The Role of Top Management Participation and IT Capability in Developing SMEs’ Competitive Process Capabilities

This research explores how top management participation and three types of IT capability enable SMEs' competitive process alignment and flexibility capabilities. Our research hypotheses are tested using data from 310 Australian SMEs. Results show that top management participation and external IT linkage capability positively affect both process alignment and process flexibility. While IT infrastructure capability and IT business spanning capability positively affect process alignment, they are not significantly related to process flexibility. In addition, both process alignment and process flexibility capabilities have significant positive effects on SME performance. Contributions and implications of this study are discussed.     

An investigation on the determinants of opening a bank account in Zimbabwe

The promotion of an inclusive financial system has become important to many countries in policy crafting. The study seeks to explore the determinants of opening an account with a bank in Zimbabwe. Data from Finscope Survey 2014 was used to estimate probit models and for robustness check Linear Probability Models. Using these data, the socioeconomic factors influencing individuals in deciding whether or not to open an account with a bank in Zimbabwe is analysed. According to our analysis, the decision to open a bank account by individuals is influenced by Location, Age, Gender, Marital status, Proof of residence, Employment history and Level of Education. There is need to build inclusive financial systems through different policies by governments and central banks. Financial literacy education and financial inclusion campaigns are paramount in improving levels of people opening bank accounts.     

A comparison of cardinal tournaments and piece rate contracts with liquidity constrained agents

A celebrated result in the theory of tournaments is that relative performance evaluation (tournaments) is a superior compensation method to absolute performance evaluation (piece rate contracts) when the agents are risk-averse, the principal is risk-neutral or less risk-averse than the agents and production is subject to common shocks that are large relative to the idiosyncratic shocks. This is because tournaments get closer to the first best by filtering common uncertainty. This paper shows that, surprisingly, tournaments are superior even when agents are liquidity constrained so that transfers to them cannot fall short of a predetermined level. The rationale is that, by providing insurance against common shocks through a tournament, payments to the agents in unfavorable states increase and payments in favorable states decrease which enables the principal to satisfy tight liquidity constraints for the agents without paying any ex ante rents to them, while simultaneously providing higher-power incentives than under piece rates. The policy implication of our analysis is that firms should adopt relative performance evaluation over absolute performance evaluation regardless of whether the agents are liquidity (wealth) constrained or not.     

The Rise and Decline of an International Zinc and Lead Cartel, 1945–75

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s major firms in the international zinc and lead industries organized cartels to stabilize the prices of the metals at above market levels. The attempts of the Zinc Producers Group and the Lead Producers Group to secure above-market-level prices met with limited success because of divisions within each cartel over strategy, the large number of producers and source countries, and the lack of international market power and comprehensive vertical integration. Limited barriers to entry, external competition, and the impact of anti-monopoly and restrictive trade practices legislation further weakened the cartels.