The impact of interest rate on the demand for credit in Ghana

This article investigates the impact of financial liberalization on the demand for credit in Ghana. It contributes by making suggestions pertaining to questions on the effectiveness of interest rate liberalization in driving private sector demand for credit both in the short and the long‐run, as well as the speed of adjustments to equilibrium after the implementation of the financial liberalization programme. The study results indicate that interest rate has no significant impact on the demand for credit both in the short‐run and long‐run. Moreover, inflation has a negative significant effect on the demand for credit in the short‐run. The results also suggest that about 66% of disequilibrium from the preceding year is corrected in the current year. However, these findings seem to indicates that the financial market in Ghana is not fully competitive. The oligopolistic and noncompetitive financial system may be attributable to the extreme minimum capital requirement and the emerging consolidation of commercial banks through government takeovers as well as the various credit rationing practices by banks aimed at reducing the risk of adverse selection and insolvency.     

Dark side of social media and academic performance of public sector schools students: Role of parental school support

Students are regularly engaged in several things at the same time during class and school time. They are using smartphones, tablets, laptops, and using social media on these devices while learning and attending class. However, there are some situations likely influenced by this, current study tests the influence of technostress, cyberbullying, and media multitasking in the context of students in technology‐saturated classrooms and how this is affecting their academic performance. This study further explored the buffering effects of parental school support on the relationship between technostress, cyberbullying, and student's performance. By using the person‐environment fit model, this study surveyed 248 public sector school students in two waves and examined the impact of these variables on student's academic performance. Results show that technostress, cyberbullying, and media multitasking have a negative impact on student performance, and school parental support moderates the negative relationship between technostress and student performance. Implications and contributions have also been discussed.     

What Works and Why? Lessons from Public Management Reform in Malaysia

This article examines the Malaysian experience with public management reform to verify arguments about various reform models. Drawing on empirical data, it investigates reforms that have worked and those that have had limited impacts on public service improvements. It identifies critical success factors that determine reform outcomes and concludes that for reforms to succeed a combined top–down and bottom–up approach is crucial. It argues that while diagnostic and problem-oriented reforms have a better chance of being successful, the value of best-practice reforms should not be discounted. The cumulative impact of such reforms can be significant, as the Malaysian case demonstrates.     

Implementing management tools in Turkish public hospitals: the impact of culture,politics and role status

The government of Turkey has attempted to substantially improve the management of its public hospitals. However, an analysis of the performance of the quality certified hospitals finds only minor improvements. This study seeks to explain these disappointing results by interviewing 46 hospital managers and employees about the successes and failures of the management reform effort. The interviews suggest that traditional Turkish organisational culture often hinders attempts to decrease hierarchy, but, more positively, it also encourages the use of frontline teams and group rewards. Moreover, Turkey's hybrid system of allowing public doctors to maintain private practices has provided doctors with both the resources and the incentives to fight management reform efforts. Finally, organisational decentralisation in Turkey has evoked fierce political opposition, ironically even from many pro‐modernising forces that fear it could increase the power of Islamic fundamentalists. Turkey's experience suggests a number of broader points about management reform in non‐western societies. It suggests that decentralisation can often impede, rather than strengthen the other aspects of management reform; that a hybrid market organisation is often harder to move toward market efficiencies than a purely governmental one; and that national cultures should help guide the order in which reform tools are implemented. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sudden death due to congenital pericardial defect: an autopsy case

Pericardial defects are rare in childhood and outcome is usually benign. Patients may be asymptomatic, but chest pain, emboli, arrhythmia, and sudden death have been described in the literature. We report the case of a 12-year-old boy who suddenly died after mild exercise. A left-sided pericardial defect with a diameter of 8 cm was detected on medico-legal autopsy.     

Administrative ethics and organizational learning in Kuwait and the united states: an empirical approach

This article explores how a sample of public agencies in Kuwait respond to ethics failure. The learning response is examined in detail, in order to understand how these agencies attempt to inquire into the organizational causes of ethics failures and implement organizational changes in response to the inquiry. This study builds upon a previous methodology for measuring the strength of the organizational learning response. The data from Kuwait is compared to an earlier, similar study of organizational ethics learning conducted in the United States. The sampled agencies devote only moderate efforts to learning from ethics failure.     

Economic evaluations vs. ideology: Diagnosing the sources of electoral change in Turkey, 2002–2011

Turkish elections reflect two competing influences. One concerns a long-term increasingly conservative ideological orientation; the other, more short-term pragmatic evaluations primarily on the economic policy front. This article uses three nationwide representative surveys from 2002, 2007 and 2011 to assess the relative merits of these competing hypotheses. The findings indicate that the critical election of 2002 is not shaped by economic performance evaluations but rather by indicators of ideology at large and left–right ideology in particular. The influence of ideology appears to rise from 2002 to 2007 and 2011. Economic performance evaluations increase in salience from 2002 to 2007 but seem to have somewhat lost their power for 2011. Implications of these findings for the Turkish party system and further research questions are discussed in the concluding section.