Obstacles to growth for small and medium enterprises in Turkey

Many studies have shown that firm growth decreases monotonically with size and age. In this study, the authors investigate employment growth of firms in Turkey with an emphasis on small and medium size enterprises. In Turkey, small and medium size enterprises account for almost 77 percent of employment and play a crucial role in the economy. However, the analysis of firm dynamics in Turkey shows that medium-size firms (51-250 workers) are theslowest growing group in the economy. Moreover, small and medium size enterprises grow at a slower rate in Turkey than in several comparator countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. After determining this irregularity, the paper analyzes how the investment climate affects firm growth and finds that improved access to finance is the most important factor that significantly increases firm growth rates.Microfinance,Achieving Shared Growth,Small Scale Enterprise,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets

Technology transfer in rice crop in Mozambique: from research to farmers

Adoption and diffusion of agricultural inputs are the stimuli for boosting yields and improve food security and nutrition in households in Mozambique. This study focuses on finding out the rice technology transfer setbacks, investigating rates of adoption and reasons for the low adoption in farmers and proposing measures for effective dissemination. Face-face interviews and semi -structure questionnaires have been undertaken on the research, extension and farmers levels. Further, econometric functions for empirical analysis were carried out to perform the results. But the process of technology transfer is constrained by many factors. The nonparametric test 2 and binary logistic regression model coefficient β showed that traditional technologies are yet predominant and that the socioeconomic factors determine decision choice on rice innovation. Finally, adopters are running in a decreasing production level as was illustrated by Cobb – Douglas Production Function. These results suggest that adoption of rice varieties and other production factors will be increased if the highlighted socioeconomic characteristics are improved and an effective scheme of agricultural factors dissemination is created and properly implemented

Estimation of vegetation carbon stock in Portugal using land use/ land cover data

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesThis research aimed to quantify the carbon stored over the years in vegetation throughout Continental Portugal. Carbon stock was measured for the years of 1985, 2000 and 2006. For this, the CORINE (Co-Ordination of Information on the Environment) Land Cover (CLC) database was used to estimate the spatial distribution and quantity of carbon stored by each land cover class. Carbon stock was the result of each CORINE land cover class area multiplied by its respective carbon density. Densities were derived from literature, namely Portuguese Environmental Agency tables. Results show a decrease of carbon stock for the time lapse of both 1985-2000 and 2000-2006. The year 1985 had a total carbon stock of 173.08 Mt, 2000 resulted in a total of 170.22 Mt and finally the year 2006 with 159.97 Mt. Spatial distribution of the carbon stock was also verified as well as the statistics per class. Results show that the gathering of carbon stock records is a key step in monitoring changes in carbon sequestration. By using CORINE land cover as a default database, this methodology may be used by other countries members of the CORINE program and therefore may be easily comparable in between them. In another approach, the COS LULC (Carta de Ocupação do Solo or land Use Cartography) was used to compare the impact and effect of scale on carbon stock estimation, represented here by different minimum mapping units (MMU). The COS land cover from the year 1990, with a 1 ha MMU was generalized into 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 ha as a way to gather information on the effects of scale differences. Results showed a small difference but with certain remarks regarding each study area

AUSTRAL: 10 ANOS DE COOPERAÇÃO SUL-SUL

Ever since the founding of NERINT, in 1999, our team of researchers planned the creation of a scientific journal that would disseminate their research, worldview, and establish a dialogue with academics from other nations and with members of the Brazilian diplomatic body. The periodical had to reflect the perspective of the developing world: the “South”. And this endeavour came to life exactly a decade ago, with the launch of AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy and International Relations.Desde o estabelecimento do NERINT, em 1999, a equipe de pesquisadores planejava a criação de uma revista científica que veiculasse suas pesquisas, pontos de vista e estabelecesse um diálogo com acadêmicos de outras nações, além dos membros do corpo diplomático brasileiro. Ela deveria refletir a perspectiva do mundo em desenvolvimento – o “Sul” –, e esta antiga aspiração se tornou realidade há exatos 10 anos, com o lançamento da AUSTRAL: Revista Brasileira de Estratégia e Relações Internacionais

A text mining and topic modelling perspective of ethnic marketing research

This study presents an enhanced automated approach based on literature analysis and synthesis for establishing the dimensions of the ethnic marketing literature, covering a set of 239 journal articles published by nine major publishers. The approach reported is enhanced by two novel procedures to address previously identified limitations, namely: definition of a relevant dictionary based on both a sufficient lexicon extracted from a definition of the core theme and a conditional dictionary, with related but non-core terms; and a visually appealing pictorial representation to summarize the discovered topics. The application of the method to ethnic marketing indicates that ethnic marketing research is characterized by high conceptual heterogeneity, although a clear definition of "ethnic marketing" is imperative for research development. Overall, the paper advances an approach with considerable scalability advantages when compared with extant approaches, an important issue to consider when textual sources become big data.- (undefined

A cross-cultural case study of consumers' communications about a new technological product

Using a case-study based approach, this research contributes to the standardisation versus adaptation debate in global marketing. It analyses the influence of the local culture dimension reflected in consumers’ comments in the Facebook platform regarding a new global technological product. Galaxy S8/S8+, launched worldwide in 2017. Consumers’ comments about this new smartphone were gathered and analysed for three cultural distinct English-speaking countries: Australia, India, and South Africa. The analysis’ procedure consisted of a text mining and topic modelling approach, including sentiment classification analysis, to discern and understand consumers’ responses to global brand communications. The findings indicate that cultural aspects still play a key role in consumers’ reactions to the product in each country, justifying the continued need for marketing strategies that conflate pursuing economies of scale with accounting for the cultural sensitivities of demand at country level. Evidence of consumers attitudes’ and behaviours’ homogenisation across countries is still limited