International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science

Social media and social media tools have improved rapidly and started to influence society especially in recent years. This influence has forced businesses to revolutionize their communication with the external environment. The fact that Web 2.0 has an influence on consumer behavior, and that it makes the consumers stronger; requires faster, more flexible and more sensitive communication processes in businesses. Especially during a time of crisis, a business’ communication with the external environment is quite critical. For this reason, the way how the crisis communication is managed through social media is vital for businesses. In this article, the perceptions of how to manage businesses during a time of crisis so that they make minimum loss, is shared.

Positive organizational scholarship has gained attention in recent years which emphasizes investing in employee strengths. Review of relevant literature gave some insights on the relationship between organizational climate, inter-individual relationships and thriving at work. This study examines the impact of organizational trust on thriving at work quantitatively. Data was obtained from sample of academicians all over Turkey (n=422) participated to cross-sectional survey study stating their trust to management, supervisor, colleagues and their thriving at work. The structural equation modelling results showed a strong positive relationship between organizational trust and thriving at work (?=.74). Also, it was the first time thriving at work scale has been assessed in Turkey. The validity and reliability scores indicate its usability in Turkish literature.

The aim of this research is to understand the factors behind smartphone purchase decisions of consumers. Nowadays companies make use of various strategies in order to attract new customers, retain existing customers and differentiate their products from those of their competitors. Perhaps, the most important and effective strategy to influence consumer behavior in the product selection is emphasizing the “brand name” of the products. Our aim in this paper is to investigate how smartphone brands can influence consumers’ buying decisions. Brand equity is a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol, which add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service. It enhances the customer’s ability to interpret and process information, improves confidence in the purchase decision and affects the quality of the user experience. Using this construct widely discussed in the literature, we use and build our hypothesis based on Aaker model about the brand equity, including perceived quality, brand awareness, brand association and brand loyalty. The study involved a questionnaire administered to 171 smartphone consumers between December 2015 and March 2016. The consumers were chosen by convenience sampling among the students from a prestigious university in the Istanbul district of Turkey. Our findings indicate that a majority of the smartphone buyers’ decisions are mainly influenced by brand loyalty and brand awareness. Perceived quality and brand association do not seem to influence purchase decisions for the sample of this study.

In this study, we aimed to explain the influencing factors of interest rate risk in Turkish banking sector. Within this scope, 20 deposit banks in Turkey were evaluated. Furthermore, annual data for the periods between 2006 and 2015 was analyzed by using panel logit method. According to the results of this analysis, it was identified that 2 explanatory variables affect interest rate risk of Turkish banks. First of all, it was determined that banks, which have higher amount of deposits, are exposed to higher amount of interest rate risk. In addition to this situation, it was also defined that there is a negative relationship between the amount of capital and interest rate risk. As a result of this issue, it was recommended that Turkish banks should increase capital amount in order to manage interest rate risk more effectively.

Success in electronic commerce relies greatly on customer trust. While other studies have examined various factors affecting online customer trust, few have investigated the joint effects of perceived risk and website reputation on purchase intention using online trust as a mediator. The current study attempts to fill this gap. 300 online shoppers participated via web-based questionnaires using a quota sampling technique. Based on confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), our measurements were found to be valid and reliable. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we confirmed significant direct effects of perceived risk and website reputation on customer purchase intentions. Furthermore, both factors had significant indirect effects on purchase intention through online trust. In addition to extending theoretical insight into online trust as a mediator for the effects of perceived risk and website reputation on purchase intention, web-based vendors may adopt the findings to adjust their online stores to raise customer trust and ultimately increase the possibility of online purchases.

As being a psychosocial creature, the human composing the organization has series of behavioral talents like feeling, idea, desire, ambition, hope and fear. Humans, besides their technical abilities, bring their hopes and concerns, their life philosophy, all exclusive behaviors with them to organizations where they belive they realize their porsonel hopes and desires and establish cooperation. As aresult, established organization has social, human structural property including different personal ideas and behaviors. It was understood that, humans in the organization do not always behave according to rules, which were set by management, and the economical human logic. Human behave in accordance with their emotions and feeling. Because organizations can not satisfy all needs of humans by assigning formal tasks and physical facilities. As a result of these complex reasons generally the members of the organizations, which are established to perform certain official tasks, establish unofficial organizations by developing relations among themselves in order to satisfy their personal needs and feelings. In this study, accepting the value and importance of the official organization, it is desired to tell that unofficial organization is real and important at least the official organization. Becouse at the same time organizations are feelings system, it is beneficial to determine the role of the human in the organization and to regulate the organizationto this fact.

This paper re-construct the roadmap adopted by China to dominate global trade and market share space with reference to SSA. Specifically, this paper characterises the nature of China's practice of political economy where the country does business. Literature was reviewed to collect data used in the re-construction of the model. This paper found that indeed China has a clearly set roadmap (figure 1) for its global trade and market share space acquisition and dominance. China's dominance of the economic and market space in SSA has an assortment of intertwined complexities for the region. Sub-Saharan Africa needs to excercise caution on China because signs are there already that China would not be any different from the Western economies who had exploited the region for decades for their own gain, not the region's gain.

For more than a decade, China has a policy of managing its currency exchange rate (RMB) to limit its appreciation against other currencies like U.S dollar. This policy has been subjected to many criticisms from United States’ lawmakers as currency manipulation.  The U.S. argues that China is gaining an advantage of export and attracting direct foreign investment at the expense of other countries including the United State. The claim also has included that China’s manipulation causes U.S. trade deficit as well as high rate of unemployment. Meanwhile, China’s policy makers argue that its policy of exchange rate is a mechanism tool to enhance the development of the country and attaining market growth to make China rich and powerful. This research paper underlines the root of this argument and how china’s currency policy has affected both economics of U.S. and China. Many economists have emphasized on the appreciation of RMB as an important factor to attain the trade balance. However, this research argues that the appreciation is not going to matter. Pressure has been put on Obama’s Administration to push China to appreciate its currency and to designate China as a "currency manipulator". Several Bills have been introduced to discuss this issue.From a legal perspective, two entities could tackle this issue. They are the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, IMF lack legitimacy and leverage and WTO has no jurisdiction over the exchange rate. So, none of these entities could handle the currency issue. Therefore, this paper analyzes some possible solutions such as Omnibus Act, tariffs, import quotas and forming new legislation. Where, it concludes that the best solution could be via forming a new international agency.

In this study, we aimed to explain the influencing factors of interest rate risk in Turkish banking sector. Within this scope, 20 deposit banks in Turkey were evaluated. Furthermore, annual data for the periods between 2006 and 2015 was analyzed by using panel logit method. According to the results of this analysis, it was identified that 2 explanatory variables affect interest rate risk of Turkish banks. First of all, it was determined that banks, which have higher amount of deposits, are exposed to higher amount of interest rate risk. In addition to this situation, it was also defined that there is a negative relationship between the amount of capital and interest rate risk. As a result of this issue, it was recommended that Turkish banks should increase capital amount in order to manage interest rate risk more effectively.

Success in electronic commerce relies greatly on customer trust. While other studies have examined various factors affecting online customer trust, few have investigated the joint effects of perceived risk and website reputation on purchase intention using online trust as a mediator. The current study attempts to fill this gap. 300 online shoppers participated via web-based questionnaires using a quota sampling technique. Based on confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), our measurements were found to be valid and reliable. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we confirmed significant direct effects of perceived risk and website reputation on customer purchase intentions. Furthermore, both factors had significant indirect effects on purchase intention through online trust. In addition to extending theoretical insight into online trust as a mediator for the effects of perceived risk and website reputation on purchase intention, web-based vendors may adopt the findings to adjust their online stores to raise customer trust and ultimately increase the possibility of online purchases.