The landscape of SME financing and sustainability of SMEs in Bangladesh

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)1 are the dominant form of business organization in all countries, generally representing more than 95% of the business population.OECD recognized that SMEs constitute an important dynamic element in all economies as they drive innovation and play a key role in driving sustainable economic growth, employment creation and poverty reduction, particularly in developing countries.It also contributes to the social, cultural and environmental capital of nations.SMEs are regarded by many governments and international developmental organizations as engines of innovation, economic growth, employment generation and poverty reduction. The role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is indispensable for overall economic development of a developing country like Bangladesh. Since this sector is labor-intensive with short gestation period, it is capable of increasing national income as well as rapid employment generation of the marginalized people; achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) especially eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, gender equality and women empowerment.SME sector has played a vital role in economic development of some developed countries of Asia especially Japan and Malaysia. Most of the Asian developing countries have also given due importance on SME.Terming SME as „employment generating machine‟ they stressed on SME development for higher economic growth, narrowing the gap of income inequality and poverty alleviation.The present government of Bangladesh has also put much emphasis on the development of SME sector considering it as „the driving force for industrialization‟

気候変動の影響と地域の脆弱性 ：バングラデシュにおける世帯調査のクロスセクションデータを用いた分析

この博士論文は内容の要約のみの公開（または一部非公開）になっています筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Factors Affecting Switching Job from Private University to Public University in Bangladesh

This study aims to investigate the factors that affect prospective employees’ Switching intention form private university to Public University in Bangladesh. The paper also examines relationships among the influential factors and switching behavior. The data of the study have been taken total forty-eight (48) attributes into consideration in designing questionnaire for the study. A questionnaire survey method is used with 240 employees and response rate of 90 percent. Initially an exploratory factor analysis is directed using SPSS (version 21).The results indicated that nine factors where employee satisfaction, pay and promotion, job safety and security, Training and development, Employee empowerment, Future Benefits and Switching Behavior are considered as most influential factors and Job security and safety also influential factor for job performance and employee satisfaction. Comparatively Job performance and working condition have less impact on switching decision. Factors Future benefits pay and promotion and training and development have significant relationship with employee satisfaction except the Working condition issues and Switching behavior. The study deals with the focus on a geographic section of the Bangladeshi public and private university employees. This study sets the authority of Privet University and Government can use the findings to better understand, and satisfy the employee to keep in private university for smooth operation of Private University. Therefore, the findings of the study will help to develop the successful private university management policy and strategies. Keywords: Switching Behavior, Employee Satisfaction, Job performance, Private University, Future benefits and job security

Highly selective and sensitive macrocycle-based dinuclear foldamer for fluorometric and colorimetric sensing of citrate in water.

The selective detection of citrate anions is essential for various biological functions in living systems. A quantitative assessment of citrate is required for the diagnosis of various diseases in the human body; however, it is extremely challenging to develop efficient fluorescence and color-detecting molecular probes for sensing citrate in water. Herein, we report a macrocycle-based dinuclear foldamer (1) assembled with eosin Y (EY) that has been studied for anion binding by fluorescence and colorimetric techniques in water at neutral pH. Results from the fluorescence titrations reveal that the 1·EY ensemble strongly binds citrate anions, showing remarkable selectivity over a wide range of inorganic and carboxylate anions. The addition of citrate anions to the 1·EY adduct led to a large fluorescence enhancement, displaying a detectable color change under both visible and UV light in water up to 2 μmol. The biocompatibility of 1·EY as an intracellular carrier in a biological system was evaluated on primary human foreskin fibroblast (HF) cells, showing an excellent cell viability. The strong binding properties of the ensemble allow it to be used as a highly sensitive, detective probe for biologically relevant citrate anions in various applications

Motivations behind Attending Fitness Clubs in Bangladesh: A Survey Study on Clubs' Members in Sylhet

Fitness club is a place where people join to have physical exercise. Though it has been practicing from the ancient nomadic lifestyles, the fitness industry is experiencing the boom when Dr. Ken H. Cooper in 1968 released his concepts to prevent the growth of chronic diseases, regular exercise and fitness is essential. This study is descriptive in nature and aims to know the reasons for which the fitness club members attend fitness clubs in Sylhet. 200 members were asked several questions, 99 of whom seems physical exercise improves their health conditions, 81 thinks it develop their self-control, 49 found it as an way to gain status, 79 beliefs it helps to stay away from diabetes. The study will helpful to different individuals interested to practice physical exercise, operators and trainers of fitness clubs and also future researchers. Key words: Fitness club, Motivation, Physical Exercise, Physical Accord

Data mediation to message level conflict in heterogeneous web services

Enterprise Information Systems (EISs) are built in isolated and independent environments leading to unpredictable and incompatible structure of data stores. An EI system can expose its functionalities as Web services to share resources of existing global internet infrastructure. The goal of this research paper is to facilitate inter-operation between Web services. Successful and reliable information (message) exchange between Web services is necessary to meet the current challenge of Enterprise Information Integration (EII). A real-\ud world business process, which consists of Web services WS1 and WS2, can be used as a practical scenario for data or message exchange between Web services. In this scenario, message is exchanged by using output of WS1 as input of WS2. If data format of WS1 and WS2 are heterogeneous or incompatible, interoperation between them is impossible if data mediation is not used to resolve message level conflict and incompatibility in the context of syntax and semantics. Data Mediation requires mapping a message from one format to another. We propose to derive a mediation technique that will enable previously less inter-operative heterogeneous Web services to become more inter-operative now. To improve inter-operational performance between Web services our data mediation approach extends and utilizes existing Web service supporting tools WSDL and SAWSDL. (Authors' abstract

An Emperical Study on Human Resource Management practices of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh

Small and medium enterprises are playing a vital role for developing the economy of a nation as they play an essential role in poverty reduction through employment generation. So it is essential for SMEs to take human resources more seriously in this day and age as the good practice of HRM will maintain and attract highly qualified personnel therefore placing the organization at a competitive advantage. The aim of this study is to analyze the human resources practices of SMEs in Bangladesh. A sample of 160 respondents has been selected conveniently from Barisal City in Bangladesh to conduct this study. SPSS has been used to analyze collected data for descriptive statistics, t test, ANOVA, testing hypotheses and other general analysis. The result reveals that most of the enterprises are male oriented and educational level of 71.8% employees are up to SSC. In recruitment process, employers are relying on experienced but acquainted sources and 86.9% SMEs do not arrange any kinds of test for selection as well as 65.6% think that there is no necessity of training to perform their job. About 94.3% employees are working more than 8 hours in a day but among them only 15.60% get overtime facilities and 64.90% do not get overtime payment. But favorable colleagues’ behavior, overall job satisfaction, supervisor’s well behavior and convenient working environment are found as good human resource practices in SMEs. Study also found some drawbacks of the enterprises like lack of quality and expansion of product line, incapable of retaining skilled employees, to increase of investment, absence of modern technology, lack of convenient working environment and to increase of size and space of the organizations. Keywords: HRM, SME, Employees, SPS

Human Resource Management Practices and Operational Performance: An Empirical Study on Kushtia Sugar Mills Ltd

This research is conducted to study human resource management (HRM) practices in the public sector and explore the impact of HRM practices on the operational performance. For this purpose, primary data has been collected through questionnaire from 62 employees working in a state owned entity (SOE) namely Kushtia Sugar Mills Ltd (KSML), which is operating under Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC). Simple random sampling was used to select respondents from KSML. Correlation analysis, regression analysis and T-test were carried out to examine the relationship between the selected HRM practices and operational performance of KSML. The analysis of the opinion and perception collected from the respondents revealed that, there is a positive and significant relationship between effective HRM practices (especially recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, involvement and communication and employee relationship) and the operational performance of KSM

Examining the Job Satisfaction among the Hotel Employees in Bangladesh: An Exploratory Study

This paper tries to explore the employees’ job satisfaction in different residential hotels in Bangladesh. To determine the employees’ job satisfaction regarding their work in residential hotels in Barisal, sixty four samples were selected and SPSS 16.0 was used for demographic information, descriptive statistics, regression and correlation analysis. This study reveals some job-related factors that affect the overall job satisfaction of hotel employees’ in Barisal. The multiple regression analysis of chances of promotion has significant relationship to the job satisfaction & other factors have no significant relationship to the job satisfaction in hotels of Barisal. The Pearson correlation analysis (sig. 0.002) clearly indicates that the research is statistically significant and the result depicts that job security (.289) and fair salary (.279*) are highly correlated with working environment. Findings of this study also suggests that overall job satisfaction is influenced by the chances of promotion and working environment. The implication of this study is that hotel industry should take proper action to ensure the better working environment and try to minimize the promotional barriers in increasing the employees’ satisfaction. Keywords: Hotels, Job satisfaction, SPSS, Work environment, Job security