An Overview on Business, Management and Economics Research Vol. 3

This study investigated the potential of farming small, micro, medium enterprise (SMMEs) to contribute to the resolve of socio-economic problems. Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural land. Land reform can, therefore, refer to transfer of ownership from the more powerful to the less powerful, such as from a relatively small number of wealthy or noble owners with extensive land holdings (e.g., plantations, large ranches, or agribusiness plots) to individual ownership by those who work the land. Such transfers of ownership may be with or without compensation; compensation may vary from token amounts to the full value of the land. South Africa is one of the developing countries with high prevalence of socio-economic challenges, such as high levels of joblessness, poverty, food iinsecurity and malnutrition, particularly among rural and peri-urban poor people. Since 1994, the South African government has had a goal that the farming sector should play an important role in food security, job creation and wealth creation. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were employed in this study, with the former relying on participatory forums, where the data was taken with the aid of video recordings, whilst the later methodology used semi-structured questionnaire. The quantitative data obtained and used in this study were gathered from year 2006 to2007. This information was gathered by extension staff from a sample size of 1873 agricultural SMMEs (20% of the registered farming SMMEs in the nine provinces of South Africa). In order to increase the likelihood that the SMMEs created in the agricultural sector will help to address socioeconomic problems, it is necessary to innovate and investigate mechanisms that can turn micro and small businesses into medium-sized businesses. It appears that the majority of these SMMEs lack the capacity to be sustainable.

In order to ensure a sufficient development of the tourism activity without endangering the future of the tourism product itself, the paper introduces the diamond sustainable tourism development model. This model aims to provide objective criteria to help organizations to take the necessary decisions about controlling the number of visitors to a tourism destination or attraction. The scholarly literature on the negative effects of tourism is reviewed in this essay, along with different approaches that have been utilized to handle the problem of tourism congestion. The report also makes the case that a few important factors, such as destination carrying capacity, resident community quality of life, and visitor experience, ought to be given more explicit consideration.

In this study, the impact of workplace diversity management on employee engagement in the Nigerian public sector is examined from the perspectives of many academics. The impact of workplace diversity management constructs such as fairness, inclusiveness, equal opportunity, policies, and programs on employee commitment were examined from the perspectives of many specialists. Diversity management is a process intended to create and maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and differences of individuals are valued. The literature on diversity management has mostly emphasized on organization culture; its impact on diversity openness; human resource management practices; institutional environments and organizational contexts to diversity-related pressures expectations, requirements, and incentives; perceived practices and organizational outcomes related to managing employee diversity; and several other issues. One of the current global concerns in many areas is the inconsistent application of workplace diversity management regulations across nations. The fact that only workers from a particular background are treated properly and justly raises the possibility of discrimination. A conceptual review methodology was used in the study, which consulted a number of relevant bodies of literature from numerous respectable publications. However, only research that was published within the last five years was cited in this analysis in order to assure currency. The cited studies, show that fewer articles have been published in recent years. The scholars agreed that diversity management which entails the effort put in place by employers, to ensure unity in diversity was necessary to elicit employee commitment. The findings also revealed that workplace diversity management policies in multicultural nations like Nigeria were poorly implemented even though they existed, and this was reflected in lopsided appointments, promotions, and nominations at the top government level. From the foregoing conclusion, the review recommends that organizations assimilate minorities, integrate diversity and leverage on the variety. For the Nigerian public sector, the review recommends that regulatory bodies such as Federal Character Commission, National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission be made independent and empowered to monitor the government agencies for adherence to the framework of diversity management policies, with the aim of applying penalties for non-compliance while limiting interference in the public agencies. The implementation of this policy will ensure inclusiveness, fairness, and equal opportunity to all citizens.

This research focuses on the airport privatization in India, with a specific case study of the privatization of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi. Public-Private Partnerships, or PPPs, have been used since the 1990s in India to include the private sector in airport development, modernisation, and operation. Successful PPP implementation can be seen at large international airports like IGIA, Indira Gandhi in Delhi, CSIA Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, Cochin in Kochi, etc. This study examines the motivations, processes, outcomes, and associated with the privatization of IGIA. The Indian airports are perceived as being more business-oriented than government-owned. Privatization measures were consequently put into practice. By encouraging private investments in the construction of airport infrastructure, India's airport shortage has been fueled. With the opening of Cochin International Airport in 1999, the GoI took significant initiatives with the assistance of the business sector. It has promoted PPP strategies in brownfield and new airport developments since 2006. There were six airports covered under PPP model agreements altogether. One of the notable PPP initiatives in the Indian airport industry was the IGIA. An active PPP project is IGIA. The DIAL PPP framework has been effective in encouraging private sector investments in airport infrastructure and in enhancing the quality of services provided by the airports. It's important to note that determining whether the IGIA PPP was successful or unsuccessful will take time.

Adopting and implementing digital technologies can assist rural entrepreneurs in accessing national and international markets to increase their profitability. Entrepreneurs in the rural areas of Zimbabwe can leverage digital technologies and infrastructures to develop their businesses within the agricultural sector. Many studies have investigated rural entrepreneurs' adoption of digital technologies and their impact on their performance. However, little empirical evidence is available on the role of digital technology and how this can assist entrepreneurs in the Gokwe district of Zimbabwe to sustain their businesses. We adopted qualitative and quantitative methodologies to collect data using interviews and questionnaires from rural entrepreneurs. This chapter investigates digital technology's role in developing rural entrepreneurship in Gokwe. Findings indicate that rural entrepreneurs appreciate the role of digital technology in facilitating networking activities, connecting users, and interacting with suppliers, distributors, customers, and markets to foster their performance and profitability. However, most of them confirmed that they had difficulty identifying new entrepreneurial opportunities and expanding their existing markets with digital technology. Policy implications from this study are the need for government to encourage the adoption of digital technologies to enhance rural entrepreneurs' businesses.

This chapter investigates the relationship between GDP, exports, and imports. The main objective of this chapter is to analyze the dynamic links between India's GDP, exports, and imports using data collected every year between 1950 and 2014. Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health. Due to its complex and subjective nature, this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator. The Jarque-Bera test (used to check for normality), the Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test, the Phillips-Perron unit root test, the KPSS test (used to check for stationarity), and the Johansen Co-integration test (used to check for the number of con-integrating relationships among the underlying variables) are among the various econometrics tools. Vector Error Correction Model (to ascertain the variables' long-term relationships with one another) Both the Granger causation test and the Wald test have been used to determine the direction of causation. The stationarity test findings showed that the three variables under consideration have unit roots at level I(0), but that they become stationary at level I(1) after being transformed into the first difference. The trace and Max-eigenvalue test statistics of Johansen’s Co-integration test indicated the existence of two co-integrating equations and exhibited a long-run equilibrium relationship between the study variables. In the Vector Error Correction Model, C(1) is the coefficient of the error correction (co-integration) model, which is negative and significant, indicating a long-run causality running from import and export to GDP. The Wald test indicates that there are short-run causalities running from export to GDP and no short-run causality running from import to GDP. The Granger Causality test reveals that bidirectional causality exists between export and GDP and unidirectional causality between import and GDP. The residuals due to the Vector Error Correction Model are independent (no autocorrelation) and normally distributed. Also, the VECM model is free from Heteroskedasticity.

This study hinged on determinants of Rural-Women-farmers decisions on artisanal refineries activities and Agricultural Productivity in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. A total of eighty respondents were selected from four communities in the study area using a purposive sampling technique. Data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and bivariate probit regression model were used in the assessment. The results revealed that majority (100%) of the respondents were female while their mean age was 36years. Majorities (45.0%) of the respondents are widows and their average income was (#421,250.00k). The demand-pull diversification option was sales of petroleum products (27.1%) which were the major findings of this study. This diversification option resulted to negligence of farming activities by the rural women in the study area. It was only (25.4%) who attested that sensitization program to curb artisanal refinery activities was the major intervention program carried out by the state government, while only (33.0%) accentuated that accidental and sudden death was their major constraint. The result from the bivariate probit regression model showed that age (0.027209), farming experience (0.043173) and household size (0.044784) were statistically significant and positive to influence their decisions while income (2.24E-07), schooling (-0.022025) and number of farmlands destroyed by oil spills (-0.113430) were negative. Therefore, government should encourage the establishment of modular refineries to save the environment of continuous pollution and curb rurallivlihood drift.

This study paper tries to investigate the reasons behind the liquidity problem that the Zimbabwean economy is now experiencing. In financial economics, a liquidity crisis is an acute shortage of liquidity. Liquidity may refer to market liquidity (the ease with which an asset can be converted into a liquid medium, e.g. cash), funding liquidity (the ease with which borrowers can obtain external funding), or accounting liquidity (the health of an institution's balance sheet measured in terms of its cash-like assets). Since the advent of the multi-currency system in 2009, which had an impact on the economic development of Zimbabwe, the liquidity problem has plagued banks and businesses alike. The study used survey design and researcher-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents located in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Masvingo. Out of the 200 questionnaires issued 150 were successfully completed resulting in a response rate of 75%. The study also used secondary data obtained from government agencies on export and import performance, focusing on the multi-currency regime (2009-2017). SPSS AMOS was used to test the hypothesis raised and generated a path modeling determining the size and strength of the direct and indirect influence between the predictor variables and the downstream variable. The analysis highlights the following antecedents as major causes that have an impact on the present liquidity crisis: public and investor trust, nation risk, externalization of money, illegal financial flows, and net export performance. The findings also indicated that the present liquidity crisis was not significantly impacted by the central bank's lack of a lender of last resort position. In order to handle the liquidity problem, it is advised that the government concentrate on the aforementioned precursors.

The research is an attempt to engineer a prudential toolkit for the stock market analogous to the Basel toolkit in its second, third and fourth versions.

It raises the concern about the requirement of mitigating market risk coming from excess volatility of share prices that compromises financial stability and argues that mitigating credit market risk like in the Basel prudential surveillance system is insufficient to provide accurate resilience from the onslaught of financial meltdowns.

A clear specification of stock market efficiency paves the way for an accurate understanding of the key features pertaining to the Stock market sector defining financial stability and drawing a wedge to shaping a framework for setting a prudential toolkit through adopting based on analogy to the Basel framework setting.

The issue of integration of financial sectors is conveyed a prominant role in all its aspects of; collision between instruments, the role played by the balanced scorecard and the induction of instability from the credit sector features of credit information assymetries borrowers' Creditworthiness and non performing loans through the financial accelerator effect to the excess volatility of share prices and elucidates thereby the way financial sectors are integrated.

The issue of hedging raises a concern about the role it plays in prudentiality and the potential threat it might represent for credit risk financial stability.

Finally, a general appraisal on stability and efficiency is framed in perspective for trading in the primary and secondary markets.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate sustainability and responsibility (CS&R) is a widely discussed topic in business and economic literature. However, there is a lack of studies comparing the top-tier hotel chain’s sustainability practices with SDG-related CSR and sustainism. The current study aims to develop a comprehensive list of SDG-related CSR actions, CS&R actions, and sustainism themes. Then, it compares the CS&R practices of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence winner 14 selected hotel chains with SDG-related CSR and sustainsim themes. First, using Scopus and Google Scholar databases, SDG-related CSR, CS&R actions, and sustainism-related actions are identified. Second, using qualitative content analysis of sustainability reporting of the CS&R websites of 14 selected hotel chains is evaluated. Third, whether the current CS&R actions outperform the SDG-related CSR or sustainism actions or whether a gap exists between expectation and current performance is uncovered. As an outcome, a three-layer pyramid is developed where the lower-level shows 14/14 selected TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence winner hotel chains are in the mere CS&R situations, the middle level shows 10/14 hotel chains are SDG-related CSR era, and the peak of the pyramid shows 3-4/14 hotel chains are in the sustainism era. Although most hotel chains have implemented SDG-related CSR, many top-tier hotels should take urgent actions to implement sustainism themes.