1,720,955 research outputs found
Contribution of Mobile media communications to consumer attitude/consumer behavior in the clothing retail industry in Zimbabwe
Full text linkThis paper sought to explore the current state, dynamics and opportunities of SMS mobile advertising in Zimbabwe. In doing so, the paper takes keen interest into (1) the content of SMS mobile advertising being used (2) willingness to receive SMS adverts by consumers (3) the frequency to which consumers have received these SMS in the past two years (4) as well as attitudes formed towards receiving messages and the impact these have on inducing consumer action. Using Zimbabwe’s top four retail players in the clothing industry a sample of 322 consumers were used and an instrument for measuring attitudes towards SMS based Advertising was also used. It was interesting to note that given the varied forms of SMS ads the sector only use sales promotion, stock alerts and competition. Attitudes that consumers formed towards SMS advertising were directly linked to the acceptance to receive SMS, were most of the consumers highlighted that they would want clothing retail companies to ask them permission to send their messages as these messages sometimes come unexpectedly. The paper concludes and recommends that SMS advertising is the future of most clothing retailers as it affords a two way communication enabling high interactivity, specific based advertising, and location based communication. Keywords: SMS advertising, mobile marketing, permission base
Characterisation of University-Industry Linkages for SMEs in Emerging Economies: A Zimbabwean Perspective
No full textThe increasing demand for universities to be more relevant to the society by commercialising their academic knowledge has spurred the relevance of university-industry linkages. While significant literature has been produced in this area, the nature of these linkages in emerging economies, particularly between SMEs and State Universities, remains poorly understood. This study empirically explores the nature of University-Enterprise(U-E) linkage between State Universities and SMEs in the manufacturing sector of Zimbabwe and the factors hindering such collaborative arrangements. The study relied on personal interviews to collect data from five purposively selected industry liaison officers / directors of state universities’ industrial parks and innovation hubs and 25 owners/managers of SMEs in the manufacturing sector. The four-step procedure to content analysis was employed and this included decontextualization, recontexualisation, categorisation, and compilation to analyse data. The study found the university-initiated linkage was more formalised and represented the university\u27s way of aligning its curriculum to the demands of the national government and mostly pursued mainly to comply with the government’s performance indicators. In contrast to the above, enterprise-initiated collaborative engagements were found to be more opportunistic and formed to solve immediate challenges. Limited trust in governmentsponsored programmes and the fear of exposing themselves to regulatory authorities emerged among the main factors hindering SMEs from collaborating with state universities. The study recommends the crafting of a university-industry collaboration policy with incentives to attract SMEs
The Role of Agricultural Marketing on Empowering Rural Farmers In Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe
Full text linkThe paper presents a more qualitative study on the role of agricultural marketing on improving the livelihoods of rural farmers in Masvingo province. The study focuses on four issues (1) major crops grown (2) current markets for produce (3) institutions that support farmers (4) challenges faced by farmers in production, pricing, promotion and transporting produce to profitable markets. Data was gathered from 361 respondents being farmers specialising in the production of maize, groundnuts, small grain crops and vegetables, extension officers, bursars of boarding schools, churches and hospitals as well as supermarkets owners using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The findings indicate that maize, rapoko, millet, groundnuts and vegetables are widely grown; GMB, Urban dealers, boarding schools, hospitals, churches and Supermarkets are the leading markets currently absorbing produce; inputs supply, transport, Lack of market information affect farmers in pricing agricultural produce. The paper concludes that rural farmers lack market information as they still rely on the traditional selling approach. The paper recommends government to improve the state of the roads; establish training centers to equip farmers with marketing skills. Moreover, there is need for the rural farmers to establish their own marketing board which will be responsible for identifying markets and delivery of produce direct to the target markets. Key words: Agricultural Marketing, Rural Farmers, Empowermen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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