https://hdl.handle.net/10419/181883 2026-10-23T00:51:03Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/235646 Title: Innovation and employment in Sub-Saharan Africa Authors: Porath, Daniel; Nabachwa, Sarah; Agasha, Ester; Kijjambu, Nsambu Frederick Abstract: The debate on the role of innovation in employment growth is still inconclusive with the available literature focusing largely on industrialised economies. With this concern, we examine the potential of innovations in creating permanent full-time jobs in registered manufacturing companies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by fitting the model of Van Reenen (1997) to a two-period panel of 687 manufacturing firms. Our paper is the first to examine the impact of innovation on employment with a particular focus on SSA and the first to apply a panel data approach to a larger set of developing countries. Our findings indicate that in the past, innovative firms created more jobs compared to non-innovative ones when controlling for sales, wages, time-invariant firms and country specifics. Likening the results with emerging or developing economies outside of SSA, we find that the effect is considerably larger in SSA than in other regions. As a consequence, we recommend that SSA governments strengthen their technological adaption and adoption mechanisms in their manufacturing sectors to foster innovations. Nonetheless, as a way to discourage imitations (which may not be well aligned to the production demands in SSA), governments are encouraged to invest in sector-specific research and development. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/234475 Title: Influence of attitude on mobile banking acceptance and factors determining attitude of end-users in Ethiopia Authors: Kejela, A. B.; Porath, Daniel Abstract: As observed in many countries, mobile banking can revolutionize the practice of payment transactions. This is especially true for developing countries, where mobile banking has the potential to open non-cash banking services to the unbanked. However, unlike in countries like Kenya and Ghana, in Ethiopia, people still seem to be reluctant to use mobile banking, despite existing platforms availed by Ethiopian commercial banks like Dashen Bank and United Bank. In this paper, we explore the reasons for such reluctance with the help of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and modifications proposed by the literature that are particularly adequate for developing countries and mobile banking: the theory of trying (TT) and the concept of attitude strengths. In our sample of 394 mobile banking subscribers of Dashen Bank and United Bank, we find that a person's attitude is key for the acceptance of mobile banking and that attitude can be best explained by combining the elements of TT with the TAM. As a consequence, to foster mobile banking in Ethiopia, banks are advised to improve potential users' attitude, especially, taking into account the users' learning process and the systems' ease of use. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/187427 Title: Opening Argentina to public-private partnerships: Opportunities and risks for government entities and private investors Authors: Schüle, Ulrich; Liening-Ewert, F.; Schäffer, D. Abstract: Since the presidential elections in November 2015, Argentina's economic system has shifted back to a more neo-liberal paradigm. After more than 15 years of "neodesarrollismo" characterized by large scepticism towards inward FDI, the country opens up to international investment into infrastructure. With a new law adopted in early 2017, Argentina promotes public-private-partnership (PPP) projects. The expectations in Argentina vary from the belief that inward FDI will significantly contribute to the modernization of infrastructure to the fear that PPP projects will surrender the country to the interest of international capital. Even though the government believes that the ambitious National Infrastructure Plan with intended investment of US-$69bn in transport and energy infrastructure cannot be achieved without PPP projects, a critical analysis of the conditions under which PPP projects may be successfully applied in Argentina, is yet missing. In order to identify such conditions, a triangulation of three research methods was chosen: First, cases in Europe and Latin America were analysed in order to identify key success factors and arrangements correlated with project deficiencies. The focus was on contractual arrangements of risk distribution between stake holders and impediments to cash flow analysis. Second, documentary analysis was applied to examine the regulatory and institutional environment in Argentina. Third, in-depth interviews with 22 experts from Europe and Latin America were conducted. The experts represented the major stake holders in PPP projects: officials from government procurement, lawyers, bank representatives, and managers of project companies and major suppliers. As a result, conditions for a successful application of the PPP concept in Argentina's road and underground railway infrastructure as well as in integrated waste management systems were derived. The research was carried out in the framework of a bi-national Master program in International Business run by the Hochschule Mainz (Germany) and UCES, Buenos Aires. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/187428 Title: Tax planning in multinational corporations after the discussions referred to immorality of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS): With focus on Starbucks Corporation Authors: Robles, María Guadalupe Abstract: Tax planning is a crucial strategy that management can display in order to increase the net profit of the companies, by reducing tax expenses (Randeberg/Selvik, 2014). This is particularly significant for multinational corporations (MNCs), due to their possibility to take advantage of the different tax rates existing in the various countries where they operate (Krens, 2013). Even though most of the utilized practices were legal, they were increasingly discussed and accused of being immoral. Governments were urged by the public to take action. As a result, MNCs may possibly change their concept of tax planning and comportment. As one of the public actions, the "House of Commons Public Accounts Committee" In the United Kingdom suggested in 2012 that some large MNCs were using the tax legislation in an unintended way. Through tax planning, they managed to make huge profits and still pay very low amounts of taxes. From that moment on, base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) has been a controversial topic in the international taxation field all around the world. This paper uses the case of Starbucks corporation to analyze to which extent the utilization of aggressive tax planning strategies has decreased since the immorality of BEPS was stated by the "House of Commons Public Accounts Committee". To this end, the financial statements of the years 2010 to 2015 are analyzed for four companies of the Starbucks group. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z