Examining The Role of Religious Values in Mediating the Effect of Competitiveness and Brand Equity on SME Performance

Several studies attempted to investigate brand equity and retailer equity regarding their relationship with the purchase intentions of customers. However, there is little research that studied both concepts in one single study. The first aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between brand equity and purchase intentions of customers; retailer equity and purchase intentions of customers. The second aim is to test the moderating effects of perceived advertising spending and retailer equity regarding the impact of brand equity on purchase intentions. Data were collected from Turkish customers. Results indicated the positive effect of brand and retailer equity on purchase intentions where the effect of brand equity was stronger. There were no moderating effects of retailer equity and perceived advertising spending regarding the impact of brand equity on purchase intentions. The most important findings were that brand equity and retailer equity have considerable and positive effects on the purchase intentions of customers; however, they act independently from each other.

Who is more influenced by customer equity drivers? A moderator analysis in a professional soccer context

This study intends to determine the performance of businesses in small micro enterprises (MSEs) through the influence of the family environment and social media marketing through entrepreneurial orientation. This research was conducted using a quantitative approach that intends to explain the position of the variables studied as well as the relationship between one variable and another. The population of this study is the total number of micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar amounted to 9,958 businesses. The sample in this study used Slovin formula so that it was obtained into 99 respondents. The testing of analysis tools used is path analysis. The results of the study are variable family environment partially positively and significantly affect the orientation of entrepreneurship in micro and small businesses in the city. Social media marketing variables partially have a positive and significant effect on the orientation of entrepreneurship in micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar. Family environment variables partially have a positive and significant effect on the performance of micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar. Social media marketing variables partially affect the positive and significant performance of micro and small businesses in makassar city. The variable orientation of entrepreneurship partially positively and significantly affects the performance of micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar. Family Environment Variables partially have a positive and significant effect on the performance of micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar if through entrepreneurial orientation. And social media marketing variables partially have a positive and significant effect on the performance of micro and small businesses in the city of Makassar if through entrepreneurial orientation, which means the better social media marketing will improve business performance through entrepreneurial orientation. Keywords: Business Strategy, Business Performance, Entrepreneurial Orientation, Social Media Marketing, Family Environment

The study examines insecurity and business performance: the operation management challenge in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State using small business owners. The study used survey research design using structural questionnaire administered to the respondents who are small business owners in Ikot Ekpene. The study used regression analysis and correlation as statistical tools to analyse the data. The study found that there is a positive significant effect of insecurity on small business performance and also there is a significant relationship between operation management challenge and small business performance. The study suggested that Small business should try to adopt more principles of operation management in dealing with insecurity situation in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State. They should monitored external and internal business environment because it posse challenge to operation management among the owners of small business in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State.

With economic recession affecting the Africas biggest economy Nigeria, owing to the dwindling prices of crude oil which is the major source of foreign earnings for the economy, the only hope left to fast track the recovery of the Nigeria’s economy out of recession and create more jobs for the teaming populace becomes the small and medium scale enterprises. In doing this, there is need to describe the behavior of an average small business owner in Nigeria because a policy can be effected to influence the modus of these small businesses. Therefore, this study tried to describe the pattern of savings among small scale business owners in Nigeria, using Enugu metropolis as the case study. Enugu is the administrative headquarters of the South Eastern part of Nigeria; its inhabitants are majorly the Igbos, the most enterprising ethnic nationality in Nigeria. This study was also necessitated due to want of micro studies on savings behaviour of small business owners at state level in Nigeria. And it focused on small business owners’ savings by describing their pattern of savings. The study applied a descriptive research method to survey 200 randomly selected small business owners in the metropolis using a standardized questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. The result of the findings revealed that belonging to a microfinance group actually increases the rate of savings among the business owners. However, the motive of savings for most of the business owners is to acquire household appliances, not even for business growth. The study also discovered that the small scale business owners do not pay much attention to savings. Based on the findings, it is recommended among others that efforts should be made to re-orientate the business owners on the real motive of savings, that microfinance banks should try to reach out to the masses so as to attract much savings from them and that government need to do more to enlighten the citizens on the real motives of savings. It is expected that if these recommendations are taken into considerations, business owners will save more and invest more also.

The service sector contributes significantly to the Australian economy in terms of income, employment and business registrations. Businesses in the service sector provide more than three-quarters of the economy’s income and employ more than 87% of all Australian private sector employees. Further analysis suggests that small businesses make up a large part of the service sector. For example, small service sector businesses (SSSBs) account for $393 billion in income and employ 4,127,000 of the total service sector employment of 9,410,000. Considering the significance of SSSBs to the economy, it is important to investigate the factors that may influence their continued success. In Australia and throughout the world, research has highlighted that the tax compliance burden on small businesses can be explained by the extra time, the investment and the psychological costs. However, in terms of cash flow, research has suggested that Australian small business owners (SBOs) do not believe that taxation is particularly concerning. The findings emphasised that other business factors, including trading partners, competitive markets and cash flow management abilities were relevant to being able to pay the tax liability when it was due and payable. Although the previous wholesale sales tax (WST) did have some concerns for SBOs, more recent research into the goods and services tax (GST), also raised concerns about the ability to maintain a consistent cash flow as a result of complying with GST obligations. SBOs have been found to have difficulty implementing systematic cash flow management practices in their business and in the operation of computer accounting software (CAS) further than the basic recording of creditor and debtor invoicing. The research findings suggest that these limitations could create unfavourable consequences for small business survival, whereas recent research exploring taxation literacy of individuals found that participants involved in operating a small business have higher levels of tax knowledge than other participants. Broadly, comparison of these findings could suggest that although SBOs have higher levels of taxation literacy than individuals, their ability to use and understand CAS and to implement effective cash flow management strategies can cause negative consequences for business survival. Considering business success is heavily dependent on cash flow and taking the findings of the GST and tax literacy research into consideration, this research explores the impact of taxation and SBO literacy on cash flow. The tax systems explored in the research include the GST, fringe benefits tax (FBT), income tax, pay as you go (PAYG) withholding, and superannuation guarantee (SG). The scope of SBO literacy covered by this research includes two components of professional financial literacy: the ability to implement effective cash flow management practices and the use and understanding of financial statements, as well as the use and understanding of CAS, and the understanding of business taxation. This research adopts a mixed methods approach, combining three separate interrelated stages: a multiple case study and engagement of experts in the qualitative stage, and a large-scale survey for the quantitative stage. The qualitative findings were used as an informer for the creation of the large-scale survey instrument implemented in the quantitative phase. Overall, the research findings suggest that, regardless of the tax system, SBOs believe that taxation has minor consequences for small business cash flow. The research outcomes identified that some components of tax administration can create cash flow constraints including the requirement to comply with multiple tax systems, rather than being related to the obligation to pay the tax liability. In contrast, the results obtained when exploring the influence of SBO literacy on cash flow stability suggest that SBOs may not have a level of literacy that supports the management of cash flow. Although SBOs were found to have a mean literacy of 67% for the understanding of financial statements and 55% for CAS, the mean literacy for business taxation was below average with a result of 42%. When the literacy scores (LSs) were combined to create an overall literacy score (LS), the consequence of low business taxation meant that the overall LS was 50%. This could suggest that SBOs have an average level of literacy when implementing cash flow management strategies to support ongoing business success. To measure if SBO literacy has an impact on the financial performance of businesses, the research incorporated resource-based theory (RBT), which suggests that business with superior internal resources, when compared to their competitors, will achieve a higher level of financial performance. In terms of RBT, SBO literacy would be considered as an internal resource. In order to measure the relationship between internal resources and financial performance, the overall LS was compared to net income and annual revenue. The findings suggest that SBOs with higher overall LS will realise a level of financial performance superior to that of their competitors, indicating that SBO levels of literacy can have an impact on cash flow stability. SBOs’ confidence in understanding financial statements, CAS and business taxation was also explored, along with their confidence in implementing effective cash flow management practices. SBOs agree that they are confident in determining business profit and performance, in understanding GST, and knowing the functions and set-up of CAS. They were also confident in recording an accurate account of their debtors, creditors, revenue and expenses. SBOs had lower confidence in their understanding of income tax, PAYG withholding and SG, and in their ability to implement adequate cash flow management systems to support their business. In terms of cash forecasting and FBT, SBOs were to some extent uncertain about their ability to carry out cash forecasting activities and in their understanding of FBT obligations. When confidence was compared to literacy, the findings confirm that understanding of taxation, implementation of effective cash flow management systems and determination of profit and performance appear to be related to SBO literacy. SBO perception was examined in relation to the usefulness of financial statements and CAS for cash flow management, along with the impact to cash flow of currently enacted and proposed tax administration concepts. SBOs affirm that all financial statements and CAS are useful for cash flow management. However, it should be acknowledged that the balance of the bank account and the preparation of a cash budget was more highly regarded as useful when compared to actual financial statements. For business taxation, SBOs believe that the multitude of tax payments complied within each tax year can have unfavourable consequences to cash flow, as can paying tax liabilities after the due date. When perception was compared to SBO literacy, the results predominantly confirm that SBOs perception appears to be unrelated to SBO literacy. This study has several important implications. First, results of this research can make an important contribution to the existing body of knowledge relating to taxation literacy, tax and accounting education, managerial benefits from tax compliance and the cash flow and tax relationship. In terms of methodology, the strategies of inquiry implemented, contribute to the mixed methods design of taxation research. One original contribution to knowledge from the research includes the calculation of LSs for the understanding of financial statements and CAS and for the understanding of business taxation by service SBOs. The identification of literacy requirements in order to be considered as having adequate literacy creates a foundation for an SBO literacy framework to be further developed in the future.

Even though the vision 2030 framework recognizes the micro, small and medium enterprises’ sector as a key driver to achievement of middle income status in Kenya, their contribution to the achievement of this goal especially within Wajir County is dismal. In Wajir County, the 2016 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises report showed that many of the businesses in the county were stuck at the micro level where only 14 businesses had graduated to medium scaled businesses. It was also among the counties with the lowest change in number of employees when comparing the inception period and the survey period recording a change of 1.4%. The report showed that besides lack of adequate operating funds, limited knowledge and information and poor strategic management skills were the major constraints to the performance of these enterprises. Hence, the county government of Wajir had stepped in to address this challenge by setting up the Wajir County Revolving Fund whose main mandate was to promote the development in Wajir County by providing different kinds of support to these businesses. Nevertheless, studies assessing the impact of the strategic activities/practices under the fund on the performance of the businesses in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the fund were conspicuously missing. This study therefore sought to investigate the effect of the strategic revolving fund practices on the performance of the micro and small businesses in Wajir County. The specific focus was to establish the effect of stakeholder support, strategic training, knowledge transfer and strategic leadership development on the performance of micro and small retail enterprises in Wajir County. The study was guided by the resource based view theory, the theory of constraints, the social capital or social network theory and the balanced scorecard model. The study applied a descriptive survey research design. The study targeted the 855 beneficiaries (business groups and individual businesses) who had benefitted from the fund as at 2018. The study applied stratified random sampling in selecting the sample. The study used semi-structured questionnaires which were administered to the chairpersons for the group businesses and the owners for individual businesses. In analyzing the information from the open ended questions, themes emerging from the responses given were coded and simple summaries generated. The quantitative data analysis was aided by the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. Both descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out. A multiple linear regression model was used to show the relationship between strategic revolving fund practices and the performance of micro and small retail businesses in Wajir County. The study found that stakeholder support, strategic training, knowledge transfer and strategic leadership development had positive and significant effect on the performance of the micro and small businesses. The study noted that knowledge transfer had the largest effect on the performance of these businesses. The study concluded that the county revolving fund through various strategic practices/activities under taken under the fund had transformed the performance of micro and small businesses in Wajir County. Several recommendations were made among them the Wajir County government through the department of trade and cooperatives should identify, form networks and present proposals to various parties in diverse industries/sectors whose support can tremendously transform the county revolving fund initiative. The study also recommends that this department should develop a concrete strategy for planning how stakeholders attached to the fund and beneficiary businesses interact and communicate and hold regular consultative meeting with these parties to ensure that they are actively engaged in the activities of the beneficiaries. The study also recommended that training teams attached to the fund should ensure that the concepts of business strategy and other strategic business concepts are deeply enshrined in the training sessions offered to beneficiary businesses.

This study aims to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), network, and market orientation on the performance of small businesses (Small Business Performance) in West Java Province. Data was collected from 300 small business owners using a structured questionnaire. The results of multiple regression analysis show that the three independent variables have a significant positive effect on SBP. Market orientation has the strongest effect on SBP, followed by EO and network. The findings show that small business owners who have high levels of EO, network, and market orientation tend to perform better than those who have low levels of these characteristics. Small business owners in West Java Province can improve their performance by investing in developing EO capabilities, networks, and their market orientation. Future research can investigate the role of other variables, such as innovation, technology adoption, and strategic planning, on the performance of small businesses in West Java Province.

PurposeThe study aims to identify critical factors that influence football fans’ support of their favorite team by examining the impact of social responsibility, brand credibility and team brand equity on patronage intentions of professional football teams.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey collected data from 331 football fans of the Persian Gulf Premier League (PGPL) in Iran. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe findings revealed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is able to influence brand equity, brand credibility and patronage intentions. Also, brand equity and brand credibility were found to be positively related to patronage intentions. In addition to that, the findings show that brand equity and team credibility partially mediate the relationship between CSR and patronage intentions.Practical implicationsThe findings provide valuable insights to sports teams/club managers aiming to attract new fans and retain current ones by investing in CSR and enhancing brand credibility and equity. Strategies to integrate CSR into relationship marketing and brand management are outlined.Originality/valueThis study empirically highlights the critical role of adhering to CSR and the effects of brand credibility and equity in enhancing patronage intentions among football team fans.

This study aims to determine the effect of brand identity and brand equity, mediated by brand trust, on interest in choosing to study at the Medan LP3I Polytechnic. The type of research is quantitative associative research, and the data analysis techniques used are descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling analysis. The population and sample in this study were 180 high school alumni, with the sampling technique using accidental sampling. The results of this study state that brand identity has a positive and significant effect on interest in studying in college; brand equity has a positive and significant effect on interest in studying; brand trust has a positive and significant effect on interest in studying; brand trust is able to mediate positively and significantly between the effect of brand identity on interest in studying; and brand trust is able to mediate positively and significantly between the effect of brand equity on interest in studying. Keywords: Brand Identity, Brand Equity, Brand Trust, Interest in Studying.

This research aims to examine the influence of Market Orientation (OP) and Competitive Advantage (CA) on Business Performance (BP) through Batik Micro and Small Enterprises in Klampar Village. This research aims to help Micro and Small Batik Enterprises in Klampar Village apply research results to improve market orientation excellence and competitive advantage in all market conditions. The research method used is quantitative. This research was conducted on Batik Micro and Small Businesses in Klampar Village, Pamekasan Regency, with a research sample of 60 Micro and Small Business Owners using non-probability sampling techniques with a census (saturated) sampling approach. Data were analyzed using PLS (Partial Least Square). The results showed that four hypotheses were rejected, three had a significant impact, and hypothesis one had an insignificant impact.: Market Orientation has a significant effect on Competitive Advantage, Market Orientation has an insignificant effect on Business Performance, Competitive Advantage has a significant effect on the Performance of Micro and Small Batik Businesses, and Market Orientation has an indirect impact on Business Performance through Competitive Advantage.

Objectives: To explore performance influence factors in customer orientation, marketing activity, and store operation activity in small food business owners (excluding temporary food trucks and trolleys) among restaurants to seek support plans for stable business operation for small business owners. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The research subjects were business owners not received small business consulting support from the city of Seoul and data was collected through interviews during the management assessment process. Through SPSS 20.0 statistical program, frequency analysis and regression analysis was done, as well as empirical analysis for mediating effects. Findings: The study results showed that customer orientation and marketing activity had positive relations with store operation activity and store operation activity was also found to have influence on performance. It was found that store operation activity fully mediated customer orientation and marketing activity. Improvements/Applications: For positive performance in small business owners that operate restaurants, there is a viewpoint that store operation activity is very important which means that in the process of advising and consulting small business owners, there is need to suggest the importance and methods of store operation activity. Keywords: Customer Orientation, Marketing Activity, Small Business Owners, Store Operation Activity

We investigate how, as a form of social capital, connections between small business owners and their bankers affect the performance of small businesses in Canada through influencing capital structure efficiency. Owners of private Canadian small businesses were asked about their perceptions regarding bank connections, capital structure efficiency, and the performance of their small businesses. Using principal component analysis, we find that bank connections help small business owners improve capital structure efficiency. Connections are also associated with lower interest rates; however, we find that they improve performance primarily through their improvement of capital structure efficiency rather than reduced interest rates. These findings may prove practically useful for business owners, bankers, and other stakeholders by illustrating how effective policies that help link small business owners with bankers can improve firm performance through access to capital and professional advice.

This research investigates the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on small business performance in Malaysia with the mediating effect of entrepreneurial networking. The responses from 146 business owners in the manufacturing sector were analysed using SPSS and Smart Partial-Least Square (PLS). The results showed that being innovative and proactive don't have a big impact on performance, but being independent, taking risks, and being competitively aggressive do. Contrary to the widespread belief about innovation and firm performance, this study highlighted possible cultural or regional effects of entrepreneurial orientation. Although limited in sample size, the results encourage further inquiry into variations within different markets. This may offer some benefits in terms of Malaysia’s small business success for practitioners and scholars as well, which accentuates the importance of entrepreneurial networking. Additionally, the findings suggest that fostering a culture of autonomy and encouraging risk-taking behaviours could be more beneficial for small businesses in Malaysia than previously thought. This insight is particularly valuable for policymakers and business advisors who aim to tailor their support strategies to the unique entrepreneurial landscape of Malaysia, and it could also serve as a focus for future research. Future research could explore these dynamics in other sectors and regions to build a more comprehensive understanding of how entrepreneurial orientation impacts business performance globally.

This study aimed to analyze the effect of business motivation, business competition, and brand equity on business development using religiosity as a moderating variable. This study uses quantitative methods that aim to confirm the data obtained in the field with existing theories. The object of research used is the perpetrators of the Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Semarang Regency with a sample of 100 respondents. As for the data collection technique using the questionnaire method. The data obtained were then tested using the SPSS 16 application and used multiple linear regression models and tests moderated regression analysis (MRA). The results showed that; (1) business motivation has no significant positive effect, (2) business co petition has a significant positive effect, (3) brand equity has no significant positive effect, (4) religiosity can moderate the relationship between business motivation and business development, (5) religiosity cannot moderate the relationship between business competition and business development, (6) religiosity cannot moderate the relationship between brand equity and business development