Business Excellence and Management

19-34

Authors: Simona – Cătălina ȘTEFAN, Andreea BREAZU

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic crisis presents unprecedented challenges and has profound implications for the way governments plan and manage their strategy for the development of the medical system, with increasing demand from patients. This phenomenon has led researchers to analyze more competitive management models for the development of organizations. Additionally, the emergence of the SARS-CoV2 virus has influenced the general outlook on how healthcare organizations have managed their resources and outlined sustainable development strategies. This article presents a bibliometric analysis, with the help of two datasets retrieved from Scopus, which aims to examine how literature reflects general competitiveness in the health system. Moreover, how literature reflect the global competitiveness of the healthcare environment during the pandemic period. Thus, in a first step, the data collection technique consisted of searching for the keywords 'competitiveness', 'competitive advantage', 'health system', 'health care' and their derivatives, while in the second step, the word 'COVID19' was added in the analysis together with its derivatives. The results indicate an upward trend in scientific research both for competitiveness at a general level and for the implications of the pandemic on the medical system’s competitiveness.

47-65

Authors: Steven Kayambazinthu MSOSA, Sarah RADEBE

South Africa is confronted with the problem of youth unemployment. Despite this challenge, young people have few options to stay relevant in the economy. While many young people consider starting a business, they face obstacles such as a lack of information, capital, networking, and mentorship. This makes it very difficult for young people, particularly university graduates, to pursue entrepreneurship as an alternative career. This study examined the antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions amongst higher education students in South Africa. A quantitative and descriptive research design was adopted using a positivist research philosophy. A self-administered online questionnaire was used to gather data. A total of 400 students were chosen as respondents using simple random sampling. The findings of this study show that entrepreneurial intention has a positive and significant relationship with subjective norms (β=0.619, t-value=8.197, p=0.050), perceived behavior control (β=0.171, t-value=1.969, p=0.050), personal attitude (β=0.137, t-value=1.967, p=0.050). In contrast, there was a negative and insignificant relationship between entrepreneurial intention and self-efficacy (β=-0.015, t-value=0.209, p=0.835). This research has contributed to the literature on entrepreneurship in higher education and the developing world. This study is also expected to aid scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in understanding the dynamics of entrepreneurial intentions amongst students in higher education institutions.

82-97

Authors: Adewumi Zaid ADEYEMI, Adesoji Aderemi OKE, Oluwatimileyin Esther ADENLE

Past research studies have established that corporate organizations are associated with certain characteristics which may have positive or negative impact on their performance. It is on this note that this research work aims to investigate impact of firm characteristics on performance of listed fast consumer movable goods companies in Nigeria from 2008 to 2019. Leverage, liquidity, operating expenses, growth rate, firm size and firm age are the variables used to capture firm characteristics. Return on shareholders’ funds used to capture performance of sampled companies. Secondary data collected from financial statements of sampled firms were used, while multiple regression analysis was engaged to analyze the data. Study’s results demonstrated that growth rate, firm size and firm age have positive and substantial influence, while liquidity had favorable but negligible influence on return on shareholders’ funds. Furthermore, leverage and operating expenses have negative impact on return on shareholders’ funds. The study recommends that sampled firms need to maintain the existing or further increase their liquidity, growth rate, firm size and firm age in order to sustain or increase their current return on shareholders’ funds.