International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science

The accelerated advancement in technology resulted to the appearance of Self Service Technology. One form of self-service technology in the banking sector is the presence of mobile banking. This study aims to examine the influence of five factors toward the reusing of Mobile Bank Central Asia (BCA) in Bandung. Those factors used in this study were the extension of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) constructs, i.e perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived credibility, customer awareness and social influence. Data was collected through distributed questionnaire to 100 respondents who used Mobile BCA by using judgment sampling. Multiple linear regression technique was employed to investigate the influence among variables. This study empirically concluded that consumer intention to reuse BCA mobile services was positively influenced by social influence, customer awareness and perceived ease of use. On the other hand, perceived usefulness and perceived credibility did not influence the intention of reusing Mobile BCA in Bandung. Further study is suggested to use probability sampling technique to cover the real voice of mobile banking user in Bandung and to explore the lack influence of perceived usefulness and perceived credibility toward reusing of Mobile BCA.

In modern age, positive psychological capital is as important as financial capital for organizational development and sustainability. Efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience are the dimensions of positive psychological capital. Emotional labor is defined by Hochschild as control of self emotions at work by workers who have a high degree of contact with coworkers within the organization or with external clients, so as to create an expression, voice or body gesture which is acceptible to the clients. Emotional labor is analysized under three components: surface acting, deep acting and naturally felt emotions. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of positive psychological capital on emotional labor. So a research is conducted with the aim of exploring the relationship between the sub-dimensions of psychological capital and emotional labour.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between teamwork and organizational trust. In the implementation section the data from the survey of 250 workers is employed in call centers in Erzurum by using relevant statistical methods. Consequently, it is found that there is a positive and significant relationship between teamwork and organizational trust. Thus, the hypothesis of the study is supported as it was expected. Besides, it is found that there are positive and significant relationships between communication, openness to innovation, participation-trust in teamwork and organizational trust, trust in management, trust in co-workers, and trust in workplace.

Determining the optimal capital structure is one of the most fundamental policy decisions faced by financial managers. Since optimal debt ratio influences firm’s value, different firms determine capital structures at different levels to maximize the value of their firms. Thus, this study examines the relationship between leverage and firm specific (profitability, tangibility, growth, risk, size and liquidity) determinants of capital structure decision, and the theories of capital structure that can explain the capital structure of banks in Ethiopia. In order to investigate these issues a mixed method research approach is utilized, by combining documentary analysis and in-depth interviews. More specifically, the study uses twelve years (2000 - 2011) data for eight banks in Ethiopia.   The findings show that profitability, size, tangibility and liquidity of the banks are important determinants of capital structure of banks in Ethiopia. However, growth and risk of banks are found to have no statistically significant impact on the capital structure of banks in Ethiopia. In addition, the results of the analysis indicate that pecking order theory is pertinent theory in Ethiopian banking industry, whereas there are little evidence to support static trade-off theory and the agency cost theory. Therefore, banks should give consideration to profitability, size, liquidity and tangibility when they determine their optimum capital structure.

In a data set, an outlier refers to a data point that is considerably different from the others. Detecting outliers provides useful application-specific insights and leads to choosing right prediction models. Outlier detection (also known as anomaly detection or novelty detection) has been studied in statistics and machine learning for a long time. It is an essential preprocessing step of data mining process. In this study, outlier detection step in the data mining process is applied for identifying the top 20 outlier firms. Three outlier detection algorithms are utilized using fundamental analysis variables of firms listed in Borsa Istanbul for the 2011-2014 period. The results of each algorithm are presented and compared. Findings show that 15 different firms are identified by three different outlier detection methods. KCHOL and SAHOL have the greatest number of appearances with 12 observations among these firms. By investigating the results, it is concluded that each of three algorithms makes different outlier firm lists due to differences in their approaches for outlier detection.

Innovation is the only way of solution to achieve sustainable growth, social welfare and employment in a country. This study principally focuses on the relationship between growth and innovation in the light of information derived from a general literature review about definition, sources and risks of innovation, and measurement of innovation performance. Then, the contributions of innovative capability on economic growth and employment as well as innovation systems on a country basis have been discussed, and accordingly, actions to be taken, including a shift in paradigm, for a growth-innovation-national innovation system and its sustainability have been addressed. In addition, current innovation performance indicators of Turkey have been discussed in the light of a scope which is outlined in the initial sections of the study, and the change in such performance indicators between 1998 and 2009 has been examined. After analysis of the above mentioned criteria and comparisons against practices in developed countries and communities, suggestions have been made about the activities to be carried out in order to make Turkey’s current innovation system “sustainable”, to support and improve innovation. In the study, a research application has been conducted using the content analysis method on the “President’s Message” letters of 158 state and foundation universities that are located in Turkey and that have a website, and the importance accorded to innovation by the universities has been determined.

The accelerated advancement in technology resulted to the appearance of Self Service Technology. One form of self-service technology in the banking sector is the presence of mobile banking. This study aims to examine the influence of five factors toward the reusing of Mobile Bank Central Asia (BCA) in Bandung. Those factors used in this study were the extension of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) constructs, i.e perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived credibility, customer awareness and social influence. Data was collected through distributed questionnaire to 100 respondents who used Mobile BCA by using judgment sampling. Multiple linear regression technique was employed to investigate the influence among variables. This study empirically concluded that consumer intention to reuse BCA mobile services was positively influenced by social influence, customer awareness and perceived ease of use. On the other hand, perceived usefulness and perceived credibility did not influence the intention of reusing Mobile BCA in Bandung. Further study is suggested to use probability sampling technique to cover the real voice of mobile banking user in Bandung and to explore the lack influence of perceived usefulness and perceived credibility toward reusing of Mobile BCA.

The employment policy is one of the most disputable areas between Turkey and the EU. The EU declared two opening conditions, one about union rights and the other one about preparing an action plan displaying step by step the transposing of EU laws. Although Turkey claims that she met those criteria, the EU insists on keeping the accession negotiations in this area closed. However, there is serious gap between Turkish and European employment policies and in order to comply with the EU’s, there is a strong need of enthusiasm in Turkey for proper implementation of changes made in legal and institutional structures. Simultaneously, the EU has to offer a considerable incentive, e.g. membership, for Turkey to encourage her to adapt EU rules in employment policy. Unfortunately, it is argued in this paper that the current situation is the opposite, i.e. there is no substantial incentive from the EU to encourage Turkey and thus, no enthusiasm from Turkey to comply with the EU policy. In order to analyze the impact of the EU on Turkey’s employment policy the main question designed in this paper is: ‘To what extent does the EU have influence on policy convergence in a candidate country that does not have a clear membership perspective? ‘. It is argued in this study that “without a concrete incentive, European Union’s impact on a candidate country would be limited”.  Thus, the patterns of policy change at the national level are the dependent variable to be observed. The European Union’s conditionality is the independent variable that is expected to alter the national patterns.

This paper examines the relationship between the lobbying power of different interest groups and public education spending in a panel data estimation during the period 1996-2009 for 132 countries. The resource rents, manufacture exports, and agriculture value added are used as proxy variables for the lobbying power of the natural resource owners, manufacturers, and landowners, respectively, in order to substantiate the definition of the lobbying power of the interest groups more with economic fundamentals. As lobbying power is mediated through political institutions, different governance indicators are used individually and in interaction terms with the proxy variables in the estimations. It is found that when the country is more politically stable and the more the rule of law applies, the negative (positive) effect of the lobbying power of natural resource owners (manufacturers) on public education spending intensifies. The negative effect of landowners’ lobbying power diminishes as institutional quality as measured by governance indicators improves.    

This paper investigates constraints and complexities affecting entrepreneurial and Agri-business small-scale communal cattle farming success and sustainability in the Vhembe District of Limpopo Province, South Africa. The respondent entrepreneur farmers were randomly selected (n=55) amongst 183 other farmers for primary data collection. A semi-structured cross-language (English-Tshivenda) questionnaire was employed to gather the data. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were also employed. The results of this paper revealed that the entrepreneur farmers’ formal school educational levels and basic literacy skills in addition; subtraction; multiplication and division were reasonably higher while technological skills in farm risk management and production, and managerial competence in business financial skills; budgeting and marketing were low amongst the farmers. Government extension service could be employed to improve some of these deficient skills through skills training programmes for the farmers. Institutions of higher learning such as the University of Venda and Madzivhandila Agricultural College could be utilized for the trainings.