10.18639/MERJ.2020.9900019
Book Review
May 29, 2020
Not applicable.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.9900004
Original Research Article
May 15, 2020
This study was carried out to report on the factors promoting nursing students’ stress and their strategies to cope up with the stress situation. Questionnaires were manually distributed to first-year, second-year, third-year, and intern students to check their stress level. The sample was composed of 75 nursing students. Items were rated on a five-point Likert Scale. Stress among nursing students and interns was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Coping Behavior Inventory (CBI). The researchers also gathered data through open-ended questions from 18 intern nursing students. These students were at the completion of their course. This study addresses key issues that will be of interest and benefit to nursing schools that want to tackle and remove the problems of stress among nursing students. It discusses the importance of providing a good environment to students promoting a favorable study experience. This experience may be enhanced by assigning different duties to different departments, which would help in the development of their multitasking skills. This would not be possible without enough support from colleagues and teachers.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.1075592
Review Article
May 08, 2020
Special Issue S5: “BRICS: The Emerging Block”
The multipolar cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) countries seems to be a significant development in the current phase of restructuring of globalization. This article explores the relationship between the emerging radical readjustment of the world hegemony equilibrium with the past and future dynamics of the global socioeconomic system. It examines the relation of the ongoing institutionalization by the BRICS with the established international institutions and the relation of BRICS to the promotion of global economic development. After presenting a structured interpretation of the actual emergence of a “new globalization,” the article focuses on the aspects of BRICS evolution and dynamics that contribute to the discussion of the rise of a more balanced and more democratic multipolar global regime. It notices that multipolar cooperation at the international level should be more democratic as the BRICS claim, although these countries (China and Russia, in particular) face increasing concerns for their liberal rights and democratization domestically. In conclusion, it seems that a new and relatively stable global system now requires a repositioned conception of capitalism as an evolutionary socioeconomic phenomenon, in which innovation is the central and predominant organic process within all organizations.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.9900005
Original Research Article
Apr 30, 2020
Special Issue S5: “BRICS: The Emerging Block”
The Chinese bond market is the second largest in the world. However, studies on Chinese bond markets are very few, and especially there are no studies on foreign investments in the Chinese bond markets. This study fills the gap in the academic literature by focusing on foreign investments in the Chinese bond markets. By using the least-squares model with breaks, this study finds that although, in theory, the factors of exchange rate, yield spread, and yield correlation should play a significant role in attracting foreign investors to invest in the Chinese bond markets, the specific effects depend on the stage of the Chinese bond markets’ open-up. Initially, the main foreign investors are central banks and similar institutions, and they primarily consider more strategic factors than pure return or risk factors. As more institutional investors have entered the Chinese bond markets, the considerations of enhancing risks and/or reducing risks become more significant. The increasing foreign investments will be beneficial to the Chinese bond markets such as more issuance of longer-dated bonds, thus helping China to establish its RMB bond yield curve, and improving the market efficiency. The Chinese authorities should launch more policy initiatives to attract foreign investors.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.990006
Short Communication
Apr 24, 2020
The development of a country can be measured by its ability to innovate. One of the spaces that potentialize the construction of knowledge are the so-called innovation habitats, which are characterized by a great amount of knowledge assets. In this scenario of innovation, incubators stand out as the focus of this study, since they are spaces that potentialize the construction of knowledge. This construction is facilitated by the adoption of a management model. The incubators, known as incubators of ideas, sustain a technology-based enterprise in the early years of its life, and these provide new jobs that generate economic warming. Portugal is a country that is investing in measures to implement policies that promote economic growth. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to propose a model to verify the construction of knowledge in business incubators for generating successful innovative enterprises, systematically and repeatedly leveraging new jobs, and providing solutions to Portugal’s economic policy. For such purposes, the methodologies used were the integrative review of the literature using the Scopus database, the analysis of regulations and international and national documents, and data collection from Brazilian and Portuguese incubators. As a result, CELTA (Business Center for Advanced Technologies) is presented—a model for verification of knowledge construction in incubators—that promotes the incubator’s ability to prospect and select good ideas in a successful manner and finally turn them into successful and profitable ventures. This model is built around five axes—entrepreneur, capital, management, market, and technology—and 21 guidelines. It can serve as a reference to verify the maturity of knowledge in incubators and other spaces recognized as innovation habitats.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.1100554
Original Research Article
Apr 08, 2020
This paper investigated the long-run relationship between gross domestic product, access to electricity, and remittances within the multivariate framework in Kenya using the data for the period 1987-2018. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test was used to investigate the long-run relationship. Causality between variables was investigated by use of the Granger causality method. The bounds test indicated that there is cointegration when gross domestic product, electricity access, and remittances are dependent variables. The long-run estimation of coefficients suggests that electricity access and remittances have significant positive impact on economic growth in Kenya in the sample period. Causality analysis provides evidence that there is unidirectional Granger causality running from gross domestic product to electricity access and not vice versa and from gross domestic product to remittances and not vice versa. There was no causality between remittances and electricity access. The policy implications of the paper suggest that the government and other companies concerned should enhance electricity access and encourage inflows of remittances as these contribute positively to economic growth in Kenya.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.990010
Original Research Article
Apr 03, 2020
In this study, we investigate the link between default loans and macroeconomic and bank-specific variables to assess exposure of Islamic banks to credit risks, and then design stress testing scenarios to assess the banking system’s resilience to adverse shocks. The results suggest that credit risk exposure of Islamic banks in Sudan is mainly affected by bank-specific variables, which include changes in total assets, total deposits, and total loans; all of them have a negative and significant impact on the probability of default loans. The study also indicates that the macroeconomic variables, which include growth of domestic product, change in exchange rate premium, and change in money supply, have positive but insignificant effects on the risk of default loans. The study concludes by pointing out that the Islamic banking system in Sudan is more vulnerable to bank-specific risk exposure rather than macroeconomic indicators.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.990012
Original Research Article
Apr 03, 2020
This study aims to assess the determinants of liquidity risk in the full-fledged Islamic banking system of Sudan, using panel data regression. The dependent variable in this research is the liquidity risk, which is determined as the extreme excess or extreme shortage of liquidity in each bank, based on the VaR approach, and the independent variables are bank size, investment, profit, and the budget deficit during the period 2012-2016. The authors’ findings indicate the bankspecific variables such as the size, investment, and profit are statistically significant, whereas the budget deficit variable is negatively associated with liquidity risk but is insignificant. The insignificance of the budget deficit variable is an indication of the government reliance on its deficit financing on debt financing, i.e., excessive money creation, as contrary to equity financing. Also indicated in the paper is that the investment variable has a positive and significant effect on liquidity risk, indicating that Islamic banks’ investment portfolios are dominated by short-term securities (sikook). This result supports the findings in the literature that investment portfolios in Islamic banks are likely to be dominated by short-term investment securities as a result of the absence of risk-hedging tools in the Islamic banking system, in general. The finding in the paper also indicates a positive and significant sign of profit coefficient with liquidity risk, which is similar to the positive association between higher risk and higher earnings relationships portrayed in the literature of corporate finance. The effect of the size indicator on liquidity risk reveals a positive and significant association, implying that larger banks are more likely to face liquidity risks of shortage as well as excess liquidity.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.964791
Original Research Article
Apr 02, 2020
This study examined the nexus between capital flight and economic development in Nigeria. The null hypothesis was that capital flight has no significant relationship with economic development in Nigeria. The study used the auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) method on data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the World Bank, for the period 1986–2018, to examine the relationship between capital flight and economic development in Nigeria. The study examined the unit root problem and cointegrating properties of the data. The unit root problem was tested for by using the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) tests. Findings from ARDL showed an inverse relationship exists between capital flight, real exchange rate, and economic development. This implies that the variables contributed significantly to reduce economic development within the study period. However, a positive relationship existed between economic development and adult literacy rate in Nigeria. By implication, improvements made in providing quality and affordable education tend to have a positive impact on economic development in Nigeria. The study concluded that economic development is strongly influenced by capital flight, real exchange, and adult literacy rates in Nigeria. The study, therefore, recommends that government policies to curb capital flight should be introduced and monitored so as to lead to economic development in Nigeria.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.1042604
Case Study
Apr 02, 2020
Nonprofit organizations have been a part of the US business economy since the late 1800s. Religious nonprofits have seen consistent growth in availability and services for the past several years. With that growth, there is increased competition. The purpose of this case study is to analyze International Sports Federation, a nonprofit organization, and provide recommendations for sustainable growth. Today’s religion-focused organizations find themselves challenged in a disruptive climate. The result of this research is beneficial to scholars and practitioners, so that they can assist religious nonprofit organizations in gaining sustainable success under the lens of disruptive change in the marketplace.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.990011
Original Research Article
Apr 01, 2020
The purpose of this paper is to assess competitive advantage gained by large-sized banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To investigate the association between return to scale and profitability, the authors have adopted quintile and logistic regression analysis, using data for 81 and 84 banks operating in GCC countries during the years 2016 and 2015, respectively. Their findings indicate a positive association between bank size and increasing return to scale, implying that bigger banks show increasing return to scale, but with decreasing rate, as represented by the negative coefficient of the square of the asset variable. Their results also show medium and upper quintiles of profits are significantly and positively associated with assets, but negatively associated with deposits, implying banks with larger deposits are facing liability management problems. In general, these results support the evidence that large-sized banks in GCC countries are displaying competitive advantage gains over small-sized banks, but these competitive advantage gains are decreasing with bank size increase.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.961566
Original Research Article
Mar 05, 2020
This study aims to examine and compare the effects of ethical leadership (EL) and transformational leadership (TL) separately on different dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) including (i) CSR to media (M), (ii) CSR to employee (E), (iii) CSR to customer (C), and (iv) CSR to NGOs (N). Convenience sampling methodology was used to collect the data through two survey questionnaires. In total, 266 responses of employees and managers were received: 87 responses were collected from the customers of top companies in Sulaymaniyah, that is, Carrefour, Qaiwan, Asiacell, and Korek. The methodology includes descriptive statistics, regression analysis, correlations, and covariance. This study provides a unique insight into the relationship between CSR and different types of leadership styles (EL and TL). The study finds out that both EL and TL have positive relationships with the variables M, E, C, and N. Leadership style, which leads an organization to better CSR in all of the above-mentioned dimensions, has been identified in this study.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.961352
Original Research Article
Jan 31, 2020
The Kenyan private health sector is one of the most developed in Sub-Saharan Africa and is highly critical in healthcare delivery. It is estimated 47 percent of the first quintile of income earners utilize the private facility for healthcare needs and 33 percent of women seek family planning (FP) services in this sector. However, the cost of healthcare services has been a great impediment to service utilization. To improve service quality and increase access, social franchising, interventions on the demand side such as the use of insurance and vouchers, and supply of subsidized medical products on the supply side are intended to reduce the cost of services. This study sought to investigate the impact of interventions of social franchisors on the cost of healthcare in private facilities in Kenya. The study used primary data collected from 215 individuals living within catchment areas with private health facilities using researcher-administered questionnaire. The main franchisors included in this study were Sustainable Health Foundation (CFW) and Population Services Kenya (Tunza). Results revealed that women whose primary motivation to visit private facilities included FP services, need of a lower cost of treatments, and quality services had higher odds of choosing franchised health facilities. Propensity score matching (PSM) using three matching criteria—nearest neighbor, kernel matching, and radius matching of 0.01—indicated that individuals seeking children’s health services and 3-month FP methods paid similar amounts in either franchised or nonfranchised health facilities. However, there was a huge cost variance for long-term FP methods where women paid significantly less, implying that social franchisors’ main impact is on long-term FP methods. The cost variance was due to vouchers utilized by some respondents hence, incurring zero cost in franchised facilities. Therefore, the study recommends the expansion of social franchising membership and the use of the voucher system for financially incapable consumers.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.961199
Original Research Article
Jan 30, 2020
Globally, the health sector is an area that any government must focus on since health is a right of every human being. Kenya particularly initiated the idea of devolution and the Big Four Agenda to ensure service delivery to citizens was achieved. Nevertheless, the situation in the public health sector has been encountering challenges due to dissatisfaction of personnel culminating in strikes. The objective of this study was to explore the effect of the working environment on service delivery in the health sector in Nyeri County, Kenya. The study was guided by the person–environment fit theory. The descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. The target population was derived from public hospitals in Nyeri County. Proportionate stratified random sampling was utilized, where 141 respondents were targeted, comprising doctors, clinical officers, and nurses. Data was collected using a closedended questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted at Mukurwe-ini Hospital to enhance the validity and reliability of the data-collection instrument. A Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.7 was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics from the 78.7% respondents. The findings established that the working environment had positive and significant effects on service delivery (b1 5 0.476, p-value 5 0.000) at the 5% level of significance, hence rejecting the null hypothesis. The study further established that the public health sector in Kenya should address the drug shortage, medical staff working hours, and machine maintenance as they would adversely affect quality of service delivery. The study recommends that the public health sector should provide health workers a conducive working environment and all necessary tools and equipment to enable them to discharge their duties effectively with a view to enhance service delivery to patients. Future research should focus on the importance of on–the-job training for effective service delivery in the public health sector.
10.18639/MERJ.2020.870688
Original Research Article
Jan 21, 2020
There have been massive research works done on the concept of market timing and selectivity skills that are applied by the fund managers to optimize the returns to the fundholders/investors/clientele. The fact that still remains unidentified/studied is the factor(s) that are influential enough for the maximization of returns. There is a general perception that investors will only look upon the returns but the very factor that may influence that return is yet to be analyzed. This study focuses on gaining an insight into whether there is any correlation that exists between the fund manager’s selection or/and market timing abilities that, in turn, can be useful to the investors also in finding out which fund and fund manager to be trusted for investment.
