Journal of Business and Retail Management Research

Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) play an important role in the economy of many countries. The Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) sector is a major contributor to technical innovation and new product developments, in terms of employment, economic development. The creation and expansion of new SMMEs helps to produce a high volume of new jobs. Entrepreneurs have high expectations and are often found among new and innovative and technology-based firms, but in order for them to play a major role in economic growth and development, it is also necessary that there is a real supply of fresh innovations and processes to renew businesses. Many eminent scholars have written about the challenges that SMMEs face worldwide. Some scholars have decided to look into these problems based on different sectors. Basically the researcher has looked at external forces that small businesses face while considering all small businesses registered with the Business Support Centre (BSC), Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. These external factors are basically not controllable by a single business. SMME’s are said to be a lifeline of many nations and thereby attention must be drawn to them starting from micro businesses to small and medium enterprises. Entrepreneurial activity helps to reduce both employment and underemployment. After reviewing an extensive range of literature on the development and enhancement of SMMEs, it was evident that most research has considered businesses based on a certain list that they have acquired from the Chamber of Commerce of different countries and provinces, some have considered walking within a certain location in order to access data etc. The researcher decided to base the research on an organisation that has some SMMEs registered with them. The researcher has looked into these individual organisations and also their mother company called Business Support Centre (BSC), Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal Province in South Africa. This will enable the researcher to have direct contact with all the registered small businesses with BSC and also the management of BSC and it will enable the researcher to access adequate information on the problems these small businesses face externally.

The development of non-traditional communication channels in recent years has progressively created a world more digital, networked and interlaced by a myriad of communication tools than ever before. With Facebook being the most prevalent social network, this study aims to guide local South African organisations to use Facebook optimally to engage and communicate with their customers. The study strives to incorporate the latest ideas about social media marketing in the relevant literature with the opinions of local social media marketing experts. The generally ineffective use of Facebook as a communication channel by small, inexperienced organisations is seen as a justification for identifying a set of criteria to guide organisations in using Facebook pages as a driver of communication. The empirical phase of the research adopted a cluster analysis methodology and sampled 34 local social media experts. The empirical research produced a list of seven criteria (clusters) each focused on an aspect of the optimal use of Facebook pages for marketing purposes. These criteria should assist South African companies in developing more successful social media marketing strategies using Facebook.

This paper analyses the performance of the automotive retail industry taking into consideration the monetary policy employed by the Brazilian government from 1994 to 2014. Since the research area lacks empirical evidence we decided to use econometric methods that led to estimation models, based on regression and correlation, to check the relation between monetary policy and sector performance. We found out that the performance of the sector, represented by production and export level, was connected to the variables related to the monetary policy. When the performance was measured using exports, the economic variables act as expansion or constrains mechanisms.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of implementation of Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) 2007 towards a public listed company’s performance in relation to a Shariah or non-Shariah compliant. The MCCG had become indispensable part of the Bursa Malaysia Listing Rules, which requires all listed companies to disclose the extent of compliance with it. The amended code of Corporate Governance emphasized several significant changes on the earlier code of MCCG 2000 which is made vital to safeguard the interests of all investors without violating the principles of Shariah. The study focuses on the 37 Malaysian PLCs excluding financial institutions for the period of 2000 to 2010. Statistical tests of Newey West T-Test and the R2 were used to determine whether there was enough evidence to reject a null hypothesis about the processes. The findings suggest that there is a significant relationship between governance attributes and financial performance in effect of the implementation of MCCG 2007 towards Shariah compliant company’s performance measured by dividend yield (DY). Comparatively, it was also found out that there is a significant inverse relationship between the number of independent directors towards a non-Shariah compliant company’s performance measured by earnings per share (EPS). This relationship denotes a 1% significant level which testifies that changes in the number of independent directors may influence the company’s EPS oppositely. The study also highlighted the importance for Malaysian PLCs to continuously practice good corporate governance regardless of Shariah compliant as it ensures the shareholders and potential investors a safety investment through the presence of independent directors.

Major food retail chain groups have historically insisted on exclusive trading rights. However, many developers who had conceded to exclusivity clauses in the 1980s and 1990s are reconsidering the implications of such clauses on their centres, and more specifically the potential effects of excluding a segment of the consumer market by virtue of tenant selection and consumer brand preferences. Legal inquiries ensued, including contract law and the rights of the tenant; common law and the potential effects of denying the consumer access to preferred brands; as well as potential anti-competitive practices by virtue of the exclusion of certain tenants from a shopping centre. The quantifiable impacts of dual or even multiple food grocer anchorage on shopping centre performance are investigated in the present study. Analyses based on comprehensive quantitative trading statistics of specific shopping centre size categories revealed identifiable and positive correlations between multiple food grocer anchorage, on the one hand, and aggregate shopping centre trading densities and foot counts, on the other hand. These findings suggest, first, that the average consumer supports more than one food grocer brand on a weekly basis, and therefore does draw benefit from a shopping centre with multiple food grocer options and prefers such offerings over single grocer centres. Secondly, the shopping centre anchored by a multiple food grocer offering has an enhanced power of attraction and risk mitigation attributes over its single grocer peers. The findings make a unique contribution to the debate about the relative merits of single grocery tenant in South African shopping centres as against the merits of having more than one food grocer anchor and provide shopping centre developers with a methodology for quantifying such effects.

The present article considers the issues related to competitiveness of domestic enterprises that is one of the high-priority tasks in Russia. The emphasis is made on the globalization processes, requiring from Russian companies a fierce competitive struggle, including an increase in the quality of products and services, cost optimization, profit maximization and certain efforts to improve other factors of competitiveness. In such circumstances, the state is not always able to protect domestic enterprises from global competition, because many protective barriers, designed to support enterprises, apply no longer.

This article explores importance of SMEs in a given economy. It will also show us the reason why SMEs should be given full concentration and also to provide for the existing SMEs and encouraging more to start up. The contribution of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to the Local Economic Development (LED) of a nation is well recognized. In developing countries, the contribution of SMEs towards employment generation is significant because they: • Nurture entrepreneurship. • Since small businesses employs the citizens of the country, it helps to reduce risks (reduce crime rates). • Support the building up of systemic productive capacities and the creation of resilient economic systems, through linkages between small and large enterprises. • Tend to use more labour intensive production processes than large enterprises, boosting employment and leading to more equitable income distribution • Provide livelihood opportunities through simple, value adding processing activities in agriculturally based economies;

VAT collection is affected by many different factors. One of the most important of them is tax design. Special provisions of tax law such as tax exemptions, tax rate or tax base reductions may significantly decrease tax revenue. From the budgetary point of view they may therefore be perceived as a form of expenditure. The topic of tax expenditures gained in importance due to the current scarcity of public resources and urgent need for fiscal consolidation in many European Union Member States. Moreover the amount of tax expenditures and revenue loss attributable to them in these countries have been growing rapidly over the past two decades. The basic aim of this article is to evaluate the effect of tax expenditures on VAT revenue in Germany and Poland. The first part reviews the definition and measurement methods of tax expenditures in both countries. The second part of the article compares VAT rates, VAT exemptions and VAT collection efficiency in Germany and Poland. The third uses the data included in the reports on federal subsidies in Germany and reports on tax preferences in Poland to analyse the value and structure of the most important VAT expenditures.

Twenty-first century consumers have a lot of power in relation to buying due to their changing and demanding needs and wants. The entire selling activity has become more convenient for consumers as they can search for and purchase products from online websites instead of going to a physical store, which do have an influence on the physical brick and mortar stores in South Africa. This study was conducted to explore the influence of sight atmospherics and visual merchandising displays in apparel retail stores in Tshwane on consumers' behaviour. The study implemented an exploratory design which was qualitative in nature. Two focus groups were held, each made up of eight participants, and the gathered data was analysed by means of thematic analysis. It was found that visual merchandising displays had an unconscious influence on consumer behaviour and, since visual display is not the only factor considered when deciding to make a purchase, a pleasant atmosphere would influence participants to stay longer which in return could lead to a purchase. It was further found that consumers were influenced by sight atmospherics in either a conscious or a subconscious way which had an influence on the amount of time consumers would spend in an apparel retail store, and which would further influence their behaviour towards making a purchase or not

A model of the environmental management system implementation is proposed in this paper. For this model the methodology of the quality implementation evaluation with the use of Formalized Scoring has been developed. The verification proves that the evaluation of the quality of the environmental management system implementation is necessary. It also shows, among others, that there is a possibility to identify the areas difficult to realize. Due to this information the organizations preparing for the implementation of the environmental management system will be able to implement it in a better way. Because of this, they will probably gain more benefits for themselves as well as for the natural environment.

The purpose of this article is to present a macro-econometric quasi-experimental assessment of the device of enterprise creation: The case of the ANSEJ micro-enterprises. Our study retains the getting jobs criterion as a principal assessment. A statistical analysis of quarterly data from ANSEJ, at the national level, over the period [1999:1-2013:4], lead us to hold a regression (VAR) on variables integrated of order 1. The result of the ANSEJ device of micro-enterprises is effective for the period [2009:1-2013:4], compared to the forecasts of ANSEJ, but it is ineffective compared to the forecasts obtained by our model. This device is not generating a lot of jobs, barely two sustainable jobs per one micro-enterprise. It therefore requires as many micro-enterprises as jobs to create.

Customer loyalty as an outcome holds various advantages for a retailer. It is therefore important that a retailer provides the type and level of retail mix elements for interaction that customers’ desire and which results in customer loyalty. In this study four elements of the retail mix offered by three diverse retailers and their relationships with customer loyalty were investigated.The findings clearly indicate that retail mix elements desired by customers vary by type of retailer. Supermarket customers’ interactions with merchandise value leads to loyalty whilst loyalty of customers of a health, beauty and lifestyle retailer (HBL), is the outcomes of positive relationships between their interaction with merchandise value and frontline staff.

Big Five Personality Dimensions are considered important to understand how consumers behave and tend to prioritize aspects in a retail business environment. This research provides evidence of how the Big Five Personality Traits, including Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness, are positively correlated to Customer Empowerment or a “state of empowerment” perception, and how dimensions of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism have a significant relationship with a State of Empowerment promoted among consumers. For such purpose, this research uses a multiple regression analysis and data of consumers around the world who have experienced face-to-face interactions in the retail industry.

The past decade, audit job performance and audit process have received much attention within auditors’ works. Job performance is regarded as a professional in assurance and consulting services that auditors are facing at the competitive situation. In Thailand, the government is allowing Tax Auditor (TA) to audit and provide the opinion to a financial report of the small and medium enterprises. Under the competitive situation, TA requires knowledge management strategies to undertake audit processes such as auditing, management, and other knowledge within the organization climate circumstance and related to audit job service to benefit the audit performance. Hence, TA effort is to improve audit knowledge management strategies under the current competitive advantage by using strategies to conduct their work quality and enhance an audit job performance. Therefore, this research aims to examine the audit knowledge management strategies and audit job performance of Tax Auditor (TA). The questionnaire mail survey was completed by 77 TAs in Thailand. The statistical method used to analyze the data was ordinary least square (OLS) regression. The results show that audit knowledge management strategies have significantly positive relationship with audit work performance. All of the hypotheses are supported, and a thorough discussion is effectively presented as a part of this paper. Further implications of theoretical and managerial contributions are explicitly provided. Conclusion, limitations, and suggestions for future research are also presented.

The paper addresses the issue of image creating system for educational organizations. It emphasizes the need to apply more marketing tools in university management system to make it more flexible in adjusting to changes in the market economic situation and meeting clients' demands. The paper puts forward a process-oriented axiological approach to the assessment and creation of image. This approach reveals the dynamic properties of image and the prerequisites for its quantitative measurements, detects and strengthens the competitive positions of any university at the region and country levels. A complex of systemic and structural approaches serve as a theoretical methodological base for the obtained results to assess the image creating processes and the impact of image on a university's competitive ability. A questionnaire survey was used in the empirical analysis of university students' values. Within this research, image refers to a symbolic value-determined view of a university among the targeted social groups, clients, consumers of educational services. The research contributes to the expansion of the conceptual and categorical framework of imagology - the concepts, such as "image exploitation", "image degradation", "image inertia", are formulated and justified. The process-oriented axiological approach helps to assess an image and a university's competitiveness on the grounds of value concept at all stages of study (applicant - bachelor, bachelor - master (specialist), master (specialist) - PhD student), helps to make informed decisions about funds allocation. The necessity to evaluate the personal and public values of educational market participants is justified. The impact of each component of image on developing the perception of a university among consumers in the context of the dynamic environment of educational service market is specified. The tools for analysing the image development level and assessing its impact on a university's competitiveness are developed.