Volume 10 (2015): Issue 2 (August 2015)

This paper examined the importance of organisational communication to overall effective labour relations. It looked at organisational communication and its role in labour relations between the parties involved in Labour relations for better business procedures and relationships. It explained the importance of organisational communication in enhancing better labour relations within the organisation and with people outside the organisation. It enumerated the various groups that are involved in industrial relations and how they could use organisational communication for better industrial relations. It established the importance of organisational communication to the overall success of any organisation. Communication is vital to all human relations including labour relations but it seems to have been taken for granted or treated as inconsequential. When good organisational communication is not given its pride of place in organisation, it would affect labour relations negatively. This paper looked at the importance of organisational communication to labour relations, its effects on organisational performance, and negative effects of lack of good communication between stakeholders in labour relations and concluded that organisational communication should be properly used by all concerned in industrial relation matters for better performance of the organisation and improved labour relations both within and outside the organisation.

The relation between international trade and environmental and social issues has deep historical roots, having been manifest ever since the first industrial revolution. Ironically, the expansion of industrial activities marked, besides the exit from economic backwardness, the commencement of an inexorable war of men against nature. Concomitantly industrialization laid the groundwork for an explosive increase in international trade, which made the latter responsible for increasing environment degradation and social rights infringement. The removal of trade barriers in the first decades after the Second World War as well as the subsequent regulation induced by globalization rendered the bad effects of man’s activity upon nature even more conspicuous. Yet somewhat paradoxically, for all the harm inflicted upon the environment so far, international trade now seems to be an efficient vehicle by which dirty production still prevailing in many countries of the world could be curtailed. The paper is intended to explore, from historical perspective, how environmental issues have come to be entangled with international trade and how serious the problem is.

Access to bank finance is necessary to create an economic environment that enables Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow and prosper. The SMEs in Sri Lanka, however, face significant constraints to access bank finance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the access to bank finance and related issues in the SME sector of Sri Lanka. The paper is exploratory in nature and reviews the bank financing situation for SMEs in Sri Lanka, as well as provides an overview of constraints faced by the banks (supply-side) and SMEs (demand-side). The paper also highlights some good practices in SME lending from international experience and outlines some recommendations to help overcome the constraints faced by the banks and SMEs. The recommendations discussed in this paper may be of importance to policymakers, not only in Sri Lanka, but in many other developing countries in a similar stage of economic growth.

The main focus of (the two parts of) this article is on the emerging countries and their development paths. Particularly, it emphasizes on the role and contribution of innovation (of all kinds, in all its forms) for multinational companies from emerging economies (EMNC); the entire research endeavor is placed under the auspices of the knowledge-based society - the one that makes knowledge the ultimate source of power, enabling entities to use and potentially multiply it at the same time at global scale. Analyzing the situation of some emerging economies (starting from their best ranked multinationals), the article draws some empirical and theoretical conclusions on the ways knowledge and innovation could become determinants of progress beyond national boundaries.

The idea of a Western Europe economic recovery occurs after World War II. First as a common market, and later, after enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe as the single internal market. Due to the new challenges with which the global economy was faced, the longterm and short-term European economy needs a coherent growth economic strategy; the success of this strategy depends on joint action. Expanding the European economy is a continuous and irreversible process, yet it advances too slowly. The Lisbon strategy is a commitment to revive the European economy in all sectors. At 5 years after implementation of this strategy it was found that the results are insufficient, so meetings were held to relaunch the Lisbon Strategy. The success of the Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010) established different opinions from European political leaders. Due to the challenges of the globalized world, the objective of the Lisbon Strategy after 2010 remained valid and recognition of the failure of the Lisbon Strategy has been transformed into formulating a new strategy, namely "Europe 2020", whose objectives are more affordable and easier control. The "Europe 2020" strategy is a mechanism of coordination of several policies, such as social policy, education, research and energy, which are the competence of national governments. The E.U. aims to further improve the competitiveness of the global economy, and promoting their interests. Under the new strategy, each Member State must assume bold development objectives for their economies, and in accordance to tradition. The competitiveness of the EU economy is directly influenced by the political stability of Europe.

We study an entrant firm’s product quality choice and the price competition arising between the entrant and the incumbent firm. We show that the entrant firm should introduce a relatively higher (lower) quality than the incumbent firm when the consumers’ valuation for quality is sufficiently large (small). We also study how the incumbent firm modifies its price in response to the ensuing price competition. We find that the incumbent firm should decrease its price. We also profile how the incumbent firm’s price non-linearly depends on consumers’ valuation for quality.

Empirical studies show that correlation between national stock markets increased and the benefits of global portfolio diversification decreased significantly after the global stock market crash of 1987. The 1987 and 2008 crashes are the two most important global stock market crashes since the 1929 Great depression. Although the effects of the 1987 crash on the comovements of national stock markets have been investigated extensively, the effects of the 2008 crash have not been studied sufficiently. In this paper we study this issue with a research sample that includes the U.S stock market and twenty European stock markets. We find that correlation between the twenty-one stock markets increased and the benefits of portfolio diversification decreased significantly after the 2008 stock market crash.

Given the recent fluctuation in the exchange rate and the presence of several factors such as the various economy-political sanctions (mainly embargos on oil and banking), extreme volatility in different economic fields, and consequently the devaluation of national and public procurement -A landmark that is emanating from exchange rate fluctuation - two points should be noted: First, it is essential to review the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on macro economic variables such as inflation and to provide appropriate policies. Second, the existence of this condition provides the chance to study the relation between exchange rate and inflation in a non-linear and asymmetric method. Hence, the present study seeks to use TAR model and, on the basis of monthly time series data over the period March 2002 to March 2014, to analyze the cross-asymmetric and non-linear exchange rate on consumer price index (CPI) in Iran. The results also show the presence of an asymmetric long-term relationship between these variables (exchange rate and CPI). Also, in the Iranian economy, the effect of negative shocks of exchange rate on inflation is more sustainable than the one from positive shocks.

The main focus of (the two parts of) this article is on the emerging countries and their development paths. Particularly, it emphasizes on the role and contribution of innovation (of all kinds, in all its forms) for multinational companies from emerging economies (EMNC); the entire research endeavor is placed under the auspices of the knowledge-based society - the one that makes knowledge the ultimate source of power, enabling entities to use and potentially multiply it at the same time at global scale. Analyzing the situation of some emerging economies (starting from their best ranked multinationals), the article draws some empirical and theoretical conclusions on the ways knowledge and innovation could become determinants of progress beyond national boundaries.

This study aims to determine how CSR activities of banks in Mauritius impact on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty towards banks. A stakeholder approach to CSR and Carroll’s (1991) four part definition was adopted, which included economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic corporate social responsibilities. A three- section questionnaire was used for data collection. 384 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 352 were returned. The results indicate that philanthropic CSR, economic CSR and ethical CSR, in their order of descending importance, are significant predictors of customer satisfaction and loyalty. The study shows that legal responsibilities however did not influence customer satisfaction and loyalty. The study concludes that philanthropic, economic and ethical CSR could be areas to further investigate with a view to benefit from competitive advantage in the banking sector. The study purports to contribute to existing literature by providing evidence that Carroll’s model may not be applicable in non-western context, more particularly so, in small economies. The study also advocates future research avenues.

The study attempts to identify the relationship between the banking sector’s financing in agriculture and total agricultural output at national level. To assist the study, a simple linear regression model has been developed. The results suggest that there is a strong correlation between banking sectors’ financing in agriculture and agriculture output in Bangladesh. It is also evident that banking sector’s credits are significantly facilitating financial inclusion in Bangladesh. The model can be instrumental for developing countries that are seeking ways of inclusive growth. In addition; the study recommends some policy measures to overcome the challenges of financial inclusion with regards to the banking sector’s initiatives in financing agriculture in Bangladesh.

The purpose of the paper is to illustrate an econometric model used to predict the lean meat content in pig carcasses, based on the muscle thickness and back fat thickness measured by the means of an optical probe (OptiGrade PRO).The analysis goes through all steps involved in the development of the model: statement of theory, specification of the mathematical model, sampling and collection of data, estimation of the parameters of the chosen econometric model, tests of the hypothesis derived from the model and prediction equations. The data have been in a controlled experiment conducted by the Romanian Carcass Classification Commission in 2007. The purpose of the experiment was to develop the prediction formulae to be used in the implementation of SEUROP classification system, imposed by European Union legislation. The research methodology used by the author in this study consisted in reviewing the existing literature and normative acts, analyzing the primary data provided by and organization conducting the experiment and interviewing the representatives of the working team that participated in the trial.

The internet triggered a significant rise in e-commerce as many businesses found that the advent of online business provides unparalleled opportunities for organisations to extend their operations overseas. In Mauritius, many retail and wholesale shops have decided to embark in the online experience and are contemplating to launch e-commerce websites, more specifically electronic ordering (e-ordering), where customers can then order for their products without having to move to the outlets. The aim of this study was to provide a thorough understanding of the several benefits and problems associated with the adoption of an e-commerce website by wholesale and retail shops. The following were done: an assessment of the readiness of customers to go online and an evaluation of employees’ motivation and opinion towards the implementation of e-commerce. The study mainly revealed that majority of the respondents had never purchased online and a significant number of customers were reluctant to order online despite the various guarantees provided. Moreover, 56% of the employees were against the implementation of an e-commerce website as they related it to an increased workload or a waste of resources. Consequently, relevant recommendations catering for all stakeholders were formulated for successful implementation of an e-commerce website.

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the macroeconomic factors that enhance revenue gap in South Africa using the multivariate cointegration techniques for the period 1965 to 2012. The results from the cointegration analysis indicate that the revenue gap in South Africa is negatively associated with the level of imports while positively related to external debt and underground economy. The former finding is consistent with the notion that imports are subjected to more taxation than domestic activities because of certain features of international trade that tend to make tax evasion difficult. On the other hand, the positive relationship between external debt and tax gap shows that the South African government relies upon external debt to finance its budget deficit resulting from missing revenues. Furthermore, the observed negative effect of the post-apartheid dummy confirms that the tax policy reforms that South Africa introduced following the liberation in 1994 have led to a reduction in missing revenues. The results from the Granger causality test also show that there is a unidirectional causality running from imports and underground economy to revenue gap, while revenue gap on the other hand is found to Granger-cause national income and external debt in South Africa.

Because leadership is known as the process of influencing others and not only that but determining them to act in order to achieve goals, the article above emphasizes the importance of communication in this process. By understanding the essence of leadership, managers will be effective communicators and so more effectively leading their organizations through projects.