Aubrey Chilambwe, Simon Tembo

The study aimed at empirically investigating the effectiveness of revenue collection strategies employed by the LCC. The study used primary data which was obtained by means of individual questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The data was collected from Payers and the LCC employees. Using the Survey Monk formula, the sample size was 385 individuals comprising council workers and residents in the study area. The study employed purposive sampling method in selecting the sample. The study found that online systems and bank transfers were the main strategies used by LCC to collect revenue. The findings had shown that there was belief among the interviewees that the revenue collection strategies were appropriate. The findings established that the extent of revenue collection strategies was poor and emphasised that strengthening the legal framework, constant sensitisation and opening up more collections points was what they envisaged in revenue collection going forward so as allow them collect revenue more effectively like ZRA. It was worth to note that the results mainly shown that the interviewees stated that the manner or method of assessing revenue collection was not effective at all and that the LCC mainly assessed the existing revenue collection strategy through the use of open meeting (Department or Sections). The results of the study clearly showed that LCC is not effective in its collection of revenue and as such there is need for the council to develop more strategies that can enhance revenue collection in its Jurisdiction. Being one of the oldest councils, the LCC should be a model in collecting revenue so as to sustain its operational expenses without depending heavily on central government for financial aid. Other findings of the study had shown that LCC was largely dependent on the legislative framework, measures and remedies in revenue collection. It was, however, noted that the legislative framework, measures and remedies were not sufficient in enhancing revenue collection. In addition, the study found that the respondents mainly disagreed understanding the use of the revenue collection by LCC and they did not think revenue collection by LCC was necessary. The study strongly recommended that the legal framework supporting revenue collection needed to be harmonised or reviewed to allow the Local Authority to exercise its full potential. The study also highlighted that LCC computerises all its revenues sources in order to minimise corruption in revenue collection and accounting. Lastly, the study recommended that to boast the willingness of the Peri-urbans residents in paying for all applicable fees, levies, permits and charges there must be equity in service provision and not only prioritising the urban areas.

Lombe Charity, Tembo Simon

Load shedding is an unavoidable phenomenon not only in developing countries, but as well as developed countries of the world. Unavoidable due to various reasons among them: high demand for electrical power; effect of climate change; low substantive investment in electricity generation capacity; urbanization and rising incomes. Zambia is not exempted to such. The irony is that most Zambians based in urban areas use hydro energy for various purposes, and yet load shedding has continued to disrupt economic activities, hence this study was undertaken at Kabwata Market in Lusaka Zambia entitled, “load shedding and coping business mechanisms of SMEs: Case of female entrepreneurs in Lusaka’s Kabwata Constituency”. The specific objectives were to determine: The effect of load shedding on production, profit and workers; the effect of load shedding on socio-economic life of female proprietors of SMEs; the coping business mechanisms and their effectiveness on the enterprises’. Being centred on stress to adapt to new environment caused by load shedding, the study was anchored on the theory of cybernetic theory by both Edwards and theory of stress by Lazarus and Folkman. The research, therefore, used a theory that integrates stress and how they coped up with it. The research employed descriptive design for both qualitative and quantitative data of a case study, where a total of 100 respondents were randomly selected and key informants were interviewed. A questionnaire and depth interviews for Key Informants were used to collect data. Descriptive analysis was used on quantitative data to generate statistics and qualitative data collected was analysed using thematic analysis to triangulate the findings. The research revealed that production, profit and workers and socio-economic life were negatively affected as a result of loadshedding. Various coping mechanisms were identified. However, most of the coping mechanisms of most owners of those SMEs were less effective as compared to the use of energy power. The research concludes that load shedding had far more negative impacts on the female businesses of SMEs at Kabwata Market in Kabwata Constituency of Lusaka. Its impact was evidently portrayed on production, profit and workers and finally trickled down to the socio-economic life of the female proprietors of SMEs. However, most of the coping mechanisms of most owners of those SMEs were found be less effective. Major recommendations were made among them: As long as SMEs have to survive, they have to find alternatives to maintain their production, profit and workers and their socio-economic life by: adopting one or two of the coping strategies; or they need to plan for this unending phenomenon; make a small alternative investment for the coping mechanisms; for others SMEs shifting operating hours to night time in order to continue producing goods and services. The study recommends that government provides subsidies on alternative energy appliances; favourable policy on electric tariff rates for such businesses; continue to invest in electrical energy and research.

Marina A. Ivankova

The article substantiates the need for a quantitative indicators system of the city brand competitiveness, as well as offers the guideline of developing such a system, focusing on main areas of the city branding. Also, in this article the main development stages of economic-mathematical mechanism for assessing the city brand competitiveness have been formed, bearing in mind the priority of city brand competitiveness indicators, to meet the goal of increasing it in certain areas of city branding.

Wissal Hassan Moussa

This research paper examined the USR characteristics and their impact on UP in the higher education sector, considering the mediating role of market awareness. In this thesis, data was collected by using questionnaires distributed to over 300 participants in Lebanon. The data was gathered then analyzed using statistical software (SPSS20) to test the significance and the type of relationship between the independent variables USR and the dependent variable UO, considering the role of market awareness: university recall, university recognition, and university loyalty. The outcomes of the thesis revealed that the independent variable CSR has a direct positive significant relationship with CS.

Rangarirai Muzapu, Taona Havadi

Zimbabwe has generally been witnessing a significant decline of meaningful Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows for some reason. The decline of FDI inflows has seen most developing countries, seeking other alternatives to attract foreign currency into their respective economies. In particular, the diaspora community has been receiving increasing attention from respective governments across the globe. Indeed, diaspora remittances have been increasing in recent times, proving to be a significant alternative source of foreign investment capital. It is, however, the contention of this paper that, in the case of Zimbabwe, diaspora remittances are not being fully exploited in terms of this resource's immense potential, as an alternative source of investment capital. In this regard, this paper sought to proffer ideas and/or suggestions on the steps that could be adopted by the Government of Zimbabwe to unlock the full potential of diaspora remittances as a source of the much-needed investment capital. The study adopted a multi-pronged research approach, largely utilizing qualitative designs to collect and analyze data through questionnaires and interviews. A purposive sample of 150 respondents was used. The results obtained confirm that the Zimbabwean economy is yet to realize full potential economic benefits (investments) from its citizens domiciled abroad. The study has thus proffered some recommendations that the Zimbabwe government could introduce to boost her diaspora’s contribution to national development. The recommendations include confidence (trust)-building measures to convince the diaspora community to invest back home; awareness campaigns to highlight existing investment opportunities, and pro-active engagement with the diaspora community, among others.

Wole Adamolekun, J. A Obadeyi, S. O. Ogbeide, A. A. Akande

This study examined the extent of contribution of tradermoni scheme incentives to invigorate small business sector, with empirical approach of Oja-Oba ‘T’ Dada market beneficiaries. Government introduced an empowerment scheme only for petty and small traders to mitigate poverty and improve small businesses. The area of study was Oja-Oba ‘T’ Dada Market, Ota (otherwise known as Oja-Ota) in Ogun State, Nigeria. A survey research was conducted. The population consisted of petty and small traders who have benefited from tradermoni scheme and were purposively selected. Primary source of data was adopted via a structured questionnaire and interview. Fifty (50) questionnaires were administered to the respondents, and forty-five (45) copies were correctly filled and returned on schedule giving a 90% response rate. The respondents consisted of petty and small businesses owners. The data was analysed by descriptive and inference statistical (Analysis of Variance) techniques. The formulated hypothesis was further tested using t-test via the assistance of Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21.0. Findings revealed that tradermoni scheme incentives invigorated the beneficiaries businesses at a very slow pace and might take an average of 12 days for small business to realize any benefit(s). The result 2.86 (p<0.05) was statistically significant. The study concluded that empowerment scheme was timely, but on the field, thousands of traders have not benefited as claimed arguably due to ineffective and inefficient channels of communication adopted by government agencies in charge of the scheme. Also the loan amount allocated for the initial phase was too small considering the effect of inflation on the naira. We recommended that government ministries, departments and agencies in charge of the scheme should provide financial report on the amount spent so far, numbers of beneficiaries per state, adopt communication channels targeted to low-income earners, and review policy framework to strengthen the scheme in order to meet its primary objectives now and in the nearest future.

Fadel Fadel, Mohammad Yassine

The application of total quality management in organizations is a critical step towards ensuring organizations achieve and maintain their competitive advantage in the long run. However, not all organizations are aware of the key criteria and elements of a successful total quality management application, which negatively impacts their employee satisfaction and overall quality of their processes. This research project explores the application of total quality management, taking the case of the Bir Hassan Technical Institute in Lebanon. It set a number of key objectives: first, to determine the degree to which the total quality criteria are applied in the vocational and technical sectors at Bir Hassan Technical Institute. Second, to identify the impediments which stand in the way of applying total quality criteria and whether the senior administration has a clear strategic plan for the application of total quality management at that institute. Using a qualitative and quantitative methodology to gather and analyse the data, the project finds that vocational and technical education in Lebanon, for the most part, still lacks planning and coordination, with the main problem lying in the educational curricula and the way they are applied, in addition to the means and their variety in applying the subjects and teaching them. In the case of the Bir Hassan Technical Institute, the organization suffers from the dissatisfaction of the teachers and administrators with their job circumstances, which was a reason for dysfunction and a barrier to the provision of quality education, all of which are symptoms of the lack of total quality management application.

Habtamu Alamineh

Unemployment is a very severe phenomenon in most developing countries. To get control of such a challenge, the government of Ethiopia has been incorporated an entrepreneurship curriculum both at TVET and university levels. In fact, we have entrepreneurship as a subject at Colleges and Universities, the problems of a low rate of entrepreneurial intentions and a high degree of unemployment are still found in all regions of the country. To enhance graduate students’ appetites for entrepreneurship and self-employment, investigating influencing factors of TVET students is compulsory. Hence, this study lines up to investigate determinants of TVET graduate students’ intentions towards entrepreneurship in the Gurage Zone. The study selected 254 proportionate respondents from the total populations of 695 by using simple random sampling from three TVET schools namely; Wolkite Poly technique, Butajira, and Agena TVET schools. The regression analysis output showed that all independent variables of the model explained entrepreneurial intention by 61.4%. The study concluded that only entrepreneurial education determined TVET graduate students’ intentions towards entrepreneurship. Besides, TVET graduates have a high degree of entrepreneurial intention because of the practicality of their field of study despite the fact that they are influenced by many factors. Finally, the study recommended that entrepreneurship education should have to be offered to TVET graduate students practically and access to finance, market, business area location, and tax support should be adhere.

Dereje Kefale, Fuad Hussein

Disability is the major impediments of most disabled peoples to participate in entrepreneurial activities and being self-employed. This may also linked with major challenges like start-up capital, lack of entrepreneurial skill, socio-cultural problems and personal attitude are the barriers which will affect them to participate in entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, this study was aimed to identify and examine the major challenges of persons live with disabilities to start and expand their own business. In undertaking the investigation four independent variables was used (Start-up capital, personal attitude, socio-cultural issues and entrepreneurial skill) and one dependent variable (Entrepreneurial success). To conduct the study both qualitative and quantitative research design was employed. By using simple random sampling method 372 samples was drawn from seven selected clusters and questionnaires were distributed and from these only 326 questionnaires were returned. And the analysis was made by using descriptive statistics like mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics like correlation and regression. From the result of the analysis the major challenges of disabled peoples are identified: lack of start-up capital, personal attitude, and lack of entrepreneurial skill as the major problems which significantly affect the disabled peoples to be successful in business. Finally, it is suggested that the government, financial institutions, disabled peoples and other concerned bodies should eager to help and simplify those challenges.

Nazanin Tourani, Somayeh Khatibi

The present study seeks to investigate the impact of strategic alignment on performance considering the role of a sustainable strategy. In this regard, 50 large Iranian food companies were examined and a standard questionnaire with 21 questions was sent to the senior managers of these organizations out of which 240 questionnaires were completely answered and analyzed by structural equations using SmartPLS software. According to the research results, strategy alignment has a positive and significant impact on sustainability strategy and performance. Furthermore, a sustainable strategy has a positive and significant impact on performance.