No abstract

Entrepreneurship education has proliferated in universities following empirical studies linking it to entrepreneurship practice. The University of Malawi introduced entrepreneurship and innovation course to the bachelor of business administration programme and aims to make entrepreneurship a core module across academic programmes. This study assessed the effects of the entrepreneurship and innovation course on the entrepreneurial orientation of students thereby joining research into the investigation of the effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial orientation of students. A questionnaire was administered on a class of 58 students before commencement of the course and at the end of the course delivery to assess movement in students knowledge about entrepreneurship, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, subjective norms, self efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions that could be attributed to entrepreneurship education holding other factors constant over the period of study. The study found that entrepreneurship education positively effects students knowledge about entrepreneurship and their self efficacy; the self confidence in skills and competences that they can engage in entrepreneurship successfully. The study however found weak correlation between entrepreneurship education and students attitudes towards entrepreneurship and their entrepreneurial intentions and did not find any relationship between entrepreneurship education and students' subjective norms. Although attitudes, subjective norms and self efficacy are factors that influence intentions,which are an antecedent of behaviour within the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the study found that entrepreneurship education positively and significantly effects self efficacy only within this framework.

Automated teller machine banking has become a significant channel for banking products and services behind branch banking in Malawi and banks continue to invest in new and efficient technologies that can handle more functions that include cash depositing to attract more customers and achieve customer satisfaction with the banks. 353 respondents participated in this study to assess the impact of Automated teller machine banking performance on customer satisfaction with banks. The study adopted a performance only approach to measuring customer satisfaction. A self administered questionnaire containing multi-dimension and multi-attribute Likert measurement scales was used where respondents rated the performance only and their satisfaction with Automated teller machine banking and satisfaction with their respective banks. Using SPSS, regression analysis of satisfaction with Automated teller machine banking performance and satisfaction with the bank was conducted and the results indicate that performance of automated teller machine banking has 40 percent predictive capability of customer satisfaction with the bank. The study further found that despite influencing customer satisfaction with the bank, Automated teller machine banking has no capability to attract customers to switch banks. Therefore banks could improve their customer satisfaction ratings through improvements in Automated teller machine banking services but where the banks wish to attract customers from rivals, alternative marketing strategies should be sought.

Automated Teller Machine (ATM) banking is the second popular access channel to banking services behind branch banking in Malawi which offers competitive advantage in the homogenous market of retail banking products and services. It is important that banks achieve service quality and customer satisfaction to remain competitive through ATMs. The results are from 353 ATM card users where over half are satisfied with ATM services from their respective banks. All the ATM service attributes within the five service quality dimensions are important to ATM service users but performance is perceived good in ATM technology related attributes and poor in employee and management functionality related attributes. The results have further found that all service quality dimensions significantly correlate with customers satisfaction with ATM services and that reliability is the most important dimension followed by responsiveness, empathy, assurance and tangibles are the least important dimension agreeing with previous studies by Berry et al., Parasuraman et al. and Zeithmal et al. However, not all service quality attributes rated important by users contributed to their satisfaction. Therefore, the results designate that for banks to remain competitive through ATM banking efforts should be exerted in providing responsive ATM services. Further investment in newer ATM technologies may have marginal returns in creating competitive advantage since all banks are installing newer ATM technologies that enhance functionality and reliability of ATMs but differences are in the provision of responsive services that augment the ATM services provision.

There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the concept being studied for a long period of time. Definitions of the concept and constructs of study in the field have depended on the researcher's conceptualisation of what constitutes entrepreneurship and as a result there are variations in the study focus and measurement of entrepreneurship. An analysis of literature was therefore conducted to untangle the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective despite similar failed attempts by scholars in the past. The analysis showed that researchers and theorists trace entrepreneurship through the same early theorists that include Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Walker, von Thunen, Menger, von Mises, Schumpeter, Knight, Kirzner, Shane and Venkataraman etc. That means the background to the concept is the same but with varying interpretations. The underlying perspective however is that entrepreneurship is a human behaviour with identifiable driving motives and it requires definitive competencies; skills, knowledge and abilities. The behaviour is purposively exerted, involves various activities and judgmental decisions that are undertaken through a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities to create socioeconomic value under conditions of uncertainty. Although the socioeconomic value manifests in new products or services, new sources of supplies, new methods of production, new markets and/or new organisations, it is the new organisation that is commonly recognised as the output of the entrepreneurship process. This perspective narrows and limits the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship to new and small business ventures with implications on measurement of entrepreneurship. Our analysis shows that all variations of entrepreneurship such as sole entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, necessity motivated entrepreneurship, opportunity motivated entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship etc are connected within the broader view of the same concept, thereby presenting a common perspective of entrepreneurship.