Effect of Trade Liberalization on Performance of Sugar Firms in Kenya: The Case of GovernmentOwned Firms

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 306
Author(s):  
Peter O. Owiye ◽  
Isaac K. Naibei ◽  
Gideon Momanyi
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Strategic Measures ◽  
Marketing Activities ◽  
The Government ◽  
Poor Management

This study focused on the Kenyan sugar industry in the changing Kenyan business environment. The study sought to establish why Kenyan sugar firms were finding it increasingly difficult to compete within the changing Kenyan business environment. The specific objectives of the study were: one, to establish factors undermining the competitiveness of the local sugar firms; two, to find out if the local sugar firms were making any strategic responses in reaction to the changing Kenyan business environment; and three, to identify what company managers and other stakeholders consider as important measures that need to be undertaken to enhance the competitiveness of government-owned sugar firms. This study involved all the government-owned sugar in Kenya. The study found out that Kenyan sugar firms were facing very stiff competition from imported sugar. As such, local sugar firms are reported to be seriously negatively affected currently. A number of factors were found to be undermining the competitiveness of local sugar firms: competition from imported sugar, inferior production facilities, and poor management of company resources, among others. This study points at a number of strategic measures that the local sugar should put in place in response to the changes currently taking place in the Kenyan business environment; Employee retrenchment, improvement in production efficiency, sub-contracting of services considered to be subsidiary to core functions, and increased marketing activities, are some of the prominently cited strategic measures being undertaken by local sugar firms in response to the changing Kenyan business environment.

scholarly journals Resource-saving environmentally friendly technologies and waste processing as a key to improve the sugar beet production efficiency

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 00115
Author(s):  
Ivan Saltyk ◽  
Yulia Bolokhontseva
Keyword(s):  
Sugar Beet ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Resource Saving ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Food And Feed ◽  
The Government

The world experience shows that in the 21st century, the sustainable development of the Russian beet production and sugar industry is impossible without scientific achievements. It requires low-cost resource-saving technologies that can save resources and increase the efficiency of sugar beet production. It was found that in order to increase the profitability of the sugar beet production industry, the following technologies should be used: intensive (application of herbicides); resource-saving (strip post-emergence application of herbicides); environmental protection (production of beets without herbicides, but with the use of manual labor). The intensification of sugar beet processing entails the use of new technologies that can reduce the volume of waste. The waste-free production makes it possible to strengthen the role of secondary resources as raw materials in the manufacture of various products. Secondary raw materials are used as raw materials. Structural and investment policies pursued by the government do not stimulate their processing. Therefore, beet-sugar agro-associations themselves should solve these issues. Their efforts should be aimed at ensuring the comprehensive processing of sugar beets to produce high-quality valuable food and feed products from production waste.

scholarly journals The Gowe Irrigation co-operative society and its role in Sanyati (Zimbabwe), 1967-1969

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nyandoro
Keyword(s):  
Land Development ◽  
Government Agency ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
African Development ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Development Corporation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
Poor Management

The paper focuses on the origins and development of agricultural co-operative societies in Zimbabwe since 1954 with particular reference to Gowe-Sanyati and evaluates their role in facilitating the channelling of production inputs to farmers and the marketing oftheir produce. It examines the criteria for eligibility to membership of such associations, namely who could belong and who could not, as well as their administrative structures and practices. In addition, the paper evaluates the societies’ impact on their members, on African development and on the national economy. In 1954 the Government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) began investigations on the needfor co-operative societies (co-ops) in order to promote African development through facilitating the acquisition of production inputs and the marketing of agricultural products. In 1956, the first co-operative society was established, while the main focus of thispaper’s interest, the Gowe Irrigation Co-operative Society of Sanyati in the northwestern part of the country, was established in 1967. Established by a government agency known as the Tribal Trust Land Development Corporation (TILCOR), now the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA), the co-operative society flourished and became a model for the distribution of agricultural inputs and credit to African farmers. It collapsed in 1969 due to a number of factors, among them poor management andcorruption.

Domestic Tourism in Nepal: Issues and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Sandeep Basnyat ◽  
Suryakiran Shrestha ◽  
Bijita Shakya ◽  
Reeja Byanjankar ◽  
Shubhashree Basnyat
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
International Tourism ◽  
Tourism Research ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Domestic Tourism ◽  
The Government

Compared to international tourism, domestic tourism is less susceptible to external changes and provides a more stable business environment for industry stakeholders. Traditionally, the focus of a majority of tourism research has been international tourism. Existing domestic tourism literature predominantly focuses on the potential of domestic tourism and the measurement of its demands, but greatly ignores the issues and challenges in the domestic tourism industry. This article fills this gap and examines the issues and challenges the domestic tourism industry is facing with a focus on Nepal, a South Asian developing country. The data for this study were collected through semistructured interviews with 20 tourism industry practitioners. The findings of this study demonstrate how uncertainties created by the lack of institutional arrangements and prioritization, and confusion around the appropriate ways and means of managing domestic tourism have contributed to the chaos in the private sector tourism industry in Nepal. Implications for the government and other stakeholders in Nepal and other developing countries have been discussed.

Accountability and the Media

2014 ◽  
Vol 652 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-221
Author(s):  
Anton Harber
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
The Face ◽  
Public Broadcaster ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Poor Management

Two decades of contestation over the nature and extent of transformation in the South African news media have left a sector different in substantive ways from the apartheid inheritance but still patchy in its capacity to fill the democratic ideal. Change came fast to a newly open broadcasting sector, but has faltered in recent years, particularly in a public broadcaster troubled by political interference and poor management. The potential of online media to provide much greater media access has been hindered by the cost of bandwidth. Community media has grown but struggled to survive financially. Print media has been aggressive in investigative exposé, but financial cutbacks have damaged routine daily coverage. In the face of this, the government has turned its attention to the print sector, demanding greater—but vaguely defined—transformation and threatened legislation. This has met strong resistance.

ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY IN TODAY'S REALITIES

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Tatуana Ivanovna LOMACHENKO ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Structural Dynamics ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Evolutionary Stage

Nowadays, there is no consensus that digitalization is a threat to business security or an opportunity to comprehensively manage the entire chain of business processes in real time, taking into account incoming data from all assets. However, political and economic instability, demand volatility, and competition are all a set of global challenges that digital transformation has responded to. In industry, the competitive advantage has become not the ownership of the enterprise, the firm, but access to digital technology, on which the efficiency of work with specific resources depends. The processes of forming individual business segments related to production management based on modern digital technology have already been launched and most companies are focused on this direction. The article reveals the features of the evolutionary stage of digital economy development, presents the relationship of this process with the formation of the conceptual framework from the theoretical foundations, substantiated in the 1990s by foreign and domestic scientists to modern approaches in the interpretation of digital economy definitions. The article proposes the structural dynamics of the digital economy in today's realities, revealing internal problems, opportunities for economic growth, maturity and readiness of the state to new ways of doing business in the digital economy and digital transformation, to form the country's national strategy. In addition, the conditions under which digital transformation opens up new opportunities for the business environment, the public sector and society as a whole are presented. Changes in business strategy, organizational forms, business process capabilities, new approaches in working with clients, competitive advantages, increase in profit sources are analyzed. As a result, the efficiency of the whole system increases, which allows to reach a fundamentally new level of production efficiency in a short time.

Guatemala’s economy on the way to recovery

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Way

Significance National GDP nevertheless contracted by just 1.5% in 2020 -- less than almost any other country in Latin America. Resilient remittances and exports, coupled with unprecedented policy support, have mitigated the effects of the pandemic and subsequent containment measures, leaving the country better placed for recovery than its neighbours. Impacts Enduring poverty, inequality and violent crime, and the impacts of accelerating climate change, will drive further migration from Guatemala. The government will pursue banking law reforms, to reduce risks to financial activities in the post-pandemic business environment. Infighting and corruption scandals will hinder the opposition's ability to benefit from the decline of the president's popularity.

Is bribing a good strategy? Imbalanced interdependence and hazard of opportunism in bribery

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Wook Shin ◽  
Jinsil Kim ◽  
Seung-hyun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Resource Dependence ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Relational Contract ◽  
Current Resource ◽  
The Government ◽  
A Current

PurposeIn fragile institutional environments, firms often have no choice but bribery as the means to access the services monopolized by the government. Corrupt government officials whose resources are valuable to many different firms can easily find other firms willing to offer bribes. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how this imbalanced interdependence exposes the bribing firm to the hazard of opportunism from the bribed officials.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on World Business Environment Survey (WBES) data and the instrumental variable (IV) Probit estimator with Heckman correction for the potential selection bias.FindingsThe authors find that the more firms depend on bribery to acquire governmental resources, the severer the level of opportunism they encounter from the government officials. In addition, the authors find that although the presence of a legal alternative to bribery reduces the level of a corrupt government official's opportunism that a bribing firm experiences, the more firms depend on bribery despite the presence of a legal alternative, the higher the level of the corrupt official's opportunism that the firm will experience. Finally, the authors find that establishing a relational contract with government officials reduces the hazard of opportunism.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the resource dependence literature by finding that a greater imbalance in the interdependence between two parties in bribery exposes the more dependent party to a larger hazard of opportunism. The finding that an ineffective alternative to a current resource provider would not strengthen but weaken a resource seeker's bargaining power expands the literature. The authors also contribute to the corruption research by showing the significant strategic, not legal, risk to bribing firms of engaging in bribery, which to date has not been sufficiently discussed.

Parliamentary Oversight of Independent Regulatory Authorities in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-501
Author(s):  
Surendra Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Regulatory Policy ◽  
Regulatory Reform ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Regulatory Authorities ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Parliamentary Oversight

Independent regulatory authorities have become an important component of the governance landscape in India and elsewhere. Some regulators have achieved useful outcomes in India. However, the creation of independent sectoral regulators in India has not been accompanied by critical reflection on their role, or attention to the political, legal and institutional contexts within which they operate. Lessons can be learnt from mature regulatory policy countries, such as the USA, the UK and Australia, that the regulatory environment needs to be constantly evaluated to make sure it is keeping pace with the changing technology, business environment and consumer needs and demands. Despite the number of bodies in India that are involved or responsible for regulatory reform, there is one function that seems to be missing and that is of a central oversight function. Most countries have an explicit whole of government regulatory policy and an oversight body, sometimes more than one, that is/are responsible for embedding some of the systemic tools across different parts of the government machinery.

scholarly journals Measuring the Efficiency of Health Services Areas in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA): A Comparative Study between the Years 2014 and 2006

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanaa Mohamed Aly Helal ◽  
Haga Abdelrahman Elimam
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia ◽  
Average Production ◽  
Government Hospitals ◽  
The Government ◽  
Using Data

The study aimed to assess the efficiency of health services provided by the government hospitals in various districts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The number of beds at hospitals, doctors, nursing staff and paramedical categories were used as inputs for the model. The average productivity efficiency of government hospitals in the districts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2014 was 92.3%; whereas, the average internal production efficiency of these districts in the provision of health services through their respective hospitals was 94.7%; and the average external productivity efficiency in the different cities of the districts in Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia was 97.5%. It has been found that the average overall productivity efficiency was 90.2%, concerning the relative efficiency indicators of government hospitals, which were based on the hospitals’ distribution of Saudi Arabian districts in 2006. An analysis of the indicator showed that the average production efficiency of the services provided (internally) by the districts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was 94.7%, and that the average of the external production efficiency for such services was 95.4%. The Data Envelopment Analysis is a successful technique in measuring the performance efficiency of hospitals and it also assists to identify possible improvement and reduction in cost.

Rent-seeking and firm value: Chinese evidence

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sihai Li ◽  
Huiying Wu ◽  
Xinfeng Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Firm Value ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Corporate Philanthropy ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Weak Institutions ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
The Government

AbstractWe examine whether engagement in rent-seeking improves firm value in China. Rent-seeking is defined as a firm's use of resources to establish a relationship with the government to obtain government-controlled resources. We incorporate political rents and associated costs into an analytical framework to examine the relationship between rent-seeking and firm value. Using a sample of non-state-owned firms listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2007 to 2013, we find evidence of the presence of political rents in the form of government subsidies and evidence of associated costs in the forms of corporate philanthropy and excess management remuneration, which largely explains the insignificant relationship found between rent-seeking and firm value. Our further analysis shows that rent-seeking behavior of firms reduces production efficiency, providing additional evidence to support our thesis that engagement in rent-seeking does not enhance firm value in the Chinese context. In an economy with weak institutions, in particular with weak protection for shareholders, managers and politicians can become rent-seekers and take a considerable share of the economic benefits derived from rent-seeking.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document