Entrepreneurship reinforces the economic growth of a country. Therefore, most countries, especially developing ones, are striving to create new policies and implement actions in order to support entrepreneurial processes through the establishment of a business-friendly environment. However, there are still many obstacles facing entrepreneurs in these countries. The aim of this paper is to locate the most common barriers to entrepreneurial processes in Albania, Georgia, Morocco, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Data from officials in 149 companies were collected through questionnaire dissemination from October to December 2015. The company officials have been asked several questions, among which, to rate the obstacles listed, starting from the ones they perceive to be most restrictive for their businesses. Most of the companies examined were small and medium size companies, SMEs. Both a descriptive analysis and a comparative analysis of the data were applied, in order to check the accuracy of the hypothesis established. It was found that state policy towards SMEs and political instability/corruption are the most common obstacles to entrepreneurship in these developing countries. Also, tax policy was also considered as an obstacle to entrepreneurship.
This research article is aimed at comparing review reports, in which the identity of the reviewers is revealed to the authors of the papers, with those where the reviewers decided to remain anonymous. The review reports are gathered as part of the peer review process of the European Scientific Journal (ESJ). This journal maintains a single-blind peer review procedure and optional open review. Reviewers are familiar with the names of the Revealing Reviewers' Identities as Part of Open Peer Review
With their broad scope, high publishing volume, a peer review process based on the scientific soundness of the content, and an open access model, mega journals have become an important part of scholarly publishing.The main aim of this paper is to determine the most important factor that influenced researchers' decisions to submit their academic work to these type of journal. To this end, an online survey has been disseminated from November 2016 to August 2017, targeting the corresponding authors of the European Scientific Journal, ESJ. Data from 413 corresponding authors was collected.The focus was mainly on how they discover the journal and what led them to submit a paper to the journal. However, questions concerning their satisfaction with the peer review procedure were also part of the survey.The results have shown that a recommendation of a colleague is not only the main channel through which authors found out about the journal, but is also the major reason they decided to submit their paper to a mega-journal. Furthermore, the quality of the editorial board of the journal, the strong portfolio of papers and the open access concept are also significant factors in encouraging submission to a mega-journal. A majority of the respondents are satisfied with the communication and peer review procedure of the mega-journal, which might encourage new submissions in the future.
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