Management Arts

Supply chain resilience is an increasing area of interest for researchers and companies as its impact on efficiency and effectiveness of supply chains is mirrored on the ability of enterprises to compete in a fiercely competitive marketplace. Today’s supply chains are more exposed to vulnerability due to the increasing probability of demand and supply uncertainty in complex supply chains. Some authors have reported how the risk of supply chain disruption has grown and how great the consequences of that disruption might be. However, literature have mainly focused on characteristics of supply chain to define the level of the risk or of the resilience to external (terrorist attacks, floods, earthquakes, etc.) and internal (failure of actors inside the supply chain) disruption causes. The paper presents a tactical approach to counteract the supply chain disruption issue, leading to operative rules that mitigate the effects of this negative occurrence. The approach relies on establishing novel ordering policies based on an information sharing approach. Orders placed are divided into two streams, transmitting the real demand information to the whole supply chain echelons and the required inventory adjustments in order to keep a stable inventory. A simulation model of a four echelons supply chain is developed to investigate the effect of a disruptive situation. Four ordering policies of information sharing approach are investigated and evaluated in terms of supply chain adaptability. The simulation results showed how the suggested approach can recover supply chain normal performance by reducing effects on inventories and increasing service levels of the supply chain.

The paper examines Corporate Reengineering and Electronic Performance Appraisals (e-PA) of organizations in Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether corporate reengineering provides some sort of positive or negative outcomes to Electronic Performance (e-PA) in organizations in Nigeria. Documentary and survey research methods are employed. Populations of interest are Human Resources Managers of both Government and private sectors, all in Rivers State. Data were drawn from 199 Human Resources Managers. After data cleaning, 86 copies of the questionnaires were used for analysis. The Multiple Regression Analysis Statistical Technique was used to analyze the data. The paper finds that there is a positive relationship between Information Technology and Perceived Usefulness; there is a positive relationship between Information Technology and Perceived-Ease-Of-Use. The paper recommends amongst others that: companies should apply self-service systems that provides employees and management the possibility to manage their own information online; software should be provided to allow employees observe parts of the online evaluations systems that points out various laments such as strengths and weakness; employment of e-performance appraisal electronic tool when adequately employed will invariably improve the corporations e-performance assessment process; corporation must provide a long in and password access to show a clear, transparent and confidential factor. Keywords: Corporate Reengineering, Electronic Performance Appraisal (e-PA), Web based Testing, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived-Ease-Of-Use.

Leaders are backbone in an organization. They are the one that determine the direction of an organization whether to be further victorious or not. Leaders have an undeviating and massive impact on the followers as well. Past research indicated that when followers are selecting their leaders it is based on many indistinct characteristics. Thus this study is to identify the characteristics that develop into the factors to select a good leader among students. Findings from this present study indicated that from the five dimension of independent variables (responsibility, education, personality, skill and gender), three (education, personality and skill) were directly associated with selecting a good leader among the students. Among the three, education had the biggest impact on selection of a good leader among students. Education being the most imperative factor because a leader with first-class education will gain reverence without much difficulty, be trusted and their words are considered to be more significant and grant greater impact on the followers. It is highly hoped that information gleaned from this present study will shape and produce leaders with first-class qualities for the world of tomorrow.

Along with the expansion of the municipal structure of the Chairman is elected directly by the local population is of particular importance. At an early stage in order to eliminate the overlap in local governance and territorial representatives of local authorities should be canceled. Experience has shown that the structure of the executive offices of the territorial local authorities so there is no need. In addition to expanding the powers of the municipal authorities to cancel it as soon as possible, to eliminate the overlap in local governancewill have a significant impact. Despite the use of different models of the world (especially in the developed countries) practice municipal associations goal is the same - all members agreed position regarding the formation of local authorities, within the country and abroad to represent the interests of municipalities is one of the main targets of the national assosasiations. Units of local self-government for the first time at the beginning of 70s of the last century Central European countries began to take shape. At a later stage - in the early 90s, similar structures independent Eastern European, Baltic and CIS countries were established.

The field of HRM evolved both in India and elsewhere, over a number of years to its present level of sophistication and use of proactive methods. The effective use of people is the critical factor in the successful accomplishment of corporate goals. To this end HR managers need to understand the needs, aspiration of employees proactively, face the challenges head on and resolve issues amicably in the years ahead. As human beings are dynamic and complex, managing the human resources has become a challenging job for any type of organization. Ambitious attitude of people and organizations and the changing dimensions and dynamics of the human resource after the introduction of globalization has brought forth a paradigm shift in management business.

The aim of this study is to explore entrepreneurship education and training programme in Nigeria, particularly the SMEDAN Corper’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (CEDP) and the impact of the programme on behavioural and attitudinal changes’ towards venture creation among Nigeria graduates.The research design adopted for this study is qualitative exploratory using an in-depth interview to solicit for first hand information among the purposive selected 8 respondents who have participated in the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme as well as those who partake in the SMEDAN CEDP in Nigeria. Data collected were transcribed and analysed base on the participant’s opinion and perception on the entrepreneurship education and training programme outcomes of SMEDAN/NYSC Corper’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (CEDP). The study reveals that the SMEDAN/NYSC Corper’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (CEDP) does not change the behaviour and attitudes of Nigeria graduates’ towards venture creation because the scheme was identified with faulty curriculum, lack of practical training pedagogy, inadequate entrepreneurship background knowledge of the trainers and majorly lack of workable EET model to follow by SMEDAN during the training. Again, most participants attributed their inability to set-up business or venture creation basically to lack of funds after the EET. The study is limited to SMEDAN/NYSC Corper’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (CEDP) to explore the effect of the EET on venture creation. Further studies can be conducted on other interventionist agencies in Nigeria to measure the impact of EET quantitatively in order to have a more generalise conclusions. This study basically provide an insight into how Entrepreneurship Education and Training (EET) programme is carried out in Nigeria with special focus on SMEDAN/NYSC Corper’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (CEDP) towards venture creation and changes in behaviours, as well as the attitudes of prospective entrepreneurs using an effective EET models. This study added to the understanding of Entrepreneurship Education and Training (EET) programmes and how the programmes can lead to venture creation in Nigeria context.

This study examines the relationship between workplace ethics and employees involvement practices in Lagos and Rivers states. Research questions and hypotheses were adduced to test, the hypothesized relationship between workplace ethics and employees involvement practices. The quantitative research data was orchestrated with the aid of a five point Likert Scale questionnaire distributed to 278 employees of in maritime firms in Lagos and Rivers states. The sample size of 278 were obtained from a population of 963 employees using the krejice and Morgan Table of Sample Size Determination on the reliability of the instrument of the study, they all met the Coronach Alpha of 0.7 and above. The validity of the instrument was determined by the experts in the field. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version21 ) and the Spearman Correlation was utilized to test the research hypotheses. The result of the study indicates that workplace ethics has relationship with all employees’ involvement practices. The study also found that the institutionalization of workplace ethics has beefed up productivity in maritime organizations. This study therefore recommends that maritime firms should ensure the institutionalization of ethical values and norms in order to improve employee involvement practices in maritime organizations in Lagos and Rivers states. KEYWORDS: Workplace ethics, employees involvement practices empowerment, team orientation and capacity building.

Employee satisfaction has been defined as a function of perceived performance and expectations. It is a persons’ feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a products’ outcome to his/her expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the employee is dissatisfied and if it matches the expectations, the employee is satisfied. This research mainly deals with the satisfaction level of an employee in a organization. The research results indicate positive relationships between general employee satisfaction and growth of the company Neglecting employee satisfaction can be harmful to corporate entrepreneurship, which have been previously developed in the right direction, contributing to performance, competitive advantage, and growth. This research deals with general employee satisfaction within small scale organization. In the following sections, the theory, hypotheses, research methodologies, recommendations and results of an empirical study on a sample of firms from small scale software organization are presented.

This research examines the impact involving macroeconomic variables like inflation, real exchange rate and interest rate on GDP of Pakistan within the light involving 32 year time series data from 1980 to 2011. Research was a secondary data based, Descriptive statistics and multiple regression investigation was used to analyze the information. Econometric model used by analysis was comprised of GDP seeing that dependent variable even though the independent factors were interest rate, exchange rate and inflation rate. Data taken from intending for these variables through the website of the State Bank of Pakistan in addition to the World Bank. The individual significance of the variables, overall value and fairness of the econometric model analyzed. The study found that there's a significant effect of inflation rate, interest rate and exchange rate of GDP. So far as the indicators of co-efficient are concerned, the inflation rate interest rate had a negative impact on GDP while exchange rate possessed positive relation to GDP. Based on the results and analysis it is suggested that the Government adopted tight monetary policy due to inflation because the results suggest that inflation provides significant effect but negative relation to GDP. In the case of developing countries like the Pakistan quality value of the exchange rate must be maintained since the results show that there's a considerable and constructive impact involving exchange rate with GDP. Ceiling of interest rate should reduce to boost the economy.

Balanced Scorecard is considered as the world widely used Performance Management System by organizations. Around 57% organizations of the world are using the Balanced Scorecard tool for improving their Organizational Performance. This technique of performance evaluation and management was coined by the Kaplan and Norton in 1992. From that date to now a lot of work has been done by the academicians and practitioner on the Balanced Scorecard. This study is summarizing the major studies conducted on Balanced Scorecard from 1992 to the present. Summing up all the criticism and appreciations on Balanced Scorecard, the study is suggesting some guidelines for improving the Balanced Scorecard in the light of previous researches conducted on Balanced Scorecard.