Insights into Economics and Management Vol. 9

World Health Organization (WHO) state Worlds 57 countries suffered from shortage of doctors in term of health worker imbalance, maldistribution. The objective of this study is to assess does substitution can be carried out in the mainstream of health systems to reduce health workforce syndrome for developing countries. Six facilities (two union health family welfare center, two Upazilla health complex and two clinics from Non-Government Organizations) were taken purposively. A structured questioner addressing one hundred and eleven (111) variables for Essential service package was used for in-depth interviews and observation. A hypothetical framework was used to focus on substitution, crisis and policy implication. Study report reveals that in seven components of Essential Service Package most of the services provided by doctors in public health facilities were same services served by non-doctor health care providers in health care facilities operated by non-government organizations. Non-doctor health care providers are not allow to serve even for non-communicable disease screening. Research result reveal that non-doctor health care service providers skill and expertise regards maternal health care, child health care, adolescent care, nutritional care and care for other diseases are gold standard. Regard maternal health care services non-doctor health care service providers not able to serve and referred the cases of identify obstetric emergencies (ANC7), labour induction (ND4), episiotomy (ND7) and identify and manage obstetric emergencies (isolation or B/CEmonC), obstructed labour, pre/eclampsia, haemorrhage, pre-term labour, including administration of antenatal Corticosteroids (ND8) and complicated cases (ND9), identification and management of obstetric complications:, Hemorrhage, Puerperal infection/sepsis (PNC4). In respect to neonatal care non-doctor providers not cannot manage preterm or low birth weight (LBW) neonate (INC4), identification and management of sepsis (NCD5), identification and management of omphalitis (NCD6), identification and management of LBW babies (refer <1, 800 (NCD7), identification and management of neonatal jaundice (NCD8) and obs and neonatal emergencies. Among family planning services non-doctor provider at NGO clinic do not serve the services are advocacy and awareness development on PPFP and post-MR/PAC–FP (FP2), menstrual regulation(FP11), post abortion FP(FP12), post-partum FP (FP13), post MR–FP (FP14), management of contraceptive complications (FP15). IMCI and EPI were well covered by non-doctor health care service providers following book chart let. Non-doctor health care service providers well capable to serve the services of essential service package (ESP). If top-up training given to them and allow to served more services that presently not covered would able to covered and doctors were get to engage themselves to manage more complicated cases. If a special cadre (non-doctor/paramedics) create in the mainstream of health service systems will increase service range in public health sector and able to ensure universal health coverage.

Financial inclusion is the priority of any government for inclusive and sustainable development of economy. Financial inclusion and financial literacy are the two faces of the same coin. Financial inclusion and poverty alleviation cannot become successful unless financial literacy is achieved. Financial education or financial literacy has assumed greater importance in the recent years because of the development of economy and financial markets. Researches have shown that levels of financial literacy worldwide are unacceptably low. Developing countries have very less financially literate population as compared to developed countries. People find it difficult to take decisions regarding personal finance issues confidently and often make mistakes. In India also the levels of financial literacy are very low. With this background in the present study, an attempt is made to assess the general financial awareness of slum dwellers in Bangalore city. 

The purpose of this mixed methods research was to examine the role of leadership in transmitting influence of learning organization, technology and innovation on competitiveness of Thai exporting business.  A structured and tested questionnaire was used as an instrument in quantitative research.  The samples were 110 exporting firms that were randomly selected through stratified random sampling from 1,723 Thai exporting firms. The result showed that leadership played partial mediation in transmitting function.  It was also revealed that leadership had direct effects on competitiveness of the firms.  Technology and innovation were essential antecedents of competitiveness as they both left high direct effect and indirect effect on such outcome variable.  All respondents valued learning efforts and had attempted to become learning organizations, so as to strengthen competitive advantages.  Modern technology and innovation were also essential for business survival.  Other hidden variables addressed by key informants through in-depth interviews came to light during this study for further investigation were: organizational culture, social capital, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and life-long education.

This study examines the relationship between firm performance and corporate governance structure, mainly leadership structure. The leadership structure is strongly related to CEO duality. There are several aspects and dimensions of this relation, which may influence the corporate performance, but this study focuses on the extreme situation where this relation reaches its ends, namely the corporation collapse. This paper has considered the factors that can cause corporate failure and its governance inability to attain their objectives. Data were collected from 385 bankrupt and 14.000 non-bankrupt unlisted Greek firms for a period of ten years in order for a model to be drawn, indicating the possibility of those firms incorporated under duality to bankrupt. Our empirical analysis provides new evidence on the effects of leadership structure, calculating the probability for a firm to go bankrupt. These data suggest that the probability in duality leadership structure increases.

In India, the uniqueness of gold has been widely discussed since ages. The Indian Government has led several initiatives to curb gold consumption in or-der to restrict its impact on trade deficit and forex reserves. However, their attempts have been quite futile. In light of the above and combined with the high demand for gold in the form of jewelry, this research paper was crafted. This paper attempts to study the factors of gold buying of retail consumers and also analyze the impact of reference groups on gold buying. The central focus of the study being retail consumers, data were collected from a sample of 600 retail consumers. Several factors were identified through factor analysis. The validity and reliability of factor analysis was confirmed by KMO (0.903) and Bartlet tests (Sig. 0.000). ANOVA was performed to ascertain the impact of reference groups/employment function on the identified factors. The ANOVA results indicated that the proposed hypothesis was observed to be statistically significant for some of the identified factors. Results of Tukey Post Hoc Test highlighted pairing of other function (retired) of employment with either Marketing or IT giving statistically significant different means. Our study revealed that for “gold” too one of the social factors, namely employment function had a similar impact. For several years, gold has been an area of secondary research both in the foreign and Indian context. However, in the light of gold buying’s (Jewelry) negative impact on India’s trade deficit and various initiatives of the government, this research has relevance in the Indian context. More so since in the existing era, India is a growing economy and globalization and technology has made it easy and possible to buy or invest in the paper form of gold instead of the physical form.

Students’ Perceived Service Quality (SPSQ) and Students’ Satisfaction (SSAT) in Open Distance Learning (ODL) are renowned features in Higher Education (HE) field in the present-day. The vast number of research studies have addressed diverse types of variables on different grounds. The ODL students are from various family backgrounds such as cultural, social, technological skill levels, and most importantly defer from basic educational entry qualifications. This must cognize how the HE institutions are able to offer their diversified services together with quality enhanced features to enjoy a competitive edge from the student’s satisfaction point of view. The number of students completing the course, or graduates passing out are diminishing when compared with the increase in number of registered student’s year on year. Most of the universities and HE institutions have faced student persistence and attrition problems and rush to find solutions with the concepts of service quality and satisfaction. The purpose of this study is mainly based on finding out the significant factors affecting the SPSQ and SSAT. This study will address the modified SERVQUAL constructs in relation to the SPSQ and SSAT. The independent variables were Assurance, Empathy, Responsiveness, Reliability, and Website Content and the dependent variables were the Students’ Perceived Service Quality and Satisfaction in ODL in the OUSL. Data was collected by using a self-administered questionnaire from 760 undergraduate students of the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) covering six main regional centers island wide. The OUSL is the unique university operating under the ODL system in Sri Lanka. The analysis was based on descriptive and inferential statistics. The significant relationships are revealed between the SPSQ and Reliability, Responsiveness and Website Content. The other significant relationships are SSAT with Reliability and Website Content and the relationship between SPSQ and SSAT. The R² for the SPSQ is 0.244 (24%) and SSAT is 0.549 (55%). The same research could be recommended as a future research with more service quality variables, and in regional centers as a longitudinal data collection method to understand more about service quality and satisfaction which influence student retention and completion. The insignificant relations that students have granted the qualities of Assurance and Empathy of their teaching staff. The other three (Responsiveness, Reliability,Website Content) service qualities must taken in to consideration and must pay much attention to enhace the service quality of the offered service with these significant factors.

This article attempts the perilous tasks of reviewing corporate social responsibility. Reviewing those literatures is a notorious challenge because corporate social responsibility has developed inconsistently. Authors that insist a precise definition are often disappointed because corporate social responsibility is a relative concept. It has never assumed a stagnated role. To encaptivate this review, this article peruses corporate social responsibility from a contextual approach. It reviews the development of corporate social responsibility at every stage of its evolution by addressing three contextual conundrums. Firstly, it peruses the motivational construct at every stage of development. This provides a critical insight on why corporate social responsibility was fashioned as such by analysing them contextually. Secondly, this review examines stakeholder inclusiveness at each epoch of development. This again critically exposes the category of beneficiaries included in each stage of progress categorising the evolution of their beneficiaries. Lastly, this work examines the extent of instutionalisation of corporate social responsibility illustrating the pattern in which the concept received legal and social acclamation. By addressing these three scopes, this article hopes to protrude categorically the contextual influence on corporate social responsibility so that reader(s) might understand at a deeper level the contextual reasoning and deduction on how the concept is shaped and reshaped. This work reviewed major landmark and or classical texts to derive a pure and unobscured view as much possible.

Studies and writings on corporate social responsibility turned a full cycle with much ink spilled on this topic. From the inception of a divine origin, corporate social responsibility has now become a flamboyant display of numbers and statistics which corporations proudly present them to fulfil their legal obligations. It is ironic that a divine understanding of corporate social responsibility has now transpired to be a complex calculus of statistical tabulations, too often exhibited in annual and sustainability reports. Organisations become grossly mesmerised with the grandiosity of exceeding the prerequisites of ecological, environmental, social and economic performance supported by undisputable, verifiable and measurable data. Corporate social responsibility has become senseless and meaningless. This is not a research paper nor does it entail the rudiments of any research findings. Conversely, this paper alerts and perhaps cautions corporate social responsibility practitioners on the perils of their overarching emphasis on positivism. Corporate social responsibility cannot be quantified merely in numbers but on the contrary, it should involve truthful, honest and transparent dialectic communication with the stakeholders. Many corporations deceived and some still facing the remnants of their mistakes. The Volkswagen ‘diesel dupe’ crisis and Johnson & Johnson’s baby talc powder scandals are reminders of the same. This paper is a solemn reminder that corporations must be ‘awakened’ so that ethics is grounded to its core and not merely in the cosmetic forms of presentable statistics. Corporations must make profits fairly, supply goods and services that are worthy and refrain from fraud. Those were the grounded values in corporations, understood as being the core values of a business.

The world has witnessed corporate scandals of monstrosity magnitude. The Enron Scandal, the Nike Sweatshop scandal and the recent Johnson and Johnson baby talc in 2018 are some dishonors that reshaped the business world and reinvigorated the importance of business ethics. Indeed, supranational and national movements such as the Global Reporting Initiatives have responded to these scandals by imposing stricter corporate reporting to instill greater transparency and corporate responsibility. Ironically, despite unwavering efforts, corporations are still blatantly flouting regulations. The Volkswagen “diesel dupe” crisis is a stark reminder of the inherent weakness of current regulations. Despite Volkswagen’s staunch adherence to those stringent reporting guidelines, they breached ethics to the core, creating a tsunami of vehicle recalls, massive social, political and legal repercussions. Volkswagen’s cheat device is a ‘creative destruction’ that challenged the fundamental usefulness of corporate reporting. Corporate social responsibility has evolved tremendously, now taking the form of positivistic reporting patterns. Corporations are measured by their ecological, social and economic performance where they flamboyantly table those data and information to garner stakeholders’ support and legitimacy. However, a pragmatic approach towards corporate social responsibility is self-defeating. It erodes and dilutes a corporation’s ability to make sense, communicate and adapt to their externalities. Instead, corporations boast of their corporate prowess and triple bottom line. Using Volkswagen as a subject, this paper exposes the inherent weaknesses of a positivistic corporate reporting approach to social responsibility. A positivistic approach such as this cannot engender a truthful, honest and open posture in business corporations. Instead, this paper exemplifies that a meaningful sensemaking corporate social responsibility instills reflexive organisation change and moral transpose within corporations. This paper underlines this reflexive organisational change and moral transpose in Volkswagen as they encounter the diesel crisis. This study is novel and greatly enhances previous literatures in corporate social responsibility by instilling an appropriate model to underline these momentous reflexive organisational changes and moral transformations in Volkswagen. In this paper, the current authors fill this gap by addressing the issues of sensemaking CSR on reflexive organisation change and their moral transpose.

The aim of this paper is to understand the factors influencing business tourism on a global scale, in order to assess the competence of the countries in this tourism segment and prescribe them guidelines for action. For the development of data analysis, a growth rate model was estimated and a sample of 136 countries for the years 2005 and 2009 was collected. Results reveal that, for the development of policies to stimulate the growth in the business tourism segment, countries should develop measures that encourage capital investment in tourism, leisure tourism and trade openness. Economic agents should also focus their investments in equipment that creates value throughout the tourism supply chain, in particular, in transport and equipment for entertainment and culture.

The growing expansion of international trade and investment is associated with the tendency to transform the international commercial arbitration into a mechanism increasingly used to settle disputes arising from these relationships. Some states are not very attracted by international arbitration, what is easily evidenced by the low level of modernization of the relevant legislation and the lack of consolidation of judicial practice. Albania is a similar country.

This article aims to discuss, in a comparative light, some important issues in Albanian legal framework and even in the Albanian case law, compared to the New York Convention provisions, concerning the foreign or domestic status of an arbitral award and obstacles for its recognition and enforcement in the Republic of Albania. In this way, some problematic issues addressed by the domestic legal framework are to be presented as well as the necessity for eventual changes. Adoption and implementation of legal instruments, which provide contemporary improvements of arbitration institute, in accordance with the international legal framework, will be a good service to the integration process of the Albanian economy.

In current business environment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become the powerful source for competitive advantage and it became popular among companies to uphold the image and contribute to the success of the organization. This paper intends to investigate how CSR can help in reducing social issues by conducting a drag racing known as Sprint Test. This study is based on information gathered thru questionnaires distributed to racers at the race event. In depth interviews with a business owners and local enforcement officer was conducted to clarify the effect of the race event to local community. The importance of CSR as seen through the prism of how social issue such as illegal racing can be reduced and eliminated by having a proper race circuit was established in this study.