African Journal of
Business Management

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Bus. Manage.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1993-8233
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJBM
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 4193

Table of Content: 4 April 2011; 5(7)

April 2011

Business Model Generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers

Author(s): Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira, and João José Pinto Ferreira 

April 2011

An overview of HR-line relationship and its future directions

  This paper reviews strategic HRM literature that directly or indirectly discusses HR-line relationship. It documents what have so for been done to understand and manage this relationship. Literature has been identified through the relevant keyword search and secondly from going through citations of the most relevant academic papers. HR-line relationship is likely to maintain its importance in future. Various...

Author(s): Faisal Qadeer, Muhammad Shafique and Rashid Rehman

April 2011

A readiness model for IT investment in the construction industry

  The issues of IT failures have led to wide investigations efforts over the years. Ample evidence discovered that inability to evaluate organisation readiness among the main factor contributes to the failure. Most of the current IT/IS evaluation model focused on the post-implementation which failed to address the readiness of the organisation prior to the implementation. Assessing organisation readiness is...

Author(s): Nur Mardhiyah Aziz and Hafez Salleh

April 2011

Effect of relationships in supply networks: A long-term analysis in the automotive industry

  This work uses cointegration analysis to study the strength of relationships with the partners in supply networks in the Taiwan automotive industry. The purposes of this paper are: (1) to examine how firms form networks and to explore whether firms in supply networks should have long-term relationships; (2) to investigate the strength of relationships with the other partners and illustrate firm behavior in...

Author(s): Cheng-Chang Lin and Chao-Chen Hsieh

April 2011

Development plans and the state of e-tourism: Case study in Novi Sad

  The main idea of this paper is the fact that the development of travel and tourism industry is closely connected to the growth and impact of ICT. It is necessary that governments, realizing the economic and social value of tourism, create a necessary infrastructure able to accommodate this development. Authors define the main concepts of e-tourism in the world today, analyzing them in this case study....

Author(s): Ivana Jošanov-Vrgović, Ninoslava Savić,  Borislav Jošanov and Petar Vrgović

April 2011

Understanding the antecedents of affective organizational commitment and turnover intention of academics in Malaysia: The organizational support theory perspectives

  This study aims to test the structural model that explains the relationships between career development opportunities, POS, felt obligation, affective organizational commitment and turnover intention of academics working for one of the foreign offshore campuses of Australian universities in Malaysia. This study is driven theoretically by the social exchange theory and the organizational support theory. The...

Author(s): Lew Tek Yew

April 2011

The relationship between job satisfaction of academicians and lifetime satisfaction

  In this study, the academic staff’s job satisfaction and life satisfaction levels of differentiation were formed by their own working conditions between the different variables to determine whether or not the academic staff’s working conditions have affected their job satisfaction levels, and in what direction has the effect of life satisfaction been revealed. To measure the relationship between...

Author(s): Vicdan Altinok

April 2011

A cost-effective RFID encoding method for inventory identification

  In supply chain management, identifying the contents of an incoming package is a necessary process during inventory control. If each item in the package has its barcode, this job can be done by manually scanning the barcodes of thousands of items in the package. However, it is too impractical for today’s inventory control. The identification should be done automatically and quickly (e.g., within 100...

Author(s): Jen-Ya Wang

April 2011

Information technology usage and attitudes towards online resources- Students perspective

  Nowadays, the higher education trend is to emerge the traditional and online learning, placing a high concern on the development of Information Technology and deployment of e-learning. The aim of this study was to evaluate the features of information technology usage and to assess the attitudes and preferences towards e-learning courses resources among the students at the public University in Malaysia, which...

Author(s): Sana&#;a Abdul Karim Alkhanak and Ilhaamie Abdul Ghani Azmi

April 2011

Instıtutıons and economıc growth: A study in a cross-section of countrıes

  The neoclassical prediction, which is that lower income countries tend to grow faster than the high income countries, is often found to be inconsistent with the empirical research results. Researchers argue that neoclassical hypothesis holds merely when countries are similar with respect to structural parameters for preferences, hence institutions, and technology. If this similarity dissolves, no convergence...

Author(s): Hakan Sarıbas

April 2011

Postmodernism and consumer culture: Image-production via residential architecture in post-1980s Turkey

  Housing production in Turkey is mostly completed by merchant builders, with little or no involvement of architects. Those architects who do function in the housing industry try to satisfy state authorities, private enterprises and the customer, behaving according to these clients’ intentions. This, in turn, succeeds because of the current era of flexible accumulation where a consumer society is ready to...

Author(s): Nuray Ozaslan, Aysu Akalin and Christopher Wilson

April 2011

How intellectual capital mediates the relationship between knowledge management processes and organizational performance?

  The primary objective of the study is to examine the relationship between knowledge management processes and organizational performance, and to analyze the mediating effects of intellectual capital on the relationship between knowledge management processes and organizational performance. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed to the owner or senior manager of small and medium enterprises...

Author(s): Salina Daud and Wan Fadzilah Wan Yusoff

April 2011

The efficiency of labor input in the tree nut industry: A stochastic frontier production approach study in Butte County, California

  The shortage of labor has become an urgent problem for the farming industry for decades. This paper aims to investigate the contribution of labor to agricultural production efficiency in the tree nut industry. A discussion of marginal rate of technical substitution and economies of scale will also be included. The stochastic production frontier model is applied to a survey data collected from tree nut growers...

Author(s): Kuo-Liang Matt Chang, Todd A. Lone and George Langelett

April 2011

A two-warehouse inventory model under trade credit in the supply chain management

  The traditional EOQ (Economic Ordering Quantity) inventory model has three basic assumptions (A), (B) and (C) to be summarized as follows: (A) The retailer must be paid for the items as soon as the items are received; (B)  The replenishment rate is infinite; (C)  The inventories are stored by a single warehouse with unlimited capacity. Few inventory models with generalizing assumptions (A), (B)...

Author(s): Kun-Jen Chung, Yung-Chiuan Chen and Shy-Der Lin

April 2011

A short range dependence adjusted hurst exponent evaluation for Malaysian and Indonesian financial markets

  This study proposed a methodology to measure the Hurst exponent with the adjustment of short-range dependence in the financial markets. The possible short-range dependence is adjusted by heteroscedastic models.  Two emerging financial markets have been selected to conduct the adjusted Hurst exponent evaluations for the periods before, during and after the Asian financial crisis.  After the...

Author(s): Chin Wen Cheong and Zaidi Isa

April 2011

SMEs and entrepreneurs investments' profitability effects within the transition period in the Republic of Serbia

  Small and medium business sector is becoming the main focus of economy development strategy in the Republic of Serbia. Since the transition period lasts for almost two decades, it is of high importance for the society to plan deeply investment capacities. While SMEs and entrepreneurship development process is happening, some industry branches become prioritization for the potential investors. The paper...

Author(s): Mladen Radišić, Branislav Marić and Dušan Dobromirov

April 2011

The impact of organizational trust on innovativeness at the Tehran oil refinery company

  Innovation and innovativeness have become critical issues in sustaining competitive advantage, especially in large and mature organizations. Firms can not survive without being able continuously to renew and innovate. Despite the lack of researches on the role of trust in organizational innovativeness, many studies support the assumption that high levels of trust have a positive effect on the effectiveness...

Author(s): Rahmatoulah Golipour, Gholamreza Jandaghi, Mohammad Amin Mirzaei and Taher Roshandel Arbatan

April 2011

The impact of school management trainings and principals' attitude on students' learning outcomes

  School management trainings play an important role towards school effectiveness. The contemporary education systems place a high value on school management trainings for attaining improved learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is in two folds: firstly, to assess the effects of management trainings on student learning outcomes and secondly, to ascertain the extent to which principals’ attitudes...

Author(s): Muhammad Fayyaz Khan, Sarfraz Ahmad, Imran Ali, and Fayyaz-ur-Rehman

April 2011

Employee retention relationship to training and development: A compensation perspective

  Employee retention is a critical aspect for every company regarding competitive advantage because human resource is the most critical asset of today’s modern world. Other resources can be arranged effortlessly but to get efficient and retain talented human capital is the most difficult task. Therefore, organizations are now more focused towards employee retention. Organizations use different HR...

Author(s): Atif Anis, Ijaz-Ur-Rehman, Abdul Nasir and Nadeem Safwan

April 2011

Study of earnings management and audit quality

  This paper applies the pooled cross-sectional distribution approach to testify whether Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) perform earnings management from 1997 to 2003. The study finds that as the SMEs incurred the minor loss, the earnings was manipulated to slight positive earnings for deficit avoidance and failure embarrassment. This leaping zero earnings thresholds of earnings management behavior was not...

Author(s): Shu-Ling Chiang Li-Hua Huang and Hsing-Chin Hsiao

April 2011

Effective factors on sustainability of manufacturing processes, overcoming shrinkage in improved processes

  Although process owners, theorists and scholars have various viewpoints about effective ways of improvement of processes, they have consensus on two important subjects. First, process improvement activities have an extraordinary effect on increasing efficiency and second, there are barriers against consistency and maintenance of current level of improved processes. In enterprise level, it is easier to talk...

Author(s):   Abbas Toloei Eshlaghy, Hydeh Mottaghi and Rasool Shafieyoun

April 2011

Developing a hybrid evaluation process for product acceptability: An empirical study in automobile industry

  Product acceptability has become a very important issue as manufacturers have to decide whether product factors influence consumer decision on the purchase. In recent years, the evaluation of product acceptability has been a topic of continuous and extensive research. Unfortunately, manufacturers and designers often misunderstand what consumers really want. Hence, how to evaluate the acceptability of product...

Author(s): Shu-Ting Luo, Chwen-Tzeng Su, Bor-Wen Cheng

April 2011

The in-depth discussion on the promotional activities of reference price indication after the domino effects of consumers’ perceived value

  The correlation of customer satisfaction, purchase intention, purchase decision, and brand establishment are recently in-depth discussed in the most of previous studies and further, few studies specifically emphasize on the research of the effects of individual differences of cognition on reference price. This study takes tolerance of ambiguity as moderator variable aiming to examine the impact of different...

Author(s): Chaang-Yuan Kung, Ming-Yuan Hsieh and Yen-Hau Chen

April 2011

Has low-paid advantage of Chinese factory disappeared after the explosion of labor revolution?

  This research employs the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the Fuzzy Theory (FT) with the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodology to evaluate four hierarchical relations for the purpose of initiating an innovative strategy that addresses the domino effect of the labor revolution currently transpiring in the hypercompetitive Chinese manufacturing industry. First, the most contributed conclusion...

Author(s): Ming-Yuan Hsieh and Chaang-Yung Kung

April 2011

Hype matters applicant attraction: Study on type of publicity and recruitment advertising

This research studies the effects of publicity and recruitment advertising on applicant attraction. With manipulating publicity and recruitment advertisements design, participants with between-group designs were randomly assigned to groups. This study used a fictitious company and designed publicity and recruitment advertisements to understand which recruitment advertisement could improve applicants’...

Author(s): Chun-Hsien Lee, Fang-Ming Hwang, Mang-Lin Wang and Po-Hao Chen

April 2011

Study on risk perceptions of international tourists in India

Anxiety of becoming a criminal victim not only influences the willingness to visit, but also harms the development of local tourism industry.  In order to understand the psychological reaction to fears of crime from tourists and discuss the relevant factors, this study examined survey data of 156 international tourists during their visit to India in January 2010. It is discovered that harassment, fraud and larceny...

Author(s): Shu-Pin Chiu and Shih-Yen Lin

April 2011

A fuzzy conjoint analysis approach for evaluating credit card services: A case study of Iranian bank

  Nowadays, the objective of all organizations is to achieve higher market share by recognizing the customer requirements and try to offer the products or services according to these requirements. Financial and credit institutes like banks try to follow these objectives as well. Conjoint analysis (CA) method is one of the statistical methods which widely used in the marketing problems like prediction of...

Author(s): Elham Baheri, Mohammad Reza Dalvand, Ayyub Ansarinejad, Sina Miri-Nargesi, and Loghman Hatami-Shirkouhi

April 2011

Do supervisory mechanisms or market discipline relate to bank capital requirements and risk-taking adjustment? International evidence

  This study proposed a modified method to investigate whether capital regulations have an effect on bank risk-taking, or whether their effects are channeled through supervisory mechanisms and market discipline. This study used data from 1,702 banks of 42 countries over the period 2000 to 2007 to verify the capital buffer theory (Marcus, 1984; Milne and Whalley, 2001). It was found that the empirical results...

Author(s): Shu Ling Lin

April 2011

The impacts of unexpected changes in exchange rate on firms’ value: Evidence from a small open economy

  This study examined the exposure of firms to exchange rate fluctuations by both employing the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity Model (GARCH) and the Classical Linear Regression Model (CLRM). To uncover the sensitivity of our results in the presence of the financial crisis, the sample period was classified into two sub-periods in which included pre- and post- Asian financial crisis....

Author(s): Jian-Fa Li, Yih-Bey Lin and Cheng-Yih Hong

April 2011

Corporate sustainability disclosure practices of selected banks: A trend analysis approach

  Sustainability is a global concern at the present time. It urges corporate bodies to get involved in sustainability disclosure activities. Many companies in the developed countries disclose social and environmental issues, but developing countries are lagging behind in such disclosure. Recent studies showed that banking companies in Bangladesh disclosed more social and environmental information compared with...

Author(s): Farid Ahammad Sobhani, , Yuserrie Zainuddin, Azlan Amran and Md. Azizul Baten,

April 2011

Testing the dimensionality of Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (CETSCALE) among a young Malaysian consumer market segment

The purpose of this paper is to test the dimensionality of the Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (CETSCALE). This present research assessed a two dimensionality, namely uni-dimensional and two-dimension measure, of CETSCALE in order to determine which one is better in explaining consumers’ perceptions towards domestic brands in the Malaysian context. The findings show support for the 2 component model that was proposed...

Author(s): Poh-Chuin Teo, Osman Mohamad and T. Ramayah

April 2011

An evaluation of thermal hotel websites and the use/non-use of the internet as a marketing tool by thermal hotels in Turkey

  Although a number of studies regarding internet sites relating to the tourism industry and Turkey’s thermal sources have been conducted worldwide, none have been found that deal specifically with thermal hotels and their usage of Internet as a marketing tool. The purpose of this study was to evaluate thermal hotels websites and determine the use or non use of the Internet as a marketing tool by thermal...

Author(s): Cevdet Avcikurt, Ibrahim Giritlioglu and Seda Sahin

April 2011

Risks of project financing of infrastructure projects in Serbia

  In the last fifteen years, governments worldwide adopted project financing as a driving power for conducting and improving infrastructure financing. Project financing is generally used in new, autonomous, complex infrastructure projects accompanied by a huge level of risk and high asymmetry among available information. The primary advantage of the project financing concept lies in the manner in which the...

Author(s): SlaÄ‘ana Benković, Sandra Jednak, Miloš Milosavljević, Nevenka Žarkić Joksimović and Dragana Kragulj

April 2011

Understanding consumer’s internet purchase intention in Malaysia

  This study aims to explore the antecedents relating to the extent of both the attitude and the purchasing intention of online shopping. It examined the factors influencing consumers’ attitude toward online shopping and shopping intention from the Malaysian perspectives. From an e-commerce perspective, the understanding of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and...

Author(s): Narges Delafrooz, Laily H. Paim and Ali Khatibi

April 2011

The effect of knowledge management practices on organizational performance: A conceptual study

  As organizations increasingly become aware of knowledge as a key strategic asset,   they are being forced to revise their strategy on how to effectively utilize that asset to not only achieve competitive advantage but maintain it as well.  Previous researches have provided many reasons for failure to implement knowledge management properly.  No serious attempt has been made to integrate...

Author(s): Waheed Akbar Bhatti, Arshad Zaheer and Kashif Ur Rehman

April 2011

Evaluating the customer perceptions on in-flight service quality

  In the competitive aviation market as a result of the emergence of charter airlines have had to reconsider their in-flight services approach to service provision. Specifically, the in-flight comfort offered based on the service quality perception. However, in-flight service quality is always vague and hard to express in exact number. Therefore, this study applies fuzzy-grey method based to deal with the...

Author(s): Yuan-Ho Chen, Ming-Lang Tseng and Ru-Jen Lin

April 2011

Aviation ground crews: Occupational stresses and work performance

  Aviation ground crews play a very important role in air transportation. Not only does their work pressure affect individual health and organizational efficiency, but aviation safety. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between various sources of occupational stress and work performance. In this study, the connection among a variety of occupational stress, coping strategies and work...

Author(s): Kuo-Shun Sun, and Hawjeng Chiou

April 2011

A spiral process model of technological innovation in a developing country: The case of Samsung

  This article presents a spiral process model of indigenous technological innovation capabilities (ITICs) that shows how firms in a developing country initiate, imitate, improve and make innovative technologies. Any technological innovation passes through four stages: (1) technological innovation (TI), (2) transfer of technology (imitation), (3) adaptive technological innovation (improvement), and finally (4)...

Author(s): Murad Ali, Aleem Muhammad and Kichan Park

April 2011

Systematic process analysis in industrial business management: A practitioner tool kit

  The increasing labor cost had eroded the benefit of the manufacturing industry gradually. To revise the business process and to formulate a strategy in order to survival became an important lesson. Since the Supply Chain Council developed the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, it was widely applied by many enterprises to describe its relationship within upstream and downstream companies. The...

Author(s): JrJung Lyu and Han-Chi Fu

April 2011

Factors influencing technology acceptance decisions

  This study proposes a causal model for investigating teacher acceptance of technology. We received 258 effective replies from teachers at public and private universities in Taiwan. A questionnaire survey was utilized to test the proposed model. The LISREL was applied to test the proposed hypotheses. The result shows that computer self-efficacy has a strongly positive effect on perceived ease of use and...

Author(s): Jui-Ling Chang, Pang-Tien Lieu, Jung-Hui Liang, Hsiang-Te Liu and Seng-lee Wong

April 2011

Evaluation of job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour: Case study of selected organisations in Zimbabwe

      The purpose of this paper was to evaluate job satisfaction and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) amongst selected organisations in Zimbabwe. The research was aimed at achieving the following objectives: determine job satisfaction levels of employees in the selected organisations; determine the extent to which employees in these organisations engaged in OCB; analyse the...

Author(s): Malvern W. Chiboiwa, Crispen Chipunza and Michael O. Samuel

April 2011

How does perceived risks complement switching costs in e-commerce?

  Customer acquisition and retention are two phases of an e-commerce life cycle. Switching costs and perceived risks affect both, but in different ways. This study examines these two well known, often contradicting variables in an integrated frame work and asks: Can perceived risks complement switching costs to give rises to new customer loyalty strategies for e-commerce enterprises? That is, do these two...

Author(s): Yung-Shen Yen

April 2011

Study on the effects of transformational leadership by managers and organizational justice consciousness on organizational citizenship behaviour of high-tech electronics industry in Taiwan

  The high-tech electronics industry can make an important contribution to the enhancement of Taiwan’s technological standards and international competitive advantage. Under the pressures of business production performance and operations, it cannot ignore an important task for managers in Taiwan’s high-tech electronics industry that they should adopt appropriate leadership patterns, fair mechanism...

Author(s): Shu-Chuan Lin, Huo-Tsan Chang, Farn- Shing Chen and Ying-Ming Lin

April 2011

Searching for internal and external factors that determine working capital management for manufacturing firms in Pakistan

  This paper searches for important endogenous and exogenous factors that have an influence on working capital management of manufacturing firms in Pakistan. The topic has been examined by researchers around the world and needs to be inquired for firms in Pakistan. Following Shulman and Cox (1985), working capital management of a manufacturing business firm is measured by net liquidity balance and working...

Author(s): Shahid Ali, and Muhammad Ramzan Akhtar Khan,

April 2011

Assessment on intellectual capital management for Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry: Using GRA and MPI

  In the new economy era, knowledge has already become the most vital enabler connection with a high technology enterprise. Intellectual capital is the core of knowledge management. Managing intellectual capital effectively can greatly enhance the competitive advantages of enterprises. The former studies about intellectual capital concentrated on its content and the stock measurement. This study focused on how...

Author(s): Chia-Nan Wang, Yao-Lang Chang, Qi-Heng Huang and Chih-Hong Wang

April 2011

The impact of board composition on corporate financial and social responsibility performance: Evidence from public-listed companies in Turkey

  In an attempt to explain the relationships between principles of good governance, marketing practices and financial performances of companies in Turkey, the authors examined the inter-relationships between board composition characteristics, corporate social responsibility practices and financial performance in this study. The population of this study is Turkish firms that are listed in the Istanbul Stock...

Author(s): Kader Sahin, Cigdem Sahin Basfirinci and Aygun Ozsalih

April 2011

Functional correlations between the efficiency indicators of investments

  In the methodology for evaluating the validity of investments (without portfolio investments), recommended by the World Bank, three methods are usually used: payback period, net present value and internal rate of return. Functional correlation can be set up between these indicators and this paper presents an interdependence research, based on the five projects form of different industrial...

Author(s): Branislav Marić, Jelena Ćirić, Vladimir Mitrović and Mihailo Rovčanin

April 2011

The impact of macroeconomic indicators on stock exchange performance in Kazakhstan

  This paper aims to investigate the causal relationship between macroeconomic indicators and Kazakhstan stock exchange (KASE) index. The results indicate the existence of cointegrations between these series implying violation of market efficiency hypothesis. The results of the study are in compliance not only with theory but also with the issues in practice. Using the bound testing approach, within the...

Author(s): Yessengali Oskenbayev, Mesut Yilmaz and Dauren Chagirov

April 2011

Corporate international activities and cash holdings

  This research extends previous studies of cash holdings and presents the first empirical evidence on the relationship between cash holdings and internationalization. Using U.S. firms as sample, our findings reveal that Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have more cash holdings than Domestic Corporations (DCs), and that internationalization is a determinant of cash holdings. Furthermore, there is an...

Author(s): Yi-Chein Chiang and Cin-Dian Wang

April 2011

A consumer analysis of service provision offered by a university to its resident students in South Africa

  The accommodation services sector has emerged as one of the highly demanded service industries in South Africa. The objectives of the study were: To investigate empirically if resident students (customers) are satisfied with the services (accommodation) provided by the University. Secondly, to investigate empirically the perception of resident students (customers) on the use of relationship marketing by the...

Author(s):   Ronald Chambati and Olawale Fatoki

April 2011

Company performance in Malaysia after the 1997 economic crisis: Using Economic Value Added (EVA) as a predictor

  Malaysia was hit by an economic crisis in 1997, and the entire Southeast Asia was also gripped by an economic crisis of formidable proportions. At first, it was limited to Thailand's financial sector, but it quickly grew to engulf Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea as well. This study evaluated the post-economic crisis period and whether or not EVA, as a measurement tool, had a relationship with...

Author(s): Issham Ismail

April 2011

The application of FMEA in the oil industry in Iran: The case of four litre oil canning process of Sepahan Oil Company

  Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is an effective technique for preventing the potential problems and actions needed in eradicating the cause of error in oil industries. On the other hand, oil producing companies play a critical role in the oil industry in Iran as a developing country, out of which Sepahan Oil Company has a significant contribution. The aim of this research is to show how FMEA could...

Author(s): Masoud Hekmatpanah, Arash Shahin and Natraj Ravichandran

April 2011

Impact of corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction in banking service

  The past three decades have witnessed the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a field of study and a framework for the role of business corporations and financial institutions in society. After the Tsunami in 2004 people were need financial assistance to recover from the loss of tsunami and revamping their life. Only source they perceive is availing loans from banking sector and other...

Author(s): N.Senthikumar, A. Ananth and A. Arulraj