The emerging trend for agricultural sector in the global market creates opportunities for smallholder farmers in the developing countries to benefit from such opportunities by linking their activities to value chains through vertical and horizontal linkages. Extension workers are poorly trained with the knowledge and skills of value chain to perform their pivotal roles in full since input provision until the consumption. Upgrading the technical and professional skills of development agents with respect to the value chain is very important; and in turn calls for academia mainly universities to come up with custom-made programs that address the specific needs of this vital group of agricultural change drivers. This paper was intended to conduct a comprehensive assessment perspectives whether value chain is the missing component in Ethiopian agricultural extension strategy and as whether there is or not an in turn need from the important employers and stakeholders to the value chain oriented extension packages in Ethiopian agricultural development strategies. From among the regions in Ethiopia, two regions, South nation nationalities and peoples of regional state (SNNPR) and Oromia regional state were selected randomly. Important regional and zonal offices; office of agriculture and natural resource and/or office of livestock and fishery resource were assessed. The result of the study revealed that post-production problems like information/communication gap to plan on their product, lack of value addition and product processing, post-harvest handling and management problem, and market related problems were the main missing areas where extension services are not packaged for; and are the reasons for smallholder farmers behind generating low benefit from the agricultural enterprises. It is finally recommended that upgrading of development agents with the knowledge and skills of value chain oriented agricultural extension services as one of the way of solving the post-production problems of agriculture sectors in Ethiopia. Revisiting the current agricultural extension strategy and then reorient the extension professionals to address the post-harvest, value addition and market linkage extension gaps is,therefore, the inevitable way forwards. Thus, it is of paramount significant importance to prepare a full-fledged extension strategy considering the demand of agricultural development in line with the future direction of the agricultural extension services.

During the past century, social policies and programs for Nigerian children, youth, and families have undergone frequent shifts in philosophy and direction. Many policy frameworks, such as selective legibility universal prevention, rehabilitation, and punishment, have contributed to the conceptual bases for services, programs, and interventions designed for young people. However, the most consistent characteristic of Nigerian social policy for children and families may be the sheer inconsistency of efforts aimed at helping the nation’s most vulnerable populations. Recent advances in understanding the developmental processes associated with the onset and persistence of childhood and adolescent problems warrant new thinking about policies and programs., we have learned more about why some children and adolescents develop social and health problems, and in the case of such problems as sexually transmitted infections, drug use, and delinquency why some youths make choices that lead to poor outcomes at home and in school and the community. Unfortunately, this knowledge is not yet systematically applied to policy or program design, which results in poorly specified, inadequately integrated, and wastefully duplicated services for children and families. The motivation for this volume comes from the growing recognition that knowledge gained from understanding the developmental trajectories of children who experience social and health problems must be used to craft more effective policies and programs.

The subject matter of this paper is the analysis and evaluation of the business and financial performance of the Kier Group Plc over the three year period 2012–2014. The company is analysed against the comparator undertaking Balfour Beatty Plc and the average numbers of the UK and international construction industry. The financial analysis is performed over the range of financial ratios commonly applied in undergraduate and graduate business studies. For the purposes of the business analysis, the SWOT Model and the PESTEL Framework are used. The research reveals that due to diversified divisions and a high market share the Kier Group Plc is able to generate growing revenues, albeit at the high administrative costs and with an extending operating cycle. Further, revenue growth is not accompanied by improved liquidity. The growing social diversification among residential customers, the steady technological change and the increasing demand for sustainable construction place additional challenges to the Group. The results obtained are of interest for the construction industry researchers, financial analysts and financial and business analysis students.

Potato is number one non-grain food commodity of the world. Even though, Ethiopia has favorable ecology, the production of potato is characterized by poor seed quality, low skills of farmers, diseases, high post-harvest losses and poor organization along chain. The study is aimed to identify potato value chain actors and their roles and analyze marketing margins for actor. For this study 136 potato producers were randomly selected, 5wholesalers, 8collectors, 12 retailers and 6 small scale processors were purposively selected. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data, chain mapping was implemented to identify actors and their supply linkage. Margin analysis was used to estimate value gained by each actors involved in potato value chain. The identified actors were input suppliers, producers, wholesalers, retailers, small scale processors and consumers. Supporting actors were office of agriculture, irrigation, micro finance, cooperatives, trade and market development, NGOs and bank. The margin analysis revealed that 65.01%, 12.29%, 9.78%, 8.27%, 3.27% share of margin goes to small scale potato processors, potato producers, retailers, wholesalers and collectors respectively. The major constraints were high price of seed, poor infrastructure, interferences of brokers, low storage facilities, weak linkage, disease and pests. The opportunities were suitable agro-ecology and government support. Strengthening the linkage among actors, providing training on storage construction and disease control, improving bargaining power of producers and initiate small scale processors were recommended to improve potato value chain.

The Syrian civil war started in March 2011 and resulted in mass migration out of Syria into the neighbouring countries. Turkey has received the greatest number of refugees from Syria. As the Syrian conflict intensified and lengthened, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey increased and the Syrian population started to reside in the neighbouring provinces and started to have important effects on the local economy. This paper examines the impact of Syrian refugees on the total gross domestic product and the unemployment rate in Turkey from 2011-2017. The results showed that the Syrian refugees has a strong positive impact on the unemployment rate in Turkey and a weak negative impact on the GDP of Turkey. For instance, the unemployment rate had been increased not only because of the flew of the Syrian refugees but also the Turkish employers were choosing the Syrian workers instead of the Turkish once since it is cheaper labour cost and there was no need to make any insurance for them. However, there was no enough data regarding the informal employment of the Syrian refugees. On the other hand, the impact on GDP can’t be measured recently because there is a lack of time and further years needed to get an accurate result.

Attheir creation, the rating agencies were like the news agencies because they published newsletters and were paying by contributions subscribers. That method of remuneration then evolved, and these are the debtors who have paid the agencies. Meanwhile, rating methods have gradually evolved to take into account the use of increasingly important to companies called sophisticated financial products such as structured products. Although the method of compensation has evolved, the activity of agencies has not changed and their responsibilities have remained for a long timethose news agencies, that is to say protected by freedom of expression. Thus, for years, they have enjoyed a special status allowing them to express opinions without any legal constraint weighs on them. Indeed, unlike, for example, an auditor who certified the accounts and give "reasonable assurance" of their quality based on professional standards of practice; no methodology stress weighs on agencies. However, their responsibilities have been initiated for the first time in the history of the rating, after the crisiss structured products. We see in this article how the agencies evaluate the risk of industrial and commercial companies (corporate) and financial institutions, as well as before ages and limitations of the current methodology used by credit rating agencies.

The main objective of this study was to establish the effect of Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) on a firm’s competitive advantage in the IT industry. A descriptive research approach was adopted with a target population comprising of all employees atHewlett Packard Company (HP) in Nairobi, Kenya.Horizontal mergers were found to be the most common types of mergers. These mergers weremainly driven by external economies of scale, market power, combined complimentary resources and customer service quality. The findings also established that the major elements of competitive advantage were volume of transactions and markets share. External economies of scale, market power and combined complimentary resources contributed positively to competitive advantage while surplus funds and idle resources did not drive competitive advantage. Based on the study,researchers recommended that decisions on M&A should be based on first understanding which facets of the business will be driven by the M&A in order to derive a competitive advantage. In addition, there is need for companies to do progress evaluation of the M&A specifically to review its impact on competitive advantage.

This study examined the nature of the relationship between the macroeconomic variables and share prices using the Nairobi Securities Exchange All Share Index (NASI). The study used four macroeconomic variables namely; interest rate, inflation, exchange rate and gross domestic product (GDP) for the period January 2008 to December 2014. The study found a positive relationship between GDP and NSE share prices. Exchange rate was found to have an insignificant positive relationship with share prices while interest rates had negative relationship with share prices. Inflation rate was found to have significant negative relationship with share prices due to its effect on purchasing power. The study concluded that the four macroeconomic variables combined had strong positive and significant relationship with share prices. The macroeconomic variables accounted for 86.97% of changes in share prices. The study recommended that capital markets regulators and other government regulatory bodies should promote a stable macroeconomic environment in the country for optimal performance of shares and stock market at large.

Wheat is an important industrial and food grain, which ranks second among the most important cereal crops in the world after rice, and traded internationally. The area coverage, production, and productivity of wheat is increasing from time to time steadily, and fluctuating as a result of population growth, changing food preferences and a strong urbanization trend. The main market participants of wheat are producers, processor, assembler, wholesaler, retailers, and consumers, financial institutions, governments, NGO. The market concentration ratio of wheat in Ethiopia is about 31.67%, which indicates the market structure is weakly competitive. Absence of license, lack of enough working capital, higher completion and lack of trading experience are the main barriers of entry in wheat market. The price of wheat produce in the market is determined by the farmer, market through negotiation, and traders. Traders used fair scale-weighing (81.2%), giving better price relative to others (8.24%), giving credit (7.06 %), and visiting their suppliers (3.53%) as a strategy to attract their suppliers. The average marketing cost, profit margin, TGMM and GMM of wheat is 162birr, 177.5 birr/quintal, 30.32% and 14.63% respectively. Shortage of capital, lack of credit access, lack of market information, involvement of cooperatives, presence of unlicensed traders, inadequate market infrastructure higher transportation cost are the main challenges of wheat market. Therefore, strengthening the licensed traders, building market infrastructure and improving access to wheat market information and credit for wheat market participants should be recommended.

Brazil is among the most entrepreneurial countries in the world and there are several programs and institutions that encourage entrepreneurship in the population. Due to the relevance of the theme, this study analyzed the incentive to entrepreneurship in higher education in the city of Ribeirão Preto, which is an educational center. This study was carried out with the investigation of undergraduate courses in the area of social sciences applied that have methodologies that encourage entrepreneurship and in the courses that have this discipline in its curricular matrix was examined how this theme was being approached in the classes. In these institutions, interviews were conducted with the coordinators of the courses, teachers and students to know the perception and effectiveness of the methodologies used, through an exploratory case study with qualitative quantitative analysis. To analyze the entrepreneurial profile of the students and the skills involved in this function, validated instruments were used to relate the results obtained. The study concluded that there are few courses that foster entrepreneurial culture, and the subject is generally approached conceptually, evidencing a deficiency in the formation of new entrepreneurs. However, one of the institutions showed in the results that its methodologies are effective and positively perceived by students.

This study is a systematic reviews research planned to achieve an in-depth understanding for the basic concept of service marketing. The world economy nowadays is increasingly characterized as a service economy. Developing nations have invariably experienced a shift from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector as the main stay of the economy. Particularly, in Jordan, telecommunications service provision in Jordan is considered a key component in the services-oriented economy (Central Bank of Jordan, 2017) which employs more than two-thirds of the country’s labor force. Hence, this research represents a contribution for service marketing literature by highlighting the challenges that may face marketers within tech-based services marketing.