Development and Access to Finance of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Mongolia

This chapter presents a recent survey on the development and accessibility for finance of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Mongolia. The survey covers a sample of 1922 SMEs from Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, and 21 provinces. We find that banks and local government administrations are the most supportive institutions for SME development. Political instability, corruption, and labour supply, a high lending rate, short maturity loans, and service fees are perceived as the major obstacles that SMEs face in the business environment. Our results also suggest that SMEs in Mongolia are less likely to have access to external finance because of tight credit condition, potentially explaining the lack of SME growth. Implementing country-specific reform strategy for SME development covering key building blocks is needed to promote SME financial inclusion and facilitate SMEs to contribute to the economic growth.

The Role of Internet of Things, Knowledge Management, and Open Innovation in SME Sustainability

The main objective of the chapter is to discuss the relationship between internet of things and knowledge management; knowledge management and open innovation; open innovation and SMEs sustainability. The relationship between the constructs developed and discuss on the behalf of past studies. The present chapter found that Internet of Things is playing an important role in knowledge generation and management, further, knowledge management is very important for open innovation environment in SMEs. Moreover, the open innovation sustains the SMEs performance. In respect of implications, the owner / managers of SMEs should consider the Internet of Things, knowledge management, and open innovation capabilities during the decision making for SME sustainability. Moreover, this is a process framework which brings the effect of one variable to other variables. However, the future studies should empirically validate the proposed research framework.

A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Evolution of the Venture Capital Industry in the Economic Regions of the United States of America, Europe, and China

Venture capital (VC) provides a platform to empowered individuals with financial constraints to transform their ideas into business models and attain commercial success. This article reviewed the growth and trends of VC industry across various regions such as the United States of America (USA), Europe, China, and India. Initially, VC firms flourished and developed in the USA and still it harbors the largest VC industry. From the USA, VC firms spread to Europe and then much later to emerging economies like China and India. Although the VC ecosystem had started late in China, it had registered higher growth when compared to Europe in terms of VC investment. China has become the second largest VC market. It was backed by government initiatives, vast market opportunities, and home-grown technology firm investments. India has started observing growth in VC space later than China but had ample opportunities to allow for a surge in VC activities.

Nexus Between Social Network, Social Media Use, and Loneliness

This paper mainly explores how real-life social network and social media use are related to loneliness among university students in Bangladesh. To carry out this paper, primary data and several methods are used. This paper uses Lubben Social Network Scale and UCLA loneliness scale to measure the level of real life social network and loneliness, respectively. Besides Pearson's partial correlation matrix is used to find out the correlation between social network, social media use, and loneliness. The study finds that students are averagely engaged in real-life social network and moderately lonely. The study also finds a significantly positive relationship between social media (Facebook) use and loneliness, and a significantly negative relationship between real life social network and loneliness. This paper calls for the students to be careful in using social media and be engaged more in real life social network to avoid loneliness.

Green Architecture of Malay Traditional House Exhibitions

Mini Malaysia and ASEAN Cultural Park (MMACP) is one of the tourism spots in Melaka which showcases the Malay traditional houses from thirteen states in Malaysia. Most of the visitors viewing the houses depicting the culture of each states. Contrarily we revisited the park with a curiosity and we would like to know, “How far these Malay traditional houses portray the green architecture?” We designed this research in an exploratory, looking the Malay traditional houses found in MMACP and trace for their green architectural criteria. Through observation, we analysed the data from our field notes, photos, description found on the park's storyboards and explanations from the tour guides. We can conclude that the Malay traditional houses are green buildings that portray green architecture. From this research, we appreciate our forefathers' skills and wisdom, to build the houses that harmonise with the environment.

Inter-Relational Dynamics of Various HR Aspects in High Altitude Illness Attrition

The adverse health effects of high altitude are of considerable importance since they may seriously interfere with working efficiency of an organization that is actively involved with inescapable duties. The objective of the current study is to explore inter-relational dynamics of various HR aspects in HAIA. The HR aspects included are job delay, poor team, motivation, less leave, high working hours, poor decision making, personal stress, family stress, personal discomfort, uncertainty, poor relations, health, accidents, quality and performance. A decision-making trial and an evaluation laboratory have been used to explore the inter-relation dynamics of various factors of HR. The results indicate that personal stress has the highest impact priority which is followed by poor performance, poor team and motivation. Uncertainty, less leave, and high working hours has the least impact priority. It is also found that high working hours, less leave and poor health are the major causes whereas decrease in motivation and poor quality of work are the major results.

The Role of Narrative Elements in Gamification Towards Value Co-Creation

This article discusses the role of narrative element in gamification towards value co-creation in a crowdsourcing application system. The discourse addresses the gap of knowledge to understand the user motivation and experience to co-create value in a gamified system. Value co-creation is an interactive engagement process that refers to the act of collaborating with a group of intended consumers through a crowdsourcing approach. As the decentralisation of the web enables participation of people to shape the future based on their contributions, understanding Internet users' motivation and experience to co-create value is crucial in ensuring that the initiatives are reciprocated by the intended parties. As gamification has been widely utilised in numerous contexts in order to encourage users to contribute their resources of knowledge and skills, the effectiveness of its elements, namely narrative, remains questionable.

An Empirical Investigation on Equity Market Integration of ASEAN-India

This empirical study investigates the symmetric and asymmetric dynamic correlations and volatility linkages between ASEAN-5 and the Indian equity markets. Granger causality test results reveal that bidirectional causal relation between the pairs of India-Indonesia, and India-Singapore. However, India-Phillippines and India-Thailand have a unidirectional causal relationship. Variance decomposition results show that India's equity market volatility contributes moderate fluctuations in the variance of Indonesia, Phillippines, Singapore Thailand. Finally, the Markov regime transition probabilities show that the high transition probabilities of p11 and p22 for India-Malaysia, India-Philippines and India-Thailand indicates a high degree of regime stability. The study on financial integration provides important inputs to investors in sharing risk internationally since restrictions on investment are removed. This study provides an essential insight to policymakers, portfolio managers, domestic and international investors, risk analysts and financial researchers in an emerging market.

Enhancing Business Performance of Pakistani Manufacturing Firms via Strategic Agility in the Industry 4.0 Era

Manufacturing plays a substantial role in the economic development of any country because of its multiplier impact on the growth of value addition. Currently, industry 4.0 requires manufacturers to deliver highly customized products without compromising on quality at a reduced life cycle. The objective of this study was to find out a solution for the optimum operation of manufacturing firms. By applying resource-based view, dynamic capability, and effectuation theory, this study has proposed an integrated framework of the organizational network, entrepreneurial bricolage, strategic agility and business performance in the context of the industry 4.0. Moreover, the positive effect of the organizational networks on the strategic agility ultimately improves the business performance of manufacturers. Furthermore, strategic agility is also claimed to play its role as mediator between organizational networks and business performance.

Health Sustainability and Socialization Agents Roles in Organ Donation

This article explores how sustainable health can be encouraged through the role of socialization amongst the youth in Malaysia in the context of the decision-making process towards becoming an organ donor. This is imperative for the nation especially the policymaker and health business sector in designing strategies pertaining to health issues. The concept of the ‘duality of structure' is used as a starting point to link between health sustainability and health communication on organ donation in congregating intergenerational equity by uncovering the structural properties or conditions which either enable or constrain the future of health initiatives. Therefore, this article is aimed to focus on the values and norms commonly transferred by the socialization agents regarding the behavioral development of the potential donor. Data was gathered using self-administered questionnaires from 162 youth. The findings illustrate that the supportive influence from agents of socialization affected towards certain degree on the behavioral formation on becoming an organ donor.