scholarly journals Assessment of the Impact of COVID-19 on Operations of Local Businesses and Level of Enforcement of Public Health Safety Measure within Business Premises: A Quantitative Study of Businesses in Huye-Rwanda

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13013
Author(s):  
Evariste Twahirwa ◽  
Kambombo Mtonga ◽  
Kayalvizhi Jayavel ◽  
Willie Kasakula ◽  
Peace Bamurigire

The impact of COVID-19 has been felt across all sectors, from transportation, education, and public works to the daily operations of businesses like selling, retailing, and so forth. The business sector is among those badly affected, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises. The understanding of ground prevailing conditions is key in driving informed policies that would have meaningful impact on society with regard to overcoming the effects of the virus. Hence, this work is an attempt to report the real ground statistics and necessity of technological support with the goal of submitting a report of recommended policies to the concerned authorities. In this direction, this work presents the outcome of a survey conducted to assess the impact of COVID-19 on operations of micro, small, and medium enterprises and also to find out the interventions put in place around business environments so as to enforce adherence to COVID-19 health safety measures. The survey was part of a study to develop automated IoT-powered technological solutions that would help to enforce proper mask wearing in indoor environments and also observance of social distance requirements within business premises. A customized questionnaire was designed to capture data on various aspects central to the focus of the study. The study was carried out in the month of May 2021, in the Huye district of Rwanda. According to the survey findings, the major challenges faced by businesses due to COVID-19 include failure by clients to settle bills, reduced ability to expand investment, difficulty in accessing inputs domestically, lower domestic sales to consumers, and lower domestic sales to businesses. The results also reveal some positive points that most businesses were found to have: hand washing points, hand sanitizer dispensers, and mechanisms to enforce social distance between customer and customer and also customer and front desk worker. In a nutshell, this work is unique in terms of (1) the customized questionnaire about Rwanda’s needs, (2) field visit-based data collection for accurate data, and (3) including an assessment of the importance of technological intervention for better handling of public safety, especially in the MSME business sector.

Author(s):  
Diogo Antunes ◽  
Pedro Isaías

Enterprise 2.0 has been part of the business sector vocabulary for quite some time now. Web 2.0's revolutionary philosophy and applications have been absorbed by various areas of society. The success of the business sector benefits from a client-oriented approach, so when the benefits of a user-centric Web became evident, adopting it was the natural next step. Enterprise 2.0 presents advantages mainly in two areas: within organizations, as they enable communication through new dynamic methods of communication and interaction, in order to enhance efficiency and productivity; and between companies and customers, suppliers, and partners, as they increase both revenue and customer satisfaction and promote cooperation and co-creation to improve services or products. This chapter illustrates the reality of Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) adoption of Web 2.0. An online questionnaire was developed to assess numerous SMEs in Portugal to understand if and how Web 2.0 implementation is taking place.


Author(s):  
Svetlana L. Sazanova

Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the modern global economy; the share of products of small and medium enterprises in the gross product and exports not only of the developed but also of developing countries is growing. Innovation processes cover all sectors of the economy, and more and more people are involved in entrepreneurial activity, which contributes to the penetration of entrepreneurial thinking and business values in all areas of the socioeconomic life of society. The Institute of Entrepreneurship plays an increasingly prominent role in the institutional environment of socio-economic systems. This actualizes the problem of studying the relationship of the institution of entrepreneurship with the institutions of law, culture, management. This requires a methodology that allows you to explore the impact on the institute of entrepreneurship not only economic, but also non-economic factors. The methodology of the “old” institutionalism possesses such a tool, it is structural modeling (pattern modeling), which allows to explore the diversity of interrelationships of the institution of entrepreneurship with other components of the institutional and economic environment. The article explored the features of the development of the institution of entrepreneurship in Russia, established the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship, values, motives and incentives for entrepreneurial activity, built a structural model of the institution of entrepreneurship based on the methodology of the old institutionalism (pattern modeling). The structural model of the institution of entrepreneurship reveals the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship, the values of entrepreneurial activity, its motives and incentives; as well as the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship with the institutions of governance, cultural and religious institutions, legal institutions and society.


Author(s):  
Mwinyihija M.

Africa’s renaissance is inevitable and rapidly emerging as a reality in tandem with the continent’s continued exploration of its natural resources in a more sustained way than previously done. Currently, the clarion call is to value add, avoid plundering and involve its population through the SME’s to adapt modern methods of entrepreneurship. During the study, critical aspects that are envisaged to trigger the growth and development of Africa, included the entry of major countries of the continent into the global emerging markets such as MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). For the leather sector, certain socioeconomic indicators such as the youthful participation in the value chain, ownership status, literacy levels and acquired experiences are all contributing to a vibrant sector. It was observed that these indicators if well aligned with individual member states of African Union Commission and structured than productivity and competitiveness of leather products will be attained. As such, ease of either foreign direct investment, local recapitalization and development of the SME’s could become feasible. Indeed, with the emergence of over 300 million youth at middle level income level is construed to start building on the impact of the continents purchasing power. Therefore, Africa needs to respond by address on development of ICT, develop affordable financial support to provide stimulus packages to SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprises) to transform, improve on inter and intra trade to optimize on unexplored synergies and enhance mobility of persons with in Africa as preamble to Africa’s renaissance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 298
Author(s):  
Muhamad Marwan

The aim of this study is to determine the impact of networking on SME’s ability to access government financial support through legal channels in Asia Pacific. This study is quantitative in nature in which the data has been gathered from 281 employees and managers working in SMEs through survey questionnaire. The SEM technique was utilised for the purpose of analysing and testing the mediation effect. The study found that there is a partial mediation of government financial support through legal channels among the relationship between networking with officers and access to finance. This study is restricted to the SMEs operating in the region of Asia Pacific.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-41
Author(s):  
Colin Agabalinda ◽  
Alain Vilard Ndi Isoh

The study investigated the direct effects of financial literacy (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) on financial preparedness for retirement and the moderating effect of age among the small and medium enterprises in Uganda. Primary data was collected from a sample of n = 380 selected from the SME workforce. Descriptive analysis was run on SPSS, while validity and reliability of the measurement items yielded satisfactory composite reliability scores and average variance explained (AVE) scores for all items. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses and multi-group analysis conducted to test for the moderating effect of age on the relationship between financial literacy and retirement preparedness. The results revealed that knowledge and skills were significant predictors of retirement preparedness. However, ‘attitude' was not a significant predictor, and age had no moderating effect on the relationship between the study variables. These findings present practical implications for policymakers and financial educators in a developing country context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shubham Pathak ◽  
Jorge Chica Olmo

AbstractNatural disasters have been a significant hurdle in the economic growth of middle-income developing countries. Thailand has also been suffering from recurring flood disasters and was most which are severely affected during the 2011 floods. This paper aims to identify the various factors that impact the speed of disaster recovery among the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) severely affected by the floods in Pathumthani province in central Thailand, and how it is related to its speed decision of neighbours SMEs. The methodology adopts a spatial econometric model, to analysis and understand each of the chosen factors’ impact. The findings include the impact of disaster resilience, mitigation and planning at the SME level as well as the government level. The absence of accurate perception of actual risk, flood insurance and disaster management planning before the 2011 floods had contributed to the severity of the impacts during the 2011 floods.


2005 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 95-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuan Yew Wong ◽  
Elaine Aspinwall

To date, very few publications have been found that describe how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are adopting knowledge management (KM). The same is true concerning attempts to develop a framework to help them implement it. To redress this, this paper presents the results of four case studies conducted in UK SMEs to examine their KM implementation effort. In addition, a new integrated framework developed by the authors was evaluated to determine its applicability in this business sector. The methodology employed to conduct the studies is described and each of the cases is then presented. The results are analysed and key lessons or findings gathered from the companies are highlighted. Comments received from the companies with respect to the integrated framework were positive and favourable. It is hoped that the information accrued from the case studies, together with the integrated framework, will help to pave the way for SMEs to accomplish KM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. A Perera ◽  
D. H. B. Y. Ranasinghe

Small and Medium Enterprises in any nation are blessed with the ability to become the backbone of the domestic economy and the sustainability. Therefore, they must concern about the factors which are affecting their performance. Many studies have been conducted by highlighting the financial factors that affect the performance of small and medium enterprises. Furniture industry is also embodied with number of small and medium enterprises around Sri Lanka. But still it is held the reputation in Moratuwa city. As an industry, small and medium enterprises are not sufficiently aware of non-financial factors which affect their performance and struggle to identify the impact of non-financial factors and how they could avoid the barriers from non-financial factors. Though the recent governments and regulatory bodies have designed policies and strategies to encourage small and medium enterprises by providing financial facilities, the information and the knowledge regarding non-financial factors are not sufficient. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of non-financial factors on performance of Furniture industry in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. After a comprehensive literature review, Input constraints, Regulatory Constraints, Technology constraints, Infrastructure constraints and Threats of Substitute products are identified as the independent variables of the study. Data collection was done using a structured questionnaire with 30 questions of Likert scales from the selected sample of 100 Furniture small and medium enterprises located in Moratuwa area. The analysis was carried out performing tests on descriptive statistics, validity, reliability, correlation, and regression analyses, and it is empirically supported that there is a significant impact of input constraints and infrastructure constraints on performance of Furniture industry in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Thereby, the findings would help the authorities and policy makers to take necessary actions to accomplish fu


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Muslimah Mahmudah ◽  
Deden Dinar Iskandar

This study aims to analyze the impact of tax morale on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) tax complianceSemarang City as the case study. This study uses primary data generated from 117 samples of MSMEs in Semarang. Data analysis is performed  using binary logistic regression analysis. The results showed that environmental, institutional, ethical, business, and business size variables significantly influence MSMEs tax compliance. On the other hand, variables whose effect on tax compliance is not statistically significant include happiness, religiosity, gender, age, education, and marital status.


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