Issue #2 (Volume 16 2018)

This paper aims to examine the impact of Good Corporate Governance (GCG) practice on bank stability and performance. Governance is measured using the GCG rating that covers eleven aspects. The authors apply instrumental regression to link governance to performance and stability. The study covers a sample of 150 banks. The result shows that bank stability can mediate bank governance and bank performance. On the determinant of bank performance, it can be concluded that the GCG rating is positive and directly influences bank performance. Bank stability is also positive for bank performance indicating the indirect contribution of the GCG rating to bank performance. NPL, LDR, CAR and bank’s size (LASSET) are all negative and significant. The aim of this paper is to provide strong empirical evidence on the importance of governance and stability for performance. The limitations of this paper are the size of the sample and that it only covers public banks which are theoretically required to apply better governance in all aspects of their business by the Capital Market Authority.

The eradication of poverty is an important priority for the South African government. The Constitution makes provision for vulnerable households and, therefore, local government has to develop policies to address the needs of the poor. Municipalities developed and adopted Indigent Policies to ensure that the poor households have access to essential basic services. This led the researcher to investigate what challenges are related to the financial sustainability of the Indigent Policy in its implementation process at the City of Cape Town for the period from 2003 to 2016. This study followed a qualitative research approach. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews. The participants were selected, because they had access to the most recent information that relates to the Indigent Policy. The researcher respected the rights of participants by allowing them the freedom to withdraw at any stage of the research study, ensuring confidentiality, ensuring anonymity, ensuring fair treatment and protecting the participants from any harm and discomfort throughout the research study. The researcher is of the opinion that all of the respondents are confident that the Indigent Policy is sustainable. However, should it become too expensive for the City of Cape Town to maintain the Indigent Policy, it could result in the budget of some other services being reprioritized. It is recommended that the City of Cape Town develops a beneficiary system for qualified indigents to allow them to receive additional benefits from other City of Cape Town facilities such as libraries, swimming pools and the MyCiTi bus services.

This study contributes to the recent “managerial ability” literature and analyses the impact of audit committees’ financial and sustainability expertise (i.e. combined and separately as individuals) on the readability of integrated reports. Analyses were conducted with data on a sample of European Union (EU) public interest entities (PIE) from the Examples Database of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) for the fiscal years 2014–2016 (i.e. 215 firm-year observations). Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to evaluate possible links between either financial or sustainability expertise and combined financial and sustainability expertise in audit committees and the readability of integrated reports, as measured by the Flesch Reading Ease and Gunning Fog indices. While audit committees’ financial and sustainability expertise has a positive impact on the readability of integrated reports, combined expertise has a stronger effect compared with either financial or sustainability expertise. This finding is in line with the idea that, to combine financial and sustainability information in integrated reports, audit committees need to have more diverse expertise. Companies, regulators and researchers could be significantly affected by the finding that managerial ability variables such as audit committee expertise can have a considerable impact on integrated reporting.

The article considers changes in organizational structure (in the context of a shift in favor of small business), the main factors and long-term prospects of these changes. Enhancing the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in many countries of the world is described. The concept of SMEs, as well as the range of indicators measuring organizational structure, is defined. Modern trends that indicate the increasing role of small and medium-sized enterprises are shown. On the basis of dynamics of economic indicators in Europe and the United States, the increasing role of small and medium enterprises is investigated. It is shown that the increase in the share of the service sector is the result of market saturation. The influence of the service sector on the shifts in the organizational structure in the period of global economic changes, as well as the influence on the increasing share of more flexible and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in total employment and income, is argued. Increased competition in the process of saturation of the market is shown as one of the factors of the development of personal needs that promote individual entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators, for whom a complex and rigid structure of large organizations is the factor which limits the growth and interferes with their becoming the engines of scientific and technological progress. It is proved that in conditions when large corporations find themselves unable to identify a new micro niche quickly, small and medium enterprises are becoming the most convenient form for the realization and promotion of innovation. The transition from the dominance of large corporations to the dominance of SMEs in the process of substitution of technological modes is investigated. The increasing role of small and medium firms in the context of long-term trends of economic development is considered.

The present research aims to assess the influence of supervisor and colleague support on employee safety voice based on the social exchange theory and the effect of employee safety voice on employees’ satisfaction towards the organization. The data were collected from 302 bus drivers in Java, Indonesia. The data were then processed using a multiple regression analysis technique. The results indicate that supervisors have a significant negative effect on the action of voicing safety concerns by employees, while coworkers do not have any significant effect in relation to employees voicing their safety concerns. Furthermore, employee safety voice has also been found to have a significant negative effect on employee satisfaction towards their company.

In modern conditions, the higher education system of the Russian Federation is characterized by high degree of changeability. It is caused by need of quick and adequate response to changes of internal and external environment. The specified changes are determined by the nature of requirements and interests of stakeholders, which interact with higher education institutions: satisfaction of needs of stakeholders becomes an ultimate goal of development and the most important condition of existence of any organization, including the sector of higher education. Therefore, stakeholders become the main driving forces (drivers) of change in activity of higher education institutions. The research goal is to systematize drivers of change in the higher education system of the Russian Federation. The main research methods are analysis (for detection of the set of drivers of change), classification (for allocation of types of drivers), and the construction method of managerial models (for creation of matrices of changes). Following the research results, current changes in activity of Russian higher education institutions are divided into 4 types: changes in educational, research, innovation and entrepreneurial management activity. The main groups of stakeholders (drivers of change) are distinguished, and their influence on change in activity of higher education institutions is justified. Drivers of change are classified by 2 features: “by attitude to a higher education institution” – into external and internal, “by nature” – into obligatory and initiative. The matrices of necessary and initiative changes are designed. They create interrelation between types of changes and their influence on interests of key stakeholders of Russian higher education institutions (effects, which can be favorable, unfavorable and neutral). The possibility of using the matrices of changes as a tool of managerial decision-making in activity of Russian universities is justified.

Knowing where to find inside information can mean the difference between getting a job from a suitable company or following the wrong direction and wasting precious time, happiness or health in the wrong job and job environment. This article investigates the influence of electronic online word of mouth in the form of job reviews during the process of changing jobs and finding the right job. Job review sites are becoming more and more popular in the process of job search. While the professional world has already started to acknowledge job review sites as useful tools in the process of job search, so far, the academic scene has not paid much attention to this dynamic. The intention of this article is to change this. Based on a literature review, this article shows that job review sites already play a central and valuable role in job change processes by giving inside information through employees who already have experience with employers.

Non-primary export is one of the most promising areas for the development of Russian foreign economic activity. However, the significant influence of geopolitical problems and underdeveloped internal mechanisms of statutory regulation, state support and stimulation of non-primary exports in Russia do not allow to use all available potential in this regard. As such, the problems of non-primary export development in Russia are being actualized with a view to ensuring a positive influence of this kind of foreign economic activity both on the welfare of the state as a whole and on strengthening its positions in world markets.
The purpose of the article is to consider the specifics of non-primary export development in Russia and to propose measures to stimulate its growth.
The object of the study is the existing system of non-primary export in Russia with its inherent features and operating principles.
The research methodology is as follows: scientific search, generalization, systematization, analysis, graphical construction, modeling, formalization, and forecasting.
The key research results consist in the systematization of information on Russia’s promising non-primary export industries, the study of the current system of state support for export, the identification of problematic aspects and the search for solutions, and the development and justification of mechanisms for tax incentives for non-primary export, including due to the proposed division of enterprises into target groups depending on the volume of income from their foreign economic activities.
The practical value of the results obtained is that they can be used at the macro level by introducing amendments to the regulatory and legislative acts of the Russian Federation on export regulation in accordance with the results of the grant of the President of the Russian Federation for stimulating and supporting non-primary export.

The competitiveness of the national economy is ensured by mutually beneficial cooperation of various business activities and industrial specialization of business units. The purpose of this article is to identify the main motives of the economic behavior of business units in Ukraine, which predetermine structural changes in the industrial sector and agro-industrial complex, and to develop an algorithm for substantiating the strategic choice of participating forms in integration formations for the business development. The economic and statistical analysis has identified trends in structural changes in the industrial and agricultural sectors of the Ukrainian economy. By generalization of scientific views on the content of integration processes, there were identified the influence of institutional factors on the development of forms of integration interaction and maintaining the stability of integrational entities, and the factors of technological and logistic expediency on the formation and development of business networks. There was formed the algorithm of substantiation of strategic decisions regarding the choice of enterprises of the forms of participation in the integration formations of different types. The differences in the positions of the initiators of the business network creation and the participants involved in them were identified regarding the composition and relationships in the network that affect its sustainability. The application of this algorithm will ensure that the management of enterprises makes more substantiated decisions on the creation of an organizational framework for the implementation of competitive strategies in promising areas of inter-sectoral cooperation.

The paper focuses on the analysis of the quality of macroeconomic forecasts, as well as on general issues of the functioning of the system of macroeconomic forecasting in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It provides a comparative analysis of errors of initial and revised macroeconomic forecasts of the real sector of economy indicators. To assess forecast accuracy, the authors use the world’s most widespread measures, such as the mean error and the mean absolute percentage error, as well as official statistical data and records. The overall forecast consistency and congruence of assumptions on the dynamics of indicators of the real sector and fiscal policy are estimated using the basic identities of the System of National Accounts. The paper also considers institutional aspects of the system of macroeconomic forecasting in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The authors conclude that revised forecasts, with the exception of monetary policy indicators, exhibit a smaller error, which can indicate a need for greater coordination of public authorities in the process of preparing forecasts, developing the system of independent assessment of their quality and improving their transparency.

Even though a lot of attention has been directed towards risk management, disruptions are inevitably present within supply chains and should therefore be successfully managed if organizations are to thrive in today’s ever-changing world. How organizations respond to these disruptions has an impact on the relationship between the parties involved. This study explored what factors influenced buyer-supplier relationships in either a strengthening or weakening manner within a disruption context. A generic qualitative research approach was used to gather data by conducting semi-structured interviews with 24 participants that consisted of 3PLs and clients who have experienced a recent disruption between each other. This study reported on the relational factors within pre-, during- and post- disruption phases. A total of 18 strengthening factors were identified with the majority being classified into the during-disruption phase. The factors that added to existing disruption literature included having a mutual business understanding, problem solving ability and an introspective focus when resolving disruptions. Twelve weakening factors emerged from the data. Common business problems, a lack of, or weak prior relationship, no mutual business understanding and the occurrence and late detection of the disruption are novel findings. Practitioners gain value from this study as it equips them to manage supply chain disruptions successfully by highlighting important strengthening and weakening relational factors to consider when working with supply chain members to resolve disruptions. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by being one of the first empirical studies conducted on the relational effects of supply chain disruptions in a developing country context.

The influence of information is the main productive force and the subject of production for the economic systems development. Information services contribute to the competitive economy, to the provision of optimal conditions for human development, and the implementation of effective democratic procedures. The results of the socio-economic development of Ukraine testify to the growing lag of the parameters of its competitiveness from many countries of the world and to the strengthening of differentiation in the regional development. Since the regional environment today largely determines the competitiveness of the entire national economy, it becomes important to discuss the appropriate methodological tools for assessing the development level of information and communication infrastructure (ICI) in the regions of Ukraine.
Given the necessity of solving a specific problem, a methodological approach to assessing the development level of ICI is proposed, which is based on the calculations of integral indicators by the entropy method and aimed at the implementation of a group of economic regions in accordance with its defined parameters. The improved methodical toolkit takes into account consistent stages of the system for estimating indicators, which allows to analyze and evaluate the levels of ICI regions development and to obtain the value of specific digital divisions between individual regions.
The implementation of the proposed scientific and methodological approach allowed to obtain the results of the assessment of the ICI development level, to allocate regional clusters depending on the ICI development levels, to identify factors that restrain the ICI development in the regions and to propose recommendations for their elimination.

This research reveals the factors explaining the purchase intention toward green products among young consumers. Young consumers are beginner consumers who are going to play an important role to take a responsibility in preserving the environment. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is selected as the main theoretical framework in this research alongside some other variables (environmental concern, environmental knowledge, and willingness to pay), which are added in the research model to expand TPB application. Three hundred and twenty-six respondents were interviewed through a survey and the data are analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).
The findings illustrated that not every explanatory variable influenced the purchase intention toward green products among young consumers. Environmental concern and attitude did not influence the purchase intention toward green products among young consumers.

Low response rate has been considered as a matter in a survey. Even though researcher has applied techniques to enhance the response rate, they very often still experience low rate of response. This paper tries to share the challenging experience in dealing with low response rate in the context of international business research. This is a questionnaire survey of small firms in Indonesia that were doing business abroad. The results show that it is more important to select the most effective survey method rather than techniques to enhance response rate in order to deal with local condition. Survey by knocking the door is found to be the best suited alternative for maximizing the response rate.

Modern economics is a complex multi component system where management is aimed, first of all, at solving problems of optimal use of land, labor and material and technical resources in order to increase the efficiency of production.
Land is the basis of agricultural development. If in all other branches of production land plays mainly a passive role, it is an active element in agriculture. In this branch, it is simultaneously an object of labor and a means of production due to which a man grows necessary crops.
The purpose of the article is to analyze the use of land resources and determine indicators to improve of the efficiency of land resource potential for improving the management system of resource potential of enterprises.
The conducted research made it possible to conclude that enterprise’s land resources are interdependent and interconnected and balanced optimal correlation between them opens up opportunities for developing an innovative economic system which is characterized by maximum productivity.
As a result of the study, it has been established that the process of managing land resource potential of enterprises should be based on the use of a systematic approach, which involves evaluating land resource opportunities and their rational use in the conditions prevailing.
The practical value of the research is to carry out an assessment of the land resource potential of enterprises on the basis of the use of the index estimation method. The evaluation of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of structural components of the land potential of the territory allows us to analyze the level of development of the regional economy, identify disparities between individual elements of the potential, as well as to define priority areas of regional policy in the field of land use.
The assessment made it possible to determine main criteria for improving the efficiency and potential use of land resources of enterprises. As a basis the indicator of potential yields can be used.

The current state of development of Ukraine’s national economy involves strengthening the processes of transition to social market economy, aimed at accelerating the rates of economic growth of the country. The presence of peculiarities of activity of agrarian producers and increase of the socioeconomic importance of the agrarian sector of the economy contribute to the need to develop and substantiate the methodological conditions aimed at solving multidimensional and diverse problems of ensuring the development of agrarian economic systems. In the work, the directions of the formation of the mechanism of management of agrarian economic systems, which consist in the transition to a new quality level of the use of information and intellectual resources of the management system on the basis of modern information technologies and modeling, which allowed to develop a structural scheme of the mechanism of management of the agrarian sector of the economy. The understanding of the mechanism of management of agrarian economic systems, factors and functions of this mechanism are determined. The mechanism of management of agrarian economic systems should be considered as a system of principles, rules, norms and procedures, within the framework of which the goals and objectives of the agrarian economy are developed in accordance with the current economic laws. This mechanism should be in line with the ownership of the subjects of state domination of the region, organizational structures of management, market social and economic relations, natural conditions of economic activity and state economic policy concerning the development of agrarian production, etc., and also take into account the main economic relationships that exist between the individual structural components of the agrarian economic system.

This paper reports on research that was undertaken to determine the problems experienced by deputy principals in secondary schools, and the extent to which these problems were experienced. Although some research was conducted on the deputy principalship, no research treats the problems that deputy principals experience upon appointment comprehensively. An understanding of the problems experienced by secondary school deputy principals is a necessary precursor of an induction program to address the problems. A quantitative approach which was underpinned by the post-positivist paradigm was adopted. In order to determine the extent to which the problems were experienced, a survey was conducted among one hundred and fifty seven secondary school deputy principals in the North West Province. The participants came from a diverse context of rural, township and urban schools. The deputy principals who participated in the study included those who were newly appointed (one to three years of service) and those who were experienced (more than three years of service). Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and percentages. There were no significant differences in the responses of both newly-appointed and experienced deputy principals. The results revealed that deputy principals experienced administrative, financial management, work pressure, personal and physical resources problems. In an attempt to address the problems identified, a context-specific induction program is recommended. The induction program should be an on-going program of professional development and should preferably include specific aims, action steps to be taken to achieve the aims that are set and measures to evaluate progress.

This study aims to measure the impact of entrepreneurial motivation on the entrepreneurial intention of Muslim vocational school students. There is a lack of scholarly attention focusing on the Muslim students in the entrepreneurship field of the study. There were three models to be tested in this study. The first model covered six dimensions of motivation linked directly to entrepreneurial intention. The second model grouped the dimensions under the motivation variable. The third model linked taking motivation to giving motivation and giving motivation to entrepreneurial intention. Data were collected from 626 vocational school students in Jakarta. The exploratory and structural equation models were used for data analysis. This study found that, in the first model tested, “entrepreneur is cool” dimension had a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention. In the second model tested, “entrepreneurial is cool”, “financial freedom”, and “public service” dimensions represented entrepreneurial motivation that could predict Muslim students’ entrepreneurial intention. In the third model, taking motivation significantly affected giving motivation and giving motivation significantly affected intention. Recommendations for educators and future study are discussed.

The relevance of this work is determined by the further development of the management system and its information support that improve the economic entity’s activity and increase the competitiveness.
The goal of this research is to develop a method for the most optimal commodities assortment formation, which makes it possible to increase the efficiency of the enterprise in the existing production conditions. Previously applied methods were oriented only to one of the methods of determining the commodities assortment, which prevented managers from choosing the most optimal option. The method of the optimal commodities assortment formation was proposed for the first time in this article while comparing the methods of its determination on products profitability and the limiting factor.
The object of research is resource consumption in relation to certain commodities assortment manufactured by the enterprise operating in the measuring devices production sector. The article is focused on the methods of the integrated management cost analysis aimed at implementing the concept of the most complete and timely information support for the resource consumption control and regulation. General scientific and special research methods are used for the purpose of its implementation. The use of special methods of economic analysis made it possible to develop the economic model of costs estimation in the process of the most optimal commodities assortment formation.
Conclusions and results of the research show that the efficiency of the industrial enterprise largely depends on rational resource consumption. The successful solution of this task largely depends on the correct commodities assortment formation. In view of this, methods for determining the commodities assortment based on the analysis of its profitability and assessing the impact of the limiting factor, taking into account the full load capacity, are proposed to be used.

Higher education needs to respond to ever changing demands and expectations of present and future potential students. In order to amplify access to educational materials for students who endeavor to learn, various methodologies are used with the help of technology. Education is redefined and democratized by enabling anyone to learn from the world’s experts by a click of a mouse. Higher education institutions are venturing to gain better understanding of the phenomenon of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and its paradigm shift towards open global education. This study endeavors to study how MOOCs can be seamlessly integrated into the present scenario of traditional and learning environment. The commercialization with marketing of MOOCs in KSA’s higher education sector is also discussed. Finally, this study recommends adaptive home grown organic introduction of blended learning with the MOOC platform. With the advent of internet technology, students are now able to access diversified and latest courses which are participatory, collaborative with digital skills, well distributed, engaging and self-paced. This concept enables them to attain lifelong learning and brings scalability at a virtual zero cost to the students. The overall impact of technology on the learning management system will be explored. An attempt is made to introduce and accelerate learning and teaching strategies and tools to enhance student employability with their present usage of technology. The objective of the study is to comprehend the readiness level of learners by incorporating open learning platform, build an innovation model, which involves stakeholders with a holistic perspective that will enable a congenial learning management system, how the deanship of information technology and distance learning change course from a support-based deanship to a strategic-based deanship.

A manager’s attitude to innovation affects an employee’s job satisfaction, and consequently their individual performance. The authors survey employees of Indonesia Stock Exchange-listed companies. Our results confirm that individual performance depends on job satisfaction. However, job satisfaction is not fully contingent on the reward system, or the JRI, or the manager’s attitude. Performance is much affected by other factors, such as stress at work, tension at home, and unrest in the community.

Unique nature of land resources determines the specifics of constructing a land management and registration system, which includes accumulation, systematization, processing and analysis of economic information about their quantitative, qualitative, monetary and legal data in the state. The economic, social, and ecological safety of the state and living standards of the population depend on the effective land use. Consequently, there is a need for continuous improvement of the regulatory and legislative framework, development of a methodology for land registration and fixing land accounting operations. The article deals with the current state and problems of the development of synthetic and analytical registration of land resources in Ukraine. The variability of the representation of land relations in the accounting system is also considered. The current system of agricultural land registration in Ukraine does not allow to reflect the full range of characteristics of land plots for external and internal users in order to profit and increase the investment attractiveness of enterprises. It is established that reliable and accurate assessment and registration of land plots have significant influence on the agricultural enterprise position.

The article is devoted to developing a change model for entrepreneurial roles that allows to create a conceptual design for the roles of an entrepreneur at different stages of business development. The article highlights four key stages in the business development life cycle. At each step, business focuses on a certain type of client and the value created for that client. The business focus requires an entrepreneur to concentrate on performance of a certain role. An analysis of the literature about role modelling is provided. The article considers entrepreneurs’ roles at different stages of business development. There are several methodological approaches applied in the article. The systems approach and systems thinking allow to describe a business as a whole. Conceptual modelling allows to deal with complexity of a real business. Design approach allows to implement conceptual models in practice of the real business. The article proposes a change model for entrepreneurial roles and the related roles composition at the different stages of business development life cycle. This article uses the conceptual model as an analytical tool to develop a change model for entrepreneurial roles. The further development of the research relates to research of sub-roles composition for different entrepreneurial roles and abilities, necessary to perform the sub-roles efficiently.

Achieving the balance in the formation of working capital is a prerequisite for stable development of enterprises and improvement of the economic situation in Ukraine as a whole that is especially relevant during the period of socio-economic crisis. The study of working capital management peculiarities of agricultural enterprises deserves special attention, since their contribution to the national economy is significant.
The purpose of the article is to investigate methods of assessing the efficiency of formation of enterprises working capital and prospects for its application to characterize the current state of domestic agricultural enterprises activity. The object of the research is determining the actual model of working capital financing at Ukrainian agricultural enterprises.
In the article, the efficiency of formation and use of working capital in Ukrainian agricultural sector is analyzed. The actual model of working capital financing of enterprises in this sector is determined. It is typical for this sphere to adhere the aggressive policy of current assets formation, which increases the risk of loss of the solvency and financial stability. Optimization of sources of working capital financing at domestic agricultural enterprises will increase the volume of economic activity financing and improve the enterprises liquidity.

The study was conducted to test the postulate of four-stage loyalty model through the concept of destination image to represent cognitive component, satisfaction for affective aspect, and intention loyalty as the representative of conative component. The sample in this research was 102 tourists who visited Tarakan City, Indonesia in November 2016. The structural equation model showed that destination image was satisfaction antecedent, and satisfaction was the antecedent of intention loyalty. The impact of destination image towards intention loyalty was fully mediated by satisfaction. Theoretically, this research result had the implication in developing loyalty theory, while the managerial implication was beneficial to increase visitors loyalty to Tarakan City as a tourism destination.

The main goal of the article is to analyze the role and influence of economic freedom on macroeconomic stability. For this purpose, the authors used the integrated index of economic freedom, calculated by the Heritage Foundation and Democracy Index. It is noted that this index indicator was calculated by the experts from the World Bank using the index of voice and accountability. In the paper, the authors used the multinational panel dataset for 11 countries of the EU for the purpose of checking the correlation between economic freedom, democracy and macroeconomic stability. It should be highlighted that the abovementioned 11 countries are related by the fluctuation of economic growth during the transformation process (1996–2016) from communist party to the democracy and political pluralism. In addition, the authors proposed to add the indicators of political stability and trade openness, which allowed to take into account implementation of flexible macroeconomic instruments, including monetary policy, which towards increasing the economic growth, employment and financial development of the countries. The findings are directed received using the regression equation with fixed and random effects showed the high level of correspondence of the model used with the original observations. Despite the chosen approach to estimate the macroeconomic stability, the findings showed that there is a positive and statistically significant impact of economic freedom and democracy on macroeconomic stability.

Studies on the development of critical thinking skills with specific curriculum materials and instructional methods are few and have been highly theoretical and far removed from practical concerns and applications. This paper contributes to the existing literature on critical thinking pedagogy by providing examples of written assignments that are designed using the 21st century Bloom’s taxonomy model to contribute to critical thinking development. The step-wise development of critical thinking skills approach is provided. The paper argues that both focus on real problems and issues and provision of clear unambiguous instructions are critical fundamentals of critical thinking skills development. The paper also illustrates how to develop critical thinking assignments by providing five examples of course assignments within business education.

The telecommunication industry has witnessed a tremendous growth in recent times in India. It has not only been limited to voice calls, but also integrated into every aspect of human life. This has resulted in the rapid rise of market players, offering innovative products and services. In this changing scenario, we have tried to design and check a model of various factors such as loyalty, satisfaction and switching barriers (customer relationship management, alternative attractiveness and switching cost) influencing consumer retention strategies in Indian telecom service industry.

A structured and undisguised questionnaire and a convenient sampling method have been used to collect the data from respondents from three most populous cities (Indore, Bhopal, and Ujjain) of Central India. Around 450 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 318 usable responses were received for final analysis. The instrument was checked for validity and reliability before the data was analyzed. The hypotheses were tested through Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) for direct effect, and Multiple Moderating Regression Analysis (MMRA) for moderating effect.

The results suggested that loyalty, satisfaction, switching barriers and customer relationship management are positively related and have a direct influence on consumer retention, but the relationship with alternative attractiveness has been found weak. Switching cost, as moderating variable, was found to be very effective and showed significant deviation in the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Advertising expands and improves sales channels, accelerates money turnover, thereby increasing overall effectiveness of functioning of national economy and its integration into the world economy in general. The analysis of the current trends and future prospects of management of the advertising market of Ukraine at the world level is carried out in the article. In particular, the analysis of the current structure of the world advertising market is made. The assessment of retrospective tendencies of development of the advertising and communication market of Ukraine is carried out. The identification of perspective volumes of the advertising market of Ukraine is made. The forecast of perspective volumes of the advertising market of Ukraine within the next three years is made. In general, the given research allows to allocate problems of the modern advertising market of Ukraine and offers the ways of improvement of the state advertising policy of Ukraine.

Sustainable economic growth and increase in the level of population wellbeing, the diminution of energy dependence of Ukraine from the neighboring countries can only be achieved through the use of different types of biofuels, the practice of which is confirmed by the experience of other countries. One of the most promising types of fuel is agricultural plants, or rather the waste that remains after harvesting. The purpose of this study is to assess the energy potential of agricultural plants in Ukraine on the example of the Lviv region with an idea that it might reduce the energy dependence of Ukraine on Russia and other countries and will become a basis for improving the national energy management system. Assessment of the energy potential of agricultural plants was carried out on the example of the Lviv region. This assessment is based on all three components of the energy potential of agricultural plants (both theoretically and technically feasible and economically justified).
According to the results of calculations, waste of wheat, other grain crops and rape has the largest energy potential. In particular, the energy potential of agricultural biomass of the Lviv region makes theoretically possible (maximum) 2.1 million tons of fuel equivalent, technically achievable 0.915 million tons of fuel equivalent (including losses), and economically expedient (optimal) 0.74 million tons of fuel equivalent. The evidence revealed in the study confirmed the fact that Ukraine has sufficient energy potential use of agricultural crops. All these measures correspond to the state strategy for the development of the energy potential of Ukraine. Considerable attention is paid to the need to form an optimal management system for the use of energy potential of agricultural plants in Ukraine. Given the significant economic efficiency of agricultural wastes, the expediency of its use as biofuels has been substantiated. The most effective in energy terms are grain crops (wheat, barley), which should be preferred in the process of biomass creation.

The Ukrainian energy market has been analyzed region-wise in terms of consumption of fuel and energy resources by household sector. Critical aspects of improving energy security have been reflected in the context of the use of energy resources. The principal directions of the socially responsible market economy system have been offered in the light of the country’s economic security in terms of overcoming “fuel poverty”. Cognitive features of the “fuel poverty” phenomenon have been defined. Mathematical modeling of the “fuel poverty” index has been carried out using the following approaches: “after fuel cost poverty”; energy expenditure above 10% of disposable income; the Low Income – High Costs, where households with relatively high energy costs and low income are emphasized. A model of the final calculation of household energy costs has been developed for the purpose of optimal management. The graphical abstract of the obtained “fuel poverty” index solutions has been presented, with the upper left corner – low income – high costs – serving as a critical zone. The block diagram of improving the socially responsible market economy system in the light of overcoming “fuel poverty” has been offered.

The issue of reforming the institute of state (public) procurement is one of the key directions of the modernization of the administrative sector of our state. Increasing the efficiency of this institute should be recognized as one of the conditions for ensuring stable economic growth. In this regard, issues relating to the assessment of the efficiency of the use of public funds are of particular interest. The indicators of the efficiency of the activity of the public procurement sector in Ukraine in the context of the introduction of the “ProZorro” electronic procurement system are calculated and analyzed. The existing works of the individual scientists in the direction of developing indicators of the efficiency that can be used to evaluate the results of the operation of the procurement logistics system in the public sector in Ukraine are generalized. As a result, approaches have been identified that can be used to determine the effectiveness of the participation of customers, private sector representatives and the system of electronic public procurement in general. On the basis of retrospective data of past years and the first half of the current year, a number of estimates of absolute and relative savings, as well as indicators of the effectiveness of the open bidding in the public sector of Ukraine have been identified. The dynamics of these indicators before and after the introduction of the “ProZorro” electronic procurement system was analyzed. The analysis shows that the first results of the functioning of the “ProZorro” system demonstrate the existence of negative trend of competition and reduction in the amount of savings in public funds. Ensuring high efficiency and competitiveness, integrity and transparency of the procurement process are the main tasks of the Ukrainian government in the field of public procurement. The authors argue that the introduction of the “ProZorro” system can help to solve them successfully, and the application of the analytics module enables to calculate the savings from the use of this system.

The conducted research reveals the role of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine in world production and export of steel. Its development indicates inertia and is in a pre-crisis condition. But, at the same time, there are prospects for the development of the enterprises of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine, which appears to be the purpose of the study along with an assessment of the dynamics of the development of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine regarding the internal and external factors of influence on it. Therefore, the object of the research is the current state of development of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine. For this purpose, the main methods of steel processing and fuel consumption for their melting are determined, which, thus, emphasizes the extraordinary energy intensity and cost structure of steel production in Ukraine due to 21.4% of processing in open-hearth furnaces. As a result, on the basis of the comparative analysis, the structure of production was characterized by the degree of steel processing, which indicated the inertia of the development of the industry on the principle of total exploitation of available resources. Through systematic structural analysis, the types of economic activity, the results of the enterprises, which were taken into account in the research of the development of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine and identified their implementation under the imperative incremental destructive factors of the internal and external environment, were identified. With the help of empirical research, in the institutional environment instability of normative legal provision, regulatory restrictions on FDI inflow and investment protectionism in metallurgy were revealed. The critical dependence of the industry on demand in foreign markets based on the export orientation of raw materials is established. For example, it has been determined that at the expense of products below the average technological capacity, almost a quarter of the export basket of Ukraine was formed. It was found that metallurgical production is a zone of interests of powerful industrial and banking private business groups of residents and non-residents. The absence of a state-owned joint-stock company or a holding company in Ukraine with a main type of activity in the investigated industries is emphasized.

Young consumer is a noteworthy consumer for a company as a sustainable marketing target. The business sector needs to consider green packaging as one of the company’s competitive strategies. The existence of environmental problem phenomenon in recent years has increased the awareness of various parties to the importance of environmental sustainability. Indonesia as one of emerging markets, both for green product and green packaged product, also needs to take part in the issue.

Using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this research aimed to simultaneously examine several influencing factors for young consumer’s purchase intention toward green packaging. Two hundred seventy-six empirical data were obtained through questionnaires given to undergraduate students. The analysis, using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), showed that attitude, personal norm, Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC), and willingness to pay significantly influenced the purchase intention. Furthermore, the level of environmental concern also determined the purchase intention through attitude.

The relevance of the study is caused by the fact that the non-financial reporting of business entities and the intensification of process of globalization are becoming nowadays an important source of information for making managerial decisions by different groups of stakeholders. The process of its implementation, definition of types, forms and content remains legally unregulated for Ukraine. A process of its audit requires a systemic solution and an appropriate independent audit opinion.
The purpose of the article is to summarize the European and international experience in the field of regulation of drawing up and publication of non-financial reporting, to work out problems of its content definition and to provide proposals for the regulation of these issues in Ukraine, to define the recommended groups of indicators, and to ground the main directions and tasks of their audit.
It is proposed to create a general concept for the implementation and development of non-financial reporting in Ukraine, which may require the adoption of the future Law of Ukraine “On Public Non-Financial Reporting”, national standards for its preparation, and relevant methodological recommendations for their implementation. The directions of development of theoretical, organizational and methodical issues of audit of non-financial reporting are provided.
A number of valid normative acts of the Audit Chamber of Ukraine in terms of the regulation of audit of non-financial reporting and improvement of professional qualifications of specialists require clarification and accompaniments.

This research aims to obtain empirical evidence on the effect of company characteritics on risk management disclosure (RMD) from the annual reports of manufacturing companies. The sample consists of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) during the period 2010–2012. The total sample included 72 companies with three years observation and the examined firms reached 216. Results indicate that independent variables (firm size, profitability, leverage, public ownership, management ownership, and business complexity) have a significant effect on RMD. However, the hypotheses test with partial t-test indicate different results. Firm size (FS) and management ownership (MO) have significant effects, whereas leverage (LEV) has a negative and significant effect on RMD. Other variables, namely profitability (PRO), public ownership (PO), and business complexity (BC), have no significant effect on RMD.

Activity of business entities requires a constant increase in the level of their economic potential and the level of competitiveness of the products on the market. This task can be fulfilled provided the concept of constant economic growth is formed in the activity of enterprises, which can be implemented through the management of changes in the economic activity of enterprises. One of the components is the marketing activity, which plays one of the leading roles in shaping the sustainable development of an industrial enterprise when carrying out transformational changes in its activity. These changes, which are the re-engineering of business processes, help the company management adapt to the changing market (marketing) environment and optimize the internal business processes. The relevance of the research is undeniable. The article presents the main directions of transition to the effective marketing activity in the period of re-engineering of industrial enterprises’ business processes based on the analysis of the main trends of marketing and innovation activities of economic entities from different countries. The authors developed the indices that characterize the marketing potential of the company during the business processes’ re-engineering. They proposed to use an integral index of the company’s marketing potential during radical transformations and to take effective management decisions based on the prevailing range of its criteria values when carrying out an economic estimation of the company’s marketing potential in the period of business processes’ re-engineering. The results obtained from the calculations demonstrate the final estimation of the industrial enterprise’s marketing potential during the business processes’ re-engineering, which allows the top management of the industrial company to determine the level of performance of the company marketing activity and make sound managerial decisions for its further development.

Environmental issues are a priority, since global environmental problem has become perceived as a threat to humanity’s existence. The necessity and timeliness of conceptual marketing approaches revision are dictated by the formation of new economy sector of ecological goods and services, and the environmentally responsible marketing concept is being formed. The purpose of the work is to substantiate the environmental factor influence on consumer behavior motives and formation of consumer demand for environmental products within the frame of environmentally responsible marketing. Changes in the external marketing environmentlead to changes in the internal environment of the market entity, causing its environmental development. The recorded tendencies and changes in the marketing environment form the marketing ecological imperative, which takes into account the environmental factor in marketing activity of the market player. The research allows to determine the position of ecologically responsible marketing as a basic marketing concept that defines the philosophy and technology of marketing management by socio-economic systems regardless the sphere of the market entity activity in conditions of ecological imperative. The analysis shows that the modern Ukrainian society began to strive not only to purchase and consume desired products, but also to improve and to preserve the ecological situation. In a market environment, the specific marketing activity feature, which changes under the influence of the factor of ecological situation quality deterioration, adds new tasks, concomitant to main classical. The development of the enterprise environmental management system will promote the implementation of environment-oriented goals: formalization of the environmental products concept, environmental products market development, certification programs development, preservation of the environment quality, formation of ecologically oriented consciousness of the society. Considering the understanding of the needs, the motivational aspects of ecologically oriented consumer behavior in the market are stated in the form of the system based on the need for the security. Through the development of eco-responsible marketing tools and their step-by-step introduction into enterprise activity, it becomes possible to develop the ecological products market through the implementation of proactive environmental activity and satisfaction of individual consumer demand.

South African universities have embraced a drive to internationalize in view of globalization. One of the widely adopted measures towards internationalization has been the recruitment of international postgraduate scholars. The rationale is to draw diverse knowledge and expertise from the international students. However, the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Westville campus has not managed to attract a significant number of international scholars. The trend suggests that the university is unable to meet the expectations of international postgraduate students with regards to service delivery. The suggestion is premised on the argument that the previous and current international postgraduate students have not been satisfied with the service quality to stimulate other foreign postgraduate student enrolments through positive word of mouth. The main objective of the study was to confirm the assertions while exposing the gaps between their expectations and perceptions of service delivery at the university. The SERVQUAL model was used to guide the assessment of service quality among the research participants. The study adopted quantitative methodologies and data was drawn from international postgraduate students who were enrolled at the institution during the academic year 2016. The findings revealed that the international postgraduate students were dissatisfied with the levels of service at the university. Specifically, the study exposed gaps across all the five dimensions of service quality, namely reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. It was concluded that the management at the university should institute deliberate measures to improve service quality, especially towards international postgraduate students.

The objective of study was to assess and evaluate factors that affect entrepreneurial activities carried out by formal and informal migrant entrepreneurs from Ethiopia who conduct business operations in the nine provinces of South Africa. The study was descriptive and exploratory in nature. The design of the study was descriptive and cross-sectional. Data were collected from a stratified random sample of 3,045 migrant entrepreneurs from Ethiopia who conduct business in the nine provinces of South Africa. Stratified random sampling was used for the selection of eligible entrepreneurs. The study found that about 76% of businesses operated by migrant entrepreneurs from Ethiopia were profitable, whereas the remaining 24% of businesses were not profitable. About 32% of entrepreneurs were attracted to South Africa due to better infrastructural facilities. About 25% of entrepreneurs were attracted to South Africa due to better socioeconomic conditions. About 78% of migrant entrepreneurs had conducted business in South Africa for five years or more at the time of data collection. About 34% of businesses paid tax to the South African Revenue Service (SARS) on a regular basis. About 38% of businesses employed at least one South African in their businesses. About 85% of entrepreneurs stated that they had good working relationships with members of the various local communities in South Africa.