beSMART

DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE USING TOGAF AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH PONTIANAK

Dedy Susanto, Kudang Boro Seminar, Arif Imam Suroso

The development and implementation of IT in an organization without IT Master Plan significantly produces poor management for planning, monitoring, maintaining and directing IT utilization that fits with  the unique organization’s business process, particularly in the long run. This paper discusses the development of information technology architecture using TOGAF framework at the University of Muhammadiyah Pontianak (UMP) Indonesia. The result of the research includes IT Master plan and blueprint that can be used as a managerial and operational guide for IT development and implementation at UMP.

Information technology, enterprise architecture, IT master plan, IT blueprint, TOGAF

An Improved Step In Multicast Congestion Control of Computer Networks

Shaikh Shariful Habib

In the advent of all kinds of services on the Internet that deal with broadcasting streams of data(voice and video) with a limited bandwidth, managing multicast flows from multiple sources to multiple destinations becomes critical. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is for point-to-point communication. In the multicasting there is a group of receivers. All the receivers may not response at the same time. So it is very difficult to manage all the receivers. In this paper I have written some proposed step which can co-exist with the TCP protocol to manage the receivers for smoothly sending the packet by sender.

congestion control, feedback implosion, multicast, representative, suppression, TCP-friendliness

BRAND OF THE POLISH STATE-OWNED DEVELOPMENT BANK (“THE BANK GOSPODARSTWA KRAJOWEGO”)

Sebastian Skuza

The Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (the BGK, the Bank) has been established by the state to realize a public mission, in particular by financially supporting the government’s economic policy, which provides a link to the institution’s prewar traditions. The main activity objectives of the Bank, in the scope specified in the Act and separate provisions, include support for governmental social and economic programmes as well as local government and regional development programmes.
Possession of a strong brand is generally considered a significant factor in the success of an enterprise. The value of a brand is dependent on the line of business in which the enterprise conducts its activity. However, a question emerges as to whether these same methods of brand valuation may also be used for state-owned development banks, e.g., the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, which on account of the scope of their activity, as a principle, do not directly compete with commercial banks. In this chapter the author attempts to analyze the brand value of an entity which acts as a main partner of the state in handling social and economic programs in Poland.

the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, the state-owned development bank, the brand, the value, 25% rule method, the Relief from Royalty method

MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND CLASSROOM     MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTIONS IN TANZANIA: CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS

Joel D.Rumanyika  , Robert Galan.Mashenene

The use of mobile phones in academic and learning processes has recently proliferated. With mobile phones students may be enabled to share tests or assignments, results, receive live comments from professors and classmates, students can source or create their own contents and send them to peer reviewers for discussion and hence evolve better results. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey at the College of Business Education (CBE) was employed in which a sample of 200 students was selected using proportionate stratified sampling technique and 30 instructors were selected using purposive sampling technique in order to collect quantitative data. Focus group discussion and observation methods were used to collect qualitative data from students and instructors. Descriptive analysis was employed to analyze quantitative data whereas content analysis was employed to analyze qualitative data. The results indicate that, the majority of students switch on their mobile phones in silent  mode with the intention to use them for calling or receiving calls, for texting SMS, for interacting with social media like facebook, twitter, whatsap, youtube and for surfing  information while the classroom lectures are in progress. The study recommends that the management and other policy makers should introduce measures such as strict laws and provision of education during orientation week to new students on how to manage their mobile phones during classroom lectures; an approach that may possibly help in increasing academic performance.

Mobile Phones, Technology Adoption, Higher Learning Institutions, Tanzania

EFFECT OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON TRANSACTION COST: CASE OF SMALL ENTERPRISES IN SRI LANKA

H. M. S. Priyanath and S.P. Premaratne

Market mechanism particularly in developing countries provides asymmetrical information which leads to create opportunism and bounded rationality that are the root causes to generate Transaction Cost (TC). Therefore, Small Enterprises (SEs) face serious difficulty in governing TC that discriminates particularly against SEs. Instead, SEs develop informal and personal relationships, inter-personal trust and norms (i.e. social capital) with external actors expecting information which facilitates SEs to minimize TC through the mitigation of opportunism and bounded rationality. Therefore, the paper attempts to study how does social capital facilitate to mitigate TC particularly in SEs in Sri Lanka? Case study method was mainly applied to collect data from six SEs purposively selected from Ratnapura District in Sri Lanka. Data was analyzed employing directed approach to content analysis.

Results of multiple case study show that SEs have ability to access low cost, reliable and quick information and information about exchange partners together with their reliabilities using their Social Capital (SC). Such information facilitates SEs to improve their rationality in decision making process. SEs usually get support from network members to assess information which leads to improve the rationality in decision making on transactions. Accordingly, SC on one hand facilitate SEs to access and assess information that affect the mitigation of bounded rationality and on the other hand provide information about exchange partners that helps SEs to mitigate opportunism. Thus, SC affects the decrease of TC of SEs through the mitigation of bounded rationality and opportunism. Therefore, SEs need to maintain a strong social capitalto access information which leads to minimize TC.  

Small Enterprises, Social Capital, Transaction Cost, Information

BANKING SECTOR PERFORMANCE: ISLAMIC AND CONVENTIONAL BANKS IN THE UAE

Suzanna El Massah and Ola Al-Sayed

The purpose of this empirical study is to analyze and compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banking in United Arab of Emirates using financial ratio analysis (FRA), to find out which of the banking streams performs better than the other. We used panel data for both Islamic and conventional banks in the UAE during the period (2008-2014), to statistically test the performance of 11 conventional banks and 5 Islamic banks. Financial ratios are estimated from annual reports and financial statements, to measure performance represented by profitability, liquidity, solvency and credit risk. Findings of the study indicate the superiority of conventional banks over Islamic ones in profitability, credit risk management as well as solvency.

Banking sector, Islamic banks, conventional banks, Performance evaluation, Financial ratios, UAE, GCC, profitability, liquidity, solvency and credit risk.

WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT AND PROFITABILITY:
A STUDY ON CEMENT INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH

Md. Ariful Hoque, Md. Amin Mia and S.M. Rakibul Anwar

Working capital management is the key to success for the manufacturing firm. As a manufacturing firm the profitability of cement industry mainly depends on the efficient management of working capital e.g. managing the current assets and current liabilities satisfactorily. This study is decorated to outline the profitability and working capital position of selected cement industries, correlation between them and whether the profitability is affected by working capital management. Ratio Analysis have been used to show Profitability position & Working Capital position, Correlation Matrix have been used to show correlation between them and Regression Analysis have been used to show the impact of Working Capital management on Profitability respectively. The study is mainly based on secondary data. The study reveals that Profitability position & Working Capital position over the study period is not satisfactory. From the study it is also found that there is significantly positive correlation between profitability and working capital components as well as impact of day sales outstanding (DSO) on profitability ratios is negatively significant. The study recommended that sample cement industries should reduce their day sales outstanding (DSO) for improving their profitability position.

Profitability, Working capital management, Inventory conversion period, Day sales outstanding, Payable deferred period, cash conversion period, cement industry.

THE EFFECT OF KNOWLEDGE-SHARING ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR AND KNOWLEDGE-ABSORPTION AS MEDIATORS

Yu-Wen Chiu, Yung-Chieh Chien

The semiconductor industry consists of IC design, IC manufacturing, sealing system, testing and support businesses etc. Amongst the employees in the industry, the knowledge-sharing and absorption boosts organizational performance, while the knowledge-sharing increases organizational citizenship behavior to create positive organizational performance. The two systems mentioned above are currently used in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to create good performance and should be validated as a research topic. As such, the aim of this study is to verify the effect of knowledge-sharing on organizational performance, using organizational citizenship behavior and knowledge absorption as mediators. The sample population is the senior staff of Taiwan’s listed IC companies, using simple random sampling. Meanwhile, this study performs Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to validate the model fit and the goodness-of-fit effects between the structural model and the measurement model. For each structural model’s path coefficient between the implicit variables (also known as latent variables), the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is used for the Sobel test to validate the significance of the direct effect, mediation effect or total effect of the results. This study’s results found that: knowledge-sharing has an insignificant direct effect on organizational performance and an significant mediation effect.  This effect is demonstrated through the two mediators of “Organizational Citizenship Behavior” and “Knowledge Absorption”. Therefore, the study’s results can serve as a reference to the management in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.

Knowledge-Sharing, Organizational Performance, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Knowledge Absorption