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This study investigates the impact of public procurement procedures on the efficacy of public projects within Zambia's Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development (MIHUD) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD).  Inefficient procurement methods, characterised by delays, cost overruns, and inferior project quality, have impeded the successful execution of public projects, especially in infrastructure and rural development.  The research is to evaluate the impact of Supplier Qualification Screening (SQS), Competitive Bidding (CB), and Supplier Evaluation (SE) on project performance.  A quantitative research methodology was utilised, employing a survey-based descriptive design to gather data from 120 procurement experts and project managers within the designated ministries.  Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to examine the correlations between procurement methods and project outcomes.  The results demonstrate that SQS and CB enhance project performance by facilitating timely delivery and cost effectiveness.  Nonetheless, SE exerted a detrimental impact, indicating that too rigorous evaluation processes may result in delays and impede project accomplishment.  Hypothesis testing validated these findings, corroborating the alternative hypotheses for SQS and CB, however SE demonstrated an inverse correlation with project outcomes.  The report advocates for the fortification of regulatory frameworks, the augmentation of capacity-building programs, the rectification of bureaucratic inefficiencies, and the encouragement of e-procurement platform usage to enhance procurement efficiency.  A review of supplier evaluation procedures is essential to avert needless delays in project execution.  The study's results have substantial implications for procurement reforms and efficiency enhancements in Zambia.  Improving openness, accountability, and stakeholder collaboration in procurement procedures can result in superior project outcomes, fostering national infrastructure development and socio-economic advancement, especially in rural regions.  Enhancing procurement policies and using digital solutions will be crucial in developing a more efficient and accountable public procurement system.

In today's competitive business landscape, organizations constantly seek strategies to enhance their market position and profitability. One of the pivotal inquiries that many industry experts and scholars are delving into is: How do cost leadership, service innovation, and customer value creation influence business performance? Cost leadership, often seen as a way to gain a competitive edge through operational efficiency, might offer immediate financial benefits. Given the frequent economic challenges, it has become increasingly crucial for hotel businesses to embrace strong competitive and marketing strategies. The hospitality sector, particularly susceptible to the ramifications of such crises, has long been scrutinized to discern the strategic measures they employ during turbulent times. This empirical investigation, encompassing insights from 437 industry professionals, underscores that initiatives centered on corporate service innovation yield a direct and favorable augmentation in organizational performance. However, the study found inconclusive evidence regarding the mediating impact of value creation through customer engagement.

There has been increasing studies that details the transmission channels through which financial development permeates to speed up growth to higher echelon. Studies have underpinned that financial development yield more growth when these channels are optimized. With studies on real sector performance sparse, this paper contributes to this discussion as it examined the effect of financial development in fostering industrial growth under the condition of high and low human capital endowment. This was investigated for a sample of five (5) West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) countries from 1990 to 2022. The study developed a panel threshold regression (PTR) model where human capital functioned as threshold variable and data collected from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Development Indicator (WDI) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) databases. The study finds a threshold effect of financial development on industrial sector growth. The PTR estimator shows financial development can produce more industrial growth if human capital exceeds a gross of 62.9493%. Additionally, other factors such as trade openness, natural resource rents and higher labour participation in economic activities support industrial sector growth. In the design of industrial growth enhancing policies, policy mandarins should implement measures that improve human capital and further develop the financial system by scaling up education expenditure to the UNESCO prescribed 26% of GDP, educating women, leveraging technology to improve human capital productivity and outcomes, reducing loan collateral requirements, strengthening legal frameworks, and boosting banking competition by allowing entrant of capitalized financial institutions and timely exist of insolvent ones.

There has been an increase in the elderly population worldwide in recent years. This situation creates some needs both at individual and social level. In particular, elderly individuals need support in carrying out their daily activities. Therefore, elderly care centers are seen as an important supporter in this respect. This study aims to identify the criteria affecting the selection of elderly care centers and prioritize them with SWARA method. The SWARA method was used to weight the criteria affecting the selection of elderly care centers in order of priority. Eight criteria identified through literature review were evaluated by five experts experienced in the relevant field. The experts evaluated the criteria by ranking them according to their importance and the final prioritization was carried out by taking the geometric mean of the evaluations. According to the results of the analysis, the most important factor affecting the selection of an elderly care center was the Quality-of-Life Comfort and Service with a weight of 22%. This was followed by Financial Status with 20%, Health Services with 16%, and Professional Staff with 13%. Location and Transportation criterion was determined as the least important factor with a weight of 0.7%. The fact that life comfort and service quality have the highest weight indicates that elderly individuals expect a quality and comfortable living environment. The results obtained from the study show that policies for elderly care homes should be organized in a way that aims to increase the comfort of living, improve service quality, ensure economic accessibility and ensure the sustainability of health services.

The study aims to investigate the extent to which the concepts of social innovation and talent management will affect the innovation performance of enterprises as a result of the literature studies on the concepts of social innovation and talent management in family businesses in the Marmara Region. A questionnaire consisting of 78 questions was applied to the employees of small, medium and large-sized family businesses operating in the Marmara Region. A total of 460 questionnaires were evaluated. SPSS program was used for the survey results and the answers were analyzed by reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis methods. With the analysis study, the impact of social innovation and talent management on innovation performance was tried to be determined. As a result, it has been determined that there is a significant relationship between talent management practices and innovation performance. In other words, it has been determined that talent management is a strong factor in increasing the innovation performance of enterprises. In addition, no effect of social innovativeness on innovation performance was observed. In the light of the findings, the results of the research are discussed and recommendations are presented for both managers and academicians.

This study explores the influence of digital marketing strategies on brand loyalty among young airline passengers, specifically targeting Millennials and Gen Z individuals aged 18-35 years old. With the increasing reliance on digital channels such as social media, email marketing, and search engine marketing, it is crucial to understand how these strategies impact the customer-brand relationship, brand trust, and ultimately, brand loyalty. The research employs a quantitative approach, gathering data from 230 participants who are frequent users of digital platforms and have recent travel experiences with airlines. The findings reveal that social media marketing has the most significant impact on the customer-brand relationship, followed by email and search engine marketing. Additionally, the study confirms that brand trust acts as a critical mediator between digital marketing activities and brand loyalty. These results highlight the importance of tailored digital marketing strategies for airlines aiming to engage and retain young passengers in a highly competitive industry.

MSMEs are independent business units managed by individuals or groups that can take the form of individual companies, partnerships, or limited liability companies. Risk is generally always seen as something that has a negative impact, such as loss, danger, and several other consequences. Research objectives: 1) Identifying the risks of food MSMEs in Malang City; 2) Analyze the factors that influence the risk of MSMEs; 3) formulate the concept of risk mitigation of Food MSMEs in situations of Global economic policy uncertainty. Research design: using a quantitative approach by conducting interviews and distributing questionnaires. The research population includes all food MSMEs in Malang City amounting to 16,417 MSMEs. The sample used was 376 MSMEs with a purposive sampling method, the criteria for MSMEs Snacks in Malang City, has been established for at least 3 years. This research uses a descriptive qualitative approach with data collection techniques, namely distributing questionnaires and interviews to several food MSME owners in Malang City as key informants. The results showed that identifying MSME risks is an important step in business risk management. After the risks are identified, MSMEs need to mitigate risks so that they can develop a business risk mitigation concept in order to reduce the losses that will be faced in the uncertainty of global economic policies. The results of the study provide practical benefits for Malang City MSMEs to minimize risks and for policy makers. As well as producing a conceptualization of risk mitigation for food MSMEs in situations of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty.

Food prices in Nigeria have experienced significant increases due to rising fuel costs, unstable exchange rates, and socio-political challenges. This study examines the effects of fuel prices and exchange rate changes on food inflation using a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model, which provides insights into both immediate and long-term impacts. Monthly data from June 2015 to May 2024 shows a stable long-term relationship between food inflation, energy prices, and exchange rates, making it clear that these factors are key drivers of inflationary trends in Nigeria. Our findings reveal that increases in fuel prices, particularly for petrol and diesel, drive up the cost of food production and transportation, with noticeable impacts appearing within three to six months. Similarly, shifts in exchange rates raise the cost of imported foods, with effects becoming evident in about two to ten months. Recent economic reforms, such as the fuel subsidy removal in 2023, have intensified inflationary pressures, exposing structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s food supply chain, including poor infrastructure and insecurity. The study recommended a direct approach to tackle food inflation, we recommend the creation of a Food Price Stabilization Fund (FPSF), which would help manage extreme price volatility caused by energy price fluctuations and exchange rate changes among others.

The study focused on the people’s perception of Coronavirus, traditional health, and western health in fight against Coronavirus. Experts contend that government agencies and health officials should join forces with traditional healers rather than oppose them to successfully combat COVID-19. Traditional health care, through several trado-medical scientists seemed to be mostly patronized by all sector of health institution and the youth. This obviously signifies that traditional health which has long been taken for granted and rejected for many years has a critical role to play in making reasonable health care delivery system to the African communities. The indigenous health care system and its methods are being demonized by youth and certain scientific institutions because they are linked to witchcraft and other wicked customs. The researcher noticed that, in the twenty-first century, there appeared to be an idea of interfacing Traditional Health Practices (THPs) with Western doctors. It appears that basic health care systems were provided by traditional medical professionals in civilizations prior to the arrival of colonialism. The objective of the study was as follows, to explore the perceptions of traditional health and western health practitioners in fight against Coronavirus. The study adopted an employ African healing theory. The study used a qualitative research design and was exploratory in nature. Data was generated using semi-structured interviews as data collection instruments. The study’s finding shows that symptoms of coronavirus are the same in traditional health care and western health care perspectives as the traditional practitioner and western practitioner observe the common symptoms such as coughing, sweating, high temperature having mucus, unable to breath and diarrhea or vomiting which are the same symptoms of normal influenza. The study recommends Integration of traditional health and western healthcare system in leveraging the strength of both approaches to combat corona virus and promote overall health well-being and Future research on traditional health care in advancing rural livelihoods.

This study mainly aimed to investigate the impact of seasonal changes on media advertising revenues (AR) in R environment through a visual-print media company example. So, the study primarily aimed to examine whether visual, print and internet ARs were affected by seasonal change. The study also aimed to indicate the trends of visual/ print/ and internet ARs over time in the light of seasonality. Furthermore, it was also aimed to make AR estimates for the next year with the best performing methods covering ARIMA and ETS. Methodologically, R programming language and its libraries were used together with ARIMA and ETS time series models. The data set consisted of a monthly ARs series consisting of 180 rows covering the period between January/2007-December/2021 and having a sufficient number of observations for the application of the models. Data were analyzed with R and next year’s forecasts were done with ARIMA and ETS. The study revealed that all AR types were affected by seasonal changes in the specified period and included seasonality, i.e. specially in the summer months.  Additionally, it was observed that AR types have different trends despite containing seasonality. The study found that visual ARs denoted a slight downward trend including seasonality during the period. It was also indicated that print ARs reflected a very rapid and drastic downward trend covering seasonality. The study also revealed that internet ARs showed a very rapid and sharp upward trend compared to the other two AR types despite having seasonality. Furthermore, taking into account the calculated error metrics, it was found that the ARIMA model showed the best estimation performance in both i.e. visual and internet ARs. On the other hand, the ETS model indicated the best estimation performance in print ARs. Accordingly, estimations of the visual/print and internet ARs for the next year were made with the best performing methods. It was pointed out that estimated ARs included seasonality in the summer months and revealed similar results to the previous trends based on historical data.