Business Excellence and Management

5-18

Authors: Bianca AVRAM POP, Simona SABOU

The aim of this study is to identify the role agriculture plays in the economic development of Romania. Consequently, we studied the specialized literature, which analyzes the relationship between agriculture and the economic development, as well as the role of agriculture in reducing poverty. In order to study the impact on Romanian economy of the shift from a centralized economy to the market economy, we use four variables of which the independent one is represented by the added value of agriculture, and the other three variables are dependent, they only slightly characterize Romanian economy: the GDP/capita, inflation consumer prices and external debt stocks. Conclusions show that the increase of the added value in agriculture positively influences the evolution of the GDP/capita. At the same time, it also exercises a major influence on inflation, thus the positive correlation highlights the fact that the annual percentage of the purchase price of a consumer basket will decrease when the internal crop is rich, and it will increase when agriculture production is unsatisfactory. It is interesting to notice that Romania’s external debt increases when the added value of agriculture records surges as compared to the previous years.

31-50

Authors: Solomon ARHIN

Provision of financial services and level of customer satisfaction are intricately intertwined, rather than separate concepts. Commercial banking in Ghana requires a lot of improvement as customers continuously err complaints about mediocre services received from different banking locations in the country. Most of the complaints are prevalent pertaining to the high cost of doing business with the financial institutions. Interest charges are very fundamental to any financial institutions and even from biblical perspectives in Matthew 25:14-27. This research measured the performance of three hundred and ninety (390) respondents who were asked to respond to questionnaire on provision of commercial banking services in Ghana and its associated profitability and risks. The respondents had diverse background comprising of sixty-eight (68) financial managers and Three-hundred and twenty-two (322) key customers who are patronizing different services from the commercial banks in Ghana. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents seem to be abreast with the banking operations in Ghana and receive average customer services. Better customer service provision in banks lead to reduction of banks risk while increasing profitability and liquidity. These findings will be relevant theoretically, practically and also assist policy formulators in making strategies about financial institutions. The research concludes that scale economies must be used in the banks to ensure efficient service provision .The study recommends strong policy formulations and implementation from the central authority for financial institutions so that satisfactory performance and service delivery can be used as yardstick to measure and monitor performances of banks and other financial institutions in the country on regular basis.