Revista de Economía y Negocios

Are political reforms growth enhancing? Do the effects of democratization upon growth differ over time? Moreover, could such effects differ across the world regions? By employing panel data techniques we do not find that democratizations create high transitional costs, although no strong evidence of immediate positive effects upon growth arise either. Stronger evidence points to positive effects on long-run growth. Interestingly, we find that long run growth arises more in Sub-Saharan African than in other regions1. However, for the Sub-Saharan African region, the distinction between full and partial democratization events produces different growth outcomes over time. JEL Classification: O40, O50, O55

The results of 90’s “TQM tsunami” are not very evident in our Organizations today, but some companies have integrated the TQM methodologies in their management system with great success. In the emerging Business Scenario they can be a real “new” competitive advantage, especially where the “real time” interactions with clients make the difference. Some companies have already understood it. A re-orientation of TQM methodologies to the WEB environment can represent a real new competitive weapon.

The objective of the study is to examine the store attributes for a traditional store in Indian context. The study we will evaluate the relationship between store attributes and customer perceptions in different retail categories in traditional stores. The study is a two staged study with its first stage as a set of qualitative based interviews leading the second stage of designing a structured questionnaire. A total of 240 structured questionnaires were collected to examine the data. Another significant relation which was evolved was the moderating effect on the relationship between distances travelled on the customer perceptions. The results identified typically stress on the positive relation between customer perceptions and store attributes. The relations identified and the recommendations made in the article would help the retailers catering in unorganized markets to meet the customer expectations and hence retain a loyal customer.

The unprecedented financial crisis of 2008-2009 has called attention to limitations of existing methods for estimating the default risk of financial intuitions. To address this need, I built and tested a time-adaptive statistical model that predicts the default probabilities of banks. The model inputs are a set of financial ratios suggested in the literature, and subsequently verified, to be effective in forecasting future bank failures. The model provides estimates of banks’ cumulative default probability profiles from one to thirty years out, albeit with decreasing accuracy. The model was validated through out-of-sample testing regarding its ability to accurately predict the defaults of U.S. depository institutions between 1992 and 2012. This method provides out-of-sample testing as well as best mimics how the model will be used in practice. The model performed well at separating potential defaulting banks from nondefaults over one-year horizons. Although performance drops monotonically when predicting defaults over longer horizons, the model performs significantly above chance for time periods as long as five years from the scoring date.

Total electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia is growing steadily and very rapidly. This study empirically estimates the critical parameters of electricity consumption function in Saudi Arabia for the period 1982-2011 by using ordinary least squares (OLS) and error correction model approach. The empirical results obtained show that, in both long run and short run, there are negative and significant relationship between the electricity consumption and electricity price. On the other hand, there is positive and significant relationship between electricity consumption and real income in the long run but insignificant in the short run. The error correction is correctly negatively signed and highly significant but has a small magnitude (-0.106) suggesting a slow adjustment process, which means that, if electricity consumption is 1 percent out of equilibrium, a 10.6 percent adjustment towards equilibrium will take place within the first year. The results of the this study will lead to some serious policy implications for decision-makers as electricity conservation policies through demand side management, which aim at declining the wastage of electricity without affecting the end-use benefits especially with no adverse effect on economic growth. JEL Classification: D12, L94, Q41

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and influence of organisational culture and respective values and norms on implementation of the Localism Act by English local authorities. Specific implications for dealing with strategic change are identified, explained and critically evaluated. Data were collected using exploratory in-depth interviews with officers in English local authorities. The focus was on operational complexity, identification of organisational culture and its impact on implementation of strategic change. Professionals indicated that local authorities are currently hit by cost-cutting measures, but real strategic change is inhibited by both powerful organisational culture and lack of government-supplied resources. Findings also showed that local authorities face a variety of contemporary challenges in dealing with change due to contextual idiosyncrasies. The paper builds on and extends existing literature that has applied organisational theories to the public sector. The paper highlights substantive barriers to change in English local authorities that have potential negative implications for community empowerment and service provision, and effectively hinder strategy implementation. The empirical paper is novel in reviewing, developing and applying models of organisational culture and strategic change to local government by looking specifically at the challenges of strategy implementation at operational levels using the example of localism. Its specific theoretical contribution is data generation that shows a tangible impact of organisational culture on policy implementation in local authorities.

Energy reform will bring about major changes in the economy of Mexico, mainly due to the introduction of domestic and foreign-in the exploitation and marketing of petrochemical products-both private initiative. The fertilizer sector is undoubtedly one of the most affected by this approval. The measures agreed within this reform will directly impact domestic production, the quantity of imports and, above all, the demand for these products. The aim of this paper is to analyze the current and future situation of the sector, in order to study the economic impact of this reform and alternatives concerning the present situation live existing and emerging companies in this market.

Evaluating the performance effectiveness of a Technology Incubation Centre in Nigeria, and most importantly, determining the causes of increasing failure rate of graduated entrepreneurs have been ignored by many studies. This study measures the performance effectiveness of TIC on the development of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria. The study aims at identifying how a selection of simple processes and techniques by TIC can support the growth and development of businesses during and after incubation looking at the lack of continuity in business of most entrepreneurs after incubation programme in Lagos Nigeria. The sample for this study consisted of 30 graduated entrepreneurs selected randomly for a period of 15 years. Questionnaires, In-dept-interviews, participant observation, descriptive statistics, and the balanced score card, were adopted in data collection and subsequently, the analysis. The results indicated that, out of the eight variables tested, (Technology transfer program, information symmetry, networking and mentoring, physical space and other facilities, monitoring and reporting, advertisement and promotion, collaboration and benchmarking and fund raising),seven were ineffective while only one showed effectiveness. The study reveals that though some support services are put on ground for the running of the program at TIC, the problem lies with the implementation. Recommendations were made on the ineffective variables highlighted for further improvement and suggestions for further research made.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational performance. Intellectual capital is measured using Pulic’s VAIC™ model consisting of combined measures from human capital, structural capital, and capital employed, and firm performance is measured as return on assets. Data are drawn from 11 publicly traded U.S. property-casualty insurance companies trading on the NYSE. The findings of the analyses do not support a significant relationship between intellectual capital and performance. However, there was evidence to support a strong highly significant association between structural capital as one of the three individual components of VAIC™ and organizational performance. The regression results confirmed each of the models was a strong predictor of explaining the change in the performance of the organizations. This research will aid the property-casualty industry in using metrics to evaluate the optimal use of human capital in conjunction with economic resources to innovate and create greater value for the organization and its stakeholders.

Using newly collected on informal firms in 11 countries in Africa, we explore whether firm-size matters at all for the structure, conduct and performance of the firms. While firm-size is known to be an important attribute of the firms in the formal sector, it is not obvious what the relevance of firm-size is for the informal sector. Informal firms are small, many of them run alone by the owner, and have limited variation in size. Notwithstanding the limited variation in firm-size, our results show that firm-size is highly correlated with a number of firm characteristics such as job growth, labor productivity, gender composition of the workforce and ownership, proclivity to register, access to finance and use of electricity and vehicles. Of course, there are firm characteristics such as perceived benefits from registering, quality of power supply faced by the firms and crime against businesses that show no variation by firmsize. Overall, we conclude that distinction between small and large firms is relevant for the informal sector, at least to an extent that it cannot be neglected by researchers and policy makers.

Benchmarking research is an important step to developing alternative solutions for Global business competitiveness. In this paper there is a collectively complied benchmarking example of several companies that have faced or are facing business dilemmas that has to do with competitiveness issues and global expansion. This benchmarking research includes key data such as identifying the issues faced, discussing how a company responds to such issues, and the outcome of a company’s response. The approach for the benchmarking research completed for this paper summarizes the key findings through compare and contrast the practices of each company relate to those concepts. Some of the key concepts here is to analyze a business opportunity, using problem-solving techniques. Organizational communication is “the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people” within an organization. This key concept includes barriers to effective communication, the perceptual mode, and interpersonal barriers. Emotional intelligence is “the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion on oneself and others”. This key concept includes the dimensions of emotional intelligence, emotional dissonance, managing emotions at work, and emotions in the workplace. The compare and contrast concept stress on how organizational communication is a vital part of any business. The benchmarking research found that this key concept has played an important role in many other business scenarios. The dimensions of communication include barriers to effective communication, interpersonal barriers, and the perceptual mode.

This paper is aiming to summarize the research effort executed in the field of effectiveness of business research and development activities in the case of emerging economies. The initial quantitative research was carried out on the basis of econometric estimations of Cobb-Douglas production function. Two dependent variables were examined and both lagged and non-lagged effectiveness of various types of innovative business expenditures of manufacturing enterprises located in Poland. The survey is based on relatively large data basis obtained from public statistics (The Central Statistical Office). This paper was prepared by invitation from the editorial committee of Business and Economics Journal and summarizes the to date effort in the field of effectiveness of business R&D and innovation effort in the case of Poland as the example of an emerging economy. In general the review of the research work indicates the positive impact of business R&D (both internal and external) on relative sales and relative EBIDT (as profit proxy) growth. The positive impact of business R&D on relative EBIDT growth seems to be more consistent in terms of statistical significance.