Formal and Informal Credit Markets and Rural Credit Demand in China

Credit markets are an essential economic institution. In developing countries, particularly in countries undergoing rapid social and economic transition, it is important to identify emerging credit demand and institute credit supply in a timely manner to facilitate economic transformation. This research focuses on the evolving rural credit market in China, where borrowing from the social network has been common but the recent economic transition has made this informal credit market inadequate in addressing rural credit needs. This research is aimed at identifying the social and economic factors that explain the farmers’ credit constraint and influence farmers’ decisions to switch from informal to formal credit markets. Using data from a household survey, we estimated both binary choice probit models and a multinomial probit model to explore the determinants of credit market choice and credit constraints. We found that the credit demand is significantly affected by household’s production capacity as supported by the fact that household size, land size, head’s education all significantly increase household’s probability to borrow, but the impact of these factors varies considerably by credit market. Transaction costs have a significant, negative effect on formal credit demand. The credit constraints analysis suggest that off-farm employment, land size and the cost of the credit are the three most important factors that increase the probability of being constrained.Formal Credit, Informal Credit, Credit Markets, Rural Credit, China, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

The business value of information system-enabled e-collaboration capabilities

This study aims to understand how firms in developing countries can effectively use their Information System (IS) resources to develop valuable e-collaboration capabilities that in turn improve business performance. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect data from 408 Iranian and Malaysian manufacturing firms. Findings revealed that Supply Chain-Wide Process Integration (SCPI) and Collaborative Knowledge Management (CKM) are key IS-enabled capabilities that enhance performance gain of manufacturing firms. The work found that these capabilities serve as catalysts in transforming the value of IS resources controlled by firms into business performance improvement. The results suggest that SCPI, as a determinant of a highly integrated and dynamic supply chain, is an important intermediate organizational capability through which value of IS resources can be materialized. Likewise, the findings imply that CKM across a given supply network, as a valuable intermediate organizational capability, converts the benefits of both technical and human IS resources into performance gain at the corporate level

The role of owner/manager in adoption of electronic commerce in small businesses: the case of developing countries

Purpose: Based on theories from the innovation diffusion literature, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model of electronic commerce (EC) adoption in small businesses (SBs) of developing countries. The research model specifies variables at managerial level as the primary determinants to EC adoption in SBs. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based field survey was conducted to collect data from 268 owner/managers of SBs in Iran. The data were analysed using factorial analysis. Subsequently, six hypotheses were derived and tested by hierarchical multiple regression and logistic regression analysis. Findings: Perceived benefits, perceived compatibility, perceived risks, perceived costs, and innovativeness were found to be the significant determinants of decision to adopt EC. Likewise, discussion on discriminators between adopters and non-adopters of different EC applications has been provided. Research limitations/implications: Cross-sectional data of this research tends to have certain limitations when it comes to explaining the direction of causality of the relationships between the variables. The study focuses only on the manufacturing SBs of Iran. Practical implications: The research findings have important implications for practising managers, information systems experts, and policy-makers. Governments should follow specific policies to facilitate institutionalisation of EC in SBs. Similarly, EC vendors and technology providers should collaborate with SBs to enhance the compatibility of different EC applications with specific characteristics of these businesses. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is perhaps one of the first that examines the adoption of EC by SBs in a developing country context, using a research model which tests the effects of owner/managers' attributes on adoption of simple and advanced EC applications

IT investments and product development effectiveness: Iranian SBs

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine if, and how, investments in IT at different levels can create new product development (NPD) capabilities in terms of IT leveraging competence in NPD and NPD effectiveness. The paper also investigates how Iranian small businesses (SBs) can achieve desired marketing performance through developing these capabilities. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is consistent with the perspective on IT‐enabled organizational capabilities. A questionnaire‐based survey was conducted to collect data from 218 businesses or NPD managers of SBs in Iran. Findings: IT leveraging competence in NPD and NPD effectiveness are valuable key capabilities that transform the value of IT resources to a firm's performance for Iranian SBs. Investments in both technical and human IT resources have positive effects on the development of NPD capabilities, and thus performance in the surveyed SBs. Research limitations/implications: Among other limitations, relying on a small sample size and cross‐sectional data of this research, and lack of generalizability of findings tend to have certain limitations. Practical implications: The results suggest that the investments in both technical and human IT resources increase firms' ability to develop effectiveness in NPD. However, IT investments strategy should be aligned with effective use of IT functionalities, as the effect of IT leveraging competence in development of NPD effectiveness is more pronounced. Second, IT leveraging competence in NPD and NPD effectiveness are important intermediate organizational capabilities through which the benefits of both technical and human IT resources are converted into performance effects at the firm level for Iranian SBs. Originality/value: This case study explores how Iranian SBs can develop NPD capabilities, and subsequently, marketing performance, a topic that has received little attention to date

An Empirical Study of Agricultural Insurance—Evidence from China

AbstractThis paper explores the factors that affect the farmers buying or not buying agricultural insurance so that the provider of insurance, state-owned agricultural insurance companies or commercial ones can adjust their strategic to suit the demand of famers based on our results and China's special characteristics in rural area, such as huge rural population and stated-owned land system. In this paper, we also provide some suggestion on how to develop the agricultural insurance in China for policy maker

Full-Length Enrich c-DNA Libraries-Clear Cell-Renal Cell Carcinoma

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), the most common subtype of RCC, is characterized by high metastasis potential and strong resistance to traditional therapies, resulting in a poor five-year survival rate of patients. Several therapies targeted to VEGF pathway for advanced RCC have been developed, however, it still needs to discover new therapeutic targets for treating RCC. Genome-wide gene expression analyses have been broadly used to identify unknown molecular mechanisms of cancer progression. Recently, we applied the oligo-capping method to construct the full-length cDNA libraries of ccRCC and adjacent normal kidney, and analyzed the gene expression profiles by high-throughput sequencing. This paper presents a review for recent findings on therapeutic potential of MYC pathway and nicotinamide N-methyltransferase for the treatment of RCC

TOPSIS extension for multi-objective supplier selection problem under price breaks

For supplier selection problem (SSP), if suppliers offer quantity discounts as well as buyer wants to buy multi-product, SSP becomes more complicated. In order to solve the complicated problem, an integration of TOPSIS approach and multi-objective mixed integer linear programming (MOMILP) is used to define the optimum quantities among the selected suppliers. In this article, we also apply TOPSIS approach to solve the MOMILP problem. In this solution, TOPSIS minimizes the measure of distance, providing that the closest solution should have the shortest distance from the positive ideal solution (PIS) and the longest distance from the negative ideal solution (NIS) as well. Therefore, a q-dimensional objective space is reduced to a twodimensional space (PIS and NIS). Finally, a single objective function is then proposed as a suitable one to resolve the conflict between the new criteria (the shortest distance from the PIS and the longest distance from the NIS)

Development of a sensor-based approach for local minima recovery in unknown environments

This paper introduces a new methodology for escaping from local minima using an actual-virtual target switching strategy. In particular, this approach proposes suitable steps to detect trap situations and guide the robot away from local minima even when the environment is completely unknown. In this work the navigation system consists of two layers. In the low-level layer, a Nearest Virtual Target (NVT) approach is adapted as a reactive collision avoidance method for mobile robot navigation to achieve collision free motion in cluttered, dense and troublesome scenarios. Where the robot is surrounded by obstacles and a trap situation is likely to occur, the high-level layer becomes responsible to plan a path to pull the robot out of the trap. Finally, the performance of the proposed approach is validated by simulation results