Revista Internacional de Economia e Ciências de Gestão

This study is caption ‘Household Source of Water and Child Health Outcomes: Evidence from 2004-2011 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey’. Contaminated source of water use for bathing, washing, drinking as well as in the preparation of food and poor hygienic environment are a major nuance to human health especially child health. To contribute in solving this problem, we shall examine the following objectives: (1) explore the determinants of household water supply, (2) quantify the effects of water source on child health outcomes; 3) decompose the water child health effects on child age 0 to 59 months; and (4) derived policy implication on the basis of our analysis. Methodologically, we will use the pool data of the third and fourth Cameroon demographic and health survey collected in 2004 and 2011 respectively after the 1991 and 1998 data. The 2SLS and ivprobit model that takes care of the endogeneity problem is used to estimate our results in STAA 11.0. Our result shows that factors such as parent literacy, breast feeding mothers, male household head; household social status, household size and urban residence are strong determinants of household source of water. We also observed that a marginal change in water supply will result to a corresponding increase in child health. Other factors positively associated with child health increase due to water effects include: household size, urban household residence. Child health of age 24 and 36 months is strongly affected by source of water supply. Other factors positively affecting children’s health of age 24 to 36 months are household size and place of residence. In terms of policy, we recommend that decision makers through the ministry of public health should intensify child health – good water supply campaigns, as well as to increase the supply of good drinking water following the WHO standards. This is a major step towards economic growth and poverty reduction in the different regions of Cameroon.

Service Quality is a very important concept that must be understood if the company wants to remain competitive and evolving. Quality of service in hospitals should be directed to patient satisfaction, this is to maintain patient loyalty. With the development of business competition, it is important to make health care providers improving their service qualities. The purpose of this research was to identify the gap between perception and expectation of customer to health service at inpatient unit of Dr. Ramelan hospital. In this research, we used servqual method which was integrated with fuzzy method. Based on the results of this study, it was showed that the attributes of X5 (bathroom hygiene and clean water availability) had the greatest gap of 25 health service attributes identified at the Dr. Ramelan hospital. Based on the results of this study, it could be concluded that the results could assist the management of the hospital in determining the policy setrategy by prioritizing attributes that have a big gap to improve the quality of its services.

Economic activities in the present world has influenced by energy consumption and increasing in its effectiveness. Generally energy is providing from the exhaustible resources now, thus saving is important in order to conservation. However, identifying factors affecting energy consumption in the short-term and long-term is much important to achieve this goal. In present study we examine the relationship between energy consumption and its price and household income over the period 1971-2008 in Iran. We applied the Johanson-Juselius convergence method to check the possible convergence. Present results indicate positive relationship between household income and energy consumption on one hand and negative relationship between energy price and its consumption on other hand in long-term. And because of energy demand sensitivity to price, government is able to prevent non-optimum using with some policies such as energy taxes or increasing in energy price by eliminating of subsidies.

During last years, there have been widespread investigations on foreign exchange rate and its problems, indicating the importance of foreign exchange rate as a key factor in an open economy. This rate influences many types of macroeconomic variables such as import, export, inflation, interest rate and governmental policies and economic decisions. Therefore, nowadays, it is a fundamental goal for governments to control the foreign exchange market. In this regard, the main hypothesis of our model is that Iran's economy is in foreign exchange crisis. And after proposing a new method for modeling of demand for money by using pressure index to foreign exchange market; some suggestions have been brought to control the foreign exchange crisis. Of course, regarding our research results, if central bank policies do not change stocks of foreign exchange, then foreign exchange rate fluctuations would not affect the currency market turbulence index.

The entrepreneurship growth is being recognized as a serviceable means of tackling Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) socioeconomic challenges of high unemployment, and unbalanced distribution of income. The unemployment rates revealed by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for the state presents a depressed image of the condition of women in the state. According to the NSSO employment position of females in urban areas are worse than that of men. The indicators were analyzed and found that the females in urban areas are unemployed and the rate is at 11.7%. And the same pointer for the unemployment rate for male population is hovering at 6.7% and the figure at all-India level for the female (urban) unemployment rate is at 7.9%. It is observed that existing policies overlook the gender as a potential input for addressing the grave issue. Despite this females have proven their mettle using their peculiar gender nature effectively and efficiently in small and micro business which calls for an immediate attention by the government towards promotion of women in entrepreneurship.

This study aimed to demonstrate impact of the characteristics of women's leadership at the psychological capital development, with the experience power as a moderating role. To achieve the objectives of the study were used descriptive and analytical approach to the appropriateness of the nature of this study, which used the questionnaire as a key tool for the study, and after testing the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, (379) questionnaires have been distributed to identify the study sample who occupy the following administrative levels: (teachers and administrators), it showed that there are (3) questionnaires are not valid for analysis, and thus became the number of valid questionnaires for analysis (376) questionnaires, at a rate (99.2%) of the recovered questionnaires. The researcher used group of descriptive and deductive analysis using SPSS-21. The study reached several conclusions, including: the practice of women’s leadership characteristics is high, in the special education schools in Amman governorate, and the level of the psychological capital is average between subordinates, also the experience power has a high level. And there is an impact of practicing the women’s leadership characteristics on psychological capital, and the presence of statistically significant impact for the characteristics of the women’s leadership characteristics with its five dimensions in the psychological capital development, in the presence of the experience power moderating role in private education schools. And in view of these results, the study recommended a number of recommendations, including, boosting the practices of women’s leadership characteristics for the leader by increasing top management support, and taking a good care with the psychological capital and its effect on the individual work in the organization. Finally, to continue seek and search in women’s leadership characteristics and the power of experience and connect them with educational sector, as well as encourage investment with the psychological capital.

Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the influence of transformational leadership style (TFL) on organizational learning (OL). More specifically, it aims to examine the mediating effect of organizational culture (OC) on this relationship, in the context of ministries operating in Palestine.
Design/methodology/approach: The present study utilized the hypothesis–deductive testing approach. Two hypotheses were proposed for testing. The data were collected from 475 managers at 23 ministries in Gaza by using self adminstarted questionniers and the data aggregated by individual level.
Findings: The results demonstrated that organizational culture was a significant predictor of organizational learning and functioned as a fully mediator between the transformational leadership style and organizational learning.
Research limitations/implications: A key limitation of this study is its cross-sectional nature. It is possible that at least certain aspects of transformational leadership and its impact on organizational culture and organizational learning emerge with some kind of time lag. This study also used the perceptions of leader-self report as its data source, which may cause potential common source bias.
Practical implications: The findings of this research will assist policy makers of the Palestinian ministries to optimize the allocations of resources in its hiring, rewarded, training and other functions of human resource management to have the right leaders for building a learning organization.
Originality/value: The results of this study provide evidence in support the mediating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between transformational leadership style and organizational learning, which represents a response to many calls to conduct further research in this area, and will be of interest to those in the field.

There are at least four levels of socio-economic and political development: institutional environment, micro business governance, economic resource allocation and employment, and finally culture or informal long term institutions. In our study we use methods of multivariate analysis such as multi-dimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering to provide evidence that these four levels (at least) of embeddedness exist as predicted; and that according to this model, countries are clustered together in such a way that we can reasonably accept an overall gauge of socio-economic and political development based on the totality of all variables used in our study, but also based on other individual factors such as government efficiency, or GDP per capita. Our sample consists of 53 countries and 90 socio economic and political variables taken from various well known sources. Results for 1995 and 2011 are examined to check evolution through time. Important conclusions are: first, all socio-economic and political variables considered as totality and as groups grow in tandem; second each group of these four to five levels can separately generate the same classification of countries in terms of socio-economic development; third, some single indicators can be considered as good representatives of this development; and fourth, a 15 year span of development is not sufficient to change the classification of countries between the three main clusters of socio economic and political development.

The role of organizational technological innovations in economic development is empirically examined in this paper. The recent inventory trends since the 1980s have two interesting characteristics at the macro-level. First, the inventories have been declining over time. Second, the developed countries have smaller changes in inventories than that of the developing. At the firm-and-industry level, previous studies identify this recent trends in the context of modern production systems such as just-in-time and lean production as one source of economic growth especially for the case of developed countries. However, this phenomenon has highlighted less at the country level. Thus, we highlight the nexus between these recent inventory trends and economic growth which leads us to the following hypothesis: the long term declining trend of inventories ratio either over GDP or total capital investment exerts a significantly positive impact on economic development. By using 31 years of relevant panel data of 88 and up to 152 countries and by using panel data econometric techniques, we find that there exists a robust positive relationship between reduction and smaller changes in inventories and economic growth (GDP per capita growth) and economic development (GDP per capita level) across the globe.

Competitiveness is one of the most broadly used terms when talking about strengths and weaknesses of a firm, a certain sector of economy, a party, region or state. In its broader sense, competitiveness is used to indicate the ability to achieve certain overall outcomes, such as a high standard of living and economic growth. National Competitiveness as one of the cornerstones in evaluating a country’s economy, its potential, is a concept used to define a country's ability to grow, to compete with other countries for human capital, investments, and other resources. Given this importance of the principle, many international organizations, research centres, individual researchers conduct brief researches and analysis, do define, examine competitiveness, and it’s driving factors, ways of achievements and improving a country’s state in the Global Marketplace. Many national, international, governmental and non-governmental organizations assess competitiveness taking different viewpoints and sides of the given phenomenon. These approaches are based on different sets of indicators, thus have different measures and results. In this paper, we purpose to define the term competitiveness give its brief overview, list core components, and examine different approaches and methodologies of assessment.

This paper examines the factors that influence money demand in Ghana using the ARDL approach as the baseline estimator. We find strong evidence of existence of long-run equilibrium relationship between money demand and its determinants. The results also indicate that expected inflation and real exchange rate are the key determinants of money demand both in the short-run and long-run. The role of real interest rate is only recognized in the long-run whereas the impact of financial innovation resulting from the on-going financial sector reforms only affect the transitional dynamics of the money market conditions. There is also an ample evidence of instability in the money demand relationship as a result of inflation and exchange rate volatility. Moreover, given that the wealth effect phenomena holds in Ghana, the paper concludes by suggesting that policies directed towards regulating and maintaining stable exchange rates and low and steady inflation would be necessary to maintain stable money demand and thus enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy in Ghana.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out the impact of employees’ participation and involvement in strategic planning process (formulation and implementation) on performance for Sudanese wheat flour factories.
Methodology: 120 Questionnaires were prepared and distributed to employees. The total number of collected and valid questionnaires is 108. Meetings had been held and prepared questions to employees were posed. Also, some document had been checked and verified.
Findings: The study found that, all hypotheses have been fulfilled, except one hypothesis (H1) which is hypothesized that: employees’ participation in formulating the factory mission and vision statement will be having impact its performance.

Global pollution has motivated the corporate player to use eco-friendly practices and textile industry is not an exception to it. Worldwide textile industries are adopting green supply chain management practices so in a same line the present research paper aims to identify the Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) practices adopted by textile industry of Pali District, Rajasthan. To serve the objective descriptive research design is used and primary data is collected from 120 respondents with the help of questionnaire. Data is analyzed with the help of weighted arithmetic mean and chi-square test and it has been concluded that significant number of green supply chain management practices are adopted by the textile industry of Pali district.

This research aims to investigate the presence of weak form of efficiency and stock return predictability in Pakistani Equity Market. The daily return on stock here is used to verify the weak form of market efficiency in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE). For this purpose a data set from August 1998 to August 2013 was obtained and applied ADF, PP test, Run test, Autocorrelation and OLS model. These entire tests are applied to check the hypothesis of Randomness in stock returns. The result revealed that return distribution of KSE is not normally distributed and short term predictability exists in KSE. There is day of week effect. The study has important implications for investors and regulatory authority. This study is limited to the sample element and period. Future study may be conducted by taking Tuesday as a first day of week followed by Monday holiday to testify daily predictability in KSE.

Efficient, reliable and competitively priced energy supplies are prerequisites for accelerating economic growth for any developing country. In global scenario while trade exchanges have existed for a long time, future markets for petroleum products only assumed some importance for the industry after mid-eighties. The reason for the same may be attributed to notorious price fluctuations. Though many exclusive global petro exchanges have been contributing to a great extent towards crude trade, in Indian context, it is still a measure to be undertaken. This paper attempts to highlight the prerequisites, requisites, structured process and financial feasibility of setting up an exclusive petro product exchange in India

Poverty has been an issue of extreme vetting since the dawn of humanity and is currently battering the Muslim World severely with stats indicating that Muslims are only 23% of world’s population but have a share of 50% in global poverty. This is quite baffling and perplexing fact as Muslims have been bestowed with an economic system designed by Almighty ALLAH which surely is good enough to eradicate poverty but improper implementation has hurt Muslim World direly. Zakat is an essential component of Islamic Economic System which bounds rich people to transfer 2.5% of their wealth to poor people of society and through proper implementation of Zakat system poverty got completely eradicated during era of Hazrat Umer e Farooq (R.A.). Zakat system has been subject to several modifications as a result of prolonged western domination and rise of secularist views, recent studies have suggested several models of zakat implementation that can rejuvenate the past success but have failed to do so, due to lack of clear path and refusal to build a zakat system on the basis of fundamental principles taught by Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) considering them obsolete. This study intends to systematically identify the root causes behind the faltering performance of zakat system and try to eliminate them by designing a system that is based upon the fundamental principles as guided by Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) as well as in line with current economic dynamics. Another important objective of this study is to have a uniform zakat system throughout the Muslim World so that real benefits of zakat can be enjoyed and whole Muslim World may prosper.

In today’s technology driven world, the social networking sites have become an avenue where retailers can extend their marketing advertisements or campaigns to a wider range of consumers across the globe. The tools and approaches for communicating with customers have changed greatly with the emergence of social media; therefore, businesses must learn how to use social media in a way that will align with their respective business goals. Advertising has gone a long journey from print media to social media and today social media is such an important platform which cannot be ignored by the businesses to remain sustainably competitive in the market with a personal fame of their brand. As far as medical profession is concerned, the practice of physicians and surgeons normally do not call for advertisement as they rely on publicity through Word-of-Mouth endorsement. If we talk about practicing doctors Word-of-Mouth publicity does what an advertisement cannot do.

There are four aspects of social media in medical professional advertisement i.e. the overall acceptance of social media marketing by the patients, the category-wise acceptance of social media marketing by the patients, the overall acceptance of words-of-mouth publicity on social media platform by the patients and the category-wise acceptance of words-of-mouth publicity on social media by the patients.

The present paper focuses attention on finding out the relative usefulness of social media marketing with an eye on Word-of-Mouth publicity generated through the use of social media in medical profession. 

The present paper reflects the outcomes of the in-depth analysis relating to the development of the economic analyses indicators to assess growth at different levels of the process of innovations in a national economy. It presents a new model of market equilibrium, which has been designed to restore a balance between the levels of production, employment, income and prices. Specifically, the paper developed a theorem, which has built on the set of the innovations indicators to measure growth in innovations in the development of national economies of world’s developing countries. The novice of the paper is in its justification of the qualitative theory of money as the core basis for assessing economic changes in the growth of innovations under the realities of the globalized world economy. The prime contribution of the study is that it puts a halt to the inefficient and ineffective utilization of natural, material, capital and labor resources. Moreover, it opens up an undisturbed path to the development of green economy thereby leading to the sustainable economic development that saves capital, labor, and environmentally-friendly resources.

Alike all major sectors banking sector has also undergone a business metamorphosis, this evolving change is in line with demands of globalized and highly competitive business environment. One of the factors playing a paramount role in the transition is the soft skills. Employees when trained in this area would become a competitive force to deliver efficient service. In the post-liberalization era, Indian public sector banks (PSBs) are facing a number of challenges in retaining and expanding their customer base. These challenges include finding an economicallyviable solution for financial inclusion, innovation, human resource and customer relations. This empirical paper illustrates the influence of soft skill training on the performance of employees in private and public sector banks. This particular research study was conducted on the employees of banking sector of selected branches of private and public sector banks in the city of Belagavi. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire; analysis conducted of the same using SPSS software revealed that soft skill training has a positive impact on the performance of employees in the course of discharging their roles.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand, summarize and highlight the current research work in the area of word-of-mouth (WOM) along with the existing gaps in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach: This study is a qualitative analysis of 20 research articles from peer-reviewed sources covering a span of 14 years from 2002 till 2016 addressing WOM, its antecedents, the effects and its role in the overall larger context. Findings: WOM strongly impacts consumer behavioral attitudes. Tie strength, stickiness, loyalty, monetary influence can moderate the WOM influence. However it remains to be seen the how various personality traits gets affected.
Practical implications: The findings of this review may help potential marketers to understand WOM and its intricacies and follow the best approach to maximize the WOM effect.
Originality/value: Given the limited amount of the literature focused, this paper summarized the existing work so that researchers and organizations can use this knowledge and focus on their WOM activities. It also highlights the research opportunities for scholars interested in pursuing further studies in this area. 

This article explores diversification patterns among rural households of Pakistan. Using logistic regression analysis of data from Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey, the relationship of household characteristics, asset endowments and facilitating policy with the choice of diversification of income portfolios is analyzed. The econometric analysis reveals that physical and human capital plays a significant role in defining a household’s choice of diversification; information access and growth of infrastructural facilities, however, remain insignificant. These results when compared with those for countries like China reveal significant similarities. The article presses the need for a significant thrust to rural non-farm economy in the policy design; with greater emphasis on network formation and development in human capital, to enable rural households to benefit from improvements in rural infrastructure.