Vol. 9 No. 3(J) (2017)

The study investigates factors influencing quality of life (QoL) among rural people in Nigeria. Two hundred and Twenty one (221) consenting adults within the rural area were sampled. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select respondents. Results revealed that respondents with low level of life stressor significantly reported higher score on quality of life than those with high level of life stressors. More also, there was no gender difference in the level of quality of life among the rural people. Age, gender, marital status, number of wives, number of children, and experience in rural area, occupation and educational attainment predicted quality of life. It was concluded that rural life stressor and demographic characteristics are significantly related to rural dwellers quality of life.

The purpose of this study was to develop a framework that would be used as a guideline for managers to create a conducive environment for women to advance into management positions in selected regulatory organizations operating in the maritime and aviation industries. The literature reviewed revealed that mentoring, employment equity legislation, and not confirming to stereotypes were some of the factors leading to women’s advancement into management positions. Feminism and equity theory were used to give the study theoretical grounding. The research approach was qualitative, the population size was twenty (N=20) and the sample size was fifteen (n=15). The latter was attained after the saturation point had been reached. The research protocol was developed from the literature reviewed. Face-to-face interviews were conducted and qualitative content analysis was used to develop study themes manually. The major findings of the study were that these factors enhanced women’s advancement into management positions: qualification and industry-related experience, fair recruitment and selection practices, proper handover, mastering work– life balance, and leadership and management development. It is envisaged that the results will empower managers and policy-makers dealing with employment equity, given the fact that women advancement into management positions is moving at a slow pace. In future a study can be conducted where a bigger sample size is used and the researchers could use the mixed-method approach. Furthermore, a follow-up study could be conducted using the same participants to establish whether they have advanced or not.

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between savings and financial development in Zimbabwe using both autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) and vector error correction model (VECM) approaches for comparison purposes with monthly time series data from January 2009 to August 2015. Four distinct hypotheses emerged from the literature and these are the savings-led financial development, financial development-led savings, feedback effect and the insignificant/no relationship hypothesis. The existence of diverging and contradicting views in empirical literature on the subject matter is evidence that the linkage between savings and financial development is still far from being concluded. Both F-Bounds and Johansen co-integration tests observed that there is a long run relationship between savings and financial development in Zimbabwe. What is even more unique about this study is that both ARDL and VECM noted the presence of a bi-directional causality relationship between savings and financial development in the short and long run in Zimbabwe. The implication of this study is that in order to increase economic growth, Zimbabwe authorities should increase savings mobilization efforts in order to boost financial development, which in turn attracts more savings inflow into the formal financial system.

The current study investigated a cointegration and nonlinear causality relationships between inflation and repo rates of South Africa using the data spanning the period of January 2002 to March 2016. We used a threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) and nonlinear Granger frameworks causality to carry out the analysis. Preliminary analysis of data revealed the expected properties of the data such as nonlinearity, non-stationarity and co-movement of the variables. The two variables confirmed to be moving together in the long-run according to the observed supWald test statistic. Finally, the Diks-Panchenko nonlinear Causality test revealed a strong bidirectional nonlinear causal relationship between repo rate and inflation rate. The results imply that the use of repo rate to target the inflation rate during the target period did not address the financial problem in South Africa. Consequently, the study concluded that repo rate may not be a good measure to use for controlling inflation rates of South Africa.

The growth of Small and medium-size firms cannot ensue without the entrepreneurial features and the environment that the firm operates. The entrepreneurial characteristics, therefore, are vital due to the unique individualism of firm owners or sponsors. Construction SME growth-oriented firms are a significant contributor to Ghana's economic gain. Conversely, the concept of growth varies from one entrepreneur to the others depending on the exhibited skills by the entrepreneurs, hence entrepreneurial features. Numerous factors influence the entrepreneurial features as a factor of firm’s growth. Some are of the factors are established and categorised as having strong influence while others are classified weak. This study, therefore, adopted the confirmatory factor analytical technique to justify the factors after exploring. To achieve the goal of the study, respondents such as firm owners, SME managers and construction professionals engaged by SMEs as the population were administered with questionnaires. In all, 315 questionnaires were given out in the form of semi-structured structured, but only 228 were retrieved for analysis representing a responds rate of 72 percent. The study established Cronbach alpha and composite reliability values that predicted the entrepreneurial feature as a subsequent determinant of firm’s growth. Additionally, the hypothesis was supported statistically suggesting that there is a direct relationship between entrepreneurial features and firm growth.

This article investigates the use of postponement decisions in determining the supply chain strategies of light vehicle manufacturers in South Africa. The article is exploratory and descriptive in nature. A survey was conducted among light vehicle manufacturers and the findings analysed by means of descriptive statistics. The results revealed that postponement decisions could be used to determine the supply chain architecture used by light vehicle manufacturers in South Africa. With regard to postponement decisions, the study found that all the light vehicle manufacturers made use of a lean supply chain strategy, while a few made use of an agile supply chain strategy. The results also revealed that all the production lines engaged in full speculation based on projected forecasting, and therefore employed a lean supply chain strategy. In terms of the postponement decisions made in line with the parent company of origin, European manufacturers 1 and 2 kept a work-in-progress inventory of stock to be customised for a particular customer. These manufacturers thus employed a lean and agile supply chain strategy, while most of the manufacturers adopted a lean supply chain strategy. All the manufacturers, except Asian manufacturer 1 and the American manufacturer, employed both lean and agile supply chain strategies. Therefore, the majority of the light vehicle manufacturers employed lean supply chain strategies in their inbound and outbound supply chain, while a few employed an agile supply chain strategy in their outbound supply chain, there by indicating leaglity. The article provides evidence of some form of postponement practice being followed by light vehicle manufacturers.

This study focused on investigating the role of E-banking on the switching behaviour of retail bank clients in Polokwane, South Africa. Recently, studies have shown that people are switching banks more often than in the past. Circumstances that are beyond control cause people to switch. This has become a challenge in the banking industry as many banks lose their clients. However, newly developed technologies have brought many changes in the operation of banks. The new E-banking services have enabled bank clients to have access to their bank account for 24 hours without visiting the physical branch. A sample of 98 respondents was surveyed in Polokwane, South Africa using the convenience sampling technique. The cronbach alpha test was used to ascertain reliability of the findings. The findings reveal that demographic characteristics have much impact on the switching behaviour of commercial bank clients and acceptance of e- banking services. Switching factors such as bank charges, low interest rates on savings, promotion activities, location and switching costs were the major reasons for bank customers to switch banks.

Recent development in the practice of macroeconomic policy has increased the importance of monetary and fiscal policy. Monetary policy within BRICS countries has shifted towards the setting of interest rates as the key monetary instrument, along with the adoption of inflation targets as key monetary policy objectives. It is well accepted that there is no one set of macroeconomic policies that guarantees sustained growth and development in the economy. However, the BRICS countries have been following a similar trend with regard to the exchange rate policy. This is shown by the fact that the BRICS countries have moved away from using a pegged exchange rate regime towards a managed floating exchange rate regime which is in contrast with the recommendations of the Washington Consensus. On the fiscal side, the BRICS countries agreed to spend only what is necessary in order to avoid the ballooning local government debt. Summarily, the BRICS countries have performed well economically and socially although there are still some room for improvement. However, there are still other BRICS members who have government debt that are well above half of their Gross Domestic Product. Alignment of policy regimes would strengthen the macroeconomic base of the BRICS. It is recommended that all BRICS members need prioritise inclusive governance that would checkmate social ills such as poverty, inequality and unemployment, while promoting social inclusion.

The liquidity crisis has beleaguered banks and has been bedeviling companies since 2009, after the introduction of the multi-currency system which has affected the Zimbabwean economic development. This research paper aims at investigating the causes of the liquidity crisis faced in the Zimbabwean economy. The study used survey design and researcher administered questionnaires in collecting data from the respondents located in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Masvingo. Out of the 200 questionnaires issued, 150 were successfully completed and returned resulting in a response rate of 75%. The study also used secondary data obtained from government agencies on export and import performance. SPSS AMOS was used to test the hypothesis raised and generate a path model determining the size and strength of the direct and indirect influence between the predictor variables and the downstream variable. The study identifies the following antecedents of liquidity crisis; public and investor confidence, country risk, and externalization of funds, illicit financial flows, and net export performance as significant drivers that have an effect on the current liquidity crisis. The results showed that the absence of the lender of last resort role by the central bank has no significant contribution to the liquidity crisis currently obtaining. It is recommended that the government focuses on the aforementioned antecedents in order to address the liquidity crisis.

This paper investigates the effect of asymmetric information on volatility of stock returns in Nigeria using the best-fit Asymmetric Power Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity, APARCH (1,1) model, under the Generalized Error Distribution (GED) at 1% significance level from 3 January 2000 to 29 November 2016. The descriptive statistical results showed that the returns were not normally and linearly distributed, with strong evidence of a heteroskedasticity effect. The results of the analysis also confirmed the effect of asymmetric information on the volatility of stock returns in the Nigerian stock market. The asymmetric parameter (γ) was negative at (-1.00), which is statistically significant at 1% level. This confirms that there is an asymmetric or leverage effect where bad news had a more destabilizing effect on the volatility of stock returns than good news. The total impact of bad news on volatility was explosive at 2.0, during the period under review. Also, the volatility persistence which is measured by the sum of ARCH(α) and GARCH(β) stood at 1.695950. This is above unity and suggests that volatility takes a long time to attenuate in Nigeria. This could be largely ascribed to the persistent effect of the 2008 global financial crisis, which probably eroded investors’ confidence in the market.