阿拉伯商业与管理评论杂志

Ramadan not only has a religious value to the community but also adds value to the economy through formal, structured as well as informal unstructured employment. As during Ramadan, food consumption patterns change as well as people's tendency to buy religious items also heightens, it is an important month for the street vendors and impacts their socio-economic position for the year. This paper deals with gaining insight on social orientation, business modality, perception on the effect of festivals and the real effect of Ramadan and pandemic on the revenue and cost. The evidence suggests that despite the presence of other religious and non-religious festivals, Ramadan remains the most critical time for street vendors to generate additional revenue. However, the effect is greater for carts selling processed foods and religious items. The selling of religious items usually face a steep downhill during non-Ramadan times which makes it unsustainable throughout the year. However, although the pandemic hit the regular review of the street vendor, during Ramadan times they didn’t have to lower the prices of items being sold due to the persistent demand.

The study seeks to examine the impact of microfinance institution on economic growth using Egypt as a case study. The study employs the multiple regression analysis given the data is cross-sectional and time series in nature. Secondary data of all commercial banks were extracted from the Central Bank of Egypt and Annual Reports. Data used in this model are time series secondary data for the period 2003 to 2018.The findings of the study show that microfinance loans have a significant positive impact on the short run economic performance in Egypt. Microfinance loans enhanced consumption per capita in short-run with an impressive coefficient, although these banks’ loans do not have a significant impact on economic growth in the long-run. Microfinance investment however, has a significant impact on economic performance in Egypt in the long-run. Although microfinance loans are relevant in growth process in Egypt, other measures such as boosting agricultural production and taking appropriate steps to enhance per capita income are equally important in boosting the Egyptian economic growth. It was recommended that microfinance institutions should loan to improve consumption in the short- run, while the long-run goal should be to improve investment and other capital accumulation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practical outcomes of social welfare employees in the territory of the Republic of Serbia when it comes to skills of cultural competence, as well as to analyze the capacities of organizations/institutions in this domain. That is, the main focus of the paper is the effort to better understand the complexity of challenges and barriers faced by employees in social welfare in relation to the knowledge and skills acquired so far through formal and informal forms of professional development. In the first part of the paper, a brief overview of the importance of cultural competence skills is presented, as well as the potential challenges in social welfare in that domain. The main part of the paper is focused on the interpretation of research results and discussion, pointing to the need to build cultural competence when it comes to professionals, but also their organizations/institutions. Finally, the main contribution of this paper is to point out the importance of permanent education and professional development of professionals in the field of cultural competence, which has as its ultimate goal services that are in line with the best interests of users and their real needs