ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
How Does Leader’s Support for Environment Promote Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for Environment? A Multi-Theory Perspective

Organizational citizenship behaviour for environment of employees is indispensable in realizing environmental sustainability goals of organizations. However, in the growing literature of employee green behaviour at work, scant attention has been paid on the impact of leader’s specific support for environment, and the mechanisms through which it impacts organizational citizenship behaviour for environment. Drawing upon social exchange theory, self-determination theory and theory of normative conduct, we tested the impact of leader’s support for environment, autonomous motivation for environment and perceived group’s green climate on organizational citizenship behaviour for environment in an integrated model. The sample included 313 executive level employees of green implemented textile and apparel manufacturing factories in Sri Lanka. The results of structural equation modelling showed a direct positive impact of leader’s support for environment on organizational citizenship behaviour for environment. Further, autonomous motivation for environment and perceived group’s green climate were found to be partial mediators between leader’s support for environment and organizational citizenship behaviour for environment. We discussed the theoretical implications for sustainability literature and the managerial implications for organizational practitioners in promoting organizational citizenship behaviour for environment.

Source: UG
How Does Leader’s Support for Environment Promote Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for Environment? A Multi-Theory Perspective

Organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment of employees is indispensable in realizing the environmental sustainability goals of organizations. However, in the growing literature on employee green behaviour at work, scant attention has been paid to the impact of a leader’s specific support for the environment, and the mechanisms through which it impacts organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment. Drawing upon social exchange theory, self-determination theory and theory of normative conduct, we tested the impact of a leader’s support for the environment, autonomous motivation for the environment and perceived group’s green climate on organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment in an integrated model. The sample included 313 executive-level employees of green-implemented textile and apparel manufacturing factories in Sri Lanka. The results of structural equation modelling showed a direct positive impact of a leader’s support for the environment on organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment. Further, autonomous motivation for the environment and the perceived group’s green climate were found to be partial mediators between the leader’s support for the environment and organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment. We discussed the theoretical implications for sustainability literature and the managerial implications for organizational practitioners in promoting organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment.

Source: UG
How Electoral Integrity Matters in an Era of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: Experience from Ghana’s Eighth General Election

This article examined whether, in the pandemic, the conduct of Ghana’s 2020 general elections conformed to acceptable international standards or not? Analysing data drawn from 120 respondents based on face-to-face and telephone interviews, the study established that the measures for pre-election and polling day activities guaranteed the integrity of the elections. The electoral laws and system, the mechanics for voter registration, polling, and balloting were fair, transparent, and inclusive. The fair application of the electoral laws, openness, and stakeholders’ active participation in the electoral process obviated fraud. Both domestic and international observers validated the election result declared by the EC because the processes satisfied the standards for free and fair elections even though Ghanaian diasporas were disenfranchised, and a few administrative and technical challenges occurred. Hence, electoral reform targeting efficient management, enlargement of the franchise to capture diasporas’ votes, and an electoral system that supports proportional representation albeit a possibility of proliferation of parties, would improve electoral integrity for deepening democratic development.

Source: UG
How FOSS Replaced Proprietary Software at a University: An Improvisation Perspective in a Low-income Country

The purpose of this study is to understand the rationale for and the process of replacing an imported proprietary higher education management software with a locally developed free and open source software (FOSS). Information Systems (IS) research on FOSS and higher education in low-income countries has focused more on teaching and learning. Less attention has thus been paid to the area of management and administration. Also, low-income country IS research on technology transfer has focused more on applications from the high-income world. Less research therefore exists on transfers between low-income countries. To address these research gaps, this study employs improvisation theory and interpretive case study methodology to investigate why and how a low-income country university replaced a proprietary higher education management software from another low-income country with a locally developed FOSS. The findings show that the university did so through improvisation to overcome the rigidity of the proprietary software and benefit from the flexibility of the FOSS. The study offers rich insight into how low-income country universities can deploy FOSS through improvisation to address design-actuality gap with imported proprietary software and also presents implications for research and practice.

Source: UG
How Have Consumers Fared In Bank Privatization? International Evidence

We examine whether consumers have benefited from bank privatization worldwide and find that bank spreads are significantly higher in the post privatization period than in the pre-privatization period, suggesting that bank customers have not benefited from bank privatization. However, we observe that the increase in net interest margin occurred in the developed countries whereas consumers in developing countries have benefited from reduced bank margins following privatization. Despite the reduction in bank margins, consumers in developing countries still pay more for banking services than their counterparts in the developed world. Since developed countries banking environment is more competitive, lack of competition does not seem to explain our findings. Rather, the results appear to support the conjecture that margins were perhaps kept artificially low in the pre-privatization period and that the higher margins in the developed countries reflect market conditions.

Source: UG
How healthy and food secure is the urban food environment in Ghana?

The importance of the food environment in influencing dietary choices of consumers has been widely acknowledged, but little attention has been paid to the urban food environment in Africa despite the rise in incidence of obesity and other nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases (NR-NCDs). We contribute to the literature on urban food environments by conducting an observational macro-scan of the food environment in three cities – Accra, Cape Coast, and Koforidua – with a view to unravelling the nature of the urban food environment in Ghana. We examine the food environment based on two dimensions of food security – avail ability and accessibility (affordability) – and also assess the extent to which foods are processed. The results show that all four food categories – unprocessed, processed, processed culinary, and ultra-processed – are available, accessible, and affordable. Ultra-processed foods are just as highly available, accessible, and/or affordable as unprocessed foods. The results also show that processed foods account for the larger share of all foods in Ghana’s urban food environment, and ultra-processed foods account for more than 30% of all processed foods. Overall, these results suggest that physical and economic access to food are not major constraints in urban Ghana. This is certainly a welcome finding from a food policy perspective; however, the high availability and accessibility of ultra-processed foods has serious potential health implications. Regulation will be needed to prevent over consumption of ultra-processed foods and the resulting increase in obesity and other NR-NCDs.

Source: UG
How internationally funded NGOs promote gender equality in horticulture value chains in Kenya

This article contributes to the literature on global value chains by examining how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) promote gender equality. NGOs have been instrumental in setting social standards that seek to institutionalise gender-sensitive governance structures. However, relatively little is known about their roles in doing so. Using in-depth empirical research on the Women@Work Campaign in the cutlery sector in Kenya, the article examines how a coalition of Kenyan NGOs and an international NGO push for gender equality in global value chains. While the Kenyan NGOs do most of the actual work on the ground, the international NGO uses its position to facilitate and empower the local NGOs to do their work. Yet, we see that funding conditions hamper the local NGOs’ efforts to promote gender equality. Overall, our analysis highlights that NGOs fulfil important roles in promoting gender equality in horticulture value chains but the requirements of the international aid system act as a constraint

Source: UG
How intra-familial decision-making affects women's access to, and use of maternal healthcare services in Ghana: A qualitative study

Background: There is some evidence to suggest that within the household, family and community settings, women in sub-Saharan Africa often have limited autonomy and control over their reproductive health decisions. However, there are few studies that examine how intra-familial decision-making power may affect women's ability to access and use maternal health services. The purpose of this paper is to examine how intra-familial decision-making affects women's ability to access and use maternal health services. Methods: We conducted 12 focus group discussions and 81 individual interviews with a total of 185 expectant and lactating mothers in six communities in Ghana. In addition, 20 key informant interviews were completed with healthcare providers. Attride-Stirling's thematic network analysis framework was used to analyse the data. Results: Findings suggest that decision-making regarding access to and use of skilled maternal healthcare services is strongly influenced by the values and opinions of husbands, mothers-in-law, traditional birth attendants and other family and community members, more than those of individual childbearing women. In 49.2 %, 16.2 %, and 12.4 % of cases in which women said they were unable to access maternal health services during their last pregnancy, husbands, mothers-in-law, and husband plus mothers-in-law, respectively, made the decision. Women themselves were the final decision-makers in only 2.7 % of the cases. The findings highlight how the goal of improving access to maternal healthcare services can be undermined by women's lack of decision-making autonomy through complex processes of gender inequality, economic marginalisation, communal decision-making and social power. Conclusion: Interventions to improve women's use of maternity services should move beyond individual women to target different stakeholders at multiple levels, including husbands and mothers-in-law.

Source: UG
How is the Firm Dealing with the Merger? A Study of Employee Satisfaction with the Change Process

The purpose of this study was to understand the degree to which employees’ satisfaction with merger-induced organizational changes impact on their productivity and the merged-firm performance. This is because, the introduction of market-driven business reforms in many developing economies has seen the emergence of growth-drivers that includes the search for new markets, increasing competition in local markets, new investors’ interest in emerging markets, and hence the desire for firms to merge. The results showed that human resource issues are important aspects of mergers which, if it is not well handled, may impact negatively on employee satisfaction with consequent repercussions on productivity and the success of the merger. It is concluded that employee satisfaction to a merger-induced organizational changes could be enhanced by instituting effective two way communication system and using participatory approaches in job redesign processes. By implication, merger-induced change has human factor challenges that merging firms need to understand.

Source: UG
How is the use of mobile money services transforming lives in Ghana?

Mobile financial services (MFS) are of major interest and importance to both researchers and practitioners. The role played by nonbanking actors including telecoms and FinTech firms as well as other participants, such as PayPal and Amazon, in developing and deploying innovative financial and payment services is undeniable. Peer2peer (P2P) payments from nonbank services are becoming increasingly commonplace and will shortly be codified by EC (EU) regulations requiring banks to provide access to consumer data for third-party app developers and service providers. Three major mobile financial systems-mobile banking, mobile payments, and branchless banking-currently dominate the electronic retail banking sector. Although interconnected and interrelated, their business models, regulatory frameworks, and target markets are distinct. This book provides a unified perspective on MFS and discusses its evolution, growth, and future, as well as identifying the frameworks, stakeholders, and technologies used in financial information systems in general and MFS in particular. Academics and researchers in digital and financial marketing will find this book an invaluable resource, as will bank executives, regulators, policy makers, FinTech professionals, and anyone interested in how mobile technology, social media and financial services will increasingly intersect. © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Aijaz A. Shaikh and Heikki Karjaluoto; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.

Source: UG
How Lifelong Learning Shapes The Professional Development Of Staff In Higher Education Institutions.

Purpose – As universities find new ways to implement professional development programmes (PDPs), very few scholarly studies have focused on how lifelong learning could serve as a tool to enhance the professional development of staff. To address this knowledge gap, this study aims to examine how the integration of lifelong learning modes into PDPs in a university setting in South Africa could enable professional staff to advance their knowledge and skills. Additionally, the study explores how the different PDPs could be conceptualised by way of lifelong learning to enhance the professional knowledge and competences of staff. Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered from 41 professional staff in three campuses of the university. The narrative data gathered were evaluated using thematic analysis that consisted of a detailed process of identifying, analysing, organising, describing and reporting the themes that were generated from the data. Findings – Findings suggest that when the university integrates lifelong learning approaches into its professional development programmes, it allows staff to develop their knowledge and skills through diverse learning approaches. When institutions adopt these diverse learning approaches, it enable staff to situate their learning needs along the different lifelong learning modes, negotiate suitable learning modes and flexible schedules with their heads of department, and learn the accepted norms and values of the university. These findings among others lead to further questions about how PDPs could be designed using the three lifelong learning modes to enable staff to prepare adequately for the future of work in higher education. Originality/value – This study contributes to the scholarly discourse on lifelong learning by showing how higher education institutions could design PDPs along formal, informal and non-formal learning approaches to enhance the knowledge and skills of staff.

Source: UG
How local community knowledge about malaria affects insecticide-treated net use in northern Ghana

Large-scale trials of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) throughout Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated that they reduce child mortality in malaria endemic communities. These encouraging results have generated interest in ITNs as a viable malaria control strategy in many malaria endemic countries. However, regular use of ITNs under routine or non-project conditions has been beset with several problems. This paper explores how local community knowledge about malaria acts as a barrier to the use of ITNs in three settings. We employed structured formal observation and a range of interviewing techniques which included informal interviews, focus group discussions, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and structured survey interviewing. People recognize the term 'malaria' but have limited biomedical knowledge of the disease, including its aetiology, the role of the vector, and host response. Convulsions and anaemia are rarely linked to malaria. The people acknowledged a role for ITNs in nuisance reduction, but not for malaria prevention. © 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Source: UG
How Managerial Interactions Affect Employees’ Work Output in Ghanaian Organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how managerial interactions with employees affect work output, using Ghanaian organizations as a study. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a survey method, using questionnaires to collect data from 120 workers from four Ghanaian organizations to form the basis of the study. Findings – It was found that regular interactions between managers and employees have a direct positive effect on employee work output. Results emerging from the analysis show that for organizations to make any significant impact on performance, both managers and their subordinates must have a very good climate of social interactions. The involvement of lower level employees in organizational activities and decision making is of crucial importance to organizational performance. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to the four organizations of the sample and the number of respondents. Practical implications – The paper's findings call for some behavioural directions for managers in organizations to pay serious attention to the total involvement of workers through effective communication in the running of the organizations. Originality/value – The paper discusses organizational communication by focusing on managerial interaction with employees, and how it can affect organizational work output. The consequences of lack of effective managerial interaction with employees would result in an increased tendency for individuals to leave the organization due to a lower level of satisfaction with their managers.

Source: UG
“How many auxiliary verbs has Kiswahili Bantu?”

The exact number of auxiliary verbs in Kiswahili Bantu grammar is unknown. This state of affairs is strange, given the fact that many researchers today have the opportunity and resources to do a more thorough job of isolating auxiliary verbs in the grammar than the pioneers had time and resources to do. Existing databases are not yet able to determine how many auxiliary verbs there are in Kiswahili Bantu. This is because they have been programmed to retrieve only the set of auxiliary verbs recognized in traditional grammar books. Ironically, the traditional grammatical works stand in need of urgent revisions and updates. Traditional grammatical works based and still base most of their auxiliary verbs on those patterns that appear closely related to auxiliary verbs in the languages of the pioneers. These languages are, first and foremost, Indo-European languages. The result of their efforts is selective because several patterns that would otherwise qualify as auxiliary verbs by a definition based on Kiswahili Bantu internal evidence are discarded because they did or do not pass the translation equivalent construction (TEC) test in the grammar of the language of description, e.g. English, French, Portuguese, and German, to name just a few. This study attempts to track down as many predicate verbs as possible that qualify or could qualify as auxiliary verbs in Kiswahili Bantu, but have been left out or discarded in the received and standard mainstream of description of auxiliary verbs that have come down to us from the 'colonial' grammatical enterprise (CGE).

Source: UG
How many inpatient paediatric units do we need?

In his article on paediatric inpatient units, Professor Taylor claims that many present paediatric units are too small to provide safe and cost effective care, do not meet required standards, and should combine into larger units providing specialist children's services.' We would disagree with him, at least with regard to rural communities. In many small district general hospitals a very high standard of care is offered, frequently directly by the consultant and often at great personal cost. The service shares many of the better aspects of primary care delivered by staff who know the families and their backgrounds. Professor Taylor stresses the value of a good relationship with the tertiary centres; where this exists children can be referred to superspecialists when indicated. He does, however, make a good case for continuing update and education for all staff and the need for clinical commitments to be such that study and development of appropriate skills are possible

Source: UG
How many years of life could be saved if malaria were eliminated from a hyperendemic area of northern Ghana?

Malaria is endemic in about 90 countries of the world, half of which are in Africa. Little is known about the demographic impact of the disease, however. This article uses demographic methods to examine the impact of mortality from malaria on overall mortality in a hyperendemic rural African setting. Using longitudinal demographic surveillance data from northern Ghana and applying multiple decrement and associated single-decrement life-table methods, we estimate the total number of person-years that would have been saved had malaria been eliminated from the population in 1995, given the age- and cause-specific mortality conditions of the period and gains in life expectancy that are implied. Results suggest that as many as one third of deaths in this population are attributable to malaria, depending on the age group under consideration, and that life expectancy at birth would likely increase by more than six years if malaria were eliminated as a cause of death. Copyright © 2007 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Source: UG
How much could rotavirus vaccines reduce diarrhea-associated mortality in northern Ghana? A model to assess impact

The main research focus of the Electron Microscopy and Histopathology Department in the past 20 years has been in the areas of enteric diarrhoeas with special emphasis on rotavirus. Through its diarrhoea surveillance studies, the Department has helped to firmly establish rotaviruses as a major cause of diarrhoea in children, and document the circulation of unusual rotavirus genotypes in Ghana. The Department has also recently expanded its diagnostic repertoire to include the identification and characterization of noroviruses, astroviruses, and other enteric viruses.

Source: UG