1,720,954 research outputs found
Impact of Micro Credit on the Growth of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Limbe I, Cameroon
Get PDFPurpose -- This study aims to analyze the impact of microcredit on the growth of women-owned small businesses in Limbe I Cameroon. More specifically, to identify, map and characterize the women-owned small businesses in Limbe I that have benefited from micro-credit, to assess the extent to which microcredit has assisted in the expansion of their businesses, and to investigate the challenges faced by the women small businesses in Limbe I.
Design /Methodology/Approach – The research design adopted for this study was ex-post facto or causal-comparative research design. A sample of 30 women-owned small businesses that have ever benefitted from microcredit was selected using a purposive sampling technique. The instrument used for this study was a well-structured and validated questionnaire and data for the study was analyzed and presented on tables, bar charts, using descriptive and inferential statistics assisted by SPSS software version 20 and the hypothesis was tested using a regression.
Findings – The findings revealed that microcredit has a very low level of impact on the growth of women-owned small businesses in Limbe I. The findings also unveiled the major challenges faced by women entrepreneurs viz. the pledge for collateral security, the lack of marketing skills and knowledge, the absence of proper training and support, the cumbersomeness of documents for the acquisition of loans, the high-interest rate, the long period of time taken before granting their loans and an absence of knowledge and awareness amongst women about budgeting control resource management and commercial functions.
Practical Implications- The study recommends that the women-owned businesses of Limbe I should unite them by creating an association on which to debate about their challenges. The Delegation of the small and medium scale enterprise should organize training to enhance their business management skills
Factors Contributing to the Failure of Development Projects in Cameroon
Get PDFGovernments and organizations, in developing countries, have witnessed project failures in their project implementation, although there might be some differences in the causes, effects and consequences of such failures among governments. This study aims at investigating factors contributing to the failure of development projects in Cameroon and more specifically, the internal factors and the external factors, as well as the strategies that can be employed by the stakeholders to anticipate those projects’ failure. This study employs a cross-sectional survey research design and more specifically a sequential exploratory mixed-method approach. Data was purposively collected from a representative sample of 186 participants stratified into project management team members, community leaders and influential men and women (elites), household heads, members of projects management committees. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire while a focus group discussion was organized with community leaders and members of project management committees. The necessary methodological technical requirements were followed to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Standard version, Release 21.0 for the structured questionnaire and following the process of thematic analysis for the group discussion. It then appears that corruption, poor governance, embezzlement of projects funds and the lack of competence of the projects managers are the most prominent internal factors leading to the failure of development projects in Cameroon. On the other hand, the major concern raised by the community leaders and members of management committees is that the political environment is the most prominent external factor leading to project failure in Cameroon, followed by the technological environment and the economic environment factors. The study recommended amongst others strategies to ensure development projects success in Cameroon, to improve on procurement procedure by reducing bureaucracy delay at all levels, and unfair practices like corruption and favoritism, to improving on communication to make sure that all the stakeholders are kept abreast of the progress of the project and the challenges faced such that concerted solutions can be provided, to practice good leadership that makes sure the objectives are met while mitigating corruption and embezzlement of funds.
 
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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