Internationale Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Managementwissenschaften

This paper investigates the production of nonferrous metals in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) from the colonial period to the independent Congo. It focuses specifically on the major enterprise known initially as Union Miniere du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in the period of Belgian rule and Gecamines during the independent era. It aims to estimate the economic value of the processed metals from a historical perspective. This study builds on sources that include internal documents, archives of companies, and in-depth interviews with managers. The findings reveal that during the colonial period, the copper industry alone generated a total income of US$ 5.5 billion that represented twice the Congolese nominal GDP of 1960. This revenue financed exclusively Belgian interests. The UMHK provided strategic metals to the Western Allies during the two World Wars making the company a big supplier of metals on the world market. After nationalization of the UMHK in 1967, the copper industry generated a total income of about US$ 52.6 billion under the Congolese ownership and management. Gecamines contributed an average of 11.6 percent to the Congolese GDP per year.

The 17th and 18th centuries gave birth to a number of multinational trading companies that played crucial role in the commercial and industrial development of Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the Post-World War II era, establishment of International Monetary Fund, World Bank and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade gave further flip to global trade and led to more closely linked world markets. During the last five decades or so the MNCs have grown so much in power and visibility that they have come to be viewed with increasing suspicion both by national and international entities. Despite their unquestionable contributions, certain abuses have occurred in the process. Continuously worrying concern is that the current MNC-led globalization has been emphasizing economic integration while justice, mutual help and cooperation – pre-requisites for integrating mankind – are being ignored.

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting the adoption of an organic vegetable growing system, and the problems faced by and the suggestions of 600 farmers related to vegetable growing in the Royal Project Foundation covering 15 Royal Project development centers in Thailand. A questionnaire was used to collect the answers as responses to the objectives of this study. Logit model was also employed in the study. The results revealed that, of all the samples, there were 304 farmers participating in the project of vegetable growing according to the organic system; the findings also showed that the factors affecting the decision making in growing vegetables in the organic system the most were the willingness of farmers, and the meeting or training in organic vegetable growing, in that order. It was also found that non-Hmong farmers had the opportunity to willingly participate in the project. The results of this study will be used to encourage farmers working in the Royal Project areas to increasingly adopt vegetable growing according to the organic system. In addition, it is expected that the government of Thailand will be able to apply the results of the study to encourage more Thai farmers to grow a variety of vegetables using the organic system.

This research offers a strategic knowledge-positioning framework that allows for incorporation and recognition of the many forms of knowledge at work in organizations. Schultze and Stabell's framework aimed at representing and unifying organizational knowledge research is used as a basis for a more connected knowledge framework. From an academic perspective the research builds on established theoretical work in the area of organizational knowledge, which calls for a more integrated and all-encompassing view to be taken of both organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Case material on the knowledge management activity at two medical device organizations (referred to as Medi-Case A and Medi-Case B hereafter) is used to illustrate various points within the conceptual design.

The paper investigate the lobbying affords in the financial sector in US and observing the risks that might appeared thorough lobbying the legislations in the Basel regulatory framework. I was looking for the changes in lobbying activities connected with the changes in the Basel framework regulations as well as I wanted to look at the historical volatility of lobbying and through the regression analysis try to build a prognoses for the future development of the sector.

We introduce the construction of MEWMA (Multivariate exponentially weighted moving average) process control in the field of bio surveillance. Such introduction will both improve the reliability of data collected in bio surveillance, better interpretation of the results, improvement in the quality of results and standardization of results when more than two variables are involved. We propose sensitivity ratios as a measure of the effects of the mean shift and dispersion shift in processes under study. Using these sensitivity measures, we designed the optimal exponential weighting factor, which is consistent to results reported in control chart applications. Although ARL (average run length) is the usual measure for control chart performance in multivariate process control, it is by no means the only criterion, however, at the moment it is most widely used criterion for decision making. We suggest addition study of other criteria. For example Medial Run Length, Days to Completion, Direction of Eorrors and others.

An empirical study is conducted to explore the Innovative Marketing Information System in Tourism industry of Pakistan. The study is very beneficial for Hotels, fast food restaurants, tourist resorts, picnic spots and other areas of the sector to measure to what extent Innovative MKIS is efficient and effective. How much Innovative MKIS is contributing to the increase profitability and market value of tourism and can enhance performance of this sector by Innovative MKIS in Pakistan. The study was conducted to identify the importance of procedural improvements of Innovative MKIS and to support the marketing staff. Furthermore, it will add value for customers with product knowledge and help the business organizations to customers preferences and market response. IT based Innovative MKIS efficiency is measured on bases of four models proposed as organizational efficiency proportions by Gounaris, Panigyrakis and Chatzipanagiotou.

This is an empirical analysis study focuses simultaneously on the impact of the real effective exchange rate, domestic interest rate, foreign interest rate, inflation rate, domestic money supply, net foreign assets and terms of trade which were identified by earlier researchers upon real growth domestic products (RGDP) of the ASEAN-5 countries. The real effective exchange rates (REER) of these currencies are measured against the US Dollar based on authoritative quarterly data time series between 1991:Q1 to 2006:Q2. This study is expected to provide several important economic and financial contributions to fill the gap in the financial and economic literature for ASEAN countries. It identifies the measure of the impact of the real effective exchange rates (REER) upon their economic growth using the most advanced statistical frameworks. A recently developed “Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)” co-integration by Pesaran et al. was the fundamental approach employed to analyse the relevant hypotheses of this study. The ARDL technique indeed was recognized to have additional advantages of yielding consistent estimates of the long-run coefficient. The empirical results confirm that the domestic money supply (M1) followed by REER (S) are the long-term and short- run variables that had positive and significant impact on ASEAN-5 countries’ real domestic products’ growth rate (RGDP). The other identified variables by the earlier researchers had diverse impacts during the full study period, their impact on economic growth of the study countries over the period vary in accordance to the contemporary businesses and economics environments.

Globalization is like a sovereign political entity which manages the world resources for common humanity. This renders profit maximization in keeping with corporate policy unacceptable. The pollution and its long neglect resulted in the absence of critical human development infrastructure and restiveness in the forms of militancy, kidnapping functional agents of parent enterprise in host countries and closure of oil operations. Also, the low human indexes of Nigerians render them unemployable in oil and gas industry. In the light globalization the parent enterprise should pursue the maximization of opportunity to benefit all and sundry. The corporate entrepreneurs should have autonomy to effectively manage the MNCs and the environment business. This paper expects them to abide by conventional ethical norms and professional standards for prosperity of common humanity.