ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
The Emotional experiences of children living in orphanages in Ghana

Purpose – This study aims to explore the emotional experiences of children in selected orphanages. Design/methodology/approach – The study was executed in three orphanages in Accra, Tema and Aburi through the use of semi-structured interviews and observations. Findings – In total, 15 respondents reported some emotional experiences such as loneliness, entrapment, deprivation, rejection and helplessness. Originality/value – The number of children living in orphanages has increased in recent times. Previous studies have examined psychological risk and protective factors among children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS and also compared orphan children to non-orphans. Notwithstanding this, little is known about the emotional experiences of children living in orphanages inGhana. Keywords Orphanages, Orphans, Vulnerable children, Emotional experiences, Children, Orphanages, Children in orphanages, Emotional experiences

Source: UG
Emotional Impact of Suicide on Active Witnesses: Predicting with Machine Learning

Predicting the impact of suicide on incidental witnesses at an early stage helps to avert the possible side effect. When suicide is committed in public, incidental observers are left to grapple with it. In many cases, these incidental witnesses tend to experience the emotional side effect with time. In this study, we employed a Machine learning algorithms to predict the impact of suicide and suicidal attempt on incidental witnesses. This prediction was based on the accounts of suicide given by selected participants who have witnessed the act. The accounts, which was pre-processed into a corpus, were manually annotated with predefined emotion categories. While sadness emerged as the most salient emotional impact on the witnesses, fear was found as the lowest of the emotional impact on the witnesses. However, the machine learning prediction yielded highest in predicting depression with insignificant variations in the other emotional categories. This nonetheless shows that people who have witnessed suicide or suicidal attempts are inherently affected by some form of emotions that may require urgent attention to alleviate. By evaluating the performance of the Machine learning algorithms, the Support Vector Machine was superior, in terms its prediction, then the Multinomial Naïve Bayes algorithm. The outcome of the study contributes to the pool of research that sought to advocate the use of Machine Learning for predicting social phenomenon.

Source: UG
Emotional intelligence and perceived organizational support as predictors of emotional exhaustion among nurses and midwives

Purpose – Navigating the physical and emotional conditions of patients on daily basis can be emotionally exhaustive, requiring health professional to regulate their emotions in order to provide quality healthcare. The present study set out to examine the consequential effect of emotional intelligence and perceived organizational support (POS) on emotional exhaustion of nurses and midwives in the Ghanaian context. The study also examined the effects of age and cadres of nursing and midwifery on emotional exhaustion. Design/methodology/approach – The study was quantitative in nature and employed the cross-sectional design in sampling respondents. The study was conducted in four public hospitals and two quasi-public hospitals in three main districts in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. A sample of 342 nurses and midwives were proportionately sampled from various health facilities. The sample constituted of staff nurses and midwives. Findings – The study revealed that while age, cadres of nursing and midwifery and POS had consequential effects on emotional exhaustion, emotional intelligence failed to predict emotional exhaustion. Originality/value – Findings of the study draw the attention to the importance of organizational support in attenuating the emotional exhaustion associated with the nursing profession.

Source: UG
Emotional Intelligence and Personal Growth Initiative Effects on Subjective Happiness among University Students

This study examined emotional intelligence and personal growth initiative influences on the level of subjective happiness among university students in Ghana Two hundred and sixty undergraduate students were participants (female = 69 8%; mean age = 21 72 years, SD = 3 61 years) They responded to measures of emotional intelligence, personal growth initiative, and subjective happiness After controlling for their demographic characteristics, and following hierarchical regression analysis, results indicate emotional intelligence and intentional behaviour domain of personal growth to predict students’ level of subjective happiness These findings suggest that students’ ability to manage and utilise their emotions, as well as their personal growth initiative contribute significantly to their level of happiness

Source: UG
Emotional labour and contextual performance amongst Ghanaian preschool teachers: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion

Purpose – Emotions are an important aspect of work performance but are often overlooked, especially amongst preschool teachers whose work environment is laden with emotional job demands. The present study aims to examine the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between emotional labour and contextual performance. Design/methodology/approach – Using a cross-sectional design, data were obtained from 288 preschool teachers in the Tema Metropolis in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The study’s hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation in AMOS 21.0. Findings – The structural equation modelling analyses revealed that deep acting had a direct positive relationship with contextual performance, whereas the direct relationship between surface acting and contextual performance was not statistically significant. Furthermore, deep acting and surface acting were indirectly related to contextual performance via emotional exhaustion. Practical implications – The study’s findings underscore the need for educational institutions and managers to create a supportive environment for teachers engaging in emotional labour, and to ensure that emotional labour is not overburdening teachers. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature on teachers’ engagement in discretionary behaviours by elucidating emotional exhaustion as a linking mechanism between emotional labour and contextual performance in a non-Western context. This is one of the few studies to link emotional labour to contextual performance in the educational context.

Source: UG
Emotional labour and contextual performance amongst Ghanaian preschool teachers: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion

Purpose Emotions are an important aspect of work performance but are often overlooked, especially amongst preschool teachers whose work environment is laden with emotional job demands. The present study aims to examine the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between emotional labour and contextual performance. Design/methodology/approach Using a cross-sectional design, data were obtained from 288 preschool teachers in the Tema Metropolis in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The study's hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation in AMOS 21.0. Findings The structural equation modelling analyses revealed that deep acting had a direct positive relationship with contextual performance, whereas the direct relationship between surface acting and contextual performance was not statistically significant. Furthermore, deep acting and surface acting were indirectly related to contextual performance via emotional exhaustion. Practical implications The study's findings underscore the need for educational institutions and managers to create a supportive environment for teachers engaging in emotional labour, and to ensure that emotional labour is not overburdening teachers. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature on teachers' engagement in discretionary behaviours by elucidating emotional exhaustion as a linking mechanism between emotional labour and contextual performance in a non-Western context. This is one of the few studies to link emotional labour to contextual performance in the educational context.

Source: UG
Emotional labour influences on psychological health: The moderating role of religiosity

The present study examined the direct association between emotional labour and psychological health, and the moderating role of religiosity among media practitioners in Ghana . Using a cross-sectional design, 336 media practitioners (female = 31%) completed a survey on emotional labour (surface acting and deep acting), psychological health (general well-being and emotional exhaustion), and religiosity . Following hierarchical regression analyses, results showed that while surface acting significantly predicted psychological health, deep acting had no significant relationship with psychological health . Religiosity had a significant moderating effect on the influence of surface acting on psychological health, through reducing the negative effect of surface acting on well-being . These findings underscore the need for emotional management competence training and intervention for media practitioners to protect their psychological health

Source: UG
Empirical analysis of the changing pattern of sex segregation of occupation in Ghana

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess the changing pattern and direction of sex segregation of occupation as a measure of unbalanced distribution of occupation by sex in Ghana between 1960 and 2010, identify the sources of the changes and show whether female-male earnings difference has changed in line with the changes in occupational segregation.Design/methodology/approach - The paper applies two segregation indices to data from population censuses and household surveys in the empirical analysisFindings - The outcome of the segregation measure indicates a generally modest to high but declining occupational sex segregation in Ghana over a period of five decades. Sex composition and occupational mix effects are found to be the underlying drivers of the declining segregation with the former coming up strongly during the initial 40 years. This has, however, not translated into narrowing female-male earnings gap.ractical implications - The paper recommends measures towards economic transformation for a change in occupational structure backed by implementation of education policy to enhance female access to male-dominated science and engineering programmes and employment in high-skill occupations.Originality/value - The strength of the paper is seen from its originality as it is the first attempt to assess changing pattern of occupational segregation over a long period of five decades with consistent and comparable data sources.

Source: UG
An empirical analysis of the determinants of corporate investment decisions: Evidence from emerging market firms

The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of macroeconomic and financial market development on corporate investment decisions. The study adopts a dynamic panel data model using the Arellano and Bond (1991), the Difference GMM method. The findings revealed that the impact of macroeconomic and financial market development on corporate investment decisions was decidedly mixed depending on the measurement of the variables. Whilst stock market development and bank size are not significant in influencing corporate investment decisions, bond market development is significant in predicting corporate investment decisions. GDP per capita is significantly negative in predicting corporate investment decisions. Firm level factors such as past investment, profitability, firm size, growth opportunities available to firms and free cash flow are all significant in determining corporate investment decisions. The results of the study generally support existing literature on the impact of financial market development, macroeconomic variables and certain firm level factors on corporate investment decisions. The main value of this paper is to consider broad based approach to analysing the determinants of corporate investment decisions from emerging market context. © Euro Journals Publishing, Inc. 2009.

Source: UG
An empirical analysis of the sustainability of Ghana's trade deficits

Trends in the trade balance of Ghana show a consistent and excessive deficit in the Ghanaian economy (but for brief episodes of surpluses). The key concern regarding this trend is that Ghana could be on the path of insolvency as they build up excessive net foreign debt from financing the trade gap with capital inflows. Using the inter-temporal budget constraint model of Husted (1992), this study assesses the sustainability of Ghana's trade deficits via a test of the country's inter-temporal budget constraint. Employing time series data of Ghana for the period 1983-2012 and using the bounds testing approach to cointegration under the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, the study found the existence of a long-run relationship between Ghana's exports and imports. The results of the Wald's restriction test imposed on the long-run parameter indicate that Ghana fails to satisfy the sufficient condition for sustainability of its trade deficits. The study also established the existence of a bidirectional causality between Ghana's exports and imports both in the short run and the long run. The overall conclusion drawn from the study is that Ghana fails to satisfy its international budget constraint and that its trade deficits are unsustainable. Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Source: UG
Empirical Analysis of Workplace Conflict and its Influence on the Attitude of Media Employees in Ghana

Workplace conflict is known to have severe implications on employees and organisations worldwide. Conflicts at the workplace have resulted in the destruction of cordial relationships among working colleagues as well as subordinates and superiors and has also changed enthusiastic employees to rather hostile and ineffectual actors. Consequently, these employees are not able to meet their targets due to negative attitudinal changes towards work, thus hampering the attainment of organizational goals. However, there is little empirical studies on this subject in both academic and industrial circles. In examining the outcomes of workplace conflict and its influence on the attitudes of media employees, thispaper employed qualitative methodologies to select forty two (42) respondents from six Ghanaian print and electronic privately and state owned media houses. Findings revealed that attitudes of employees towards work were predominantly influenced negatively as employees decline in commitment to work and cooperation with others. Further, following conflicts, employees engaged in many adverse behavioral tendencies including not being on talking terms, not greeting one another, hostile behaviours and insecurity. Nonetheless, the paper interestingly found some positive outcomes such as idea sharing, unity, activeness and alertness from conflicts.

Source: UG
Empirical Bayes Estimates for Correlated Hierarchical Data with Overdispersion

An extension of the generalized linear mixed model was constructed to simultaneously accommodate overdispersion and hierarchies present in longitudinal or clustered data. This so-called combined model includes conjugate random effects at observation level for overdispersion and normal random effects at subject level to handle correlation, respectively. A variety of data types can be handled in this way, using different members of the exponential family. Both maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation for covariate effects and variance components were proposed. The focus of this paper is the development of an estimation procedure for the two sets of random effects. These are necessary when making predictions for future responses or their associated probabilities. Such (empirical) Bayes estimates will also be helpful in model diagnosis, both when checking the fit of the model as well as when investigating outlying observations. The proposed procedure is applied to three datasets of different outcome types.

Source: UG
An empirical examination of the relationship between income inequality and corruption in Africa

Most studies examining the relationship between corruption and income inequality have treated income inequality as the dependent variable and corruption as an independent variable. However, a sparse but growing strand of the literature now looks at the reverse because there is reason to believe that higher income inequality may influence corruption levels. Furthermore, the empirical literature is inconclusive on the exact relationship between income inequality and corruption across different regions and income categories. We contribute to this literature by providing empirical evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa using an unbalanced panel data for 48 countries from 1996 to 2016. Contrary to prior results from developed countries, our results show that higher levels of income inequality are rather associated with lower corruption levels and suggestive of a changing relationship between income inequality and corruption among countries on different income trajectories. We also find a reverse causality between income inequality and corruption and that corruption Granger-causes income inequality. Finally, results from OLS, random effects and fixed effects models reveal a U-shaped relationship between income inequality and corruption for low-income and lower-middle-income African countries with turning point income inequality levels ranging from 22 to 52.

Source: UG
An Empirical Investigation of Health Practitioners Technology Adoption: The Mediating Role of Electronic Health

Health technology innovation integration is rapidly growing in global health-care settings. However, research on factors driving technology adoption intention is limited. On this note, it has become important to investigate and understand the complex factors underpinning practitioners’ technology adoption intentions. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model and The Institutional Theory, we propose a model to empirically investigate technology adoption and its potency in driving universal health coverage, mediated by electronic health technology. We used data collected from 416 health sector practitioners to empirically test the model. Using the Structural Equation Modeling technique, the study found that perceived ease of use and relevant technology infrastructure all have significant positive relationship with universal health coverage. However, perceived usefulness, management support and adequate practitioner training were found to have negative relationship with universal health coverage. The results further revealed that perceived-ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, management support, adequate practitioner training and relevant technology infrastructure also have positive relationship with electronic health technology. Moreover, electronic health technology as a mediator was also found to have significant relationship with universal health coverage. The implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are subsequently highlighted.

Source: UG
Empirical Review Analysis of Overview of the Concept of Psychological Capital and Healthcare Employee Behaviours

The argument is made often times that anytime management shows appreciation of employee’s effort, there is a guarantee of high individual performance and job satisfaction, the lack of it, causes severe damage to the economy of the organization and the nation as a whole. The USA alone, there is a budget loss of $450 and $550 billion dollars due to job dissatisfaction, a phenomenon that transpires highly in the less developed economies especially in the health sector. The WHO reports that in the health service of sub-Saharan Africa, job dissatisfaction on the part of health professionals has been the major reason for health professional’s brain drain, which has caused the economies huge sums of money. Essentially, health institutions continue to loose health professionals who complain of dissatisfaction over job or psychological needs frustration which when not addressed, leads to counter productive work behavior that threatens the survival and sustainability of health service delivery. Indeed, the continuous survival of health institutions very much depends on the level of satisfaction employees derive from the job and work environment, which ultimately translates into performance. Research has showed that job satisfaction of health professionals for instance, is crucial for higher performance, motivation and patient satisfaction. However, extant literature reports of low job satisfaction on the part of health professionals in Ghana. This paper presents reviewed work of some authors that are related and of relevance to the study.

Source: UG
An Empirical Study of Perceived Strategic Value and Adoption Constructs: The Ghanaian Case

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the link between the determinants of perceived strategic value (PSV) of e-commerce and e-commerce adoption among Ghanaian small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), defined as businesses that employ a maximum of 200 employees. Design/methodology/approach – The authors randomly sampled SME owners/managers from the membership of the Ghana Club 100 (GC 100) and non-traditional exporters (NTEs). Established databases are not the norm in Ghana, and GC 100 and NTEs had membership databases that were accessible to the local co-authors used a structured instrument developed and validated in prior studies to collect the data in a face to face interview. A pilot study was conducted to ascertain the clarity and reliability of the questionnaire. Of the SME owners/managers: 200 were contacted; 112 agreed to participate in the study; 107 responses were obtained – representing a 53.5 per cent response rate. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 14. Findings – Factor analysis demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity and construct reliability. PSV construct resulted in four factors: Strategic Decision Support (SD), Information Management (IM), Organizational Support (OS) and Decision Aids (DA). This finding is both consistent and inconsistent with prior research. The adoption construct yielded five factors: Perceived Usefulness (PU), Ease of Use (EU), Compatibility (C), Organisational Readiness (OS) and External Pressure (EP). There was more congruence between our results and those of prior research. Research imitations/implications – Limitations stem from small sample size, the population and locale from which the sample was drawn. Practical implications – The study has research and practical implications and these are discussed fully in the paper. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the knowledge of perceived strategic value and adoption of e-commerce by SMEs in an under-researched part of the world.

Source: UG