Economic and Business Review (EBR)
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Overcoming SMEs Challenges through Critical Success Factors: A Case of SMEs in the Western Cape Province, South Africa
No full textSMEs comprise over 90% of African business operations and contribute to over 50% of African employment and Growth Domestic Product (GDP). SMEs sector has shown positive signs in South Africa, Mauritius and North Africa. In South Africa, SMEs constitute 55% of all jobs. Research of Bowler, Dawood and Page (2007) reveal that 40% of new business ventures fail in their first year, 60% in their second year, and 90% in their first 10 years of existence. It seems that a number of challenges have been identified as contributing to the failure of SMEs in South Africa and worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the critical success factors for the SMEs to improve their performance in order to overcome the challenges they are faced within the competitive market environment. The research problem of this study emanates from the current high business failure rate. The research investigates what are the critical success factors that can help these SMEs to be sustainable and have positive growth so to limit the high business failure rate in South Africa. The research established that attracting repeat customers and the performance of the product are the critical success factors that can lead to the sustenance of these SMEs. The study concluded that the resource-constraint SMEs need to focus on critical success factors to build competitive advantage to stay competitive amidst the challenges from globalisation and liberalisation. This study will make further contribution on understanding these critical success factors as they are central to business success, especially in South Africa where it is estimated that the failure rate of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMEs) is between 70% and 80% (Brink and Cant, 2009)
Deaccessioning and Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow in Manager\u27s Hands: A Formal Model
No full textThe problem of agency costs of free cash flow in manager\u27s hands has been firstly noted by Easterbrook and Jensen. We present one of the first attempts to formally model the problem in light of similar situation faced by managers of museums being allowed (or disallowed) to deaccession the artworks from their collections. We show that deaccessioning funds always lead to various forms of agency costs for the museum. This finding applies for any non-profit firm and its endowment. The task lying ahead is to formally prove the general conjecture also for the case of private for-profit firms
The Relevance of Employee-Related Ratios for Early Detection of Corporate Crises
No full textThe purpose of this study was to analyse whether employee-related ratios derived from accounts have incremental predictive power for the early detection of corporate crises and bankruptcies. Based on the literature reviewed, it can be seen that not much attention has been drawn to this task, indicating that further research is justified. For empirical research purposes, a database of Austrian companies was used for the time period 2003 to 2005 in order to develop multivariate linear discriminant functions for the classification of companies into the two states; bankrupt and non-bankrupt, and to detect the contribution of employee-related ratios in explaining why firms fail. Several ratios from prior research were used as potential predictors. In addition, other separate ratios were analysed, including employee-related figures. The results of the study show that while employee-related ratios cannot contribute to an improvement in the classification performance of prediction models, signs of these ratios within the discriminant functions did show the expected directions. Efficient usage of employees seems to play an important role in decreasing the probability of insolvency. Additionally, two employee-related ratios were found which can be used as proxies for the size of the firm. This had not been identified in prior studies for this factor
Exploring Relationship between Brand Equity and Customer Loyalty on Pharmaceutical Market
No full textBy maintaining continuous satisfaction and high level of the brand’s equity the customers express the intention of long-term buying of product and their choice spreads on other products in the organization’s portfolio. By developing a brand which represents value to the customers, the customers’ satisfaction will grow reinforcing relationship between satisfaction and brand development. Purpose of this paper is to obtain insight about the relationship between elements of brand equity and customer loyalty among self-medication products. The research results show that elements of brand equity do increase customer brand loyalty. But not all elements do contribute in the same manner
Stereotipna grožnja na delovnem mestu: primer generacij
No full textCompanies with the right approach to diversity create a work environment where all employees can succeed. The article explains how understanding the concept of stereotype threat - the expectation that a person will be evaluated based on their membership of a social group rather than their actual skills and potential - can help company leaders create a good working environment for employees of different generations.
In the literature, we find the concept of stereotype threat and its negative effects presented in the context of different types of stereotypes, such as sexual and age stereotypes. The concept of stereotype threat and its consequences in an organisational context is still an unexplored area in the literature, as is the relationship with generations and generational diversity or stereotypes. The purpose of this article is therefore to shed light on the concept of stereotype threat and its consequences, to show what generational stereotypes are, and to provide responses to identified stereotype threats in the workplace
The Effects of Accounting Treatment and Financial Crisis on the Stock Option Plans of Italian Companies
No full textMany studies state that favourable accounting treatment has been one of the main reasons behind employee stock options. In addition, stock options have recently been the target of growing criticism with a possible influence on incentive effectiveness and outrage costs. In such a perspective, the main purpose of the paper is to explore the impact of IFRS 2 and of the recent financial crisis on stock option compensation. Empirical evidence suggests that: (i) IFRS 2 did not have a significant effect on stock option granting, (ii) the issue of stock options is less likely to occur during the financial crisis
Marketing in Small Firms: The Case of Slovenia
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of how marketing is understood and practised by Slovenian small companies. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 small firm owners/managers. The main findings of our exploratory study suggest that the marketing style of Slovenian small firms is presumably similar to that of their Western counterparts. Marketing tends to be narrowly understood as tactics/methods (most often as being synonymous with advertising), with no person particularly responsible for it. Marketing plans often exist only in the heads of the owners/managers and usually have a short-term focus with very broadly defined objectives
Razvoj in oblikovanje znamke gorskokolesarske destinacije
No full textMountain biking is one of the most widespread adventure sports, which is why the number of destinations offering a full mountain biking experience to their visitors has increased over the last decade. Due to the standardisation of mountain biking infrastructure, which used to be a key differentiator, most mountain biking destinations have focused on brand design and marketing in recent years. However, due to the specific needs of mountain bikers, which differ significantly from the needs of traditional tourists, the classic brand design and maintenance activities should be adapted. As no research has been conducted in this area, we conducted in-depth interviews with 24 representatives of leading mountain bike destinations or leading experts in the field of mountain bike tourism. The interviews revealed that mountain bike destinations lack knowledge about brand design and management. Therefore, we have developed guidelines and recommendations that enable them to fully exploit the benefits of the brands
Improved Holt-Winters Method: A Case of Overnight Stays of Tourists in Republic Of Slovenia
No full textExponential smoothing methods are very commonly used for forecasting demand because they are simple, fast and inexpensive. The Holt-Winters (HW) methods estimate three smoothing parameters, associated with level, trend and seasonal factors. The seasonal variation can be of either an additive or multiplicative form. The multiplicative version is used more widely and on average works better than the additive, but if a data series contains some values equal to zero, the multiplicative HW method may not be used. In this paper we propose an improved additive HW method and we treat the initial values for the level, trend and seasonal components as well as three smoothing constants as decision variables. Through our results we demonstrate that a considerable reduction in forecast error (mean square error) can be achieved. The presented new method is applied to the case of overnight stays of tourists in Republic of Slovenia and comparisons with other methods are made on this case study data
National Innovation Policies in the EU: A Fuzzy-Set Analysis
No full textThis paper argues that innovation policy research can benefit from utilizing new research methods as they might lead to different policy recommendations. It demonstrates this by using a set-theoretic fsQCA method to analyse the data on innovation policies in the European Union (EU). It shows that the use of correlation-based statistical methods is not appropriate for the evaluation of innovation policies due to their causally complex nature that correlational statistical methods cannot unravel. This paper demonstrates this by focusing on the special importance of linkages among actors and innovation commercialisation through entrepreneurship and the notion that they represent a necessary condition for innovation success. Results confirm that the single factor of Linkages & entrepreneurship is the necessary condition for innovation success, thus emphasizing the importance of an open innovation framework for innovation policy-making. Results also show three combinations of sufficient conditions (but no single factor) lead to innovation success. They confirm the causal complexity of innovation policy and confirm that using different research methods will lead to different policy recommendation