ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
An investigation into the impact of employee turnover of Ghana Post Company Limited

The focus of this study was to investigate into the impact of employee turnover of Ghana Post Company limited. A perception of high turnover was going on. Employees actually thought turnover was high. The study wanted to find out if that was true and if it was true, what was the impact. This study seeks to find out the impact of employee turnover at Ghana Post and find out the factors that contribute to employee turnover and their causes. A total of 50 subjects (29 males' 21 females) completed the survey instrument designed by the investigator. All data were analyzed using percentages and frequency count with the aid of SPSS « software package for the peculation of the descriptive statistics for the survey. Again, interview of some high-ranking management members of the company was conducted to get a first hand insight into the personnel selection practices of the company and junior staff. The result of the study shows employee turnover is low. Contrary to what was perceived. It was also found out that, despite all their complaints majority could not leave because they are unskilled labor. It was rather shown that, the skilled labour that is graduates and professionals are leaving since they have better options somewhere. It is therefore important to note that employee turnover can be addressed. It is therefore recommended that, Management should employ skilled labor, creating favorable conditions, should understand employee motivation and to check the genuity of the level of staff.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the impact of the Single Spine Salary Structure on attrition and performance of Nurses in Ghana Health Service, Kumasi Metropolis

This study examines the impact of the single spine pay policy on attrition and performance of nurses working in Ghana Health Service facilities in the Ashanti region. It looks into how the SSPP could address the migration of nurses and how productivity could be linked to pay. The study also enumerates factors that could push or pull employees to their current work. The analytical type of research with quantitative and qualitative approaches was adopted. With a population of 2784 nurses, a sample size of 200 was used by employing stratified and simple random techniques. Results show that factors that could help retain nurses and improve their performance included increase in salaries, incentives, opportunity for career development, and favorable working environment. Again, by assessment, performance of nurses had improved but results indicated otherwise. It was realized that the service was not exceptionally attractive to nurses with increased attrition of nurses in the Kumasi Metropolis of GHS even after the implementation of the SSPP. It is recommended that there should be the establishment of incentives with favorable career development policies and good working environment. Successive governments are requested to maintain the SSPP and implement all components of it to help address the issue of migration and improvement of the performance of nurses in the GHS, Kumasi Metropolis.

Source: KNUST
An Investigation into the Impact of Work Related Stress and its Effect on Employees’ Performance at SDA Hospital, Kwadaso

Stress is a universal phenomenon that manifests itself in humans as a result of different factors emanating from several experiences. It is a part of our everyday life; therefore, everyone should manage stress to a certain level. It is an ever-increasing problem in contemporary societies resulting in enormous costs. These make knowledge about stress management and its effect on performance of health workers very importance. It is also the reason why the study is timely and suitable. The study attempted to determine the causes of stress, stress management methods management use in the health sector and to determine the relationship between the effectiveness of those strategies with health workers performance in hospitals. Three research questions and four hypotheses were postulated; all the health workers (210) were selected to participate in the study and the data was collected with questionnaire and interview based on a 7-point-Likert-Scale. The result revealed that, there are so many causes of stress at SDA hospital. Again the way people manage stress is also diverse but physiological and psychological method were found to be mostly used by health workers in managing stress. The study revealed that, to be able to manage to optimum; there should be an integration of the method of managing stress. The study also indicates that, performance reduces because of stress, performance increase at optimum stress and performance does not increase when there is no stress or over stress. Based on these findings, recommendations were presented to management and individuals on how to manage stress to the optimum to increase job performance in health services. This is a very importance concern that needs to be addressed because stress is inevitable in health service delivery. Therefore, how it is managed is very important. As indicated in both the interviews and questionnaires that, stress has both positive and negative effect on job performance depending on how it is managed. Awareness of stress is very important in stress management procedures.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the organizational culture of the Catholic eEducational Unit in the Kumasi Metropolis.

The culture of every organization acts as a pivot that manipulates procedures, direct behavior and the total thinking of its employees towards goal achievement. It tends to affect the behavior, relation and total output as a result the need to educate and direct employees towards the positive routine and consequences of practicing the culture of the catholic educational unit. The study was designed to investigate into the organizational Culture of the Catholic educational unit in Kumasi district. Thus the study set the theoretical background by reviewing literature on organizational culture. The source of materials for the study was both primary and secondary. Primary data was collected by the use of structured questionnaire designed to collect data from teaching and non- teaching staff of the Catholic educational Unit in the Kumasi Metropolis. The study conducted was purely quantitative whereby the researcher asked specific questions and also collected data for the study. Quota and Convenience Sampling method was used to gather and collect first-hand information relevant to the study from 160 respondents in order to access the organizational culture of the catholic educational unit. The study revealed that responsibilities were clearly defined for each staff of which they received support and feedbacks of supervisors. CEU held staff accountable for their actions and inactions encouraged or rewarded staff for work done and recognized staff for a good work done. However, worrying is the fact that problems took too long to be solved. However, it is recommended that authorities of catholic educational put in place a human resource policy document that spells out the organizational culture, training opportunities and job descriptions as well stipulate penalty strictly enforced for contradiction of rules to deter staff from engaging in acts detrimental to the organizational.

Source: KNUST
An Investigation into the Organizational Culture of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital

Organizational culture is an important aspect of an organization that influences the activities of the organization and its entire members. The various cultures within the organization are basically what employees identify themselves with and it is also the mirror though which the organization is recognized. The main objective of the research was to investigate into the organizational culture of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital with the view of assessing the extent which employees identify themselves with the organizational culture and the effect on employees work behaviour. A combination of descriptive and exploratory research design was adopted for the research. A sample size of 150 respondents was selected and interviewed using both qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques to elicit data from primary and secondary sources. Analysis of the data collected from the field shows that the respondent have had in mind various attitude they consider to be unacceptable within the organization and in response to such attitudes some employees take up behaviours. In addition, the data revealed that employees were conscious of their professional ethics and therefore were adhering to them very well. On the other hand, majority of the respondents stated that the leadership of the hospital was autocratic in their approach to issues and that the bureaucracy in the organization was killing initiatives. This has invariable to a difficulty in accessing to information are made more open and more accessible to all employees so that employees concerns could be addressed promptly without obstacles.

Source: KNUST
An Investigation into the Perceptions of Employers and Employees Towards Performance Appraisal at Bolgatanga Polytechnic

The purpose of any institution is to achieve the fundamental aim for which it has been established. In fulfilling this aim, various factors need to be considered. One of these factors is the need to look at the human resource factor which will be responsible for ensuring that the activities of the institution are carried out. In discharging these responsibilities, certain measures need to be put in place to ensure that the workers are actually performing to the expectation of the institution. One of such measures is performance appraisal. Bolga polytechnic existed for ten (10) years without performance appraisal. Performance appraisal serves as a check, which exposes strengths and weaknesses of staff and direction of the organization. Good performances are awarded and the bad ones are given various types of training to address their weaknesses. Based on the above, the researcher sought to investigate into what the employer and employees perceive about performance appraisal, impact of performance appraisal on workers productivity and the benefits or otherwise that can be derived from the appraisal process at Bolgatanga polytechnic. A total of 86 employees were drawn and used for the study. Out of this number 42 were senior members, 33 were senior staff and 11 were junior staff. A well structured questionnaire made up of close ended, open ended and likert scale type questions was used in gathering data for the study. The study revealed that employees of the polytechnic perceived appraisal as gocfd because it brings a lot of benefits to the employer and employees hence they welcome it if it is instituted. It was recommended that management should introduce appraisal into polytechnic, taking into consideration the benefit that it offers to the employer and employees at large.

Source: KNUST
Investigation into the possible use of cryptococcus albidus for lipid accumulation using volatile fatty acids as sole carbon source for biodiesel production

Owing to rising global population and associated competition for food of which some serve as feedstock for biodiesel, especially the vegetable oils, it is necessary to identify alternative sources of lipids. The concept of using volatile fatty acids as sole carbon source for microbial lipids accumulation was investigated in flask cultures of Crypotoccus albidus. C.albidus was cultivated at a temperature of 25oC, pH of 6.0 and pure VFA concentration of 5g/l.The hexane/ isopropanol alcohol/ distilled water solvent extraction method using a soxhlet apparatus was used for possible lipids extraction. Pure volatile fatty acids mixtures (acetic, propionic and butyric acids) of different ratios as well as volatile fatty acids from anaerobic digestion of faecal sludge were used. It was observed that Crypotoccus albidus could not grow well on volatile fatty acids as there were decreases in optical density from an initial 0.228 to 0.184 when pure VFAs were used with ammonium chloride as nitrogen source. When cells were grown on VFAs from faecal sludge also, there was no growth as a similar decrease in optical density was observed from 0.098 to -0.009. The effect of different nitrogen sources on the growth of Crypotoccus albidus was also investigated. It was observed that yeast extract which is an organic source of nitrogen gave the highest growth of cells with an optical density of 0.110 from 0.052. No lipid was extracted in this study as C. albidus could not grow on VFAs thereby not metabolizing the VFAs into lipids accumulated in its cells for extraction.

Source: KNUST
Investigation into the Operations of Fuel Marketing Companies in Ghana : (A Study of Total Petroleum Ghana Limited)

The objective of this research is to investigate the operations of TOTAL Petroleum Ghana Limited and the challenges faced by fuel stations in their operations. The study also examines the use of a fuel management system to achieve business competitiveness and organizational performance. A web-based application was developed labeled “Fuel Manager” using Microsoft visual studio environment using SQL server that connects as the database. Design research is the methodology used for this thesis because the purpose of this research is to investigate the operations of TOTAL Petroleum fuel stations and all those design components of fuel station management system which influence the overall productivity of the system and propose a new improved framework for the fuel station enterprise systems. Agile development approach was adopted together with Unified Modeling Language (UML) techniques and analysis which are useful in analysing and building information system. The study uses primary data collected through interviews with station managers and supervisors. Questionnaires were also distributed to managers and supervisors of TOTAL Petroleum fuel stations. The data was analysed using SPSS. The findings indicate that even though these fuel stations are aware of the importance of a fuel management system, their knowledge about fuel management systems is limited. Once TOTAL Petroleum Ghana Limited have clearly recognized and defined these opportunities, they must then implement the tools and methodologies to help develop an information system which will assist them in enhancing their competitive strategy. The fuel station management system allows for monitoring and enables TOTAL Petroleum Ghana Limited to track various petroleum products at each fuel station, produce sales reports, stock level reports and supply reports. Future work will explore in more detail a broader set of advanced technology for fuel management system.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the performance of Ghanaian construction project teams

Increasingly, project teams in the construction industry are usually established as soon as new project start. This is done to meet today’s competition and customer expectations. A project is said to be successful when it meets all the project objectives; time, cost and quality. To ensure that the project meets its objectives, construction project team must perform successfully and very effectively. Creation of a very effective project team will yield a successful project outcomes that will surpass the project requirement and achieve overall success. This study aimed to assess the performance of Ghanaian construction project teams by identify the construction project team characteristics, factors that constitute the project team performance measurement and measure the project team performance base on the team performance measures. To achieve this an extensive literature research was carried out to identify the characteristics and the factor that determines the performance of project teams. Eighty (80) construction project team characteristics and a forty (40) factors of project team performance measurement were identified. Quantitative research methods were adopted for this study, of which are survey questionnaire were used to solicit data from the ongoing and newly completed construction project in the tertiary institution in Ashanti region. Sixty – four (64) questionnaires were retrieve out of Seventy (70) distributed. The data collected was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), which include relative importance and factor analysis. Also a project was selected as a case study to measure the performance of the project team. The study revealed that performance of project team members is very vital to the overall performance of the project team and project success as a whole having a mean score of 4.151 on the ranking of the seven (7) main factors of project performance measurement identified. This means that the higher the performance of project team members, the higher the project realizing its success. Secondly, every vi effective project team must inherent certain unique characteristics to be able to perform effectively. Fourteen (14) common characteristics identified in the Ghanaian construction project team, some are; Good working relationship among team members, Concern for team members because taking good care of the team members, Effective motivation systems for team members, Concern for each other member of the team, Setting of achievable goals for the teams, Subgroups are incorporated into the team. The overall team performance of the selected project was found to be 66.86%. The study revealed that performance of the individual project team members is very vital to the performance of the construction project team as well as it vital to every project success. The outcomes from this study are anticipated to assist the top management and project team leadership to increase their knowledge on project team characteristics and factors that contribute to team performance measurement.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the requirements for a resource center for design professionals in Ghana

Ghana has come to an intersection of construction boom, which coincides with her 50th Anniversary. So many infrastructures are going on, initiated by private developers and governmental agencies. One issue being failed to be addressed is the quality of construction work being produced, in terms of buildings especially. There is also a major challenge that designers and contractors face in the execution of their profession, that is, the location of well- manufactured finishing products. There is generally a lack of information on them making them inaccessible to the public. Additionally, there are few or no guiding policy programmes for the design and construction industry and inadequate infrastructure and human resource skills in the retail and education of design. It is the aim that this study will bring out the, key issues affecting the design and construction industry and the aim to find out practical solutions that will resolve aid in resolving these issues.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the recruitment and selection practices of SMEs in the Kumasi Metropolis

Effective recruitment and selection practices enhance the productivity and the competitiveness of every organization. Empirical research shows that when organizations employ formal and systematic recruitment and selection practices they are able to reduce staff turn-over and its’ associated cost achieve their goals and objectives. The present study sought to investigate the recruitment and selection practices of SMEs in the Kumasi Metropolis in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. A questionnaire survey was chosen as the research design of this investigation. Purposive sampling was used to select three firms each from the micro, small, and medium enterprises. The researcher sampled owner/ managers and every employee of the selected micro and small firms. However, simple random sampling was used to select respondents from the selected medium enterprises. SPSS was used to analyze the data that was collected. The study found very little in terms of formal and systematic procedures contrary to what is prescribed in text books on formal recruitment and selection practices. Respondents identified the lack of formal recruitment and selection practices and a well defined and concise policy on recruitment and selection, informal performance appraisal practices and the difficulty in attracting qualified employees as a major problem militating against the growth of SMEs. The study also found that SMEs are laying more emphasis on qualification as the basis for employment and resisting the pressure to employ friends and relatives. The study provides some relevant recommendation to policy makers and owner/ managers to help improve on the recruitment and selection practices in SMEs and formulate policies that in the light of the ever changing scenario of industrialization and globalization will position the SMEs sector at the forefront of the nations’ socio-economic development.

Source: KNUST
An investigation into the relationship between motivation and unsafe behaviour on construction sites.

The Construction industry plays an important role in the attainment of socio-economic policies and seen as a major driver of development especially in developing economies. Construction workers bring their belief, value and vision to the compliance to safety management systems and ultimately to the performance of work. The raise of industrialization globally brought along concerns of occupational hazards and diseases due to new complexities of construction as well as large employment of human resources in the industry. Some researchers have associated this problem with poor motivational levels. The aim of this study was to establish empirically the relationship between motivation and unsafe behaviour of the construction worker by fulfilling the following objectives; determine critical motivation factors, determine frequently occurring unsafe behaviour and determine impact of motivation on unsafe behaviour. Using a questionnaire survey approach, Ghanaian local (D1/K1 and D2/K2) contractors were selected using purposive and convenience sampling techniques. Fifty responses were retrieved, SPSS v.23 was used to process and analyse the first two objectives in frequency tables, mean score, standard deviation and percentages. The study employed partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the relationship between motivation and unsafe behaviour on construction sites. The study discovered that, construction operatives consider personal and skill development, good interpersonal relationships and provision of personal protective equipment as critical motivational factors than financial incentives. Again, the study revealed a significant negative relationship between motivational factors and unsafe behaviour on construction sites. It was recommended that identified motivational factors should be improved to achieve ultimate site safety.

Source: KNUST