Revista Internacional de Economia e Ciências de Gestão

Introduction: In the Middle East and North Africa MENA microfinance struggles to find momentum. The Lebanese economy has been struggling through the years due to domestic and external, political and social instability. Although As of 2014 there are around 23 MFIs that are mainly subsidized by the USAID, operating in the country, the Lebanese microfinance market is mostly dominated by three microfinance institutions: Al Majmoua, Vitas and Al Quard Al Hassan Association.
Methodology: A quantitative approach using a standardized questionnaire would analyse the perception of the average Lebanese towards microfinance. A questionnaire was designed and validated.
Results: Almost half of the respondents earn a monthly income ranged between $100 and $600. Almost 52% of the respondents were university graduates, around 25% finished secondary and high school, and 12% hold a masters or MBA degree. Topic understanding towards microfinance differs across Lebanese areas. The highest percentage of respondents who claim that microfinance offers financial services to low income people are the residents of Beirut 35.1%, Bekaa 30.8%, and South of Lebanon 24.7%. Higher levels of topic understanding were associated with lower levels of age range. Al Quard el Hassan foundation was regarded as the most known micro financial institution operating in Lebanon. In general, Lebanese people tend to believe that microfinance can play an important role in reducing unemployment rates and poverty levels in Lebanon. When people were asked what would motivate you to get a loan from MFIs, most of the respondent 57.4% across all the Lebanese region claimed that it was the need for money to satisfy a need such as paying back a loan, to fix something at home, or for selfconsideration like buying a car.
Conclusion: Our findings showed that in general Lebanese tend to have a positive perception towards microfinance. However, most Lebanese perceive microfinance as the process of just providing loans without specifying for whom it is intended. We advise that government introduces laws to regulate the microfinance market.

One major concern in the international economic sanctions is the potential problem of consequences of sanction's results. This paper seeks to explore the consequences of sanction's results (successful, positive, minor and failed outcomes) on the target countries human rights, democracy and life expectancy. We analyze the sanctions implemented by U.S.A and U.N based on the dataset of policy results index and the sanctions contribution results index qualitative analysis in Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott. The Imposition of Economic Sanctions (IES) includes 2765 cases in 73 countries during 35 years, since 1978-2012. This analysis evidence of consequences of sanctions results suggesting that sanctions played only a minor role in reaching the outcome, we reject the hypothesis that the sanctions and their consequences jointly have no impact on Human Rights, Democracy and Life Expectancy. In other words, our judgment in these cases is that sanctions did not contribute importantly to the sender’s goals.

Online social networks were in the beginning used for private purposes, and over time were adopted by academic and business users. Thus, they have become an irreplaceable part of life in the modern 21st, 2.0 societies, particularly for the modern consumers. Their comprehensiveness has also been noticed by marketing experts who has led them to an extensive usage of online social networks as a very popular and widely used effective marketing tool. Following those trends, the main research question is: whether users of social networks look for information about the product with the intention of buying it or them some other motives. Every contact with the brand via social networks does not necessarily mean that the user is also an actual buyer or a potential buyer of the product or services. Therefore, traders, marketers, and community managers should focus on better understanding the motives of different groups of social networks users for standing along with their brands in virtual cosmos. In this paper, we present the results of research aimed at determining the primary motives driving the users of social networks to be connected with the brand. According to the research results, the respondents most frequently connected to the brand in order to have real time information about products and events related to the product. In addition, some study observations showed that the respondents were highly motivated to be connected with the brand to obtain certain benefits, while some respondents used social networks for self-presentation. This research has also confirmed that the respondents’ engagement in social networks positively affects self-esteem. However, some respondents are associated with brands because they want to participate in designing and improving products. The survey was undertaken in Croatia 2014 as a part of a research for a bachelor’s degree thesis.

Constant Market Share Analysis (CMSA) is a method which decomposes the variation of market shares of any trader country. The more recent version is proposed by Fagerberg and Sollie that avoids some limits deriving from previously specifications. After explicating how CMSA works, this note presents some applications to the Italian case. Two are the most important contribution of this paper. First, it includes a complete framework on CMSA. Second, the formal derivation of market share variation is proposed.

With the growing popularity of cloud computing, enterprises are turning their collaboration platforms towards Software as a Service (SaaS) applications over the Internet. Companies hosting cloud-computing services face the challenges of multi-dimensional information and knowledge from a variety of distributed sources. Semantic web technologies provide the solution to semantic interoperability of heterogeneous data. In addition, the NoSQL Hadoop database (HBase) is being adopted dramatically on the cloud for semantic data integration. This paper investigates a Hadoop Database (HBase) approach for semantic web information representation across distributed and collaborative enterprises systems.

The article focuses on four major assumptions that underlie the alternative conceptualization of public recreation marketing. It explains (1) the redistribution system within recreation resources are allocated; (2) the organizational structure of recreation agencies; (3) the ways in which public recreation agencies interact with local governments and citizens; and (4) the code of ethics and its influence on the behavior of recreation professionals. Finally, the article attempts to integrate these assumptions into an alternative definition of public recreation marketing that is termed “administered marketing.

Neutrality of money has a long debate towards real output. Rational expectation theory states, money is neutral at all time, however, short run effect is mainly caused by the unanticipated money supply. On the opposite stance, based on the theory of rational belief, money is neutral neither in short run nor long run. This paper has examined the long run behaviour of monetary aggregates towards Malaysia economic through quarterly data ranging from 1996 to 2014. Unanticipated money supply which is obtained based on Barro model; M1, M2 and M3 have been tested under the Vector Error Correction Model. Time dummy has been included to accommodate the period of financial crises and fixed exchange rate regime era. However, there is little evidence to support the view of neutrality of money hold in Malaysia. The findings provide evidence to support the decision of Malaysia authority getting out from rigid exchange rate policy since 2005.

Generalized Auto Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models are usually used to analyse time series data with high volatility clustering. In this paper, we analyse the effects of Granger Causality Model (GCM) and Error Correction Model (ECM) in analysing a time series and accordingly, we simulate two series of data using the GARCH1 model which are used for the analysis. The choice of the simulation model is based on its ability to capture volatility and heteroskedasticity. GCM2 and ECM3 models’ parameters are investigated for adequacy. Results from Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Phillips PerronPhillips Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski Philips Schmidt Shin (KPSS) tests indicate stationarity in the data as expected. GCM is built to demonstrate all the long term relationships. The two series Granger Caused each other. A linear ECM is also fitted and there is evidence that a short-term relationship exists between these two series. A high threshold value exists at the second lag, an indication of simple smoothing in the data. The residual deviance was greater than the degrees of freedom asserting that the model perfectly fit the data, supported by high R2 value of 0.871. Residuals from the fitted linear model are also stationary. The study concludes that ECMs and GCMs are appropriate in analysing time series. It is recommended that a similar study be undertaken but with a combination of ARMA Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) Process and GARCH models. Further study should also be conducted on tail clustering analysis.

This study is conducted at Automotive Axles ltd to understand the extent of employee engagement in the organization. Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards the organization and its values. An engaged employee is known of business context, and works with coworkers to improve performance at the job for the benefit of the organization. It is a positive behaviour held by the employees towards the organization and its values. Engagement at work was conceptualized by Kahn as the ‘harnessing of organizational members’ selves to their work. A sample size of 50 was taken in order to conduct research. Random sampling technique was used in order to conduct the survey. The data was collected by interviewing the respondents with the help of a structured questionnaire.

Not a long time that entrepreneurship training has found its place in Iran. Hence, not many researches have been performed on efficiency and damages facing entrepreneurship training. Present study tries to review damages facing entrepreneurship training from viewpoint of entrepreneurship professors and teachers. Semi-structured interviews have been used to collect data, and content analysis has been used to analyze data. The results indicate that following factors are the most important factors which affect entrepreneurship training in Iran: Lack of heart trust in necessity and importance of entrepreneurship in comprehensive development, lack of trained professors, and lack of experience of Iranian entrepreneurs.