Credit provision by banks: a case study analysis of small businesses in South Africa

Human resource management (HRM) is one of the elements enabling an organization to remain competitive in turbulence conditions. The effective practice of HRM makes competent and innovative employees contributing to the achievement of organizational objectives. This study aims to analyze HRM practices in creating innovation and organizational performance. The questionnaire was used to measure the respondents’ perceptions of variables used by a Likert scale. A survey of 126 manager samples and middle managers at export-oriented short and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bali, Indonesia, was conducted to test the model. The analysis has shown that the proposed model was proven to be compliant with the research hypotheses. HRM significantly affects organizational performance and innovation, and it was found out that innovation can improve organizational performance. However, in the process of simultaneous testing, it was found out that innovation cannot improve organizational performance. The lack of attention to investments in human resources became one of the barriers to SMEs in creating innovation.

The paper investigates discretionary budget expenditure and determines its role in the system of regulation of country’s socio-economic development. In a very difficult political and socio-economic situation, Ukraine faces an urgent need to finda balance between the amount of functions performed by the state and the level of their financial support. The analysis of the State Budget of Ukraine expenditure according to the functional classification in 2014–2017 has been carried out. In particular, the discretionary budget expenditures (on state functions, economic activity, defense budget expenditures, budget expenditure on public order, security and judiciary; environmental protection, housing and utilities) are carefully analyzed. The purpose of the article is to study trends in financing discretionary budget expenditure and determine their impact on the socio-economic development of a country. Discretionary budget expenditures are the study object. It is determined that socio-economic development of a country requires government to apply progressive forms, methods and principles of expenditure management between the budget system levels. This need is due to the objective necessity to achieve sustainable development of economy and population welfare. The main problems that reduce budget discretionary expenditure effectiveness in the current conditions are investigated and the main directions to improve their financing are offered. The obtained results indicate the need to revise the funding of discretionary budget expenditures depending on the state policy priorities.

A rigorous and extensive application of the value chain management (VCM) has become the vogue in modern day business practices and processes. However, due to the complex and multidimensional nature of value chains, achieving efficient and effective value chain management in real value chains remains a major conundrum for practitioners. Many unknown barriers continue to impede effective and efficient value chain management in developing countries’ industrial value chains. The purpose of this study was to find out the common barriers to effective value chain management in a developing country’s industrial value chains using evidence from the cotton industry in Zimbabwe. The analysis was based on survey data sets obtained from 157 purposively sampled experts from the cotton industry value chain in Zimbabwe. Exploratory factor analysis was used to find the barriers to effective value chain management. The results revealed both architectural and governance barriers to effective value chain management. The findings also presented major policy implications for industrial value chains in the developing countries and also indicated areas for further robust research founded on a broader data set from other developing countries’ industrial chains as a way of validating the findings of this study.