Coastal Community Economic Empowerment Strategy in Merauke Regency

Community economic empowerment is an important approach to realize a balanced, developing and just economic structure, to realize a successful economic empowerment, community business capacity must become strong and independent, and in sync with community’s best potential and product, in this paper is coastal community. The purpose of this study is how the main strategies and work programs that need to be taken to improve the economy of the community in Merauke Regency by optimally utilizing coastal community resources and knowing the inhibiting and supporting factors of empowerment. Qualitative research method with a SWOT analysis tool with a focus on data sources based on the results of interviews and discussions with the fisheries service and fisheries business actors. The results of the study explain that the increase in fisherman productivity has the highest weight value which is carried out by increasing the role of capital assistance and market intervention, verified by the efforts of coastal communities.

Office Bullying in the Philippines and the Need for Public Policy

There is an urgent need to solve the problem of workplace bullying in both private and government sectors. Bullying at work creates serious negative consequences to the victims and the organization affecting their productivity. The magnitude of the problem necessitates state intervention to correct market and government failures. This policy paper studies office bullying and the need to legislate to realize efficient and effective allocation of government and private resources. It is guided by the Constitutional mandate that maintenance of peace, harmony, health and safety at work is an inherent duty of the State because of its inherent power to issue orders and command obedience to mitigate its effects. Using Cost Benefit Analysis, Institutional Analysis to policy making, and Rational-Decision making as tools for analysis, crafting and passing upon a statute is the most feasible means to address the problem of workplace bullying. The need to legislate a national policy on workplace bullying is necessary to mitigate its negative consequences both to employees and organizational productivity. Office bullying as a public issue also requires strict monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of similar or related laws may also address the problems cause by the same destructive behaviors but are inadequately explored in many researches.

Inside and outside perspectives on the relation of personal values and legal norm acceptances

Based on a representative survey on crime prevention, this paper studies how personal values are related to persons’ acceptance of legal norms (LNA). We here take a closer look at these relations than previous research. Offenses, in particular, are classified into three offense types (no victim (OT1), legal person as victim (OT2, real person as victim (OT3)), and the persons’ ratings are studied both as observed and as individually centered data. It is found that conservation-oriented persons give higher and less differentiated badness ratings for all offenses than persons striving for hedonism and stimulation. The correlational structure of basic personal values and norm acceptance ratings for 14 different offenses, when represented via multidimensional scaling, exhibits that conservation orientation becomes a better predictor of LNA of all offense types if it is augmented by an additional value, peace of mind. When looking at centered ratings (i.e., controlling for each person’s mean ratings), social values become the best predictors of OT2 offenses (tax evasion, benefits fraud, taking bribes). Statements on the impact of personal values on general norm acceptance should, therefore, be replaced with more differentiated relations on how particular values are related to peoples’ attitudes towards particular offenses.

Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions (HEI): Merging the Study Systematic Review, Analysis Content and Bibliometrics

This study aims to explore how the topic of sustainability in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) has been addressed in the scientific literature. It presents a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1975 and 2019. After that, bibliometric and content analyses were performed in order to identify the behavior and evolution of the literature and identify the frequency with which they appear in the text, making it possible to raise replicable and valid inferences to the data. The results of this study indicate that the theme is emerging since the year 2010 and with a strong focus on qualitative studies, focused on critical theory. The results indicate that although studies involve the tripod environment, economy, and society, there is still a gap in studies that deal with specific issues to solve practical problems and that analyze the impacts from a more holistic perspective. The combination of methods made it possible to identify and interpret the articles in the selected sample, but based on results reported by other authors, with little room for quality control and integrity.

Velocity of Money in Ethiopia

Velocity of money is an important instrument used to measure the monetary target and quality of monetary policy. Referencing the trends in the money velocity, mainly in the short term, will have a paramount effect in determining the trends in real money growth. This study investigates the main causes of money velocity in Ethiopia using time series data for the period 1974/75 to 2015/16. A regression with Bayesian estimation and nonparametric Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing (LOWESS) methods were used to analyze the data. Variables such as credit, real interest rate, real exchange rate and real per capita income were included as potential determinants of money velocity. The findings of using non-parametric LOWESS methods show an upward trends in the velocity of money since 2002 and downward trends before 2002, indicating the existence’s of prudent monetary policy in Ethiopia after 2002. The result also shows a positive effect of real exchange rate and credit, whereas income per capita and real interest rates have a negative effect on velocity of money in Ethiopia. Hence, this paper recommends that, the policy to encourage sustainable economic growth and increase in interest rate would be beneficial to reduce velocity of money.

How does Street Vending Economy Help Rural to Urban Migrants Integrate into Cities?

Street vending is a form of informal economy. The main participants of street vending economy consist of exploited workers, rural-urban migrants who are in low level of socioeconomic households, common workers, and some individual households. Most of the studies and articles have explored how to regulate the street vending economy and how to facilitate the relationship between vendors and city authorities, but the important constitute of street vending economies, rural migrants, has received little attention from scholars and there is little research about it. What role does street vending economy play in the lives of this segment of this population which itself faces a number of challenges in migrating and integrating into the city? We have found out that street vending functions as a platform which helps these people to better integrate into the cities. Through desktop research and case studies, this paper explores how street vending economy helps rural to urban migrants integrate into the city from four perspectives: identity integration, integrating in economic level, integrating in social level, and females' empowerment.

Financial Inclusion in Nigeria: A Gender Gap Approach

Ability to have access and use financial goods and services such as bank and mobile money accounts indicates the overall financial inclusion level of an economy and the higher the indices are in any economy, the better that economy is. Financial inclusion is important to realize inclusive growth in any country. It has direct impacts on the level of growth and development experienced by any economy. It can however, be skewed along gender lines as noticed overtime in the Nigerian economy and other developing economies. This study examined financial inclusion in Nigeria: a gender gap approach. It also determined the factors responsible for the gender gaps. The Global Findex (2014) dataset of Nigeria from World Bank database was used to analyse the aims of the study. In the study, 61% of the men were financially included, while only 43% of the female were financially included, with 18% gap. The gap in endowments accounted for the huge difference of the gap in outcomes as males seemed to be more naturally favoured by society than females. The level of education, wealth quintile, saved in past 12 months for farm/business purposes, sent domestic remittances in the past 12 months, paid utility bills in the past 12 months, and received wage payments in the past 12 months are the factors explaining the gender gaps in Nigeria. Thus the government and other relevant stakeholders should encourage females along these factors.

Effect of Donor Funding on the Performance of Water Utilities in Kenya

The objective of this study was to analyse the effect of donor funding on the performance of water utilities in Kenya. The study employed the use of a census by targeting all 88 regulated Water Services Providers (WSPs) in Kenya for a period of two years, 2016 and 2017. Data pertaining to the support received from the donors were obtained from the publications of the WSPs, Development Partners, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and Office of Auditor General (OAG). Performance data of the various WSPs were extracted from the Impact reports produced by Water Regulatory Board (WASREB), for the periods 2016/7 to 2017/8. Presentation of the data was done through the use of tables and charts with the application of SPSS. The study found that donor funding issued as Output Based Approach (OBA) leads to improved performance. This finding is expected to assist the Kenyan Government in negotiating for the Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding to be aligned to the government flagship projects under the Medium Term Plans (MTP). The study recommends OBA as the best way of issuing donor funding.

Followness of Altcoins in the Dominance of Bitcoin: A Phase Analysis

Due to the transparency, simplicity, and blockchain system, cryptocurrencies gained popularity in the modern world. This led to more use of cryptocurrencies for speculation and investment rather than a medium of exchange. It is crucial to analyse the nature of the crypto market before investing in such currencies. With this intention, the paper tried to know the extent of following (Followness) of altcoins to the bitcoin in the different dominance phases like High Dominance, Low Dominance, and Moderate Dominance. For this purpose, daily closing prices of the Bitcoin and five major altcoins (Ethereum, Litecoin, Namecoin, Doge, and Ripple) are collected for the last five years and analyse the relationship between bitcoin and altcoins. Pearson's correlation coefficient test is used to know the direction of the relationship, and Vector Error Correction Model is used to see the extent of the relation. In general, the empirical result of the study showed cointegration between bitcoin and Altcoin. It also depicted that Altcoin showed a high level of followness in the moderate dominance phase and low followness in the low dominance phase. The study developed a price estimation equation to predict the price of altcoins depending upon the price of bitcoin and its dominance in the crypto market. This paper concludes that the dominance of Bitcoin also has a significant role in the price movement of altcoins.

Data Driven Customer Segmentation for Vietnamese SMEs in Big Data Era

Almost Vietnamese big businesses often use outsourcing services to do marketing researches such as analysing and evaluating consumer intention and behaviour, customers’ satisfaction, customers’ loyalty, market share, market segmentation and some similar marketing studies. One of the most favourite marketing research business in Vietnam is ACNielsen and Vietnam big businesses usually plan and adjust marketing activities based on ACNielsen’s report. Belong to the limitation of budget, Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often do marketing researches by themselves. Among the marketing researches activities in SMEs, customer segmentation is conducted by tools such as Excel, Facebook analytics or only by simple design thinking approach to help save costs. However, these tools are no longer suitable for the age of data information explosion today. This article uses case analysing of the United Kingdom online retailer through clustering algorithm on R package. The result proves clustering method’s superiority in customer segmentation compared to the traditional method (SPSS, Excel, Facebook analytics, design thinking) which Vietnamese SMEs are using. More important, this article helps Vietnamese SMEs understand and apply clustering algorithm on R in customer segmenting on their given data set efficiently. On that basis, Vietnamese SMEs can plan marketing programs and drive their actions as contextualizing and/or personalizing their message to their customers suitably