Effect of Strategic Alliances on The Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda.

The study assessed the effect of strategic alliance on the performance of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda. The objectives of the study were; to examine the effect of technology alliances on MFIs’ performance, to assess the effect of marketing alliances on MFI’s performance, and to determine the effect of products and services alliances on the performance of MFIs. The population was 491 MFIs, and a sample size of 220 was decided using Slovene’s formula. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to establish the relationship between the dependent variable, the independent and mediating variable. The data collected were analyzed through STATA software. The results for skewness (-3 to +3) and kurtosis (-10 to +10) were within the acceptable range for all variables. The SEM results revealed that strategic technological alliance with an R2 of 0.5834 was not significant while strategic marketing alliance with an R2 of 0.77 and product and service alliance with an R2 of 0.99 were both significantly related to the microfinance institution's performance. The p-value for the first null hypothesis showed that the results were not significant (p =0.54) meaning that there was no significant relationship between technological alliance and the performance of MFIs. Further, the mediating effect of strategic alliance management on the three protector variables was found to contribute highly to a total effect of the technological alliance, marketing alliance, product and services alliance. It was recommended that engagement in business alone may not be enough to improve organizations ‘performance thus the formulation of strategic alliance is indispensable in the business world context. Keywords: Strategic Alliances, Marketing Alliances, Microfinance Institutions, Microfinance Institution

Effect of Products and Services Alliances on the Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda.

In today’s world of cutthroat competition, considerable attention has been devoted to the formation of strategic alliances. Different organizations form alliance with other partners with different motivation. Some of the cited motivations for alliances include pooling resources, increasing capabilities; improve product development and service delivery, among others. Due to these varying alliances, there are various forms of alliances that organizations can engage in. However, research has shown that not all alliances end up with gaining the intended benefits. This research investigated the effect of product and service alliance on firm performance in microfinance institutions. Primary data was obtained using structured questionnaire distributed to a sample of 220 managers/CEO selected from a total of 419 MFIs. Data was analyzed using STATA 16.1 and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) used to test the research hypothesis. The results showed that the model was significant at 10% (߯ଶ = 21.576, p<0.1). It also revealed that product and service alliance is positively and significantly related to firm performance with a coefficient of 0.072 (p<0.05). This being the first study of the kind, here in Rwanda, among the MFIs, it is recommended that MFIs should embrace alliance as way of improving their resource base and their product innovation and service delivery as well as their financial performance. Keywords: MFI, strategic alliance, product and service alliance, firm performance, Rwand

High Order Relaxation Methods for Co-simulation of Finite Element and Circuit Solvers

Coupled problems result in very stiff problems whose char- acteristic parameters differ with several orders in magni- tude. For such complex problems, solving them monolith- ically becomes prohibitive. Since nowadays there are op- timized solvers for particular problems, solving uncoupled problems becomes easy since each can be solved indepen- dently with its dedicated optimized tools. Therefore the co-simulation of the sub-problems solvers is encouraged. The design of the transmission coupling conditions between solvers plays a fundamental role. The current paper applies the waveform relaxation methods for co-simulation of the finite element and circuit solvers, investigate the contribu- tion of higher order integration methods and also consid- ers the the theoretical modelling of a boost converter. The method is illustrated on a coupled finite element inductor and a boost converter and focuses on the comparison of the transmission coupling conditions based on the waveform iteration numbers between the two sub-solvers. We demon- strate that for lightly coupled systems the dynamic itera- tions between the sub-solvers depends much on the inter- nal integrators in individual sub-solvers whereas for tightly coupled systems it depends also to the kind of transmission coupling conditions