Search results for: Business IT Alignment

Authors: Pawan Hinge, Priya Gupta

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Due to cutting edge competitions between organizations and war for talent, the workforce as an asset is gaining significance. The employees are considered as the brand ambassadors of an organization, and their interactions with the clients and customers might impact directly or indirectly on the overall value of the organization. Especially, organizations in the healthcare industry the value of an organization in the perception of their employees can be one of the revenue generating and talent retention strategy. In such context, it is essential to understand that the brand awareness among employees can effect on employer brand image and brand value since the brand ambassadors are the interface between organization and customers and clients. In this exploratory study, we have adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches for data analysis. Our study shows existing variation among nurses working in different business units of the same organization in terms of their customer interface or interactions and brand awareness.

Keywords: brand awareness, brand image, brand value, customer interface

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Authors: M. Verde, G. Falzarano

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The paper examines the connection between corporate social responsibility (CSR), capability approach and poverty reduction; in particular, the local employment development (LED) by way of CSR initiatives. The joint action of LED/CSR results in a win-win situation, not only for the enterprises but also for all the stakeholders involved; in this regard, subsidiarity and coordination between national and regional/local authorities are central to a socially-oriented market economy. In the first section, the CSR is analysed on the basis of its social function in the fight against poverty, as a 'capabilities deprivation'. In the central part, the attention is focused on the relationship between CSR and LED; ergo, on the role of the enterprises in fostering capabilities development (the employment). Besides, all the potential solutions are presented, stressing the possible combinations, in the last part. The benchmark is the enterprise as an economic and a social institution: the business should not be combined with profit merely, paying more attention to its sustainable impact and social contribution. In which way could it be possible? The answer is the CSR. The impact of CSR on poverty reduction is still little explored. The companies help to reduce poverty through economic contribution, human rights and social inclusion; hence, the business becomes an 'agent of development' in order to fight against 'inequality'. The starting point is the pyramid of social responsibility, where ethic and philanthropic responsibilities involve programmes and actions aimed at personal development of the individuals, improving human standard of living in all forms, including poverty, when people do not have a choice between different 'life options', ranging from level of education to employment. At this point, CSR comes into play and works on two dimensions: poverty reduction and poverty prevention, by means of a series of initiatives: first of all, job creation and precarious work reduction. Empowerment of the local actors, financial support and combination of top down and bottom up initiatives are some of CSR areas of activity. Several positive effects occur on individual levels of educations, access to capital, individual health status, empowerment of youth and woman, access to social networks and it was observed that these effects depend on the type of CSR strategy. Indeed, CSR programmes should take into account fundamental criteria, such as the transparency, the information about benefits, a coordination unit among institutions and more clear guidelines. In this way, the advantages to the corporate reputation and to the community translate into a better job matching on the labour market, inter alia. It is important to underline that the success depends on the specific measures of the areas in question, by adapting them to the local needs, in light of general principles and index; therefore, the concrete commitment of the all stakeholders involved is decisive in order to achieve the goals. The enterprise would represent a concrete contribution for the pursuit of sustainable development and for the dissemination of a social and well being awareness.

Keywords: capability approach, local employment development, poverty, social inclusion

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Authors: Ana Julia Acevedo Urquiaga, Jose A. Acevedo Suarez, Ana Julia Urquiaga Rodriguez, Neyfe Sablon Cossio

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Despite the progress made in logistics and supply chains fields, it is unavoidable the development of business models that use efficiently information to facilitate the integrated logistics flows management between partners. Collaborative management is an important tool for materializing the cooperation between companies, as a way to achieve the supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. The first face of this research was a comprehensive analysis of the collaborative planning on the Cuban companies. It is evident that they have difficulties in supply chains planning where production, supplies and replenishment planning are independent tasks, as well as logistics and distribution operations. Large inventories generate serious financial and organizational problems for entities, demanding increasing levels of working capital that cannot be financed. Problems were found in the efficient application of Information and Communication Technology on business management. The general objective of this work is to develop a methodology that allows the deployment of a planning and control system in a coordinated way on the medicine’s logistics system in Cuba. To achieve these objectives, several mechanisms of supply chain coordination, mathematical programming models, and other management techniques were analyzed to meet the requirements of collaborative logistics management in Cuba. One of the findings is the practical and theoretical inadequacies of the studied models to solve the current situation of the Cuban logistics systems management. To contribute to the tactical-operative management of logistics, the Collaborative Logistics Flow Management Model (CLFMM) is proposed as a tool for the balance of cycles, capacities, and inventories, always to meet the final customers’ demands in correspondence with the service level expected by these. The CLFMM has as center the supply chain planning and control system as a unique information system, which acts on the processes network. The development of the model is based on the empirical methods of analysis-synthesis and the study cases. Other finding is the demonstration of the use of a single information system to support the supply chain logistics management, allows determining the deadlines and quantities required in each process. This ensures that medications are always available to patients and there are no faults that put the population's health at risk. The simulation of planning and control with the CLFMM in medicines such as dipyrone and chlordiazepoxide, during 5 months of 2017, permitted to take measures to adjust the logistic flow, eliminate delayed processes and avoid shortages of the medicines studied. As a result, the logistics cycle efficiency can be increased to 91%, the inventory rotation would increase, and this results in a release of financial resources.

Keywords: collaborative management, medicine logistic system, supply chain planning, tactical-operative planning

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Authors: Debdatta Mukherjee, Abhiman Das, Amit Garg

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In recent years, there is a growing interest about corporate social responsibility of firms in both academic literature and business world. Since business forms a part of society incorporating socio-environment concerns into its value chain, activities are vital for ensuring mutual sustainability and prosperity. But, until now most of the works have been either descriptive or normative rather than positivist in tone. Even the few ones with a positivist approach have mostly studied the link between corporate financial performance and corporate social performance. However, these studies have been severely criticized by many eminent authors on grounds that they lack a theoretical basis for their findings. They have also argued that apart from corporate financial performance, there must be certain other crucial influences that are likely to determine corporate social performance of firms. In fact, several studies have indicated that firms operating in distinct national institutions show significant variations in the corporate social responsibility practices that they undertake. This clearly suggests that the institutional context of a country in which the firms operate is a key determinant of corporate social performance of firms. Therefore, this paper uses an institutional framework to understand why corporate social performance of firms vary across countries. It examines the impact of country level institutions on corporate social performance using a sample of 3240 global publicly-held firms across 33 countries covering the period 2010-2015. The country level institutions include public institutions, private institutions, markets and capacity to innovate. Econometric Analysis has been mainly used to assess this impact. A three way panel data analysis using fixed effects has been used to test and validate appropriate hypotheses. Most of the empirical findings confirm our hypotheses and the economic significance indicates the specific impact of each variable and their importance relative to others. The results suggest that institutional determinants like ethical behavior of private institutions, goods market, labor market and innovation capacity of a country are significantly related to the corporate social performance of firms. Based on our findings, few implications for policy makers from across the world have also been suggested. The institutions in a country should promote competition. The government should use policy levers for upgrading home demands, like setting challenging yet flexible safety, quality and environment standards, and framing policies governing buyer information, providing innovative recourses to low quality goods and services and promoting early adoption of new and technologically advanced products. Moreover, the institution building in a country should be such that they facilitate and improve the capacity of firms to innovate. Therefore, the proposed study argues that country level institutions impact corporate social performance of firms, empirically validates the same, suggest policy implications and attempts to contribute to an extended understanding of corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance in a multinational context.

Keywords: corporate social performance, corporate social responsibility, institutions, markets

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Authors: H. I. Obadiah, S. N. Wieser, E. A. Omudu, B. O. Atu, O. Byanet, L. Schnittger, M. Florin-Christensen

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Sarcocystis sp. are Apicomplexan protozoan parasites with a life cycle that involves a predator and a prey as final and intermediate hosts, respectively. In tissues of the intermediate hosts, the parasites produce sarcocysts that vary in size and morphology according to the species. When a suitable predator ingests sarcocyst-containing meat, the parasites are released in the intestine and undergo sexual reproduction producing infective sporocysts, which are excreted with the feces into the environment. The cycle is closed when a prey ingests sporocyst-contaminated water or pasture; the parasites gain access to the circulation, and eventually invade tissues and reproduce asexually yielding sarcocysts. Pig farming is a common practice in Nigeria as well as in many countries around the world. In addition to its importance as protein source, pork is also a source of several pathogens relevant to humans. In the case of Sarcocystis, three species have been described both in domestic and wild pigs, namely, S. miescheriana, S. porcifelis and S. suihominis. Humans can act both as final and aberrant intermediate hosts of S. suihominis, after ingesting undercooked sarcocyst-infested pork. Infections are usually asymptomatic but can be associated with inappetence, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, or with muscle pain, fever, eosinophilia and bronchospasm, in humans acting as final or intermediate hosts, respectively. Moreover, excretion of infective forms with human feces leads to further dissemination of the infection. In this study, macroscopic sarcocysts of white color, oval shape and a size range of approximately 3-5 mm were observed in the skeletal muscle of a slaughtered pig in an abattoir in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria, destined to human consumption. Sarcocysts were excised and washed in distilled water, and genomic DNA was extracted using a commercial kit. The near-complete length of the 18S rRNA gene was analyzed after PCR amplification of two overlapping fragments, each of which were submitted to direct sequencing. In addition, the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase (cox-1) gene was PCR-amplified and directly sequenced. Two phylogenetic trees containing the obtained sequences along with available relevant 18S rRNA and cox-1 sequences were constructed by neighbor joining after alignment, using the corresponding sequences of Toxoplasma gondii as outgroup. The results showed in both cases that the analyzed sequences grouped with S. suihominis with high bootstrap value, confirming the identity of this macroscopic sarcocyst-forming parasite as S. suihominis. To the best of our knowledge, these results represent the first demonstration of this parasite in pigs of Nigeria and the largest sarcocysts described so far for S. suihominis. The close proximity between pigs and humans in pig farms, and the frequent poor sanitary conditions in human dwellings strongly suggest that the parasite undergoes the sexual stages of its life cycle in humans as final hosts. These findings provide an important reference for the examination and control of Sarcocystis species in pigs of Nigeria.

Keywords: nigeria, pork, sarcocystis suihominis, zoonotic parasite

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Authors: Maryam Amiri, Leyli Mohammad-Khanli

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Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular and more business applications are moving to cloud. In this regard, services that provide similar functional properties are increasing. So, the ability to select a service with the best non-functional properties, corresponding to the user preference, is necessary for the user. This paper presents an Evaluation Framework of Service Trustworthiness (EFST) that evaluates the trustworthiness of equivalent services without need to additional invocations of them. EFST extracts user preference automatically. Then, it assesses trustworthiness of services in two dimensions of qualitative and quantitative metrics based on the experiences of past usage of services. Finally, EFST determines the overall trustworthiness of services using Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). The results of experiments and simulations show that EFST is able to predict the missing values of Quality of Service (QoS) better than other competing approaches. Also, it propels users to select the most appropriate services.

Keywords: user preference, cloud service, trustworthiness, QoS metrics, prediction

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Authors: Jin Sheng

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This paper addresses a promising area of insurance sector to develop in Asia. Captive insurance, which provides risk-mitigation services for its parent company, has great potentials to develop in energy, infrastructure, agriculture, logistics, catastrophe, and alternative risk transfer (ART), and will greatly affect the framework of insurance industry. However, the Asian captive insurance market only takes a small proportion in the global market. The recent supply chain interruption case of Hanjin Shipping indicates the significance of risk management for an Asian company’s sustainability and resilience. China has substantial needs and great potentials to develop captive insurance, on account of the currency volatility, enterprises’ credit risks, and legal and operational risks of the Belt and Road initiative. Up to date, Mainland Chinese enterprises only have four offshore captives incorporated by CNOOC, Sinopec, Lenovo and CGN Power), three onshore captive insurance companies incorporated by CNPC, China Railway, and COSCO, as well as one industrial captive insurance organization - China Ship-owners Mutual Assurance Association. Its captive market grows slowly with one or two captive insurers licensed yearly after September 2011. As an international financial center, Hong Kong has comparative advantages in taxation, professionals, market access and well-established financial infrastructure to develop a functional captive insurance market. For example, Hong Kong’s income tax for an insurance company is 16.5%; while China's income tax for an insurance company is 25% plus business tax of 5%. Furthermore, restrictions on market entry and operations of China’s onshore captives make establishing offshore captives in international or regional captive insurance centers such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and other overseas jurisdictions to become attractive options. Thus, there are abundant business opportunities in this area. Using methodology of comparative studies and case analysis, this paper discusses the incorporation, regulatory issues, taxation and prospect of captive insurance market in Hong Kong, China and Singapore. Hong Kong and Singapore are both international financial centers with prominent advantages in tax concessions, technology, implementation, professional services, and well-functioning legal system. Singapore, as the domicile of 71 active captives, has been the largest captive insurance hub in Asia, as well as an established reinsurance hub. Hong Kong is an emerging captive insurance hub with 5 to 10 newly licensed captives each year, according to the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council. It is predicted that Hong Kong will become a domicile for 50 captive insurers by 2025. This paper also compares the formation of a captive in Singapore with other jurisdictions such as Bermuda and Vermont.

Keywords: Alternative Risk Transfer (ART), captive insurance company, offshore captives, risk management, reinsurance, self-insurance fund

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Authors: Pavel Adámek

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The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Czech Republic has evolved notably during the last few years and an issue that started as an interest- and motive-based activity for businesses is becoming more commonplace. Governments have a role to play in ensuring that corporations behave according to the rules and norms of society and can legislate, foster, collaborate with businesses and endorse good practice in order to facilitate the development of CSR. The purpose of this paper is to examine the opportunities and options of CSR in government policy and research its relevance to a business sector. An increasing number of companies is engaging in responsible activities, the public awareness of CSR is rising, and customers are giving higher importance to CSR of companies in their choice. By drawing on existing CSR approach in Czech and understanding of CSR are demonstrated. The paper provides an overview, more detailed government approach of CSR.

Keywords: approach, corporate social responsibility, government policy, instruments

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Authors: Pibool Waijittragum

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This paper has its objectives to reveal contents and personality suitable to women’s newspapers. The research methodology employed in this study is the questionnaire which is derived from a literature review related to newspapers, graphic elements method for print media design and 12 sample sizes of different daily newspapers. In order to acquire an in-depth understanding and comprehensible view of desirable for a women’s newspaper design, graphic elements that related to that personality as well as other preferable elements for a women’s newspaper, including seven editorial Many Thai newspapers were offer a women’s documentary and column space. With its feminine looks, most of them appeared with warm tones and friendly mood through their headlines, contents, illustrations and graphics. The study found that most desirable personalities for a women’s newspaper design in Thailand are: Modern, Chic and Natural. Each personality has significant graphic elements as follows: 1. Modern: significant elements of modern personality comprises of the composition with graduation pattern which creates attractiveness by using an anomalous alignment layout grid and outstanding structure to create focal points and dynamic movement. Dark to black color that has narrowed, limited hue coupled with bright color tones. The round shape of the Thai font style was suitable for this concept. Such Thai fonts have harmonious proportion and consistent stroke with the urban-polite look. 2. Chic: significant elements of chic personality comprises of the proper composition with distinctive scale, using rhythmic repetition and a contrast of scale to draw in reader attention. Vivid and bright color tones with extensive hues coupled with similar color tones and round shape of the Thai font style with a light stroke and consistent line. 3. Natural: significant elements of natural personality comprises of the proper composition using rhythmic repetition that creates a focal point through striking images and harmonious perspective. Warm color tones with restricted hues that appear to look natural. Duo tone color was suitable through the gradually increasing gradient. The Thai style with hand writing font was suitable through the inconsistent stroke. There are 10 types of daily content that were revealed to be the most desirable for Thai women readers, these are: Daily News, Economics News, Education News, Entertainment News, International news, Political News, Public Health News, Scientific News, Social News and Sports News. As well, there are 16 topics identified as very desirable for Thai women readers, such as: Art and Culture, Automobile, Classified, Special Scoop, Editorial, Advertisement, Entertainment, Health and Quality of Life, History, Horoscope, Lifestyle and Fashion, Literature, Nature - Environment and Tourism, Night Life, Stars and Jet Set Gossip, Women’s Issue.

Keywords: women behaviors, feminine looks, newspaper design, news content

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Authors: Dirk V. H. K. Franco

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For many of us a lot of phenomena are considered a risk. Examples are: climate change, decrease of biodiversity, amount of available, clean water and the decreasing variety of living organism in the oceans. On the other hand a lot of people perceive the following trends as catastrophic: the sea level, the melting of the pole ice, the numbers of tornado’s, floods and forest fires, the national security and the potential of 192 million climate migrants in 2060. The interest for climate, health and the possible solutions is large and common. The 5th IPCC states that the last decades especially human activities (and in second order natural emissions) have caused large, mainly negative impacts on our ecological environments. Chris Stringer stated that we represent, nowadays after evolution, the only one version of the possible humanity. At this very moment we are faced with an (over) crowded planet together with global climate changes and a strong demand for energy and material resources. Let us hope that we can counter these difficulties either with better application of existing technologies or by inventing new (applications of) clean technologies together with new business models.

Keywords: clean technologies, catastrophic, climate, possible solutions

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Authors: Nagmani Lnu

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Often, Quality Engineering refers to testing the applications that either have a User Interface (UI) or an Application Programming Interface (API). We often find mature test practices, standards, and automation regarding UI or API testing. However, another kind is present in almost all types of industries that deal with data in bulk and often get handled through something called a Batch Application. This is primarily an offline application companies develop to process large data sets that often deal with multiple business rules. The challenge gets more prominent when we try to automate batch testing. This paper describes the approaches taken to test a Batch application from a Financial Industry to test the payment settlement process (a critical use case in all kinds of FinTech companies), resulting in 100% test automation in Test Creation and Test execution. One can follow this approach for any other batch use cases to achieve a higher efficiency in their testing process.

Keywords: batch testing, batch test automation, batch test strategy, payments testing, payments settlement testing

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Authors: Bet El Silisna Lagarense, Agustinus Walansendow

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Manado Waterfront Development (MWD) occurs along the coastline of the city to meet the communities’ various needs and interests. Manado waterfront, with its various kinds of tourist attractions, is being developed to strengthen opportunities for both tourism and other businesses. There are many buildings that are used for trade and business purposes. The spatial distributions of tourism, commercial and residential land uses overlap. Field research at the study site consisted desktop scan, questionnaire-based survey, observation and in-depth interview with key informants and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) identified how MWD was initially planned and designed in the whole process of decision making in terms of resource and environmental management particularly for the waterfront tourism development in the long run. The study developed a clustered-based model for waterfront urban tourism in Manado through evaluation of spatial distribution of tourism uses along the waterfront.

Keywords: clustered-based model, Manado, urban tourism, waterfront

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, Valencia Pérez, Héctor Fernando, Lamadrid A. Alberto, Vivanco V. Martín

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Cosmology is a discipline commonly linked to philosophy. In this work, we show cosmology, from a perspective that can provide some proposals to help develop SMB in Mexico. We start from the belief that, in a complex world, the solutions to problems must nurture from different approaches. In order to be able to do this, we need to change our point of reference and use theoretical proposals and methodologies that came from other disciplines; in this case, we will try to show that between philosophy and administration exist dialogs that need to be incentivized. The work is structured in three parts. In the first one, we create a description of cosmology and how it could be applied to business. In the second, we show some of the most common problems that the SMB suffer from and in the third, we present a proposal of how cosmology can help improve the development. Finally, we concluded that better understanding of real needs, integration of knowledge at large scale and using information technologies within the cosmology framework presentment could make a difference.

Keywords: harmonic fusion, national sustainability, financial management, triple helix

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Authors: Cameron Truong, Mikhail Bhatia, Yangyang Chen, Viet Nga Cao

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Using a sample of U.S. firms between 1996 and 2011, this paper documents a positive association between options trading volume and future stock price crash risk. This relation is evidently more pronounced among firms with higher information asymmetry, business uncertainty, and short-sale constraints. In a dichotomous cross-sectional setting, we also document that firms with options trading have higher future crash risk than firms without options trading. We further show in a difference-in-difference analysis that firms experience an increase in crash risk immediately after the listing of options. The results suggest that options traders are able of identifying bad news hoarding by management and choose to trade in a liquid options market in anticipation of future crashes.

Keywords: bad news hoarding, cross-sectional setting, options trading, stock price crash

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Authors: Ana Rodrigues, Maria Cadilhe, Filipa Ferreira, Claudia Pereira, Marta Santos

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Professional paths must be understood in the multiplicity of their possible configurations. While some actors tend to represent their path as a harmonious succession of positions in the life cycle, most recognize the existence of unforeseen and uncontrollable bifurcations, caused, for example, by a work accident or by going through a period of unemployment. Considering the intensified challenges posed by the ongoing societal changes (e.g., technological and demographic), and looking at the Portuguese context, where the unemployment rate continues to be more evident in certain age groups, like in individuals aged 45 years or over, it is essential to support those adults by providing strategies capable of supporting them during professional transitions, being this a joint responsibility of governments, employers, workers, educational institutions, among others. Concerned about those issues, Porto City Council launched the challenge of designing and implementing a Lifelong Career Guidance program, which was answered with the presentation of a customized conceptual and operational model: groWing|Lifelong Career Guidance. A pilot project targeting working-age adults (35 or older) who were unemployed was carried out, aiming to support them to reconstruct their professional paths, through the recovery of their past experiences and through a reflection about dimensions such as skills, interests, constraints, and labor market. A research action approach was used to assess the proposed model, namely the perceived relevance of the theme and of the project, by adults themselves (N=44), employment professionals (N=15) and local companies (N=15), in an integrated manner. A set of activities were carried out: a train the trainer course and a monitoring session with employment professionals; collective and individual sessions with adults, including a monitoring session as well; and a workshop with local companies. Support materials for individual/collective reflection about professional paths were created and adjusted for each involved agent. An evaluation model was co-build by different stakeholders. Assessment was carried through a form created for the purpose, completed at the end of the different activities, which allowed us to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Statistical analysis was carried through SPSS software. Results showed that the participants, as well as the employment professionals and the companies involved, considered both the topic and the project as extremely relevant. Also, adults saw the project as an opportunity to reflect on their paths and become aware of the opportunities and the necessary conditions to achieve their goals; the professionals highlighted the support given by an integrated methodology and the existence of tools to assist the process; companies valued the opportunity to think about the topic and the possible initiatives they could implement within the company to diversify their recruitment pool. The results allow us to conclude that, in the local context under study, there is an alignment between different agents regarding the pertinence of supporting adults with work experience in professional transitions, seeing the project as a relevant strategy to address this issue, which justifies that it can be extended in time and to other working-age adults in the future.

Keywords: professional paths, research action, turning points, lifelong career guidance, relevance

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Authors: Kumalbeo Paul Kamani

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Marketing plays a very important role in the success of any firm since it represents the means through which a firm can reach its customers and also promotes its products and services. In fact, marketing aids the firm in identifying customers who the business can competitively serve, and tailoring product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts, and services towards those customers. Unfortunately, in many firms, marketing has been reduced to merely advertisement. For effective marketing, firms must go beyond this often-limited function of advertisement. In the fashion industry in particular, marketing faces challenges due to its peculiar characteristics. Previous research for instance affirms the idiosyncrasy and peculiarities that differentiate the fashion industry from other industrial areas. It has been documented that the fashion industry is characterized seasonal intensity, short product life cycles, the difficulty of competitive differentiation, and long time for companies to reach financial stability. These factors are noted to pose obstacles to the fashion entrepreneur’s endeavours and can be the reasons that explain their low survival rates. In recent times, the fashion industry has been described as a market that is accessible market, has low entry barriers, both in terms of needed capital and skills which have all accounted for the burgeoning nature of startups. Yet as already stated, marketing is particularly challenging in the industry. In particular, areas such as marketing, branding, growth, project planning, financial and relationship management might represent challenges for the fashion entrepreneur but that have not been properly addressed by previous research. It is therefore important to assess marketing strategies of fashion firms and the factors influencing their success. This study generally sought to examine marketing strategies of fashion dealers in Ghana and their critical success factors. The study employed the quantitative survey research approach. A total of 120 fashion dealers were sampled. Questionnaires were used as instrument of data collection. Data collected was analysed using quantitative techniques including descriptive statistics and Relative Importance Index. The study revealed that the marketing strategies used by fashion apparels are text messages using mobile phones, referrals, social media marketing, and direct marketing. Results again show that the factors influencing fashion marketing effectiveness are strategic management, marketing mix (product, price, promotion etc), branding and business development. Policy implications are finally outlined. The study recommends among others that there is a need for the top management executive to craft and adopt marketing strategies that enable that are compatible with the fashion trends and the needs of the customers. This will improve customer satisfaction and hence boost market penetration. The study further recommends that the fashion industry in Ghana should seek to ensure that fashion apparels accommodate the diversity and the cultural setting of different customers to meet their unique needs.

Keywords: marketing, fashion, industry, success factors

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Authors: Ana Hol

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Digital systems are in the cognitive wave of the eTransformations and are now extensively aimed at meeting the individuals’ demands, both those of customers requiring services and those of service providers. It is also apparent that successful future systems will not just simply open doors to the traditional owners/users to offer and receive services such as Uber for example does today, but will in the future require more customized and cognitively enabled infrastructures that will be responsive to the system user’s needs. To be able to identify what is required for such systems, this research reviews the historical and the current effects of the eTransformation process by studying: 1. eTransitions of company websites and mobile applications, 2. Emergence of new sheared economy business models as Uber and, 3. New requirements for demand driven, cognitive systems capable of learning and just in time decision making. Based on the analysis, this study proposes a Cognitive eTransformation Framework capable of guiding implementations of new responsive and user aware systems.

Keywords: system implementations, AI supported systems, cognitive systems, eTransformation

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Authors: Maturos Chongchaikit, Sitthikorn Sumalee, Nopphawan Chimroylarp, Nongluck Manowaluilou, Thapanee Thammetha

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The 2015 Kasetsart University Research Plan, which was funded by the National Research Institutes: TRF – NRCT, comprises four sub-research projects on the development of three OER websites and on their usage study by students in international programs. The goals were to develop the open educational resources (OER) in the form of websites that will promote three key skills of quality learning and achievement: Academic English, Educational Research, and ICT Literacy, to graduate students in international programs of Thailand. The statistics from the Office of Higher Education showed that the number of foreign students who come to study in international higher education of Thailand has increased respectively by 25 percent per year, proving that the international education system and institutes of Thailand have been already recognized regionally and globally as meeting the standards. The output of the plan: the OER websites and their materials, and the outcome: students’ learning improvement due to lecturers’ readiness for open educational media, will ultimately lead the country to higher business capabilities for international education services in ASEAN Community in the future. The OER innovation is aimed at sharing quality knowledge to the world, with the adoption of Creative Commons Licenses that makes sharing be able to do freely (5Rs openness), without charge and leading to self and life-long learning. The research has brought the problems on the low usage of existing OER in the English language to develop the OER on three specific skills and try them out with the sample of 100 students randomly selected from the international graduate programs of top 10 Thai universities, according to QS Asia University Rankings 2014. The R&D process was used for product evaluation in 2 stages: the development stage and the usage study stage. The research tools were the questionnaires for content and OER experts, the questionnaires for the sample group and the open-ended interviews for the focus group discussions. The data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean and SD. The findings revealed that the developed websites were fully qualified as OERs by the experts. The students’ opinions and satisfaction were at the highest levels for both the content and the technology used for presentation. The usage manual and self-assessment guide were finalized during the focus group discussions. The direct participation according to the concept of 5Rs Openness Activities through the provided tools of OER models like MERLOT and OER COMMONS, as well as the development of usage manual and self-assessment guide, were revealed as a key approach to further extend the output widely and sustainably to the network of users in various higher education institutions.

Keywords: open educational resources, international education services business, academic English, educational research, ICT literacy, international graduate program, OER

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Authors: Ahmad Aslizadeh, Farid Ghaderi

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Mapping organizational knowledge is an innovative concept and useful instrument of representation, capturing and visualization of implicit and explicit knowledge. There are a diversity of methods, instruments and techniques presented by different researchers following mapping organizational knowledge to reach determined goals. Implicating of these methods, it is necessary to know their exigencies and conditions in which those can be used. Integrating identified methods of knowledge mapping and comparing them would help knowledge managers to select the appropriate methods. This research conducted to presenting a model and framework to map organizational knowledge. At first, knowledge maps, their applications and necessity are introduced because of extracting comparative framework and detection of their structure. At the next step techniques of researchers such as Eppler, Kim, Egbu, Tandukar and Ebner as knowledge mapping models are presented and surveyed. Finally, they compare and a superior model would be introduced.

Keywords: knowledge mapping, knowledge management, comparative study, business and management

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Authors: Levan Sabauri

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The purpose of this article is an examination of the meaning of theoretic aspects of audit in the context of solving of specific problems of the audit. The audit’s aim is the estimation of financial statements by the auditor, i.e. if they are prepared according to the basic requirements of current financial statements. By examination of concrete examples, we can clearly see problems created in an audit and in often cases, those contradictions which can be caused by incompliance of matters regulated by legislation and by reality. An important part of this work is the analysis of reform in the direction of business accounting, statements and audit in Georgia and its comparison with EU countries. In the article, attention is concentrated on the analysis of specific problems of auditing practice and ways of their solving by taking into consideration theoretical aspects of the audit are proposed.

Keywords: audit, auditor, auditors’ ethic code, auditor’s risk, financial statement, objectivity

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Authors: Rosie S. Abalos, John Patrick M. Dizon

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The operation of fish cages in mariculture parks for milkfish production remains a lucrative business for aquaculture operators. Three areas in the Philippines where mariculture parks are still in active operation were identified as study sites for this research. Financial analysis was used to estimate profitability of mariculture operations in the selected study sites. Based on the result of this research, milkfish production in mariculture parks remains profitable both in terms of net profit generation and the return on investment. To improve the profitability of aquaculture operations in mariculture parks, the relatively high price of operational inputs should be managed. As a recommendation, further studies should be conducted on the profitability of aquaculture operations in mariculture parks in the country to include other factors which may cause losses on the part of the operator and factors that may affect price of produce upon harvest.

Keywords: mariculture parks, milkfish production, aquaculture, profitability

Procedia PDF Downloads 155

Authors: Zi Wang, Xinlei He, Jianghua Lv, Yuqing Lan

Abstract:

Kernel though widely used, is complicated. Errors caused by some bugs are often costly. Statically, more than half of the mistakes occur in the design phase. Thus, we introduce a modeling method, KMVM (Linux Kernel Modeling and verification Method), based on type theory for proper designation and correct exploitation of the Kernel. In the model, the Kernel is separated into six levels: subsystem, dentry, file, struct, func, and base. Each level is treated as a type. The types are specified in the structure and relationship. At the same time, we use a demanding path to express the function to be implemented. The correctness of the design is verified by recursively checking the type relationship and type existence. The method has been applied to verify the OPEN business of VFS (virtual file system) in Linux Kernel. Also, we have designed and developed a set of security communication mechanisms in the Kernel with verification.

Keywords: formal approach, type theory, Linux Kernel, software program

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: F. Lhafiane, A. Elbyed, M. Bouchoum

Abstract:

The design of Reverse logistics Network has attracted growing attention with the stringent pressures from both environmental awareness and business sustainability. Reverse logistical activities include return, remanufacture, disassemble and dispose of products can be quite complex to manage. In addition, demand can be difficult to predict, and decision making is one of the challenges tasks. This complexity has amplified the need to develop an integrated architecture for product return as an enterprise system. The main purpose of this paper is to design Multi agent system (MAS) architecture using the Prometheus methodology to efficiently manage reverse logistics processes. The proposed MAS architecture includes five types of agents: Gate keeping Agent, Collection Agent, Sorting Agent, Processing Agent and Disposal Agent which act respectively during the five steps of reverse logistics Network.

Keywords: reverse logistics, multi agent system, prometheus methodology

Procedia PDF Downloads 470

Authors: Gaurangi Saxena, Ravindra Saxena

Abstract:

Lately, cloud computing is used to enhance the ability to attain corporate goals more effectively and efficiently at lower cost. This new computing paradigm “The Cloud Computing” has emerged as a powerful tool for optimum utilization of resources and gaining competitiveness through cost reduction and achieving business goals with greater flexibility. Realizing the importance of this new technique, most of the well known companies in computer industry like Microsoft, IBM, Google and Apple are spending millions of dollars in researching cloud computing and investigating the possibility of producing interface hardware for cloud computing systems. It is believed that by using the right middleware, a cloud computing system can execute all the programs a normal computer could run. Potentially, everything from most simple generic word processing software to highly specialized and customized programs designed for specific company could work successfully on a cloud computing system. A Cloud is a pool of virtualized computer resources. Clouds are not limited to grid environments, but also support “interactive user-facing applications” such as web applications and three-tier architectures. Cloud Computing is not a fundamentally new paradigm. It draws on existing technologies and approaches, such as utility Computing, Software-as-a-service, distributed computing, and centralized data centers. Some companies rent physical space to store servers and databases because they don’t have it available on site. Cloud computing gives these companies the option of storing data on someone else’s hardware, removing the need for physical space on the front end. Prominent service providers like Amazon, Google, SUN, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce etc. are extending computing infrastructures and platforms as a core for providing top-level services for computation, storage, database and applications. Application services could be email, office applications, finance, video, audio and data processing. By using cloud computing system a company can improve its customer relationship management. A CRM cloud computing system may be highly useful in delivering a sales team a blend of unique functionalities to improve agent/customer interactions. This paper attempts to first define the cloud computing as a tool for running business activities more effectively and efficiently at a lower cost; and then it distinguishes cloud computing with grid computing. Based on exhaustive literature review, authors discuss application of cloud computing in different disciplines of management especially in the field of marketing with special reference to use of cloud computing in CRM. Study concludes that CRM cloud computing platform helps a company track any data, such as orders, discounts, references, competitors and many more. By using CRM cloud computing, companies can improve its customer interactions and by serving them more efficiently that too at a lower cost can help gaining competitive advantage.

Keywords: cloud computing, competitive advantage, customer relationship management, grid computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 311

Authors: G. Erkomaishvili

Abstract:

The paper discusses economic policy of Georgia aiming to increase national competitiveness as well as the tools and means which will help to improve the competitiveness of the country. The sectors of the economy, in which the country can achieve the competitive advantage, are studied. It is noted that the country’s economic policy plays an important role in obtaining and maintaining the competitive advantage - authority should take measures to ensure high level of education; scientific and research activities should be funded by the state; foreign direct investments should be attracted mainly in science-intensive industries; adaptation with the latest scientific achievements of the modern world and deepening of scientific and technical cooperation. Stable business environment and export oriented strategy is the basis for the country’s economic growth. As the outcome of the research, the paper suggests the strategy for improving competitiveness in Georgia; recommendations are provided based on relevant conclusions.

Keywords: competitive advantage, competitiveness, competitiveness improvement strategy, competitiveness of Georgia

Procedia PDF Downloads 411

Authors: Anocha Rojanapanich

Abstract:

The objective of this research is to investigate the effects of earnings management on corporate transparency of the company in Dusit area workplace via financial reporting reliability and stakeholder acceptance as independent variable. And the company in Dusit are are taken as the population and sample. The questionnaire is used to collect data. Exploratory Factor Analysis is implemented to ensure construct validity, and correlation statistic is selected to test the relationship among all variable and the ordinary least squares regression is used to explore the hypothesized. The results show that earnings management has a significant and negative impact on financial reporting reliability, stakeholder acceptance, and corporate transparency. Both financial reporting reliability and stakeholder acceptance have an important and positive effect on corporate transparency, and they are then mediators of the earnings management-corporate transparency relationships.

Keywords: dusit area workplace, earnings management, financial report, business and marketing management

Procedia PDF Downloads 404

Authors: Thanawit Buafai, Siyathorn Khunon

Abstract:

This paper aims to explore the satisfaction levels of tourism product components on the island of Samui by studying the cultural dimension relationships of Hofsted’s classic theory. Both the six Hofsted cultural dimensions and tourism production satisfaction measures have been of interest worldwide. Therefore, the challenge of this study is to re-confirm previous research results in the ever-changing current contexts of the modern globalized business era. Self-rated questionnaires were employed to collect data from six nationalities of tourists in Samui, totaling 386 samples. The reliability of this research methodology was 0.967. Correlation was applied to analyze the relationships. The results indicate that Masculinity is significantly related to tourism destination satisfaction for every factor, while the other five cultural dimensions are related to some factors of tourism satisfaction. Surprisingly, tourist satisfaction toward the bar/restaurant factor is significantly correlated with all six cultural dimensions.

Keywords: cultural dimensions, tourism products, Samui, Thailand

Procedia PDF Downloads 339

Authors: C. Maphosa, Ndileleni Mudzielwana, Lufuno Phillip Netshifhefhe

Abstract:

In line with established mission and vision, a university articulates its focus and purpose of existence. The conduct of business in a university should be for the furtherance of the mission and vision. Teaching and learning should play a pivotal role in driving the purpose of a university. In this paper, the researchers examine how service learning could be significant in driving the purpose of a rural-based university whose focus is to promote rural development. The importance of institutions’ vision and mission statement is explored and the vision and mission of the said university examined closely. The concept rural development and the contribution of a university in its promotion is discussed. Service learning as a teaching and learning approach is examined and its significance in driving the purpose of a rural-based university explained.

Keywords: relevance, differentiation, purpose, teaching, learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 317

Authors: Anis A. Ansari, Aftab A. Ansari

Abstract:

Electronic waste is inundating the traditional solid-waste-disposal facilities, which are inadequately designed to handle and manage such type of new wastes. Since electronic waste contains mostly hazardous and even toxic materials, the seriousness of its effects on human health and the environment cannot be ignored in present scenario. Waste from the electronic industry is increasing exponentially day by day. From the last 20 years, we are continuously generating huge quantities of e-waste such as obsolete computers and other discarded electronic components, mainly due to evolution of newer technologies as a result of constant efforts in research and development in this sector. Polymers, one of the major constituents in almost every electronic waste, such as computers, printers, electronic equipment, entertainment devices, mobile phones, television sets etc., are if properly recycled can create a new business opportunity. This would not only create potential market for polymers to improve economy but also the priceless land used as dumping sites of electronic waste, can be utilized for other productive purposes.

Keywords: polymer recycling, electronic waste, hazardous materials, electronic components

Procedia PDF Downloads 472

Authors: Zhang Yu

Abstract:

Shanxi Province is a province with a long history in China. The historical characteristics of Jinzhong Prefecture in Shaanxi Province are very prominent. This research has done a lot of field research and analysis, and has analyzed a large number of documents. The formation and characteristics of villages in Jinzhong Prefecture are summarized. But the remains of many areas have not been systematically discovered and analyzed. This study found that the reasons for the formation of villages are natural, cultural, traffic and economic reasons. It mainly includes water, mountain, and developed business culture during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. By analyzing the evolution characteristics of each period, the characteristics and remains of the existing villages are explained in detail. These types of relics mainly include courtyards, fortresses, and Exchange shops. This study can provide systematic guidance on the protection of future village remains.

Keywords: Jinzhong Prefecture, village, features, remains

Procedia PDF Downloads 144