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This study intended to investigate how the Lephalale Local Municipality's small and medium companies (SMEs) are hampered by a lack of government support. This study also aims to demonstrate how SMEs face difficulties in surviving as a result of problems in the business environment. Consequently, the government of South Africa has programs to assist SMEs. The growth of SMEs is important for advancing innovation, wealth distribution, and employment. The majority of SMEs launch and maintain their businesses with their own money. By using a qualitative research approach and semi-structured in-person, phone, and email interviews to collect data, the goals of this study were met. There were 318 registered SMEs in the area. Using purposive sampling methods, data from operational enterprises with a lifespan of 0 to 5 years were gathered. Atlas TI 8 was used to evaluate the data. The primary conclusions of this study show that (i) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) find it difficult to maintain their operations because they lack access to capital and business equipment. This fails if SMEs are not given the proper support. Because they lack the resources to compete with big companies, SMEs find it challenging. (ii) Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should think about enrolling in bookkeeping training and sending their staff to business training in order to network for the survival of the company. In order to assist SMEs in fulfilling the requirements for maintaining their enterprises, this study advises the government to examine present standards. With the right assistance, SMEs can create business plans and maintain operations, which will result in the creation of jobs, particularly for local communities. The government ought to think about mentoring and overseeing sponsored SMEs.

The purpose of this review is to shed light on the current state of crowdfunding and its possible effects on African communities. The goal of this article is to give a narrative overview of how crowdfunding has evolved, along with trends, challenges, and potential effects on African communities. Despite recent advancements in the usage of mobile technology on the continent, the growth of crowdfunding based on internet platforms has been quite gradual. According to research, the success of crowdsourcing initiatives in Africa depends on a hybrid strategy that involves the "offline" network of backers. The majority of research concluded that the biggest barriers to the growth of crowdfunding in Africa were a lack of knowledge and trust in public institutions, lax laws protecting the rights of backers and ensuring transparency, as well as technology (internet connection). Also mentioned was the possibility that significant cultural aspects of offline crowdfunding, if taken into consideration, would make it easier for African business owners to adopt the practice. It has lagged behind other continents in the use of crowdfunding to raise money for small businesses or individuals, which could also help with financial inclusion in Africa, either directly for individuals or by sponsoring small enterprises. It is necessary to have a regulatory framework that promotes technological advancement while also reducing crime and fraud. Additionally, establishing platforms based on continents and creating synergies with existing financial actors would raise awareness, boost confidence, and whet interest in using them.

The crucial mandate for any state is that learners attain their education in a safe learning environment. Learners’ access to a high-quality, inclusive, equitable education, and their capacity are jeopardised by the pervasive gender-based violence in and around schools. This paper aims to investigate the impact of gender-based violence on girls in the selected secondary schools in Limpopo Province of South Africa. From the qualitative standpoint, coupled with the case study research design, this study used a purposive sample to select 15 (n = 15) participants. Data were collected through literature reviews and the application of semi-structured Key Informant Interviews and analysed using Thematic Analysis. The findings of this study include (i) low school performance, (ii) learners who are dropping out, (iii) learners’ inability to exercise their human rights and their right to an education, (iv) lack of a well-resourced and strong criminal justice system, and (v) an intervention team to address the impact of gender-based violence on girls. This study concludes that gender-based violence should be taught as a subject in schools to address the persistent issue in South Africa for learners to understand abuse and violation in the future. This paper recommends that all stakeholders in our society—civil, social workers, and law enforcement authorities—collaborate more closely than they currently do to end gender-based violence against schoolgirls.

Gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) is a multifaceted complex phenomenon that needs urgent comprehensive attention in South Africa and other similarly or worse-off affected countries. Central to combating and eliminating GBVF starts with a systematic understanding of the drivers of GBVF. The research aims to develop a conceptual framework of drivers of gender-based violence and femicide, which can be applied to different GVBF improvement studies. The conceptual framework was developed using ecological system theory having 20 indicators relating to: microsystem – personal history and individual factors; mesosystem – interpersonal relationships; exosystem – community factors; macrosystem – societal factors; and chronosystem – significant changes over time. The framework interlinking these GBVF drivers allows for the diagnosis of the main drivers of GBVF and estimates its impact on the victims and their families. This, in turn, can help to combat and eliminate GBVF through moderation with GBVF policies and strategies. This study contributes to systematically demystifying of drivers of GBVF, especially in South Africa and similar African countries.

This study aims to analyze the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived benefits on interest in using Bank Syariah Indonesia mobile banking. The research method used is a quantitative approach. The sample size for this study was 250 respondents. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and processed with AMOS 24.0. The results of the SEM analysis show that perceived usefulness has a significant positive impact on attitudes toward mobile banking use. Perceived Ease of Use has a positive and significant effect on the Perceived Usefulness of mobile banking. Perceived ease of use has no significant effect on attitudes toward using mobile banking. Perceived Usefulness has a positive and significant effect on Behavioral Intention to Use mobile banking. Therefore, attitudes toward using mobile banking have a significant positive impact on behavioral intentions to use mobile banking.

This study aims to determine the effect of service quality and perceived value on customer loyalty as mediated by restaurant customer satisfaction in Tuban Regency. The population in this study was customers who have visited and enjoyed restaurants in Tuban Regency. The total samples in this study were 165 respondents using purposive sampling. The analysis method used is Partial Least Squares (PLS). The Result showed that service quality and perceived value positively and significantly impact customer loyalty. Then, service quality and perceived value significantly impact customer satisfaction. The finding of this study also revealed that Customer satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction partially mediates the effects of service quality and perceived value on customer loyalty. Therefore, the restaurant needs to maintain and improve service quality and perceived value, which in turn will increase customer loyalty.

This study examines the impact of self-efficacy and organizational support on employee performance as mediated by employee engagement at the regional public companies, Perumda Air Minum Ngawi Regency. This study is explanatory research with a quantitative approach. The population in this study were all permanent employees of the Perumda Air Minum Ngawi. Saturated sampling was used in the sampling methodology. The study's sample consisted of 269 permanent Perumda Air Minum Ngawi employees with a minimum work period of one year. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to respondents and analyzed quantitatively using Partial Least Squares (PLS). The results showed that self-efficacy and organizational support significantly affect employee performance. This study also indicates that self-efficacy and organizational support have a significant effect on employee engagement, and employee engagement has a significant impact on employee performance. Employee engagement can mediate the effect of self-efficacy and organization on employee performance. The results of this study advise the Perumda Air Minum Ngawi to maintain employee engagement and organizational support to improve employee performance.

The aim of this paper is to find out whether there is a relationship between the intensity of using Tiktok, utilitarian value, hedonic value, and impulse buying. TikTok is a social commerce with a live shopping service that provides convenience in online shopping and allows direct interaction with sellers while browsing social media without switching applications. This study uses the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, dividing the stimulus into internal and external factors. Internal factors include utilitarian value and hedonic value, while external factors are the intensity of use of the TikTok application. Respondents in this study are married women who use Tiktok. This research is causality research with a total sample of 120 respondents. The data collection method uses a questionnaire and is analyzed using SEM-PLS. The findings of this study indicate that the intensity of TikTok use significantly affects impulse purchases. However, utilitarian and hedonic values have no significant effect on impulse purchases. For the mediating effect, the impulse to buy impulsively mediates the relationship between the intensity of TikTok use and the hedonic value of impulse buying. However, it does not mediate the utilitarian value of impulse buying.

Worldwide, unemployment is a challenging aspect that faces most of the graduate students. Based on that, students in colleges and universities currently, are clearly aware that they have to engage in self-employment through entrepreneurship. Moreover, the establishment of innovation hubs during collaging has propounded to help upbringings different entrepreneurial and creativity treats among students. Apart from performing incubation of the business ideas, the innovation hubs could be a free innovative centre where students, stakeholders, lecturers, and alumnae meet, work, and collaborate on the range of innovative augmented ideas to stimulate entrepreneur intention.  Colleges and universities do not have a proper plan to expose students to practical business environments while studying. Therefore, through mixed research design, this study entails to design and develop a participatory contextual model that will enhance the College of Business Education to establish a free space as the innovation hub for incubating talents, entrepreneurial ideas and research focused on solution-based for students and lecturers. A total of 132 respondents consisting of 20 instructors; 100 students and 12 entrepreneurial practitioners were involved in this study. Data was collected through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and documentary review. The obtained data were analysed through descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis. Based on the findings, it is evident that establishing an incubation and innovation hub within the CBE community is necessary. The findings provide valuable insights into the participants' perceptions and highlight various aspects that should be considered during establishing and implementing the hub. Moreover, the findings stipulate that the incubation and innovation hub should incorporate the prototype environment that includes mindset change programmes, regular training, internship programmes, effective incubation practices, strong mentorship and coaching programmes, and a clear exit strategy that can enhance the entrepreneurial skills and capabilities of incubates

As one of the essential elements of the country's current economic development, Indonesia's government still supports entrepreneurial endeavors. Young entrepreneurs can only be developed with the help of universities. Students' entrepreneurial attitudes are anticipated to be shaped through the practical entrepreneurship program. As a foundation for student preparation to engage in entrepreneurial activity, this study investigates entrepreneurial intention. Students' entrepreneurial intents in Jakarta will be compared to three factors, including attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, that are based on the Theory Planned of Behavior. Purposive sampling was used to sample 120 students. Through the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), variance-based SEM was employed to analyze the data. All variables are reliable and legitimate, according to the test results. The study's key conclusions show that while subjective norms have a minimal impact on entrepreneurial intention, attitude and perceived behavioral control have a positive and considerable impact. Entrepreneurial intent is also recognized to have a favorable and significant impact on readiness to launch a firm. The study's findings could be incorporated into entrepreneurship curricula at colleges to help the government's attempts to accomplish development objectives through entrepreneurial endeavors.

Intricacies concerning indigenous languages in the South African milieu demonstrate intransigence that necessitates a scholarly contestation. This is in addition to the parades that have been made by the post-colonial government and language experts to ennoble the stature of these indigenous languages. With that context, this article underscores the historical component of indigenous languages and retainment strides - including challenges – that have been underlined in respect of South African indigenous language matters. The objective, among others, is to underscore those challenges concerning indigenous African languages, and in particular, South African indigenous languages exhibit tenacity. To ratify the claims of the article, a systemic literature review is appreciated as a fragmentary qualitative research methodology while conceptualization of language matters in South Africa couches the theoretical underpinnings. The principal discussion is that challenges that prevail within the phenomenon of language in the South African context must be acknowledged in a bid to solicit reasonable solutions to the problematized phenomenon. For future scholarly implications, it is debated that indigenous language matters must be contested.

This study examines the impact of overconfidence bias, herding bias, and risk perception on stock investment decisions. This study uses explanatory research with a quantitative approach. The population in this study is the Generation Z Society, the generation born between 1997-2012 in Malang City who invests in the capital market. The sampling technique used in the study was purposive sampling. Data collection was used through surveys using questionnaires, and the use of Likert scales to test instruments. The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Model Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) modeling. The results of this study indicate that overconfidence bias and herding bias contained in investors can reduce the quality of investment decisions. In addition, overconfidence bias and herding bias can also reduce investors' risk perception. The perception of risk in investors can influence investment decisions and increase the benefits of the investment process. Risk perception can mediate between overconfidence bias and herding bias on investment decisions. The results of this study suggest that investors should minimize the formation of bias when making investment decisions and diversify their portfolios to minimize risk.    

The global industry has been significantly affected by Covid 19, resulting in a reduction in organizational structure, an increase in demand for raw materials and delivery services, and a rise in prices that negatively affect the manufacturing industry. The department responsible for managing these issues is the purchasing department, which will experience a surge in workload and work pressure for its employeesImproving employee performance is a challenge for companies to maintain survival. The thing that needs to be considered is the workload of employees which affects work stress and ultimately causes a decrease in employee performance. The main objective of this research is to examine the effect of workload on performance through work stress. Research using quantitative research methods. The questionnaire has been tested for validity and reliability and distributed to 110 purchasing employees. SmartPLS 3 is used to process data from research results. The results of the study are that there is a negative effect of workload on performance, there is a positive influence of workload on work stress, there is a negative effect from work stress on employee performance, and there is a negative effect of workload on performance through work stress on purchasing employees. The results of this study can be used by companies to improve their performance, especially from factors related to workload and employee work stress.

A little over two years ago, from the 9th to the 18th of July 2021, South Africa experienced one of the worst incidents of civil unrest since the beginning of its democratic dispensation. Although the main catalyst for this unrest was not directly issues of service delivery or public participation, many observers, experts or not could not help but see the connection to issues of poverty, unemployment and overall lack of service delivery. Public participation has long been established as a vital tool in the hands of the government for efficient service delivery & development. The Newcastle Local Municipality (NLM) as an institution in South Africa, is governed by numerous public participation legislation which essentially states it must always consult & involve all its citizens on all issues that affect the community at large. Despite its adherence to these stipulations, this brief study, through a qualitative inquiry making use of an interview schedule, finds that NLM practices a type of participation strategy known as “Degrees of tokenism” where the result is the appeasement and placation of the masses as opposed to true participation that gives the masses real power. The results indicated that the officials entrusted with ensuring the implementation of the public participation mandate faced numerous challenges that rendered their stellar efforts inefficient. Issues such as a lack of understanding of the fundamental importance of good governance and public participation led to a shortage of resources and increased apathy toward municipal affairs. In investigating the nature of the public participation framework in NLM the researcher aimed at providing more insight into the complex issues at play responsible for the largely concerning state of local government in South Africa, thus possibly providing solutions in the process.

This discursive study examined the use of the learning management system (LMS) Moodle in rural South African universities. Moodle, a popular online programme, can be used to deliver learning activities, as well as online learning evaluations. The authors discuss LMS usage and adoption in higher education. LMS is a global online platform used in higher education institutions in developed countries across the globe, for decades. It has improved the education system in these developed countries by providing diverse students with learning opportunities, in their comfort zones. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, most developed nations adopted online methods, like LMS, for teaching and learning. Unfortunately, the pandemic lockdown in many developing nations, like South Africa, severely disrupted curriculum and educational activities for months. The South African Department of Higher Education and Training reviewed curriculum delivery approaches, to save academic activities due to COVID-19. Thus, it deemed online learning a higher education alternative to face-to-face curriculum instruction, during the lockdown to salvage the academic calendar, with LMS used as ideal online learning for student engagement.

This study used a closed questionnaire to gather information on the implementation of the SDGs in private universities in Indonesia. Quantitative data were processed using SmartPLS SEM from the results of 138 questionnaires filled out by management leaders of 138 private tertiary institutions in Indonesia. SDGs implementation is tested from the social and environmental aspects of SDGs as the first and second hypotheses. Research provides support for the hypothesis of the significant effect of implementing social SDGs on university performance (?=0.391) and the opposite result on implementing environmental SDGs (?=0.028). The research results mutually support the finding that the implementation of the SDGs in private universities in Indonesia still needs to be improved. This finding reinforces the suggestion that a sustainability report is needed as part of the accreditation assessment of private tertiary institutions.

Plastic has become the most waste in the world. No less evidence that the plastic we buy directly or indirectly from modern retail has caused global waste that cannot be disposed of from the face of the earth. Therefore, studies need to find out what factors can be used to reduce consumptive activities on plastic bags in modern retail. In this study, research data was obtained from businesspeople to confirm the factors that reduce purchase intention so that customers and businesspeople of modern retail can use alternatives to plastic bags such as paper bags, biodegradable bags, or goody bags. By exploring questionnaire data using SEM PLS, it was found that the elements of Green Procurement, Green Supply Chain Management, Green Marketing Strategy, and Customers' Environmental Attitudes positively and significantly became the main role in influencing purchase intention with a green concept to replace single-use plastic bags in modern retail.

Nowadays online shopping industry is growing rapidly, and social media platforms are a major part of promotional activities for many companies in Indonesia. The research aims to examine the relationship between price perception, brand image and digital marketing variables and purchase intention and brand loyalty. Design research is a quantitative research using a survey method with a questionnaire; the sampling technique is purposive random sampling. Using a structural equation modeling approach with AMOS software and 303 respondents, results show that price perception corporate image, and digital marketing promotion activities have significant and positive effects on purchase intention, while brand image does not directly have a significant effect on purchase intention. Furthermore, purchase intention has a significant effect on brand loyalty.

This study examines the effect of authenticity, social media, and destination image on revisit intention. This study uses explanatory research with a quantitative approach. The population in this study were domestic tourists or foreign tourists who had visited tourist destinations in Gianyar at least once. The sampling technique used in the study was purposive sampling. The sample in the study was 250 respondents. Data collection was used through surveys, documentation, and Likert scales to test instruments. The data were analyzed using structural equation model partial least square (SEM-PLS) modeling. The results of this study indicate that authenticity and social media can increase revisit intention. In addition, authenticity and social media can also improve destination image. The destination can also increase revisit intention. Overall destination image) has the most significant influence on destination selection. Destination image can mediate between authenticity and social media on revisit intention. The better the authenticity and utilization of social media in Gianyar tourist destinations, the better the destination image will increase revisit intention.  The results of this study suggest that the management of Gianyar tourism can maintain the authenticity of Gianyar tourist destinations and increase the use of social media to attract tourists to revisit Gianyar tourism.

This study aims to enhance credit risk identification, improve loan borrower review efficiency, and increase default prediction accuracy rate using data mining and machine learning techniques. The study also employs deep learning to develop a consumer loan default prediction model that minimizes credit risks and ensures consistent development. The researchers collected data from a survey of 1000 participants, stratified into local and foreign banks, and selected the top 11 banks based on turnover and customer volume. To construct the machine learning model, Keras, a neural network library that runs on TensorFlow, was utilized. The model predicts loan applicant default likelihood. The study's practical implications demonstrate a noteworthy success rate of customer default prediction, which can significantly benefit banks. The model was evaluated on a test set of 250 records and achieved a test set accuracy of 95.2%, correctly predicting the default state of 238 out of 250 respondents.