Business coping strategy, entrepreneurial orientation, improvisational competence, and crisis readiness of the Malaysian medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in recessionary times

The main issue of this thesis was the hampered performance of the manufacturing small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia during economic recessions. The bona fide respondents of the study were the medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (MMEs). Crisis readiness (CR) was proposed as the surrogate measure for firm performance. While CR was examined in relationships to business coping strategy (BCS) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), this study also assessed the mediating effect of improvisational competence (IC) on the BCS-CR relationship. Altogether, a three-pronged-objective research framework was theoretically underpinned by resource-based view. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the targeted respondents. Of the 295 usable responses, a random near-split-half of 145 and 150 were used for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis respectively. Statistically significant positive relationships were found in two direct relationships: BCS-CR and EO-CR, while IC was found to mediate the BCS-CR relationship. Significant positive relationships were also evident between all dimensions of EO and CR, except risk-taking. While CR was a new performance surrogate, its examination with BCS, EO, and IC contributed nascent theoretical insights. Other theoretical gaps included the development and validation of the BCS and bricolage scales, psychometric revisions of the CR and IC scales, and the incorporation of a vignette into the measurement to provide standardization as to the recessionary context understudied. Practically, the findings provided the manufacturing entrepreneurs some guidance on the appropriate response strategy and decision making which would better-position them in recessionary situations. Likewise, the understandings may also assist the policy makers to develop or to adjust policies to better-fabricate assistance channelled to MMEs. Towards the end, methodological limitations and potential avenues for future research were also identified

A strategic architecture and its role in enhancing the performance of commercial web-enabled enterprises

Thesis (PhD (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005.In the economic paradigm of the previous century a well-crafted strategy delivered successful competitive advantage. This research questions whether, with the advent of the internet and its networked economy, this premise remains valid. In the past, technological shocks such as the telephone, railroads and electricity changed the way markets worked. Noting this, some astute practitioners developed effective patterns of competitive behaviour and achieved results of lasting value. The internet has precipitated a similar disturbance and may be consigned to a matching destiny. Today’s internet pioneers are the electronic businesses competing at the frontiers of strategy by learning, innovating and doing. This study, conducted at the early, emergent phase of the internet, endeavours to determine the strategy characteristics of winning firms. Once the competitive advantages accruing to online businesses through the deployment of internet technologies disappear, all business will inevitably find itself in the networked economy - the findings of this work may prove of timeous benefit to such as these

Food safety knowledge and safe practice attitudes of employees in fine dining and quick service restaurants

The foodservice industry has a responsibility to provide safe food to all customers. Food safety and foodborne illness (FBI) prevention, therefore, have become a primary concern in the foodservice industry. The first step in this food safety chain is employee awareness of food safety procedures to mitigate the potential of causing FBI if correct procedures are not practiced; The purpose of this study was to examine whether a difference in food safety knowledge and attitudes exists between fine dining restaurant and quick service restaurant (QSR) employees. The relationship between attitudes toward food safety and food safety knowledge was also examined for possible causal links; The results indicate that a significant difference between the two sample groups exists between food safety knowledge and attitudes regarding cooling/reheating. QSR employees in particular were deficient in food safety knowledge in the areas of cooling/reheating. Attitudes, food safety knowledge and restaurant type were causally related. The result of this study should be useful for restaurant managers or trainers who are responsible for food safety training programs

Occupational health and safety for informal sector workers: the case of street traders in Nigeria

This study examined two important types of occupational hazards in the street trading activities in Nigeria which are (i) injuries sustained from road traffic accident and (ii) harassment of traders through indiscriminate arrest, seizure and confiscation of merchandise and occasional incarceration of sellers in police cells without trials. The data for the study was generated from a 2011 national survey of 3,873 street traders in Nigeria which was made possible through a research grant provided by the Covenant University’s Centre for Research and Development. In addition to the descriptive statistics used in profiling the street traders, the binary logistic regression approach was also used to estimate the log of odds of experiencing occupational hazards in street trading activities. The study found out that 25% of the traders have suffered injury, while 49.1% have experienced harassment from public authority officials. Given these findings, policy measures that are capable of enhancing the safety of street traders, and stem urban-ward migration have been proposed

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

People, Place, Process: Unpacking Local Efforts To Produce Social Sustainability

This three-paper dissertation seeks to understand the factors that drive social sustainability in local contexts, giving attention to institutional efforts of local governments and nonprofit agencies as well as the interdependence between the built environment and collective action efforts. It marries two separate literatures, in public affairs and urban studies, by conceptualizing the relationships between the way spaces have been planned and designed to function and they ways they are lived in and governed. The first paper measures the relationship between modes of housing settlement within a city and the number of social sustainability policies a city adopts, finding a positive and statistically significant relationship between the dominance of single-family detached housing and the adoption of fewer policies. Paper two is a process tracing effort to understand the ways that a city that was historically designed to be dominated by single-family detached homes and automotive access can promote social sustainability through restorative justice efforts. Lastly, the third paper seeks to understand how members of a progressive nonprofit group who live in a region dominated by low-density housing and lack of public transit continue to engage in interactive, community building efforts. v Overall, this dissertation speaks to the existing literature on the relationship between spatial and social aspects of urban areas and adds to our understanding of how the production of social sustainability is tied to the physical landscape of an area