Vol. 6 No. 2 (2014)

Medical tourism is a significant factor in Thailand’s economy as the country aims to develop more high value-added activities to escape from the middle income trap. The country has a number of highly advanced private sector hospitals, with western-trained physicians and the legendary service levels provided in Thailand. There are several prime targets for promoting medical tourism, which include the Middle East and South Asia, as well as some western countries, but one which is often ignored is neighboring Myanmar. This country is emerging from military dictatorship and has an unequal society in which there are a number of wealthy individuals unable to find the level of medical service they require in their homeland. Many Burmese people speak English, which is the international language of tourism and medicine. For such people, Thailand is a logical destination in the search for high-quality medical tourism. However, little if any research has been conducted to determine the levels of satisfaction that patients and their carers have received in Thailand and what improvements in service would be required. This paper aims to fill that gap to some extent by reporting on a quantitative survey of 200 Burmese users of a well-known private sector hospital in Bangkok. Their levels of satisfaction are charted and this leads to discussion of the meaning of their visit and its overall impact and benefit.

The study uses the time series data covering the period 1980Q1 to 2012Q3 to test the existence of any possible long run relationship between consumer spending and consumer confidence in South Africa. The analysis is done using the Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) model, with the unit root and the direction of causation also tested before any inference can be concluded on this relationship. The unit root tests using the DF-GLS as well as the Ng-Peron show that consumer spending, consumer confidence and economic growth are integrated of order zero ~I(0). Causality results on the other hand reveal that causation runs from consumer confidence to consumer spending and from economic growth to consumer spending in South Africa. The non-existence of unit root compels the establishment of the long-run relationship that leads us to performing VECM to establish short-run and long-run dynamics. Our results indicate that the positive effect of consumer confidence cannot be refuted in South Africa and that it exerts a significant and positive impact on consumer spending, hence aggregate spending.

The findings of this paper emanates from a broader research that was conducted to examine the role of social grants on poor rural households in Ngqushwa Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The study adopted a methodological triangulation approach in data collection and analysis. Five hundred (500) questionnaires were distributed among social grant beneficiaries who were selected using multi-stage sampling. These yielded quantitative results which were then complemented by qualitative results obtained from 25 in-depth interviews and 2 focus group discussions conducted with 16 participants. One of the objectives of the broader study was to explore the role of social grants in tackling the vulnerability of beneficiaries to hunger. The major findings of the study point to the fact that the greatest discretion of spending is on food. This has improved food accessibility and availability among beneficiaries and has most importantly reduced both child and adult hunger in households where social grants are injected. Social grants have no doubt reduced hunger and sufferings among beneficiaries. However with the economic downturn and escalating food prices, the nutritional value is lower and beneficiaries remain in poverty as they are not food secure.

This study seeks to investigate herd behaviour among equity mutual fund managers and the performance of mutual funds that trade against the herd in South Africa. The behaviour of mutual funds has an effect on the stability and volatility of stock markets, the ultimate returns to the investors. The study builds upon the efficient market hypothesis, portfolio theory and behavioural finance to provide evidence of the behaviour of mutual funds in an emerging market context using the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishney (1991) measure of herding is used to ascertain the behaviour of mutual funds over the period 2006 to 2012. Institutional investors in South Africa are susceptible to the behavioural bias of herding and this phenomenon influences the performance of their funds. Funds that trade in the opposite direction of herd funds are able to put up a superior performance over time. Superior performance, however, does not entice mutual fund investors to invest less in under-performing funds and more in funds that recently show superior performance. These findings imply that following investment waves does not culminate in superior returns in the stock market. Consequently, mutual funds that take an opposite direction to herd funds help stabilize the stock market and lessen the severity of bear markets. This study categorizes mutual funds into ‘herding’ and ‘contrarian’ and provides an insight into the performance of each category. Investors who oppose herd behaviour realize greater returns over time while stabilizing the markets at the same time.

This paper investigates the entrepreneurial intentions of 329 final-year commerce students in a rural university in the Limpopo province. The study is based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The objectives of the study were to test whether the TPB can help explain the entrepreneurial intentions of rural university students; to determine whether rural students will have intentions to start a business and to test the validity of the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire in a South African context. The study was conducted by means of a survey. SPSS was used to analyse the data. The results indicate that entrepreneurial intention of the respondents can be predicted from the attitude towards becoming an entrepreneur, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms. The findings reveal that the TPB is a valuable tool in understanding entrepreneurial intention of rural university students in South Africa. The majority of students intend to start a business in the future and the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire was found to be a valid instrument to measure the entrepreneurial intention of students in a South African context. Recommendations for policy makers, entrepreneurship educators and researchers have been highlighted.

The higher education sector has undergone dramatic restructuring through incorporations and mergers. This restructuring has led to the breakdown of apartheid racial divides and provided a vision of a single coordinated higher education system. In addition to opportunities various challenges have also emerged from these mergers. One such challenge is that higher education institutions may find themselves in tensions with their partners which may result in disagreements that could lead to crisis situations. In crisis situations, the pace of the conflict accelerates dramatically. This means that the affected parties have to react very quickly or risk having their ability to protect their interests substantially reduced. Implicit in this is the importance of communication. Often in a crisis situation, communication gets distorted; as a result rumors often supplant real facts. Thus, clear communication needs to be pre planned and increased during a crisis. The aim of this research is to investigate the role of communication during the planning and management of a crisis at higher education institutions in KwaZulu-Natal. A qualitative methodology was employed in this study. It reports on the preliminary results of in-depth interviews that were conducted at the four public higher education institutions in KwaZulu-Natal. Themes emanating from the literature review were used to develop an interview schedule which comprised of open-ended and closed-ended questions.

This study aims to analyze the factors associated with human resource development that probably influence employee's performance. They include the recruitment process, general and specific training, compensation, career development, job promotion and mutations. The assessment is laid out towards achieving a good government of the North Sumatera Province. Furthermore, it plans to look at the most crucial factors affecting the performance. A total of 119 respondents (officers of government civil servants) were chosen using a purposive random sampling technique. All eight independent variables and one dependent variable are tested using the multiple linear regression model. As both primary and secondary data are collected and examined, it is concluded that elements of human resource development simultaneously influence employee performance. This leads to the suggestion that effort has to be made in fostering the improvement in administration duties as well as the encouragement on human resources development consistently.

In the last three decades China’s economic development have achieved great many things some of which are 73 or more companies among the Global Fortune 500 (E & Y Report, 2012). This progress accelerated the country second to the US in its ranking. In addition, Chinese companies are expected to represent close to one fifth of all Global 500s by the 2020. The economy consistently grew 10 percent for the past decades and is anticipated to recover from the recent global financial crisis faster than some Western nations (Ju and Mirza, 2012). The economic growth has created debate among two camps; the skeptics are projecting the bust is near, while the cohorts claim to foresee continuity in the general direction. The purpose of this paper is therefore, to examine China’s economic development in light of an assertive strategic leadership that created sustainable economic development and distinguish the challenges of implementing a strategy to create competitive advantage through multiple economic systems; a market lead economy and a robust state developmentalism. The main question is; could it be possible for China to continue on the path of economic development and create a competitive advantage? If so, what are the opportunities and the challenges? Examination of the questions by using Institutional theory, leadership strategy, economic growth and institutional development theories indicated that continuity of the economic development depends on an assertive leadership and liberalization. Also, China should look into its own brand, and create unique or differentiated products, methods and processes that can sustain economic development. The local sector has similar characteristics as western market lead economy; that the managers are motivated by financial incentives that are received when their decision lead to an overall profit.