Blockchain Technology in Bangladesh’s FMCG Sector: A Review

The effectiveness of a company's supply chain is influenced by responsiveness, flexibility, quality, cost, and managerial support. However, businesses that run manually are unable to maintain an effective supply chain process due to fraud, subpar quality, longer lead times, a lack of flexibility, a lack of response, monitoring problems, and a lack of coordination among members. These difficulties can be solved using blockchain, which will improve consumer views. Bangladesh has a huge market for fast-moving consumer products, and that market is expanding quickly. By delivering real-time data, reducing operational expenses, addressing the tracking issue, assuring secure transactions, enhancing communication, and increasing flexibility, the adoption of blockchain can change how these businesses work in their supply chains. Despite the enormous interest, there is currently very little research on blockchain adoption in the context of emerging economy countries. That’s why the current study highlights blockchain adoption in Bangladesh’s FMCG context. Keywords: Supply chain performance, blockchain technology, FMCG sector, Bangladesh. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-14-02 Publication date:July 31st 202

Complementary roles of domestic and international networks in sustaining internationalization of SMEs: a modeling approach

The importance of networks in internationalization has been acknowledged in literature with much emphasis on international networks. What remains unclear is the complimentary role being played by domestic and international networks in entry and sustaining international market. This paper provides an empirical understanding of the joint influence of firm’s domestic network and international network in sustaining internationalization of SMEs in Sub Sahara African countries. The study also examined the role of international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) in mediating the relationships between domestic network, international network and internationalization of SMEs. The objectives of the study were achieved by developing hypotheses relating to the network resources in domestic and international markets and internationalization of SMEs. Using partial least square (PLS), the study analyzed data from a sample of 266 exporting SMEs in Nigeria and shows that establishing and maintaining domestic and international networks are crucial in sustaining internationalization of SMEs. Furthermore, mediation effect of IEO was significant in the relationships. The study proposes that enhancing the capacity of exporting SMEs in IEO can further increase their capacity develop and sustain their network resources both at home and in international market

Leveraging on social media as a communication channel for improving services of the government of Malaysia

In today’s competition, the private and public sector is taking social media to another level towards achieving their purposes, whether to improve profitability of the company or to improve organizational performance. Ubiquitous and innovative ICTs provide different communication channels for the public to give feedbacks on the services given the public sector. As such, social media provides an opportunity to gather feedbacks and responses towards improving services. The purpose of this paper is to give a background on leveraging social media to improve services in the Malaysian government sector. Based on the study background, observations and content analysis on the social media pages were carried out for the purpose of the study. It is understood that leveraging social media does have an advantage to give insights for successful social media implementation and can give a positive organizational effect to the departments

Fostering sustainable competitive advantage through business process management / Devika a/p Nadarajah

Organisasi kian berdepan dengan pelbagai cabaran dalam menangani operasi harian dan berjuang untuk mendahului pesaing-pesaing yang lain. Pengurusan proses perniagaan atau BPM boleh membantu dalam membina dan menggalakkan ketahanan daya saing atau SCA. Kajian ini menyelidik BPM dengan menggunakan dynamic capability theory, contingency theory dan task-technology fit theory sambil menggunakan kaedah penyelidikkan qualitative dan quantitative. Tesis ini menyelidik hubungan antara BPM dan SCA. Tesis ini juga mengkaji penentu-penentu BPM ke atas SCA. Antara penentu yang dimaksudkan adalah structural alignment, strategic alignment, IT capability dan process flexibility. Kaedah focus group discussion digunakan untuk membina instrument kajian untuk process flexibility manakala kaedah soal selidik digunakan untuk mengumpul data daripada organisasi-organisasi di Malaysia. Analysis data dilakukan dengan menggunakan kaedah Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Keputusan daripada kajian ini mendedahkan bahawa BPM berhubungkait dengan SCA dan structural alignment, strategic alignment dan process flexibility adalah penentu-penentu BPM untuk SCA. IT investment pula berfungsi sebagai moderator dalam hubungan BPM dan SCA. Akhir kata, tesis ini memberi sumbangan dari segi teori, penkaedahan dan praktik

Person-organisation fit, employee voice, and knowledge productivity: the moderating role of perceived voice opportunity

The emerging economy has placed great importance on knowledge, particularly as the main ingredient to gain competitive advantage through knowledge productivity. Notably, businesses do not gain competitiveness from knowledge itself, but from their capability to make knowledge productive. According to knowledge-based view (KBV), the concept of knowledge management is closely connected to knowledge productivity. Past scholarship has examined the adoption of resource-based view (RBV) and KBV, in particular the various socio-technical driving factors of knowledge management. However, studies linking employees’ psychological perspectives, such as person-organisation fit and employee voice, to knowledge management are scarce. Therefore, this conceptual work presents a moderated mediation model on the relationships among person-organisation fit, knowledge productivity, employee voice, and perceived voice opportunity.</p

Understanding how IT capability impacts sustainable competitive advantage through business process management

Business Process Management or BPM is the blueprint of how work is performed in any organisation to deliver customer requirements. Sustainable Competitive Advantage or SCA pushes organisations to adopt flexibility and dynamism into their systems, processes and culture. A study was carried out to determine the influence of BPM on SCA, and to identify the antecedents of BPM in creating SCA. One of the antecedents’ of the study was IT capability. The study was based on organisations in Malaysia. The results from the study revealed that IT capability failed to observe significant relationship to BPM and SCA. In an attempt to understand further this phenomenon, a series of interviews were carried out on 3 companies representing the telecommunications, consulting and manufacturing industries. The findings revealed that while IT capability is a “must-have”, there are numerous factors that may influence or hinder the effectiveness of IT capability implementation

Epidemiology and factors associated with amoebic liver abscess in northern Sri Lanka

Abstract Background Clinically diagnosed amoebic liver abscess (ALA) caused by Entamoeba histolytica has been an important public health problem in Jaffna district, northern Sri Lanka for last three decades. In order to draw up a control strategy for elimination of this condition, knowledge of its epidemiology and factors associated with this condition in the local context is vital. Methods All clinically diagnosed ALA patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital, Jaffna during the study period were included in the study and the data were collected using an interviewer administered questionnaire. One hundred blood samples from randomly selected toddy (a local alcoholic drink consisting of the fermented sap of the Palmyrah palm) consumers and 200 toddy samples were collected. Toddy samples were cultured in Robinson’s medium to establish the presence of Entamoeba histolytica in the sample. Climatic data and the total toddy sales in the district were obtained from the Meteorological and Excise Departments respectively. A sub group of randomly selected 100 patients were compared with 100 toddy consumers who were negative for E. histolytica antibody to explore the potential risk factors. Results Between July 2012 and July 2015, 346 of 367 ALA patients were enrolled in this study. Almost all patients (98.6%) were males with a history of heavy consumption of alcohol (100%). Almost all (94.2%) were within the age group 31–50 years. None of the cultured toddy samples grew E. histolytica. The monthly incidence of disease peaked in the dry season, matching the total toddy sales in the district. Age, type of alcohol and frequency of drinking were identified as potential risk factors whereas frequency of alcohol consumption and type of alcohol (consuming toddy and arrack) were identified as the independent risk factors. Moreover, the knowledge, attitude and practices towards ALA were poor among participants and the control group. Conclusions Though the number of cases has declined in recent years, ALA still remains as an important public health problem in Jaffna district. The transmission route of E. histolytica leading to ALA has to be further explored. Moreover, greater awareness among the public who are at risk would be beneficial in order to eliminate the disease

Additional file 1: of Epidemiology and factors associated with amoebic liver abscess in northern Sri Lanka

English language version of the questionnaire. The English language version of the questionnaire used to collect the following information a) general socio demographic data b) personal hygienic practices and alcohol consumption history and c) the knowledge, attitude and practices in relation to ALA. (DOCX 18 kb