Alkaeed, Adeel Ehsan

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Enterprise information systems (EIS) act as the backbone of organizations that belong to different domains. These systems not only play a major role in the efficient usage of resources and time but also throw light on the future roadmap for the enterprise. In today's rapidly expanding world of business and technology, enterprise systems from various heterogenous environments have to exchange information at some point, be it within the same organization or between different organizations. This reality strengthens the importance of interoperability between these systems, which is one of the key enablers of systems collaboration. Both information technology infrastructure and business processes have to be aligned with each other to achieve this effect. This will be difficult to attain if traditional tightly coupled architecture is used. Instead, a more loosely coupled service-oriented architecture has to be used. That would enable an effective interoperability level between different EIS. This paper discusses and presents the current work that has been done in the field of EIS interoperability. Along the way, it also discusses the challenges, solutions to tackle those challenges presented in the studied literature, and limitations, if any.

Keywords: enterprise systems interoperability, collaboration and integration, service-based architecture, open system architecture

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