Faculty of Management

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  • Item
    Doing Business in Ghana's Informal Sector - Auntie Muni & the "Waakye" Kitchen
    (Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2013-01-01) Madichie, Nnamdi O. ; Hinson, Robert E.
    This exploratory study pools together two complementary streams of literature - i.e. marketing and entrepreneurship, drawing upon a single case study of "Auntie Muni," an informal woman-owned business in the food sector in Ghana's East Legon area. In our estimation and based on our in-depth interview, Auntie Muni has braved all odds to remain in business despite all the harsh conditions facing her line of business. With a poor educational background, her resilience as a mother not just to her kids (but to most young people in the community, hence the name Auntie) and her optimistic outlook to life in general makes her a worthy case deserved of research attention. It also highlights some policy implications on the need of the government to recognise, reward and assist such informal ventures into more formalized ones. In the end we hope to have a holistic view of the entrepreneurial landscape of the food business (i.e. restaurants) in what we hope would become an assemblage of challenges and achievements for class and other scholarly discussions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is with a view to teasing out areas where lessons might be learnt, and identifying other areas for further policy intervention as the continent muddles its way towards the 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). © 2013 Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Nigerian students and the “allure” of Foreign (UK) Education: A Curious Reflection
    (Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2013-01-01) Madichie, Nnamdi O. ; Madichie, Edward I.
    The purpose of this paper is to highlight the duality in the appeal of UK higher education degrees vis-à-vis the poor perception of African degrees (notably the Nigerian degree). We relied upon an online focus group of African academics and professionals outside the UK, in a bid to provide deeper insights on the problems and reasons why Nigerian students opt to study overseas - notably in the UK. Key questions discussed with our respondents revolved around the allure of foreign (UK) education, the challenges of higher education infrastructure/resources, employability concerns, and the growing security issues in the Nigerian higher education (HE) landscape. Finally we provide policy prescriptions in the light of recent developments in the UK HE sector – notably the “London Metropolitan University (i.e. LondonMet) saga,” - whose licence was recently revoked and immigrant visa powers stripped by the UK Borders Agency. © 2013 Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Women entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa: a case-based approach
    (Taylor and Francis, 2014-01-01) Madichie, Nnamdi O. ; Hinson, Robert E.
    This chapter highlights the challenges of women business owners in sub-Saharan African (SSA) using in-depth interviews from four different countries. The primary aim of the chapter is to pinpoint shared challenges of women entrepreneurs and/or business owners drawing upon their narratives and attributions. 1 The chapter unpacks four critical dimensions impacting upon the similarities and/or differences in experiences - notably owner’s background (nationality, ethnicity, education, family etc.); prior motivations (why they chose to start up); challenges (including start-up capital, government regulations, personal achievements), and plans for the future. © 2015 Sonny Nwankwo and Kevin Ibeh.
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    Integration of functional areas of business : A Research Agenda
    (Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2014-01-01) Opute, Promise Abdullah ; Madichie, Nnamdi O.
    Since the early 1980's relationship marketing theorists have increasingly underlined the need to ensure harmonious interfunctional relationship between marketing and other functional areas, in order to profitably satisfy the customer. A major gap in the literature, however, is the lack of understanding of interfunctional relationship in the non-Western context. To contribute to addressing this imbalance in the literature, this paper aims primarily to inspire researches that illuminate the non-Western context, which will be characterised by cultural fabrics and trading patterns that contrast the Western norms. The methodological approach in this paper is two folds. First, review of literature is undertaken to identify the core themes (and variables) and the debates in the existing literature. Second, a template is proposed to guide knowledge development in the area. © 2014 Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Entrepreneurial Orientation among SME Wood Manufacturers in Ghana
    (Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2014-01-01) Ibrahim, Masud ; Madichie, Nnamdi O.
    This study explores the entrepreneurial orientation of Small and medium size enterprises (SME) wood manufacturers in Ghana. Data for the study was obtained through an in-depth interview with the managers of four sampled wood manufacturers in Accra and Kumasi. Findings from the study indicate a strong relationship between the three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and competitive advantage in the furniture industry in Ghana. The study concludes that SME wood manufacturers in Ghana are entrepreneurial – i.e. innovative, risk taking and proactive. However, considering that the market is dynamic the study recommends that firms in this industry should constantly update existing competencies and seek new competencies, in order to have a sustained competitive advantage as well as profitability and growth. This paper evaluates entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance among small and medium enterprises from a developing country perspective. © 2014 Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    A critical analysis of the "dialogic communications" potential of sub-Saharan African Police Service websites
    (Elsevier BV, 2014-06) Madichie, Nnamdi O. ; Hinson, Robert
    This study examines the socio-economic development potential of engaging dialogue on sub-Saharan Africa Police Service Websites (SSAPWs). Drawing upon Kent and Taylor's (1998) dialogic communications framework the study covers countries from Angola to Zambia. SSAPWs were found to have performed reasonably high on the ease of interface, while lagging in terms of disseminating useful information; ability to engage the public in constructive dialoguing (i.e. dialogic loop); conservation of visitors; and return visits. While internet penetration rates in SSA may be low and expensive, most people with internet access are underreported, as data is atypically derived from unreliable PC internet subscriptions as opposed to social media usage via mobile devices. The authors argue for more proactive public sector marketing strategies, leveraging the SSAPW platform for effective crime detection, reporting and fighting - in a collaborative effort between the police and the citizens of concerned states. In so-doing the study not only contributes to the scant literature on the potential of constructive dialogic communications on the websites of public services in the developing world context - not the least in the police service sector. In other words the study goes beyond the usual suspects (e.g. online retailing) to dialogue in policing. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.
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    Trade‐off Between Risk and Incentives: Evidence from New‐ and Old‐Economy Firms
    (John Wiley and Sons, 2016) Tebourbi, Imen
    The sensitivity of managerial compensation to the firm's risk is a controversial issue. While some articles find evidence supporting the agency theory that predicts a negative relationship between pay‐performance sensitivity and risk, others support the managerial ownership that predicts a positive relationship between these factors. This article reconciles these theories and provides evidence that these two theories are not conflicting, when tested properly, using industries risk characteristics. In this articled, we distinguish between new‐ and old‐economy industries, and demonstrate that managerial ownership theory applies to new‐economy firms, which are high‐tech firms that operate in more uncertain environments, whereas the agency theory applies to old‐economy firms that operate in more traditional industries. We further control for the size effect and find a positive relationship between pay‐performance sensitivity and risk for medium and large size new‐economy firms. Furthermore, we find that high‐tech companies increased their CEOs noncash compensation dramatically during the high‐tech market crash between 2000 and 2002 to cushion the fall in their CEOs wealth in the company. This caused CEOs pay‐performance sensitivity to risk to become negatively related to their firms' risk during that period. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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    The Effects of Age on Job Crafting: Exploring the Motivations and Behavior of Younger and Older Employees in Job Crafting
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Baroudi, Sabrine El ; Khapova, Svetlana N.
    Purpose: This paper contributes to the job-crafting theory of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001) by exploring the effects of age on job-crafting behaviors (i.e., task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting) and on job-crafting motivations (i.e., the need for personal control, the desire to create and sustain a positive self-image, and the need for human connection). Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 younger and 15 older employees (n = 31) at a socially responsible non-profit organization in the Netherlands. The qualitative data were analyzed in two major steps: (1) identifying job-crafting motivations and behaviors in older and younger employees and (2) identifying and comparing the differences in the job-crafting motivations and behaviors between older employees and younger employees. Findings: We found that both older and younger employees are likely to engage in job-crafting behavior to assert control over their jobs and to create a positive self-image. However, younger employees may have two different motivations (personal control and positive self-image) for engaging in such job-crafting behavior. Whereas both younger and older employees engage the most in task crafting, younger employees are more likely to engage in all three types of job-crafting behavior; additionally, we found that the three different forms of job-crafting behavior of younger employees occur in conjunction with one another. Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to the original job-crafting model of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001) by including the effect of age in the model, and by demonstrating the importance of studying the three original main job-crafting motivations and behaviors separately from one another. Practical implications: This paper addresses the multigenerational challenges of the contemporary workforce. It demonstrates that managers may play a pivotal role in stimulating older employees to engage in job-crafting behaviors by informing them about job-crafting strategies and providing them with more opportunities to engage in job crafting. Originality/value: This paper is original in that it re-examines, refines, and enriches the job-crafting model of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001), which is receiving a growing interest among researchers and business practitioners. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Adopting Business Analytics to Leverage Enterprise Data Assets
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Djerdjouri, Mohamed ; Mehailia, Abdelghani
    In today’s rapidly changing business environment, advances in information and communication technologies are happening at a very fast pace. As a result, firms are under constant pressure to quickly adapt, be competitive, and identify new business opportunities. Also, the amount of data collected by organizations today is growing at an exponential rate and includes structured as well as new types of large and real-time data across a broad range of industries such as streaming, geospatial, social media, or sensor-generated data. Enterprise data have become an invaluable strategic asset. Many organizations are using modern Business Analytics (BA) to extract new insights and the maximum possible value from these data assets, which will enable them to make timely and accurate decisions. In this paper, we briefly describe business analytics and discuss how leading world class organizations are adopting it and the technology environments that make it relatively easy and inexpensive and, the subsequent competitive benefits they have achieved. In addition, we will report some findings from surveys of executives, managers, and professionals across industries about the use of analytics in their organizations, done recently by IBM, SAS, MIT, and Gartner. Also, we will briefly address the organizational, cultural, and technological challenges faced by organizations embracing business analytics. Finally, we will discuss the unique obstacles and challenges encountered by firms in developing countries with the goal of raising awareness of organizations in the MENA region not only about these impediments but also about the benefits of these technologies and the crucial role they play in the survival and competitiveness of the firm in the complex and turbulent global market. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Cross-Market Price Mechanism Between the US Copper Futures Market and a Newly Proposed Chinese Dollar Index
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Gurrib, Ikhlaas
    Recent changes in China’s copper demand have lately received much attention due to its close relationship to the country’s economic activity. Although an emerging market, China accounts for around 40 % of the world’s copper demand and the USA is the third biggest market for exports, making it imperative to assess the relationship between copper futures prices and a newly proposed Chinese dollar index. The purpose of this study is to analyse if changes in the copper futures prices can be used as a market timing tool to predict movements in the Chinese dollar index, and vice versa. To enhance the predictive market timing ability, an adaptive relative strength index model is used to track changes in market conditions better. The analysis is conducted using both daily and weekly data over the June 2007–December 2015 period. Findings will suggest if the technical analysis tool can be used to forecast copper prices based on changes in the Chinese dollar index, or if accurate forecasts can be made on the Chinese dollar index based on movements in copper’s prices, over different frequency intervals. More importantly, this would have policy implications in that it would reveal whether global copper prices can be affected by Chinese Yuan’s movements against other major global currencies, suggesting a need for regulatory bodies to relook at the effect of non-fundamental factors on commodity and currency markets. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Business Cycle Forecasts and Futures Volatility
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Belhaj, Hanene ; Larbi, Dorra
    This chapter assesses the extent to which the US business cycle is affected by fluctuations in futures price while controlling for other macroeconomic and financial variables. We examine the usefulness of futures volatility to predict whether or not the US economy will be in a recession. Our study builds on two research veins. The first is comprised of many studies that attempt to predict business cycles by using a range of economic variables. Many of these studies emphasize the role of financial variables in macroeconomic forecasts (Estrella and Mishkin, Review of Economics and Statistics, 80(1):45–61, 1998). This role has been certainly exacerbated during the recent financial crisis of 2007–2009. The second vein originates within the literature which widely recognizes the role of financial variables such as prices of financial instruments as leading indicators (Estrella and Mishkin, Review of Economics and Statistics, 80(1):45–61, 1998). In US data for example, equity returns and the short-term interest lead GDP growth by one or two quarters (Backus et al., Asset prices in business cycle analysis (manuscript), 2007). Commodities, combined with stocks, are one of these financial instruments that were involved in the macroeconomic forecasts. Our study examines futures volatility as predictors of US recessions. The volatility of this instrument could be an indicator of the economic situation. This study aims at either confirming or invalidating that periods of economic downturns are characterized by a high volatility in the index futures market. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Implementing a Mass Customization Business Model in the Health Industry
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Poulin, Marc
    The healthcare industry is undergoing many challenges due to rising costs, lower governmental support, and ineffectiveness of many treatments. One popular approach to address these issues is the P4 vision where prevention and patient participation is paramount. To implement these newer approaches, there are business process challenges in order to control costs and offer the new personalized approach. The mass customization business model has been successful in offering various levels of personalization with costs and delivery delays similar to mass production. Although it has been researched and implemented for the manufacturing industry, research has shown potential in the service industry. This article presents a business model founded on mass customization to address certain challenges in the health industry. The article discusses the issues and presents an approach to remedy the problems. The business model is demonstrated through an actual global health company head quartered in Dubai. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Internal Rate of Return (IRR): A New Proposed Approach
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Mujahed, Murad Mohammed ; Elshareif, Elgilani Eltahir
    This study tries to develop a new internal rate of return (IRR) approach assuming constant and positive cash flows. The traditional IRR method is implicitly based on trial and error that needs two initial guesses and slowly converges to the solution. The development so far was based on Newton–Raphson methods that reduce the two guesses to only one guess with quadratic convergence. However, this development has many limitations such as divergence at inflection points and pitfalls like division by zero. The progress of our study so far is to eliminate the initial guess with assumption of equal series of positive cash flows. Further, the expected finding of the new approach will assist practitioners and academics to compute the IRR accurately as the rate of return on the declining balance of the investment, analogous to the YTM on a premium bond and the contract rate on a fully amortized loan. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Innovative Marketing in the Health Industry
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Jiwani, Zahra Ladha ; Poulin, Marc
    The health care industry continues to face the challenges of being able to provide high quality services at an acceptable cost. One of the challenges being faced is the reactive versus proactive mode of health professionals and patients, in dealing with health issues. This is due in part to the incongruent incentive structures in place for the B2B stakeholders, as well as the need to create greater awareness of preventive care and its benefit over reactive care. While some stakeholders are now increasing their focus on preventive health care initiatives in order to be more effective and efficient, the health care industry still faces the ultimate marketing challenge of changing health care providers to shift towards a more proactive versus reactive approach to health care. This article explores the literature and industry best practices in marketing for companies focusing on preventive health care. The article discusses a variety of ideas and critically analyzes their potential in the context of a company’s innovative business model on the global market. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Intercultural Competencies for Career Advancement: A Comparative Study of Managerial Competencies in United Arab Emirates and Malaysia
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Haladay, Diana J. ; Sergio, Rommel Pilapil ; Makki, Ahmed M. ; Zarim, Zainal Abu ; Ismail, Mohd Nor
    This research paper examines competencies and career advancement of 338 managers in two different countries: the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. The descriptive-correlational survey method has been utilized. Research findings show that managerial competencies are similar across the two countries. It also reveals that managerial competencies are also a strong predictor of career advancement. There is limited research on the impact of culture on competencies and career advancement in non-Western countries. Thus, this research study benchmarks the similarities and differences of the impact of culture and competencies in career advancement at the managerial level in these two non-Western countries. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Volatility Persistence and Shock Absorption Capacity of the Malaysian Stock Market
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Elshareif, Elgilani Eltahir ; Kabir, Muhammed
    Estimation of the extent of volatility in stock markets induced by external shocks and the persistence of it is very important and has policy significance for the macroeconomic policy makers, central bankers, and the financial market participants. In the current study, we examine the overestimation bias of volatility and its persistence using EGARCH-M models for the Malaysian stock market composite index (KLCI), as well as three sub-sectoral indices. The empirical evidence shows that there are asymmetric responses by the stock indices whereby volatility originating from ascending versus descending stock market has different impacts. In addition, we have found that the volatility is highly persistent and the shock absorption capacity of the stock market has been underestimated. However, this finding suggests that there might have been some estimation bias due to misspecification of the model. This implies that the policy makers and market participants must exercise caution in drawing conclusions from this class of models. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Human Resource Management Practices: A Case of Telecommunication Company in the United Arab Emirates
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Sergio, Rommel Pilapil ; Moyalan, Louis Jos ; al-Ali, Hadi Ramadan ; Al Bannai, Mana Mohammed
    Human resource management (HRM) plays a critical role in any organization. It attributes to the fact that human resources are the most important asset an organization has. Employees are mandated to transform company strategies and goals into tangible outcome and for this reason, they provide a source of competitive advantage to an organization. The study utilized case study method by describing the HR practices that includes career and development programs, employee performance and evaluation system, and staffing functions of a telecommunication company in the UAE through an interview with the HR manager. The purposively selected telecommunication company has claimed to have achieved tremendous success due to its strong leadership and commitment to quality. Although the company has made strides in its HR practices, there is a need to improve to maximize the potential of its workforce. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Quantitative Risk Analysis for International Project Management and Programs in an Emerging Economy
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Enyinda, Chris I.
    Historically, international projects are prone to both endogenous and exogenous risks. And the World Bank international projects and programs are not immune to similar risks. What is important though is the ability of project managers to identify the sources of endogenous and exogenous risks and how to leverage proactive or predictive project risk management strategies. Arguably, predictive project risk management is the lifeline for successful projects and programs. Managing portfolio of risks in international projects is imperative for the World Bank’s mission of economic development and poverty eradication in developing countries. Inability to identify sources of risks attached to projects and programs can contribute to missed opportunities. It can also discourage the World Bank and other international agencies from approving or awarding future development projects and programs. Although in spite of the growing menace of risks in development projects and programs, project managers have little or no knowledge of project risk management. This chapter proposes a multi-attribute decision support approach to model and analyze the risk for the World Bank projects and programs in Nigeria. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
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    Is Spiritual Tourism an Innovation in Tourism for India and Pakistan?
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Haq, Farooq ; Medhekar, Anita
    This conceptual paper attempts to build on the argument that innovation in tourism is a less focused topic in business and academic research. The growing interest in the practice and business of spiritual tourism cannot be ignored. This interest motivates the research aiming to present spiritual tourism as an innovation in tourism, specifically in India and Pakistan. In this unique study, the innovation in tourism is appreciated and analyzed from dimensions of product, process, and people, falling under the umbrella of architectural and revolutionary innovation. Hence the three elements of the tourism product: people, places, and events are adapted to align with the spiritual tourism as a tourism innovation. India and Pakistan are selected as the two countries since both carry the status of multifaith-purpose spiritual tourism destinations. This original research emphasizes on recognizing spiritual tourism as an innovation in tourism based on its products and services illustrating architectural and revolutionary innovation. The paper concludes with a matrix mapping elements of spiritual tourism with the dimensions of tourism innovation, hence filling a gap in the literature on tourism innovation and spiritual tourism. A relevant empirical study of travelers visiting India and Pakistan for spiritual tourism is a palpable future study. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
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    The Assessment of the Global Financial Crisis on Dubai Financial Market Performance
    (Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 2017) Jarouf, Ahmed K. Al ; Mansoori, Mohammed Al ; Nooraddin, Suzan ; Elshareif, Elgilani Eltahir
    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has implemented its long-term vision 2021. The main goal of this vision is to diversify the economic activity to edge up on the back of non-oil sector, despite the fact that UAE’s economy is considered one of the most diversified economies across the region. The significant drop in oil prices in addition to performances of other global markets represents a challenge for Dubai stock market. This may have an important effect on the share prices of Dubai stock market and its performance. In this chapter, we collect market data for oil prices, US NASDAQ Composite, and DFM from the official website of Dubai Financial Market (www.dfm.ae ) and (www.nasdaq.com ) to explore the patterns of pre-after the global financial crisis performance and to observe the performance of the Dubai financial market in comparison to NASDAQ. We also look at the impact of drop in oil price on the performance of DFM. Our results support that the DFM performed well after the crisis. However, the lower oil prices have reversed this situation. © 2017, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.