Search results

For the present generation of entrepreneurs, the operating environment in Afghanistan has been among the most tenuous in the world. Numerous regime changes, civil unrest and war have created tremendous uncertainty, making civilian business planning difficult. These challenges incrementally impact female entrepreneurs. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between one aspect of entrepreneurial psychological capital – optimism regarding enterprise success of Afghan female entrepreneurs – and aspects of the marketing function.

Primary data collection was used for this study. A total of 248 women business owners were surveyed via telephone from five provinces of Afghanistan. Over half (133) of respondents were from the Afghan capital, Kabul. A total of 49 respondents were obtained from Herat, 44 from Mazar, 12 from Nangarhar and ten were obtained from Kandahar.

We find that a focus on marketing positively and significantly impacts reported optimism by female Afghan entrepreneurs, as do marketing planning efforts. However, self-reliance and orientation toward the outside world do not impact the perceived success of the entrepreneurial venture.

Like other empirical studies, this research has its own limitation. First, we would have liked a larger sample size, but date collection in a war-torn country and from female business women in a male-dominated society is proofed very challenging task. Also, some cities had less representation due to security concerns especially Kandahar province.

Our results have significant relevance for economic development policymakers, non-governmental organizations and entrepreneurs throughout the developing world. What drives the psychological capital of these entrepreneurs under these extreme conditions should be of interest not only from the perspective of the entrepreneurship literature, but also for policymakers who are often uninformed regarding on the ground conditions under which individuals in the environment function.

It is our hope that our results inform those in a position of power so that they support the development of human capital of Afghan women who are or who seek to be entrepreneurs. We also hope to raise questions for other researchers related to the importance of human capital investment and the business functions for entrepreneurs in other less developed, conflict-prone environments with low mean educational levels.

This paper is the first to use proprietary, hand collected survey data from Afghani female entrepreneurs to collect, analyze and draw conclusions and recommendations from a sample of 248 women-owned businesses regarding the relationship between the marketing function and one aspect of psychological capital – perceived optimism – in five Afghan cities.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a graduate human resource management (HRM) curriculum for a university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The curriculum reflects the core knowledge areas identified by the two major professional bodies in the HRM discipline.

The paper employs literature to justify the importance generally of education in the HRM discipline and specifically in the UAE context. It then summarizes a program development approach that synthesizes core areas defined by the US Society for Human Resource Management and the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

The curriculum resulting from the program development process arguably constitutes a model curriculum for graduate studies in HRM. This proposition is tested with reference to focused survey of UAE HRM practitioners and is further explored with reference to the Syrian environment.

More work has to be done to confirm the relevance of the curriculum to other contexts. Furthermore, there needs to be research on desirable components of an undergraduate curriculum.

In regions of the world where the HRM discipline is in its infancy, the curriculum describes in this paper can provide a useful blueprint for the development of education, training, and academic programs in HRM.

The value of this paper is in the identification of a set of core modules or subject areas that reflect current best practice in HRM. It is unique in attempting an initial confirmation of the relevance of these core modules in a Middle Eastern setting.

This study contributes to examining the factors that drive the adoption of cryptocurrencies for financial transactions in the tourism and hospitality industries. This is crucial to develop tourism and hospitality and stimulate financial inclusion in developing and developed countries.

This research paper employs the SEM model and bootstrapping method on a sample of 417 French participants involved in tourism and hospitality industries to reveal the causal pathway between a set of independent factors and the willingness to adopt cryptocurrencies for financial transactions.

The empirical findings reveal that ease of use, perceived usefulness, social influence, and financial literacy increase the willingness to use cryptocurrencies. French hotels need to have a strategic orientation, to deal with customers, competitors and changing technological environment. The study also reveals that social influence and financial literacy reduce the level of perceived financial risk and thus, leads to increase the intention to adopt the new type of decentralized currencies.

In contrast to previous studies that focused on the volatility and risk of cryptocurrencies, this research employs a human-centric approach covering different factors that could lead to the adoption of the new type of currency for financial transactions in tourism and hospitality industries.

The purpose of this study was to examine the quality performance of the Egyptian manufacturing industry based on Flynn's quality management practices framework.

A literature-based questionnaire was developed to collect the research data. The sample studied included 193 professionals from different manufacturing firms in Egypt. The research model utilized seven first-order constructs to measure infrastructure and core quality practices and the model was analyzed by structural equation modeling.

The results of the study showed that infrastructure practices had a positive effect on core quality practices, which in turn, significantly influenced quality performance. The findings confirmed that Egyptian manufacturing firms have a good foundation of quality management practices enabling them to improve quality performance.

This study provides a foundation for Egyptian manufacturing firms to develop a practical plan for implementing total quality management (TQM). In addition, the results of this study will help managers and policy makers develop a thorough understanding of the current status of TQM initiatives, enablers and barriers in Egypt.

The study represents one of the few attempts to examine quality practices and quality performance in the manufacturing sector in Egypt. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study to examine these parameters in this context in Egypt.

This paper aims to propose a new tri-parameter bidding model integrating cost, time and risk. The key value of the model is that it remains within the framework of the competitive bidding system while controlling the risk resulting from float loss.

The model utilizes stochastic scheduling to quantify the float loss impact at the project level. Prospective bidders are evaluated based on their total combined bid (TCB) including cost, time and risk. The risk parameter is calculated as the relative risk between the bidder’s schedule and the client’s baseline schedule.

The results confirmed that choosing the contractor based on the lowest price and time reduces the available float and increases the schedule risks. The probability of completing the project on time dropped from 46 per cent for the baseline schedule to 19 per cent for the bidder with the most compressed schedule. The selected bidder, using the proposed model, has the lowest TCB of cost, time and risk. Results show that adding the risk parameter in the evaluation changed the ranking of the bidders.

The model does not discuss all project risks that the contractor retains. It focuses on schedule risks that result from shortening project duration. The model focuses on solving the problem with price plus time bidding method by addressing the schedule risk issue. Other criteria, such as sustainability, are not considered.

The proposed model encourages contractors to pay more attention to the time parameter and the schedule risks resulting from aggressive reduction in project duration.

Problems arose, in the current complex construction industry, as owners rely solely on price as the award criterion. Recently, the bi-parameter bidding system, A + B, introduced the time parameter to the awarding criteria. However, reducing the project duration by compressing the schedule consumes the float of non-critical activities, which reduces the schedule flexibility of a project. The proposed model allows clients to evaluate potential bidders objectively. Rather than evaluating the bidders based on price, in the conventional low bid system, or based on price and time, as in the A + B system, the bidders are evaluated based on three parameters: price, time and risk.

The use of social media for sustainable information is important since it has the potential to influence people’s intentions and behaviour towards sustainability. As previous studies on social media and sustainable development have primarily focussed on Western viewpoints, this study presents a comprehensive Asian perspective by investigating the impact of social media on sustainable intention and behaviour amongst Malaysian and Indonesian undergraduate university students.

A campus-wide online survey was conducted with 953 students from Malaysia and Indonesia. The researchers collected data through an online questionnaire and a two-week quantitative survey of undergraduate students in Malaysia and Indonesia. Quantitative data were analysed by SmartPLS software and comparative studies were conducted.

The result of the survey indicated that Facebook and Instagram were mainly used by Malaysian students to obtain and communicate about sustainability information, whilst Instagram was mainly used by Indonesian students. The findings also discovered that social media usage and social media effectiveness and usefulness are statistically significant predictors of sustainable intention amongst the students in Malaysia and Indonesia. Sustainable intention is also a statistically significant predictor of sustainable behaviour amongst the students. Additionally, this study also found that Malaysian students appeared to have a high level of the effect of sustainable intention on sustainable behaviour and the effect of the effectiveness and usefulness of social media to sustainable intention compared to Indonesian students. On the contrary, their use of social media related to sustainable behaviour was relatively low compared to Indonesian students.

Overall, the findings can contribute to the presently scant empirical works that focus on social media’s influence on sustainability and sustainable development. Furthermore, the findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge related to sustainability communication and sustainable education, particularly in terms of the use of social media in the learning and teaching process. Future research could focus on studying postgraduate students and university students from other Asian countries. Moreover, using qualitative methods like in-depth interviews or focus group discussion and applying other theories might unveil further results.

This chapter addresses the impact of gendered social capital in developing countries to understand the barriers and opportunities to women's entrepreneurship with social capital development and also to examine factors influencing the development of social capital for women and how the identified factors benefit the creation of their entrepreneurial activities. This study follows a systemic literature review to achieve the purpose of the research by examining the selected articles in both English and Turkish, followed by factor comparison between developing, developed countries, and world datasets obtained from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database. The finding shows that social capital strongly impacts the entrepreneurial activities among women entrepreneurs in developing countries, especially in Turkey. Although the academic and practical studies on this field were started about two decades ago in Turkey, it has faced a radical increase in last 5 years and many practitioners and scholars working on these concepts. The clusters in English and Turkish resources are almost the same; however, the density and number of key terms are much lower in Turkish literature which shows a gap for Turkish researchers to publish more in this field to examine variables for better view about women entrepreneurship and social capital related to it.

There is growing recognition that effective project control systems (PCS) are critical to the success of projects. The relationship between the individual elements of PCS and successfully achieving project objectives has yet to be explored. This research investigates the enablers and barriers that influence the elements of PCS success and drive project objectives.

This study adopts a mixed approach of descriptive analysis and regression models to explore the impact of six PCS elements on project outcomes. Petroleum and chemical projects in Saudi Arabia were selected as a case study to validate the research model.

Data from a survey of 400 project managers in Saudi’s petroleum and chemical industry reveal that successful PCS are the key to achieving all project outcomes, but they are particularly critical for meeting project cost objectives. Project Governance was identified as the most important of the six PCS elements for meeting project objectives. A lack of standard processes emerged as the most significant barrier to achieving effective project governance, while having skilled and experienced project team members was the most significant enabler for implementing earned value.

The study offers a direction for implementing and developing PCS as a strategic tool and focuses on the PCS elements that can improve project outcomes.

This research contributes to project management knowledge and differs from previous attempts in two ways. Firstly, it investigates the elements of PCS that are critical to achieving project scope, schedule and cost objectives; secondly, enablers and barriers of PCS success are examined to see how they influence each element independently.

Drawing on the integrative perspective of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and extending it further by examining the role of organisational facilitators and perceived HR effectiveness in this integrative perspective, we examine HR professionals’ AI-augmented HRM (HRM^(AI)) acceptance in this research.

The data (N=375) were collected from HR professionals working in different organisations in India. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to analyse the data.

The results of the study suggest that along with organisational facilitator antecedents to the relevant components of both TAM and TPB, perceived HR effectiveness also enhanced the HRM^(AI) acceptance levels of HR professionals.

The research findings are expected to contribute to the understanding of the factors that influence the acceptance of AI-augmented HRM in organizations. The results may also help organisations to identify the facilitators that can enhance the adoption and implementation of AI-augmented HRM by HR professionals. Finally, the study provides a composite TAM-TPB theoretical framework that can guide future research on the acceptance of AI-augmented HRM.

To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first attempts to factor in the effect of contextual factors (i.e. organisational facilitators and perceived HR effectiveness) in the TAM and TPB equations.