beSMART

STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE SERVICE DELIVERY

Charles Makanyeza, Hardson P. Kwandayi, Beatrice Nyaboke Ikobe

This study sought to identify the causes of poor service delivery and the strategies to improve service delivery in local authorities using the case of Kajiado Local Authority. Two self-administered questionnaires were designed i.e. one for the employees and the other for service users so as to capture the views of both the employees and service users. Questionnaires were conveniently distributed to 150 service users and 100 were returned usable. Questionnaires were also conveniently distributed to 20 employees of Kijiado Local Authority and 20 were returned usable. A mixed approach i.e. a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was taken to analyse data. The findings showed that the major causes of poor service delivery are  councilor interference and political manipulation, corruption and lack of accountability and transparency, inadequate citizen participation, poor human resource policy, failure to manage change, lack of employee capacity,  poor planning, and poor monitoring and evaluation. The main strategies to improve service delivery were found to be increasing citizen participation in the affairs of the local authority and partnership with the community in service delivery, flexible response to service user complaints, offering value for money and ensuring that service users pay their bills on time, strategic public service planning, sound human resource policy that includes capacity building and employee motivation, managing change, dealing with corruption and improving accountability, segregation of duties between councilors and management of the local authorities, and partnering with other players and outsourcing services

strategy, service delivery, public service delivery, town council, local authority

CONCEPTUAL MODELS OF ACADEMIC – INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS AND THE DYNAMICS OF KNOWLEDGE WORKER INFUSION WITHIN LOCAL ECONOMIC SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Phillip D. Vardiman and Fortune S. Mhlanga

Academic-industry partnerships have attracted global attention in recent years, and their relevance to economic development has become obvious.  These partnerships are par-ticularly relevant in areas such as information technology, where technological changes take place rapidly, and where the best practitioners are those who keep abreast of rapid change. There is a need based on the development and utilization of knowledge infusion to create av-enues for a close academia and information technology industry interaction through all the phases of technological development, starting from conceptualization to commercialization. This paper presents two conceptual models of collaborative partnerships between academic disciplines and local information technology industry and business. The models represent a synergistic partnership that is built upon skills, talents, opportunities, and experiences of the local information technology industry and local academic institutions within a community of resources (economic support systems) to develop highly skilled knowledge workers.  The first model presented induces an expansion of our ongoing research to include the dynamics of knowledge worker infusion at each critical stage of economic development within the collaborative framework for growth. The transfer of knowledge from academia to the information technology industry, where it is applied, must be strategically aligned for continuous information technology sector expansion. This transition further defines our model to include the relationship of knowledge worker infusion into current information technology skill requirements and future entrepreneurial possibilities. The second model builds on this infusion of knowledge workers into the information technology sector utilizing local economic support systems, and illustrates our findings at the community level of economic development.  It presents four stages of economic development that require knowledge worker infusion throughout the whole process.  This abstract model also requires expanded entrepreneurial involvement and support from the key community stakeholders.  Each of the key stakeholders provides a support role for growth which comes from a desire to help the local community and a job creation mechanism built on the synergies gained from the academic-industry partnerships.

collaborative partnerships, conceptual models, entrepreneurship, information technology (sector), knowledge workers, research and development, sustainable development, economic development.

THE QUEST FOR GENDER RESPONSIVE INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) POLICY IN LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: POLICY AND STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS FOR PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN ETHIOPIA

G. S.Ogato

A desk study was conducted during the period 2013 on the quest for gender responsive Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) policy in least Developed Countries (LDCs). Most women in least developed countries access the internet through school, work or public access and less through private household level access due to income constraints and cost of access and this is particularly true for Ethiopian women. The general objective of the study is to assess the role of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in least developed countries and identify policy implications for Ethiopia. Comprehensive literature review on the status of ICTs policy and the quest for gender responsive ICTs policy in least developed countries was conducted in the course of writing this paper. The findings of the study reveal that Information Communication Technologies have mixed blessings for women in least developed countries like Ethiopia because of their positive and negative impacts; ICTs have to be locally appropriated by women in order to facilitate their empowerment; ICTs have to build on and strengthen existing social and organizational community structures so they can lead not only to the individual woman, but the collective empowerment of women; and  there is no direct and causal relationship between ICTs and women’s empowerment, but that in fact the relationship is being shaped by a dynamic, multi-dimensional interrelationship between technology and the social context. While the endeavours and achievements of using ICTs as development tools in Ethiopia are commendable, the existing digital gender-divide demands critical policy response. In a nut-shell, Ethiopia may promote gender equality and women’s empowerment through information communication technologies and close the existing digital gender-divide in the years to come by developing and properly implementing gender responsive information communication technologies (ICTs) policy and strategies.

digital gender-divide, Ethiopia, gender equality, information communication technologies, Least Developed Countries, Women’s empowerment

NOVEL HYBRID GENETIC ALGORITHM WITH HMM BASED IRIS RECOGNITION

Prof. Dr. Ban Ahmed Mitras & Ammar Saad Abdul-Jabbar

In this paper, we proposed a novel hybrid genetic algorithm with algorithms of hidden Markov Models that is forward-backward algorithm to recognize eye iris digital image. Here genetic algorithm used to find optimal values of the hidden Markov parameters =λ  (A, B, π). This proposed algorithm showed high efficiency in recognizing this type of image compared with classical hidden Markov models algorithms.

Genetic algorithm, HMM, Pattern recognition, Iris image

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB PERFORMANCE
 OF THE ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONNEL

Dr. Rebecca C. Tolentino

organizational commitment, job performance, affective commitment, normative commitment, continuance commitmen

IMAGE CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT OF HSI COLOR SPACE BASED ON CONTOURLET TRANSFORM

Khalil  Ibraheem AlSaif & Ahmed S. Abdullah

In this paper a new approch for enhancing contrast of color image based on contourlet transform and saturation components proposes. The color image is converted to HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) values. The S, which represent the Saturation value of color image, decomposed to its coefficients by  non-sampling contourlet transform, then applying grey-level contrast enhancement technique on some of the coefficients. Then, inverse contourlet transform is performed to reconstruct the enhanced S compoment.  The I component is enhanced by histogram equalization while the H component does not changed to avoid degradation color balance between the HSI components. Finally the enhanced S and I together with H are converted back to its original color system.
 The new approach gives Contrast enhancement more than 188% when was applied on different type of images and tested the performance using parameters.

Image Processing, Image Enhancement, Contrast Enhancement,  Contourlet Transform ,  HSI Color Space.

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) AND IT INDUSTRY IN JHARKHAND (INDIA) : A CASE STUDY OF RANCHI DISTRICT

Mr. Arvind Hans

Information is power. Computers and internet networks have enhanced our abilities significantly to process the data into useful information. It has revolutionized the society in no time and brought a new era of civilization without any discrimination. Jharkhand (India) is also not untouched with the influence of IT prowess. There were many initiatives taken in the last 10 years but growth was relatively slow in the area of IT and IT industry compare to other newly formed states in India. Since, this state has been producing numerous IT educated human resources; it was taken for study to identify the phenomena related to problems and prospects of Information Technology (IT) and IT industry in Jharkhand. Descriptive research design was adopted and survey method was used to collect the data. Primary data was collected by Interview Schedules. Interview Schedules were developed and administered to collect data for the research consisting of 19 items related to problems and 21 items related to prospects of IT industry in Jharkhand respectively from 48 IT firms in Ranchi. Secondary data were collected from various official websites, government published articles on IT, Annual plans and Working plans from the archives of the department of IT in Jharkhand. The Unit of analysis in the study was organizations heads of various IT business units (registered under STPI and other registered IT units) in Ranchi. Descriptive statistics was used to interpret and report the phenomena related to problems and prospects of IT and IT industry in Jharkhand. Factor analysis was also done to see the grouping of rotated variables related to problems and prospects of IT industry in Jharkhand.

descriptive study, information technology (IT), IT Industry, Jharkhand, Ranchi

ASSESSMENT OF FLARE STACK EFFICIENCY OF EMISSION CONTROL OF GREENHOUSE GASES IN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

Adolfo L. Cid-Vazquez1 and Diana N. Rodríguez-Tovar2

A growing population, environmental concerns and social problems affected gas flaring in oil and gas production activities in the southeast region of Mexico. Evidently an interface community/industry and new paradigms had evolved through the years.  This interface required an assessment on flare stack efficiency and emission, to derive information for short and medium term administrative solutions.
Review of literature on state of the art of flare technology, efficiency and compounds emitted conformed a theoretical knowledge essential for the assessment; while chromatographic analysis and volume of gas sent to flares provided quantitative information from which several indicators were derived. The assessment supports the use of enclosed flare technology to accommodate for safety and new community.

Administrative decisions-Community/Industry interface- Equivalent CO2-Flare stack-Flare combustion efficiency

JUST IN TIME (JIT) IN JOINT VENTURE COMPANY: CASE STUDY FROM INDONESIAN COMPANY

Holly Deviarti, SE., MBA, Kartika Dewi, SE., Ak., MBA

Companies need efficiency to survive their lifecycle, and one of the solutions to achieve efficiency is using Just In Time (JIT) method.  Just in time method is a philosophy centered on the reduction of costs through elimination of inventory. In this research, there are three main objectives to be achieved; first, to identify how a company (PT LTI) manages the inventory, second produced the quality product, and third efficiency. The research shows that PT LTI while using the JIT method evidently shows good performance in its production and preparation of its management inventory.

Just In Time, Quality, Eficiency

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DUE PROCESS OF LAW IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

The objective of this research is to analysis the implementation of the principle of due proces of law in the juvenile justice system. In fact, the principle of due process of law in the juvenile justice system if only normatively understood as the fulfillment of the rights of criminals during the judicial process, it will not always be seen as the fulfillment of the child’s best interests. So the principle of due process of law should be carried out with the power of law enforcement officer’s morality (due process of moral) that is able to keep the best interests of this child. This research used socio-juridical approach. However, research is still based on the normative law (laws) but instead of reviewing the system of norms in the rules and regulations, but observes reactions and interactions occured when the system is working in the society. The result of research show the implementation of the principle of due process of law in the juvenile justice system must be animated by the spirit of building a value system based on Pancasila, the National Law, Local Wisdom and Global Values that protect the dignity of the child.

Implementation of The Principle of Due Process of Law, Juvenile Justice System

THE RESEARCH ON TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Xianhong  Xu

The traditional economic growth rapid growth of the gross national product, but also the natural resources are depleted, increasing environmental pollution, and the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality has caused a lot of controversy. Intuitive description of both the timing of changes in the law, in turn based on in-depth analysis of the dynamic pollution and income associated VAR model, found that there are long-run equilibrium and unilateral Granger causality, and then using the impulse response function analysis and analysis of variance, found that economic growth greater impact on the quality of the environment and the current quality of the environment is very small role in boosting economic growth, and this effect lag effect. Panel Data model to further explore the factors that affect the model, this paper found that the population density, the proportion of secondary industry and environmental governance investment on the quality of the environment has a significant impact, the majority of the pollution indicators are in line with the EKC inverted U-curve hypothesis, and a turning point in the inverted U-curve is also to make the calculation.

Economic development; Environmental quality; VAR model; Panel data

FACTORS INFLUENCING CITIZEN’S UASGE OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: THE CASE OF EGYPT

Prof. Dr.Tarek Taha Ahmed

Today most governments across the globe encourage initiating contact through the Internet to provide citizens with more convenient and accessible public services. This channel is known as government-to-citizen electronic government application (G2C e-government). Although studies in e-government are increasing in number, related models offered in the academic literature are mainly conceptual; while empirical studies are heavily ignored. Moreover, the existing literature focused on developed countries, while the worldwide growth of e-commerce has shown the need to extend this research to other unstudied developing countries. Therefore, our research attempts to fill this gap in the literature by developing and validating an empirical-based model for systematically predicting and examining the various critical factors influencing citizen intention to use public e-services in developing countries, and enhancing the probability of their participation, as well as, examining the actual implementation of e-government applications in Egypt as an example. In contrast to previous works, the current empirical study extended the research scope by combining the most critical factors identified in literature and applied them in the local context, therefore our proposed model contained variables that have not been integrated into one framework, to examination simultaneously for validation and relationship. A richer research methodology is used in our empirical study combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Based on our findings the study has made a number of important managerial and academic implications. The results of this paper can be re-examined or extended to other developing countries to create a complete picture in this area.

Citizens’ Usage, Developing countries, e-government Services, G2C e-Gov, Public e-services

CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR EXAMINING THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LIKELIHOOD OF COMPUTERISED ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM (CAIS) ADOPTION AMONG MALAYSIAN SMES

The purpose of this study is to propose and discuss a conceptual model for investigating the influential factors  of computerised accounting information systems (CAIS) adoption in Malaysian SMEs.  This study examines the existing empirical studies in information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) adoption research related to adoption at organizational level.  In particular, the Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) framework has been widely used in examining the factors influencing IT adoption.  However, studies attempted to use this framework to measure CAIS adoption are limited. In contrast to other theories commonly used for explaining innovation adoption, TOE framework does not only cover the technological aspects but more importantly also explores their organizational and environmental contexts.  Hence, this model provides a complete analysis of the possible aspects to be considered.  The inclusion of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory in the technological context and the application of Thong’s SME model make the proposed model more robust. A summary and conclusion along with research contribution, limitations, and the direction for future research are also presented in this paper.

Computerised Accounting Information System, Information technology, TOE framework, DOI theory, Thong’s Model, Small-and medium enterprises.

CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR EXAMINING THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LIKELIHOOD OF COMPUTERISED ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM (CAIS) ADOPTION AMONG MALAYSIAN SMES

This research was conducted to determine the relationship between thinking styles and decision-making styles. The objective of this research is applied and its methodology is descriptive – correlative. All the employees of Isfahan Gas Company were used as the subjects of this study in 2011. The number of samples obtained from the table was 125 persons.  A random sampling method was used in which based on sample size, 32 managers and 93 experts were obtained. The researchers used questionnaire to collect data. The data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results showed that there is a relation between thinking styles and some styles of decision-making, there is a negative relation between thinking styles and some styles of decision-making, and there is no relation between thinking styles and some styles of decision-making.

decision making; decision making styles; Isfahan’s Gas Company; thinking; thinking styles.