Readiness of small and medium enterprises to apply total quality management standards: Evidence from Kosovo

Risk management is one of the prominent issues which are pivotal to the success of a business and may adversely affect profitability if not properly practised. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to determine risk management practices in manufacturing SMEs in Cape Town. The research conducted was quantitative in nature and constituted the collection of data from 74 SME leaders, all of whom had to adhere to a list of strict delineation criteria. All data collected were thoroughly analyzed through means of descriptive statistics. From the findings made, it is clear that SMEs in the manufacturing sector do in fact understand risk management initiatives applicable to ‘manage’ their respective businesses towards sustainability, but not to a large extent. It was found that respondents are unaware of the elements which make risk management effective, which ultimately aids to the development of problems for SMEs. All employees, managers and owners must coordinate their efforts together to identify and manage organizational risks within their ambit to obtain total risk coverage, as well as provide assurance that these risks are effectively managed from a coordinated approach. Further studies may be carried out to identify measures that can be taken to improve the effectiveness of risk management practices in SMEs.

The study aims to explore the role of total quality management (TQM) in enhancing the service quality of the private healthcare sector in the Northern Area of West Bank Palestine. The study involves a questionnaire-based survey, private hospitals, and healthcare centers selected in North West Bank. The administrative employees are the population of the study, 200 employees were selected via stratified sampling method. By using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the findings show that all TQM factors are positively and directly related to each other in the private healthcare sector. There is a positive and direct relationship between four TQM factors (customer satisfaction, employee involvement, continual improvements, and top management commitment) and service quality, while there is a negative direct relationship between processes and service quality. TQM factors (customer satisfaction, employee involvement, continual improvements, processes, and top management commitment) explained 95% of the variance in healthcare service quality (R² = 0.950, P < 0.05). Continual improvements is the main pillar in TQM application in healthcare sector, and it is highly associated with the private healthcare processes (R² = 0.907, P < 0.01), while top management commitment is the most significant factor in improving the service quality. Full understanding and commitment by the managers across all levels and activating the effective communication between employees at all levels in the organization are the key factors of a successful TQM implementation; it helps in strengthening the teamwork efficiency. Top management is required to avoid the monotonic managerial practices, especially in the organizational processes, as it has a negative impact on the private healthcare service quality.

The determinant of the credit risk of banks in a developing country have limited data to analyze and limited participation in literature. Determinants of credit risk are very important in order to define the non-performing loans (NPL) in Kosovo banking systems. Even though banking system in Kosovo is the newest in region, it is comparable with banking systems to all places in regions (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.).
The main purpose of this paper is to classify some factors that influence credit risk in commercial banks in Kosovo. The research includes seven commercial banks for the period 2006–2015. Data analysis and interpretation are processed with Statistical Program for Social Sciences SPSS v.19.0.
The effect of variations in the determinants of credit risk exposure is based on using a multivariate panel regression model. Our empirical results suggest that a significant relationship exists between credit risk and the following variables: Profitability (ROE and ROA), Inefficiency (IE), Loans to deposit ratio (LDR), Credit growth (CG) and Deposit rate (DR), while variables of Solvency (SR) and Credit rate (CR) are not statistically significant in terms of credit risk.