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This paper examines the issues of why; even in the light of reductions in tariff and non-tariff barriers in many African countries in recent times, government policies, including restrictive trade and poor customs regulations and administration––issues of trade facilitation––still continue to discourage exporting. A panel data analysis was undertaken to consider a variety of indicators of trade facilitation and test their relative efficacy on trade flows in a multi-country framework. Time series data on 20 selected African countries were pooled in this regard. Our conclusions are that policy-regime improvements and conscious efforts at removing all forms of constraints to the free flow of goods– –reducing trade and customs regulations––from current levels, could have a significant impact on trade expansion in Africa.

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Using mainly archival data, this paper examines the nature and causes of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) to China and theorizes it with inductive arguments. It proceeds as follows. After a brief introduction on China’s robustness in the global investment market, it introduces the position of Japan as investor in this country, and proceeds with an examination of the major theories of FDI. It then examines the underlying causes of Japanese FDI to China in view of those theories. The paper concludes that, in addition to many investment-alluring incentives, most prominently China over time has infused, fostered, created, and nurtured numerous competitive advantages (pull-factors) within its investment proliferating environment, which ultimately ushered FDI from Japan to it. Domestic factors as well as global investment competitors drive (push-factors) toward China further induced Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) to boost investment into China.

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Using the organismic dialectical metatheory and the empirical research approach, this study systemically explores the relationship between creative situations and creative behavior. The study finds that the opinion proposed by organismic dialectical metatheory, that needs and motivation mediate the situation and the behavior, is true. Also, support from leaders and the richness of resources are primary components of creative situations. Furthermore, the satisfaction of self-determination and competence is at the core of creative activity; enjoyment is the direct cause for creative behavior, and pursuit of challenges is the most important indirect cause.

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Business excellence is important in terms of encouraging successful quality implementations, disseminating the result of such implementations to society, making quality culture widespread, creating a basis for comparison of quality implementations, and directing the quality implementer to continuous improvement. Excellence models affect performance and help organizations achieve organizational excellence. Furthermore, employee satisfaction is another concern of organizational excellence. The measurement of job satisfaction has become an important issue in TQM. In this respect, the extent to which employees are satisfied with what they are responsible for may directly influence the level of customer satisfaction with their services and products. The main purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between business excellence and job satisfaction. In order to reach this goal, a survey that contains Job Descriptive Index with 5 factors and EFQM Criteria with 6 factors is applied to different nursing departments of two research hospitals. Both hospitals are in the business excellence process. Data obtained in the study has been analyzed at the base of multivariate data analysis and the results show that the canonical correlation between job satisfaction and business excellence model is significant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also discussed in the paper.

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Changes in China’s Balance of Payment (BOP) reveal that integration between China and the outside world is much closer. On the basis of these BOP changes, this paper examines Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) in China because of their importance in economic growth. A number of important issues that may underlay China’s economy imbalance are discussed, and it is suggested that current account surpluses and FDI remain important contributors to the foreign exchange reserve accumulation. Using empirical methodology analysis, the relationships and interactions between FDI, REER and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in China in the long-run is shown, which yield additional information about implications for the behaviors of REER and FDI in the Chinese economy.