https://dr.ur.ac.rw/handle/123456789/32 Research works by PhD students of the College Business and Economics 2026-04-14T22:36:10Z https://dr.ur.ac.rw/handle/123456789/1253 The challenges of continuity in family businesses in Rwanda Sindambiwe, Pierre Focusing on a developing country, this study investigates how an owning family builds its business’ continuity. While scholars of family businesses tend to depict the continuity of a family firm in terms of family succession, preserving the family legacy, or the firm’s longevity, in the social context of a developing country that is dominated by instability and hostility, family firms are subject to day-by-day survival risks. My approach is viewing family businesses’ continuity as day-by-day survival for the sake of ensuring the long-term orientation of the family businesses in the context of a developing country. The family is situated in a broader social context, and therefore the business is embedded in the family’s social networks that cannot be detached from the country’s social context. The developing country context is important because of its culture, politics, and history that differ from a developed world. In this thesis, the continuity of family businesses is understood as: (1) sustaining the family’s legacy coming of the founder’s achievements, (2) succession, sustaining the business beyond the founder’s tenure, and ensuring that both the family and business stay together, and (3) longevity, ensuring a long-term orientation which is a crucial characteristic of all family businesses. This last category is relevant to this thesis because long-term orientation is achieved through futurity, persistence, and continuity patterns. This thesis focuses on continuity as daily and short-term survival to ensure the long-term orientation of a family business. Different theoretical lenses including portfolio literature, socialization literature, and commitment literature were tried for in this thesis. Commitment literature was found binding both portfolio and socialization literature. And therefore, commitment literature was considered reliable for understanding the challenges of family businesses’ continuity. Using commitment literature, this study uses data collected from founder-led business families in Rwanda and investigates how the commitments of actors at multiple levels affects the day-by-day survival of family businesses. The thesis follows a qualitative approach with multiple cases of research design. It uses data from six founder-led business families in Rwanda. It follows the interview approach and uses the INVIVO program to code the transcribed data. The phenomenon of how the family built its business’ continuity is investigated following a multi-level analysis, that is, how each level affected the continuity of the family business or individual, family, and business levels in a business family. The individual level has founders, next generation members, women, in-laws, and non-family employees (Sharma, 2004). It uses the grounded theory for elaborating on matters arising when investigating the continuity of family businesses (see Figure 6.1). A family business’ continuity model is built to map ‘how’ a family builds its business continuity as well as ‘what’ is the expected role played by each level (see Figure 7.1), and a day-by-day continuity model of the family business is crafted to understand the mechanisms behind its day-by-day continuity (see Figure 7.2). The findings of this thesis show clearly that family businesses in Rwanda are focused on preserving their firms for retaining the family legacy, but unfortunately, they are unable to plan for a long-term legacy. I posit that short-term survival, repeatedly, will lead to long-term survival and, subsequently, to longevity. The findings highlight the role of the specific context and associated cultural aspects of continuity in family businesses. The three aggregate dimensions developed present three main challenges to the continuity of family businesses in Rwanda. First, due to Rwandan cultural obligations of inheritance by the next generation, both the founding generation and the next generations are committed to family businesses’ continuity. Unfortunately, there is a detachment among generations in Rwanda, which is contrary to the cooperation expected in family businesses. Second, the uncertainties and inertia resulting from the absence of co-ownership and the inter-generational distance due to cultural aspects lead to separate and parallel planning for businesses’ continuity. Third, when it comes to the involvement in the management of family businesses, inter-generational conflicts and uncertainties result in weak family embeddedness that may push some family members away from the family businesses. This situation is a challenge because the absence of co-management between the incumbents and the next generation is abnormal since both parties, like dancing partners, need to manage the transition. Ignoring the three challenges that they face, business families in Rwanda strive for continuity through (1) created and protected family legacy, (2) created inner cohesion among the next generation’s members, (3) in-laws and non-family members assimilated into the family business, (4) the family forming norms for succession, governance, and order-conflict processes, and (5) the family business’ resilience maintained for the family and community. Missing this mindset of planning for the long-term explains why many business families in Rwanda fail to continue after the founder’s tenure. There are many reasons for not planning for the long-term. In this thesis, the factors in a family business’ continuity are linked to (a) the family setting and the social capital of both direct and invisible members that ensures on-going activities of the family business; (b) the cultural setting related to inheritance management, heirship/legal ownership succession, family chieftaincy retention, and leadership succession, and (c) the institutional uncertainty and Ubuntu or a communitarianist nature of family firms as a way of living in a developing country making it difficult to plan for the long term. This study contributes to an understanding of the heterogeneity of contexts in family business research. It will also assist owners and practitioners operating in changing environments to design informed continuity plans that have the potential to ensure the survival of family businesses in Rwanda. Theoretically, the study concludes that a commitment to continuing family businesses is shared by different levels in business families, but each level has one primary form of commitment and many forms of secondary commitment for the continuity of family businesses. There is a fluidity in commitment among multiple levels in business families. Doctoral Thesis 2020-05-20T00:00:00Z https://dr.ur.ac.rw/handle/123456789/1249 Improving IT Integration for Higher Education Institutional Performance Towards a Contextualised IT-Institutional Alignment Model Byungura, Jean Claude The integration of information technology (IT) into service delivery is currently seen as an innovative strategy to support the modernising of universities worldwide. However, in some institutions in developing countries, including Rwanda, IT has failed to add the intended value to university services, despite huge associated investments in IT. Consequently, ITorganisational alignment continues to be a primary concern for university managers. This alignment is viewed in terms of its strategic, socio-cultural, and technological dimensions. For effective IT-institutional alignment, several antecedents (alignment practices) for creating an appropriate fit between IT and organisations have been suggested in the literature. However, several studies exploring IT alignment focused mainly on general business companies, and similar research with an emphasis on higher education institutions is still scarce. Therefore, the aim of this research was twofold: firstly, it attempted to understand the process of IT integration into universities; and secondly, to propose a contextual model for IT-institutional alignment within a higher education context. A design science research methodology (DSRM) was applied in this research, using surveys and case studies as research strategies. Preliminary findings at the exploration phase of this research indicated a strong misalignment between IT and the university services caused by the lack of clearly defined alignment practices. Furthermore, as the research main outcome, an IT-Institutional Alignment Model (ITIAM) was proposed after reaching an understanding of the current state and challenges related to IT integration into teaching, learning, research and university administration. This model includes 44 alignment practices, related to both technical and non-technical dimensions. These alignment practices were clustered under six categories: (1) Communication, (2) Structure/Governance, (3) Technology Scope, (4) Competence/Value Measurement, (5) Skills, and (6) Partnership. Alignment practices related to institutional structure and governance, skills and communication were found to have a strong positive influence on the institutional performance, as compared to those related to competence and value measurement, partnership, and technology scope. Based on the research findings, the proposed ITIAM, which was iteratively tested and evaluated using case study institutions, was found to be a relevant tool for guiding the implementation of IT systems towards the improvement of institutional performance. Hence, this thesis makes a theoretical contribution by applying the concept of IT alignment within a higher education context and by documenting the empirically tested contextual alignment practices as conveyed in the ITIAM Model. Additionally, as a practical implication, the results can serve as a reference for an effective IT integration process in university services and for how to improve performance through effective use of IT in teaching, learning, research and educational management. Doctoral Thesis 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://dr.ur.ac.rw/handle/123456789/1244 Institutions, regulations, performance and stability of African banks Mutarindwa, Samuel This thesis consists of four independent papers preceded by the introductory chapter linked through the thesis title. The first two papers focus on determinants of bank stability, while the other two focus on the determinants of bank performance. Paper one assesses the effects of bank compliance with Basel III liquidity and capital requirements on lending and stability. African banks complying with the liquidity threshold above median lend more but are less stable. However, banks above the median capital requirement are more stable but lend less. Compliance depend on central banks’ supervision, regulatory quality, and legal systems. Paper two investigates how legal systems and institutions influence central banks’ provision of supervisory guidance on corporate governance, and via this channel, affect governance and stability of banks. The publication of supervisory guidance on corporate governance helps banks to improve internal governance and stability, conditional on countries’ legal traditions and institutional quality. Paper three investigates why legal traditions matter for law development, institutions for creditors and investors, as well as the development of banking systems. The paper provides strong supports for the law and finance theory that legal traditions strongly matter for legal systems development in common law countries but provide partial support for the influence of institutions on bank systems development. The fourth paper investigates the role of ownership on bank efficiency. A novel approach is applied which addresses the incidental parameter problem associated with Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Results show both cost and profit efficiency’ superiority of foreign and privately-owned banks. Doctoral Thesis 2019-02-28T00:00:00Z https://dr.ur.ac.rw/handle/123456789/1233 The adoption and implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Rwanda: An Integrated Approach Shema, Jean Bosco Accounting has played a significant role in globalization through instruments like the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB), the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) which have harmonized global business practices. With the spread of globalization, the persistence of local realities has become a global issue. While IFRS has been adopted across the world, local contexts are impeding its smooth implementation. This study investigates this phenomenon in the Rwandan context by discussing how IFRS has been adopted by commercial banks in Rwanda and in sub-Saharan African countries. In Rwanda, IFRS’ adoption was influenced by the country’s economic context (dire need for reconstruction), social context (Rwandans with different accounting traditions due to the conflict and the movement of people across the region and in the world and their returning to their home country) and the political context (colonial legacy and accounting initiatives of the independent African countries and Rwanda’s regional and international integration policies). My findings suggest that the adoption of IFRS was done after intense preparations and its implementation was monitored as it was believed that these standards would catalyze the government’s economic development goals. The findings also show the bi-directional relationship between accounting and the environment in which it operates. While IRFS’ adoption was swayed by the prevailing environment these standards also formed a part of the country’s strategy for economic development and a mechanism for promoting equity among its citizens. The findings also show that the professionalization of accounting was context bound and was influenced by the accounting environment in Rwanda and that professionalization contributed to conflict prevention and resolution among accounting practitioners. The study also shows that the government played a big role in the development of accounting as a profession. Doctoral Thesis 2018-12-11T00:00:00Z