Vol. 6 No. 1 (2023)

This study aims to explore the role of HR managers in Omani hospitals through a qualitative analysis. The research involved in-depth interviews with HR managers and healthcare professionals in various Omani hospitals. The study found that HR managers play a vital role in developing the skills and knowledge of healthcare professionals through training, mentoring, and providing opportunities for professional development. However, several challenges, such as a lack of resources and limited budgets, hinder the effective implementation of HR strategies in healthcare organizations. Further, it was identified that most of the healthcare organizations do not have a dedicated HR department, and the HR activities are performed by the senior officials or medical doctors. The study recommends that every established health care system should have a dedicated HR department where the HR managers can collaborate with healthcare professionals to identify their learning needs and prioritize training and development programs to enhance their skills and knowledge.

The current study was designed to examine the underlying causes behind low performance in accountancy in BHSEC 2021 by covering the perception of teachers and students. The sample size of 273 students (137 girls and 136 boys) from different schools and 68 teachers (16 females and 52 males) were chosen by using a simple random sampling method. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire in the google form. The data collected was tabulated and results were interpreted through mean values, frequencies, standard deviations and percentages. The study revealed different question patterns and more of competency-based question (CBQ) as the major cause of low achievement in accountancy by the perception of students and teachers. This study revealed that Bhutan Council for School Assessment and Examination (BCSEA) and Department of Curriculum and Professional Development (DCPD) have not oriented teachers on change of question pattern.

Telecommunication industries are the boosters of any economic growth. In Bhutan, Bhutan Telecom Limited (BTL) plays a significant role in providing quality network services. The study aims to assess the financial performance of the company from 2011 to 2021 and also identify the factors affecting its profitability. This study is based on hypothesis testing of the research design and tries to identify the best model to explain the performance of the company using regression analysis. The study considered the Return on Equity (ROE) as the dependent variable and Current Ratio (CR), Working capital to sales (WCS), Return on sales (ROS), and Debt-to-equity Ratio as independent variables. The test stated that DER, WCS, and ROS have a significant impact on the profitability. However, CR has no significant impact on the profitability. The finding portrays that the company’s profitability has increased continuously from 2019-2021, despite the interruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decision-making is primarily a mental activity of the decision-maker even when the decision-maker is confronted with the decision environment of data and context. This aspect of the psychological process is delineated into the intra- individual sub-systems of cognition, affect, motivation and personality traits. The sub-systems influence the decision-making process in interactive and integrative ways thereby the choice of the decision-maker become an outcome of cognition, affect and personality traits wherein it becomes interacting and intervening variables of significance. The mechanisms of cognition in the form of information- processing and knowledge structures, affect in the ways of the emotional processes of the decision-maker, motivation in the form of the pursuit of goals and personality traits in its constellation.

The stock market is widely known for its high degree of volatility, making it more challenging for individuals to accurately model and predict it in real-time. In an attempt to forecast the stock price and its volatility, investors, stock market analysts and academicians have been developing models for quite some time. One such model, the Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) model, developed by Engle (1982), has found wider applications in time series analysis where the central issue lies with the volatility clustering phenomenon. This paper employs the ARCH model as an econometric model to forecast volatility of the share price of three companies listed on the 2Royal Securities Exchange of Bhutan, namely Sherza Ventures Limited (SVL), Bhutan Insurance Limited (BIL), and Bhutan National Bank Limited (BNB). For this study, we statistically tested the time series share price return data from January 2019 to December 2022 for stationarity using Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test and for conditional heteroscedasticity effect using the ARCH Lagrange Multiplier test before modelling the ARCH model. To model the ARCH model, we selected the optimal order of the model, q, using the partial autocorrelation function of the squared residuals. The ARCH (1) model provided the best fit, resulting in accurate forecasts of the volatility of the stock price return. Overall, our ARCH (1) model performed very well with a mean absolute error and root mean squared error of 0.02628 and 0.03139, respectively, for the volatility of SVL return, 0.01523 and 0.01943 for BIL return, and 0.01395 and 0.01666 for BNB return. The study is expected to benefit stock market investors for making a sound investment decision thorough their knowledge about the volatility of return. Also, it would enable the stock market regulators to develop effective regulations and policies to promote market efficiency and investor confidence. Additionally, the study may shed light to future researcher and academicians for potential future research on applications of the ARCH model beyond stock market.