Akwesi Assensoh-Kodua

Mobile banking in South Africa recently has undergone rapid growth, and research on it is on the increase. This paper seeks to improve authors’ understanding of the current state of knowledge of mobile banking in South Africa by providing a systematic review of the existing literature on the phenomenon. The literature review shows that research to date has centred on small academic models with a high level of practitioner involvement, consequently, narrowing research issues of greater concern. Thus, issues of assessing mobile banking needs, factors imparting continuance usage, and the measurement of impact have been comparatively neglected. A future direction for research and practice within the mainstream of mobile banking and financial services is suggested to remedy this imbalance and to contribute to mobile banking applications in South Africa

Internet has enabled businesses to offer their merchandise through web-based applications, of which recent phenomenon includes online social networks (OSNs). This paper studies the influence of OSNs through the lens of perceived trust (PT), social norm (SN), user satisfaction (US) and perceived behavioral control (PBC) to find out how these influence participants of OSNs continuance buying intention. A model of IS continuance intention of web-based application was developed to test the above factors. The results show that trust in OSN is based mainly on the degree of the social relations that users have with their vendors, because they are members on the network, on top of their experiences of web service use. US was influenced by PBC, while US also influenced SN and PT with PT exhibiting a strong relationship with SN.

Keywords: continuance intention, OSN, participants, purchasing.
JEL Classification: Z13, G21, M10, M31, D11, D12

The stability of economies all over the world over is largely a function of inflation and interest rates. Over the past two decades, Swaziland’s economy experienced increasing inflation and interest rates with the blame leveled against the absolute Monarchy’s inability to manage the economy. In particular, the period of 2010 to 2014 was the hardest hit because of increasing poverty levels. The purpose of the study was therefore to assess the relationship between inflation and interest rates in the context of Swaziland with a view to constructing fiscal and monetary policies capable of driving an efficient economy going forward. The study employed a confirmatory and quantitative approach based on a review of secondary data over the period. The source and description of data included quarterly based data within the 2010–2014 period comprising information on interest rate, gross domestic product and inflation figures from the Central Bank of Swaziland, the national library, and the Central Statistical Department of Swaziland. A descriptive approach, using Microsoft excel, was used to analyze the data. The study findings showed that there was positive relationship between interest rates and inflation. Recommendations were that, Swaziland could craft appropriate fiscal and monetary policies towards controlling the prevailing economic challenges despite the peculiar socio-political nature where the absolute Monarchy holds executive authority and accountability.

The increasing turmoil in the external organizational setting or business environment has focused attention on capabilities and resources as the primary source of competitive advantage. Obviously, this statement points to the application of the resource-based view (RBV) of organizational management. Nevertheless, what constitutes RBV remains an illusion in many quarters of organizational management, as scholars have managed to put up their personal ideas, and managed to converge on phenomenon-driven theories, in addition to RBV. This paper reviews the concepts of RBV in light of knowledge management to highlight some critical pitfalls that might have eluded the research community on the subject matter of RBV. To this end, this paper’s educational value lies in the fact that it simplifies the concept of RBV to the new researcher in a fashion that is capable of appealing to his or her level. A cross-sectional qualitative research approach was employed in an effort aimed at understanding the role of RBV in creating a sustainable competitive advantage and key competencies. A total of 20 relevant articles were searched from different databases and search engines, including Scopus, EBSCO, ABI Inform, IEEE, PubMed, Science Direct, SABINET, IEEE, Bing, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The findings indicate that RBV plays an important role and assists organizations not only create, nurture, and maintain competitive advantage, but also understand the collective resources needed to compete favorably in a globalized and highly competitive market. With expert knowledge workers at its core to provide support for knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization, the RBV principles discussed in this paper promise to guarantee a methodological step geared towards the achievement of competitive advantage. It, therefore, makes an incremental contribution to the RBV to attain modest improvement in organizational settings.