12 research outputs found

    Time Management Abilities and Practices among Managers in a Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

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    This is perhaps the most valuable resource required for any productive activity. Yet little is known about how well Nigerian executives use their time. How they manage their time has implications for their personal effectiveness and therefore for the national economy. Using a sample of 375 respondents, this case study of a Nigerian university sought to determine how academic and senior non-academic staff manage their time, how they rate their time management abilities, and the extent to which they apply popular strategies and tactics by time management consultants and experts. The results show that an overwhelming majority of our respondents rated themselves as good time managers. Yet, the study revealed that most of them do not have enough time for themselves, their family activities, study, community affairs and recreation; that they are not able to find large blocks of time when they need them; that they are usually not able to complete all the items on their daily activity lists by the end of the day; that they have not been able to stop taking work home in the evenings or on weekends and that they still stay late at the office to get it done. In other words, their claim to good time management is false. The obvious implication is that there is need for training in time management for all executives covered in this study irrespective of sex, age, experience and profession

    The country of brand communication in the retail setting: An analysis of Italian products in China

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    The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of country of brand (COB) communication within the retail environment of emerging markets. Drawing from the literature on store image, we developed a framework to analyse static and dynamic elements of COB communication. By adopting an inductive approach, we analysed COB use in a sample of 20 stores of Italian fashion brands in China using the mystery shopping technique. Given the increasing growth of e-retailing in China, the in-store observation is complemented by an analysis of the use of COB within the brand's local website and e-commerce page. In order to have a multi-layered representation of the phenomenon, in-depth interviews with managers of Italian firms in fashion industry are carried out. Findings confirm that retailing represents a primary communication channel for firms operating in China; however, the results of the participant observation show that COB is a cue information utilised only by a small percentage of the sample, mainly in a textual and iconic way. Managerial implications are discussed on the extent to which COB communication in store should be managed within an effective marketing strategy in line with the country and consumer characteristics in order to enhance the brand image in a growing market like China

    Technology use and availability in entrepreneurship: informal economy as moderator of institutions in emerging economies

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    This paper investigates the contextual influences of institutions on the use of latest available technologies by early stage entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Hypotheses are developed and then tested using multi-level modeling techniques on a dataset covering entrepreneurs in 20 emerging economies. We utilized 10,431 individual-level responses from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from 2002 to 2008 and complemented it with data on country-level institutions such as the size of a country’s informal economy, intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes obtained from the Index of Economic Freedom and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) from the World Bank Group. Results on the direct effects suggest that levels of FDI negatively influences the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs in emerging economies, while the moderation effects of informal economy suggest that as its size increases (1) the negative effects IPR on the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs strengthens, and (2) the negative effects of FDI on the use of latest technology strengthens. These findings support the overall proposition that the size of a country’s informal economy is an important moderator of institutional influences on technology use by entrepreneurs in emerging economies. More generally, the study proposes that institutions may not have the same effects on entrepreneurs in emerging economies that might be expected in developed countries, suggesting that future research should take the level of socio-economic development of a country into account when theorizing the role of institutions
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