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The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of flexibility in loan products offered to smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya and to examine the effect of flexibility on access to credit.

The paper uses primary survey data from a sample of smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya who had borrowed from various lending institutions within the study area. The paper develops an index variable of loan flexibility using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) technique. The model is estimated using both OLS and truncated regression analyses. Access to credit is measured as the amount of loan borrowed by each farmer.

The authors find that the level of flexibility of loans offered to farmers is low. Furthermore, the authors find that the level of flexibility is not significantly correlated to access to credit. Further analysis using individual components of flexible loans show that refinancing and lines of credit are more likely to improve access to credit when farmers are more educated and wealthier, respectively. The age of a farmer, the type of lender, the type of loan, education and household wealth are the main determinants of access to credit.

The paper adds to the debate on access to credit by showing that theoretically, while loan flexibility should lead to higher credit access, this is not a key determinant of access to credit in this context.

While many studies have discussed the regulatory constraints that hinder industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa, little attention has been paid to the behavior of those firms that succeed despite a challenging business environment. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by focusing on specific strategies of a subset of successful industrial firms in Kenya.

The paper draws on two data sets. First, a quantitative data set based on a survey of food processing firms provides an overall profile of the sub-sector and the strategies employed by successful Kenyan firms. Second, qualitative in-depth case studies unpack the concept of strategy from the perspective of the firm, with the aim of showing the links between vision and strategy and the adaptive nature of firm strategy.

The quantitative data set reveals that the most important strategies used by agri-processing firms are differentiation strategies (selling at a premium), cost reduction strategies and niche strategies. A second major finding, based on the case study interviews, is that Kenyan firms adopt a combination of strategies to cope with the volatile business environment and grow their market. Furthermore, the qualitative interviews reveal that the vision of the leader is linked to firm strategy and firms follow an adaptive approach to strategy development.

The paper’s original contribution is the conclusion that while the existing typologies of strategy were acknowledged by respondents, their actual strategies were composites resulting from adaptive strategy development. This conclusion was made possible by the paper’s mixed methods approach.

To understand African small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and its antecedents is essential, both from a strategic management and an industrial development perspective. While a substantial literature on African SMEs has emerged in recent years, studies of their performance specifically are few and inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address this lacuna in the literature by examining variations in performance of 210 East African SMEs.

The paper employs OLS and logistic regression and Classify k-means test to analyze performance variations in a unique data set of 210 food processing enterprises in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.

Three generic types of African SMEs are identified based on performance: laggards, followers and gazelles. The gazelles are typically medium-sized, skill-intensive companies selling relatively differentiated products in niche markets. The laggards are typically small, capital-intensive companies involved in grain milling that adopt a cost differentiation strategy. A key driver of variation in performance is found to be the quality of the external business environment (in particular the quality of intermediary markets), and also capability factors such as the strength of management. Strategy factors such as differentiation and political strategies explain performance variations.

Among the policy implications are that African industrial policy should focus on improving the functioning of intermediary markets, e.g. by reducing the transaction costs of inter-firm collaboration. Moreover, rather than focusing industrial policy on SMEs per se, policymakers should focus on those types of enterprises that are capable of generating high performance, e.g. skill-intensive enterprises with strong managerial capabilities, engaged in differentiation strategies.

The paper integrates the extant literature on African SME performance, develops an analytical framework for studying it and presents novel empirical insights based on one of the most detailed surveys of SME performance in the continent to date. The findings have important and tangible implications for literature, as well as for industrial policy.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Scope for SMEs to impact on economic development is significantly enhanced when effective strategies are deployed. Creation of adaptive strategy types that are aligned with important leadership vision can better enable such firms to perform effectively within an operating environment subject to frequent change.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to propose a normative framework focusing on the need to enhance the roles of the four fundamental environmental forces of management – socio‐demographic, techno‐economic, politico‐institutional, and cultural. The objective is to create a business climate of certainty so that Kenya can achieve its goals of national and private sector development and of elevating its global competitiveness in terms of foreign direct investment and exports.

The paper uses secondary data to describe Kenya's development goals, its current level of private sector development, its position in the global economy, and the historical and cultural dimensions of its management practices. Against that backdrop, the article combines systems thinking and broad‐based reasoning to develop a normative management framework for policy makers and for domestic and international business managers. After using data to describe Kenya's status with respect to the four environmental forces, the article explains how Kenya – through reforming private and public institutions and implementing enlightened national development polices – could shape its management system and its prevailing climate of uncertainty in order to enhance its competitiveness in the present global economy.

The paper concludes that, if Kenya takes policy actions necessary to redirect and enhance its environmental forces, it would improve the efficacy of its resource management system and reduce the uncertainty inherent in the system. This would also promote openness to international trade and business and reduce the “cost” and other real or perceived barriers to business in the country to world levels, leading Kenya to become more competitive in the present global economy in terms of both increased foreign investment and export. As a result, Kenya should experience higher levels of private sector development, economic growth, and employment and, consequently, reduced poverty and higher standards of living for its citizens.

The paper introduces a normative, broad‐based management framework for national and private sector development in a cross‐cultural context. This framework should prove particularly useful to governments, policy makers, and business managers in countries that are in the early stages of private sector development and who are charged with achieving national development goals and with increasing the global competitiveness of their countries' economies.

This paper aims to focus on the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in preparation for and management of human and/or nature induced disasters.

Drawing from the phenomenal growth of ICTs, initiatives aimed at disaster management, stakeholder theory, prior research and the successful development and implementation of 9-1-1 (emergency telephone service of the USA), this paper explores ICTs in the context of human and/or nature induced disasters.

This paper discusses a new ICT for mitigating disaster management, scans, using stakeholder theory, relevant initiatives and prior research to identify the stakeholders relevant for successful preparation for and management of disasters, and draws from the 9-1-1 example to discuss how ICTs can be successfully developed and adopted.

There are opportunities for researchers to develop ICTs that can make countries, developing and developed, more efficient and effective in their preparation for and management of nature and human induced disasters. In addition, researchers can investigate the role of stakeholders in facilitating the adoption of new ICTs developed for disaster management. Researchers could also help public policy in designing the most efficient and effective programs for the adoption of new ICTs.

As an example of new ICTs that can potentially mitigate the effect of disasters, this paper discusses the E711 text-message mobile phone service (named “I am OK”) and provides a description of how this protocol operates and can be implemented. There are tremendous opportunities to develop new ICTs in the context of disaster management.

This paper argues that ICTs such as E711 can have a major impact on all countries in general and poor and developing nations in particular. Specifically, in the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) markets, developing ICTs for BOP market in the context of managing human and nature induced disasters and ensuring the diffusion of such ICT innovations is both critical and challenging.

This paper discusses the role and importance of ICTs in disaster management, identifies relevant stakeholders, discusses how ICTs can be diffused and implemented and calls on and hopes to provide an impetus to research on ICTs that can aid in the preparation for and the management of disasters.