Vol. 2 No. 5 (2011)

This research investigated the impacts of procurement systems on the performance of construction projects in East Malaysia. Construction project outcome may be measured in terms of time, cost and quality achieved. Project clients demand and want best value for their money and they want their projects to be completed on time, within budgeted cost and at appropriate quality or specification. The sample in this research consists of 58 participants that work in a construction companies/industry. 90 questionnaires were distributed, 69 were successfully returned and 58 were fully completed. The sample comprises project clients/owners, project managers, consultants and construction workers. However, due to the fact that the time allocated for this research is limited and it is of qualitative in nature for which the sample size is less important (Kumar, 2005). The aim of using project clients, project managers, consultants and construction workers from different companies is because they work under different circumstances, which will ensure all questions are answered from different perspective. Therefore, the researcher distributed questionnaires randomly among the participants in different construction companies. This also minimises any bias towards any particular company. The key findings and conclusions from literature review and the analysis of results of questionnaires issued to project clients, projects managers, consultants and construction workers showed that traditional procurement system benefits cost and quality but at the expense of time. In other words, traditional procurement system has positive impacts on project objectives of cost and quality and negative impact on project time. Design and build procurement system benefits cost and time but at the expense of quality and this implies that the impacts of design and build procurement system on project objectives of cost and time are positive with negative impact on project quality.

The Indian Banking Industry has undergone radical changes due to liberalization and globalization measures undertaken since 1991. Today, Indian Banking Industry is one of the largest in world. There has been a great surge in efficient customer services. A highly satisfied and delighted customer is a very vital nonfinancial asset for the banks in the emerging IT era. The curtsey, accuracy & speed are like a crown factors for a bank. Based on the responses of 768 customers of public sector bank, Indian Private Sector Bank & Foreign Bank (each one from these groups) operating in Amritsar district of Punjab and in case of fully E-bank, (three banks, one from each bank group) have been taken into consideration. It may be inferred that there is significant difference among three bank groups with regard to the time customers have to spend to transact a business. The E-banks are more efficient in regard to time factor. This is the very important factor of shifting of potential customers in E-banks. The survey was conducted in Amritsar district of Punjab in the month of September 2007. Chi-Square test is used to check the level of significance difference among various bank groups and coefficient of contingency among various bank group customers’ responses is also calculated.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of an e-learning tool called KeLiP among lecturers in one of the public university in Malaysia, University Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA). Specifically, this study is intended to achieve three main objectives: to examine the opinions of lecturers towards KeLiP, to investigate willingness to use KeLiP and to examine the challenges using KeLip. A total of 250 lecturers responded to the survey. Interestingly, the experiences on internet and computers as well as exposure on the use of KeLiP among lecturers were vast. The results on opinions revealed that KeLiP is cost effective and easy to understand. The results also indicate that the main challenge faced in using KeLip was related to technical problems and lecturers were willing to use KeLiP if appropriate support is given.

This paper intend to identify the factors affecting the consumer perception (when people chooses the services by compulsion not by choice) regarding the service quality among three domestic airlines namely Spice Jet, Indigo and Kingfisher, service providers in Agartala and to identify the most important factor in case of each domestic airlines. For achieving this objective a questionnaire was framed according to SERVPERF model and data from 110 subjects. Factor analysis and then regression analysis was carried out for extracting the factors and identifying the most important factor. We found that among the three airline service providers the number of factors loaded is different. Additionally, in case of Spice Jet and Indigo ‘assurance’ and in case of Kingfisher ‘safe and promptness’ factor is found to be most important factor.

Government in the economy of a country is responsible for various duties and to do these tasks uses the budget and fiscal policy as a planning and control tools. Because the different goals of economic balance in macro level such as fixing prices and unemployment inhibit any economic program is the priority, so can the government is using funds that involve income and expenses of the government to direct economic in reaching their goals in macro level. In developing countries lacked the private sector are strong, the role of government and its dimensions are larger tasks. The basic aim of the paper is to analyze the Relationship between government budget deficits and inflation in the Iran's economy. According to the positive and significant coefficient of government budget deficit, if budget deficit change to one percent, the inflation rate will change to 1.82 percent.

This study focuses on exploring the pattern of mobile phone usage among youngsters in Pakistan to delineate the extent of addictive behavior towards its usage. For this purpose questionnaires were used to elicit the responses. University students were selected as population and simple random sampling technique was used. Sample was consisting of 500 students out of which 400 students responded back comprising 80% response rate for this research. Findings of this study revealed that majority respondents are able to have definite priorities between their responsibilities & commitments and their cell phone usage. Very few are those who always exhibit the extreme addictive behaviors and rest is the majority who are not frequently involved in addictive usage patterns. Thus, youngsters use their cell phones under reasonable limits and do not tend towards extreme behaviors leading towards addictive cell phone usage.