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ENTREPRENEURSHIP   SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTREPRISES IN RWANDA (CASE STUDY: “CAPLAKI”) 2007-2011

Kerosi Josephat Bosire and Kayisime Nzaramba

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are important to economic growth and significantly essential to generate profit, increase sales and provide return on investment to the owners of SMEs. Therefore the SMEs growth depends to a great degree on the way entrepreneurship skills have been developed in SMEs. Entrepreneurship has been considered the backbone of economic development.  It has been well established that the level of economic growth of a region to a large extent, depends on the level of entrepreneurial activities in the region. The myth that entrepreneurs are born, no more holds good, rather it is well recognized now that the entrepreneurs can be created and nurtured through appropriate interventions in the form of entrepreneurship skills development programs. This research “Impact on entrepreneurship skills development on growth of SMEs in Rwanda” aimed at assessing how entrepreneurship skills development impacts on growth of SMEs in Rwanda, with    CAPLAKI “Cooperative des Artistes Plasticiens de Kigali’, an artisan’s cooperative in Rwanda selected as a case study. The research will benefit the researcher, the community, the government and other researchers. The study adopted mixed method approach that is, qualitative and quantitative methods.  The choice of using both is justified in the sense that the study has several objectives; and information relating to some of them was assessed using qualitative method, while other using quantitative methods. Basically the study was conducted in Kigali city specifically with all the 71 members of CAPLAKI Cooperative. Data were collected using structured and unstructured questionnaires. Also, secondary data were collected from various documents. The findings of the study show that on the whole, the respondents (CAPLAKI members) have limited entrepreneurship skills particularly in terms of recognising business opportunities, being innovative and   communicating effectively in business transactions. In particular, a percentage of 65 admitted that they lack skills of identifying business opportunities. Similarly, a considerable percentage of the respondents (96%) lamented that their sales are decreasing because of failure to communicate with clients especially foreigners who are their potential customers. Besides, a substantial percentage of   the respondents (63%) revealed that they lack innovative skills. Lack of these skills greatly affects the growth of their businesses in terms return on investment, net profit and sales turnover. Therefore, it is recommended that the cooperative should organize training for its members in entrepreneurship skills.  They need to be equipped with such skills as separating money between business and household, reinvesting profits in the business, maintaining records of sales and expenses, and thinking proactively about new markets and opportunities for profits. In addition to these strategies, business to business linkages should be explored by entrepreneurs to enable SMEs join global business chain to create new market and explore business opportunities.

A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE IN ENTERING A COMPUTER DEGREE: A PERSONAL OPTION THAT ENCOMPASSES FUTURE COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS AND GOVERNMENTS

The quantitative study aims to identify factors which motivated high school graduating students in getting a Computer degree program in their collegiate level.  Graduating high school students were asked of their perceptions of what encourages them to take up a computer degree. Data were gathered using a two-part instrument which consisted of the profile of respondents and in the second part, they were asked to rate the listed indicators, using an 8-point Likert scale.  Data were treated in depth, using factor analysis.  Reliability coefficient was also computed. 

Results showed that data yielded six typologies of students namely:  future direction, parental ascendancy, work prospects, peer stimulus, leadership technique and approaches and familial influences.

Enjoyable or Humdrum Advergames: The Effects of Brand Congruıty Level on Attıtudes Towards Advergames

Hakan Kiraci & Müberra Yurdakul

Unlike advertising in traditional media tools or traditional forms of on-line marketing, advergame that one of the fastest growing part of the advertising model around the world is an online video game that promotes a particular brand, product, or marketing message by integrating it into the game. The aims of this study are to briefly describe the advergame phenomenon, determine the attitudes of young consumers towards advergames by comparing the attributes of four advergames (Eti Product Matching, Magnum Pleasure Hunt 2, M&M Dark Movies, Dido Fast Pen) in Turkey and compare with attitudes towards advergames and assessments concerning brand congruity level in the advergame. By being used descriptive research model, the research data were collected from 406 students who study at Faculty of Economics and Business Administrative Sciences of Dumlupinar University, Turkey and the findings indicate the importance of factors regarding to perceived quality of the advergames in order to be able to compare those advergame. The results of this research exposed that advergame of Magnum Pleasure Hunt 2 perceived as more enjoyable, pleasant, dynamic, attractive and appealing than others and brand congruity level did not significantly affect the attitudes towards selected advergames. The results of the study are expected to benefits both scholars and practitioners in the field of advergame.

CONCEPTUALISATION OF THE GAP
BETWEEN MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING AND
THE USE OF DECISION ANALYTIC TOOLS

Ari Riabacke, Aron Larsson and Mats Danielson

Numerous software tools aimed at supporting the analysis of decisions under risk have been developed during the latter years. One purpose of these softwares is that they are not only to be used by experts within the field of decision analysis, but also by managers in public or private organisations, hence acting as a facilitator for the theory of rational choice on behalf of decision-makers. Although we share the view that the potential impact of decision analysis software on improving managerial decision-making is high, usage of such software in real-life decision situations is not as widespread as was predicted twenty years ago. One reason for this is that the softwares and their underlying models place too high demands upon the decision-makers in a variety of ways. Thus, there exists a gap between the decision-making managers and the tool supposed to support them. In this paper, we propose a conceptualisation of this gap, identifying seven gap component types and relating these gap components to the collaborating objects (decision-maker, decision model, and decision tool) and the interfaces between them. These gap components are then bundled into a set of three explicit issues: 1) Applicability issues, 2) Representation issues, and 3) Elicitation issues, which together constitute main research issues for additional development and further work in order to reduce the gap.

 “CLOUD FORMATION & ATMOSPHERIC RAINMAKING BY ENDOTHERMIC REACTION DUE TO PLASMA LASER &
UV RADIATION IN THE ATMOSPHERE”

Shivshankar K. Chopkar1,  K.R. Gangakhedkar ; Aniket B. Dhone

It is well known that, after lightning precipitation is formed and heavy rain follows due to dissociation, ionization, and natural seeding process in the atmosphere.  It is shown in this paper that, these natural phenomena can be used for artificial rain making by plasma laser pulse in the atmosphere which is also confirmed in the laboratory experiment. As per our calculations 2.2 x 1019 gm of water drops are formed in the atmosphere by laser pulse of energy 500 mJ . In this system, plasma laser pulse creates high temp up to 3000oC. At these temp bonds of major species of N2 and O2 break up into excited N* and   excited O*.  These excited atoms are very unstable and immediately react to form NO and O3.   These reactions  are endothermic and absorb a large amount  of heat from  the surrounding  atmospheric clouds, where  condensation  takes  place  (condensation  is the basic need for  formation  of water drops).   Simultaneously N2 and O2 will be ionized to form N2+, O2+ and O2- .  These precursor ions will undergo several reactions and will become big clustered ions.  These big ions will act as seed which will lead to precipitation and rain.    Low temperature created by dissociation will further help to grow bigger ions fast to produce CCN (cloud condensation nuclei) water drops and rainfall.   These rain drops  will act as natural  seeding  process and  due to   the flow of  air in the upper atmosphere  another set  of rain  drops will be formed,  resulting  in more rainfall. Model system for artificial rainmaking is also proposed in the paper.

ASSESSMENT OF AGRICULTURAL STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES INTENTION TO TAKE UP SELF-EMPLOYMENT IN AGRIBUSINESS

The success of Ghana’s drive to modernize agriculture cannot be realized without harnessing the quality human resource base of the youth, especially graduates from agricultural faculties. This paper therefore examined factors influencing agricultural students of the University for Development Studies (UDS) Intention to take up agribusiness as an avenue for future self-employment.  Data for this paper was obtained from a field survey of 292 final year students of the University.  A descriptive and Chi-square statistics were used to analyse the data obtained. Results of the analysis found students’ perception regarding the prospects of agribusiness enterprises in Ghana to have a statistical significant influence at both 1% and 5% levels of significance on students’ intention to take up agribusiness as a future self-employment avenue. Also age, marital status, place of domicile, parental educational background of students, practical agricultural experience and risks tolerance were found to have  significant influence on students’ intention to take up agribusiness as a source of future self-employment avenue or not. It is recommended that tertiary students pursuing agriculture and agricultural related programmes should be exposed to practical training in agriculture and be properly oriented on the prospects of agriculture as an avenue for self-employment upon graduation.  

PROMOTIONAL PRACTICES OF SELECTED FOOD CHAIN STORES IN THE UNIVERSITY BELT IN MANILA

Dr. Marivic F. Flores

This study paper was undertaken to know the management and customer’s perception on the promotional practices of selected food chain stores in the university belt.  Generally, the research is concerned in identifying and comparing promotional practices adopted by the five (5) selected fast food companies.  These fast food companies are: The Tropical Hut Hamburger or Tropical Hut Foodmart; Jollibee Foods Corporation; McDonalds or McGeorge Food Industries , Inc.; Kentucky Fried Chicken or Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) Corp; and Chowking Food Corporation. The research objectives are generally to determine the following: (1) the promotional practices implemented and the media most commonly use by the selected food chain stores? (2)  the promotional practices that attracts most of the customers in patronizing the store? (3)  the promotional practices problems that beset the food chain stores and their suggested solutions to these problems. Further, descriptive method of research was used in this study and the instrument used in gathering data is a researcher-constructed questionnaire. The respondents were three hundred (300) customers and nineteen (19) managers of the five food chain stores in Claro M. Recto Area. Findings revealed that the selected food chain stores used TV Program, Value/Combo Meal/Price Pack, Endorsement by Well-known Personalities, Billboards, Product Advertisement and Premium. Television is the most commonly used media by the food chain stores while the most attractive promotional practice is TV Program and Endorsement by Well-known Personalities. Lack of continuous program to effectively launch direct selling strategies is the most serious promotional problem that was given by the respondents.

Promotional practices, food chains stores, university belt in manila