ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
The impact of digitization on the strategic growth in the banking sector using consolidated bank of ghana as a case study

The study examined the impact of digitization on the strategic growth in the banking sector using Consolidating Bank of Ghana. The sample size of the study was 200 staff from Consolidated Bank of Ghana out of the 350 population size. The study issued the structured close-ended questionnaire to collect the data from the respondents. The study used the SPSS version 21.0 to analyse the data and presented in tables showing the means and standard deviation. The study found out that, pertaining the levels of digitization of banks, it can be mentioned that the bank has a high quality website, strong social media presence, robust search engine optimization mechanism and also proper planning for email marketing. Furthermore it was identified that the bank shares content across several online platforms and also has a platform for blogging to engage with audience and expand beyond only product sales. Finally, it was mentioned that banks have a computerized customer service and also practice digital advertising. The study also revealed that, there is a positively significant relationship between digitization and performance of banks in Ghana. With this, the study found out that the bank has expanded its client base due to the digital structures. Also, the bank conducts SWOT analysis often to measure strategic growth. Again, the bank has gained new opportunities in the banking industry as a result of the introduction of digitation. Finally, the bank has been able to broaden its horizon since it has been able to penetrate into other regions in Ghana.

Source: KNUST
The impact of digitalization and perceived value on customer retention: evidence from smes in kumasi

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of digitalization and perceived value on customer retention: evidence from smes in Kumasi. The study employed a quantitative method by using a structured questionnaire to collect data from 162 samples of customers of smes in Kumasi using convenience sampling technique. The data collected from respondents was analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 25.0. The statistical test run were, frequencies, reliability mean, standard deviation, correlation and PROCESS macro. The results revealed a significant positive effect of digitalization on customer perceived value and customer retention. It was found that customer perceived value mediates the relationship between digitalization and customer retention. Based on these findings it is recommended that the management of small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) in Kumasi proactively increase perceived value, considering the favorable influence of perceived value on the relationship between digitalization and customer retention.

Source: KNUST
The impact of direct marketing on business growth in Ghana‟s tourism industry. The mediating role of social media adoption.

Ghana‟s tourism industry is in a stage of stagnant growth and structurally defective which has affected the numerous anticipated growth opportunities needed to boost the county‟s economy. Nevertheless, academically, studies examined and addressed the constructs of direct marketing, social media adoption and growth independently and studies explaining the causal relationships among direct marketing, social media adoption and tourism growth are lacking. The study used quantitative research approach and sampled 390 respondents through quota and convenience sampling technique. Survey questionnaires were employed in the gathering of data from four destinations in Ghana. The data were analysed using structural equational model. The results of the study revealed a positive and significant relationship between direct marketing and business growth and significantly direct positive effect of direct marketing on social media adoption. In addition, there existed a significant positive effect of social media adoption on business growth. The effect of social media adoption on the relationship between direct marketing and business growth showed a significantly positive result. However, after testing for mediation, it was revealed that the mediator (social media adoption) partially mediates the relationship between direct marketing and business growth. Based on these findings, it was recommended that destination managers should make a conscious effort to build and improve upon its marketing efforts by leveraging on the various social media handles, also, destination managers should create a link between destination‟s website to its social media handles in order to facilitate relationship and database building and finally, the proposed model was accepted after SEM was ran.

Source: KNUST
The impact of domestic debt on private investment in Ghana.

Ghana’s domestic debt was at a high of GH 34,620.90 billion as of December 2014 since the beginning of HIPIC in 2000. This study was aimed at examining the impact of domestic debt on private investment levels in Ghana from the period 1993 to 2014. An investment function with five independent variables, which are public investment, domestic debt, GDP, interest rate and foreign direct investment were estimated by analysing the unit root test and cointegration test. The unit root test revealed that all the five of the variables in study were integrated of the order one, private investment was at levels and ARDL was used for the cointegration test in the long-run for the equation. The results showed that the high levels of domestic borrowing had a positive and significant impact on private investment in the long run and was positive but insignificant in the short run. The results showed that public investment impact on private investment was statistically positive and significant in the longrun but positive and insignificant in the short-run. Interest rates had a positive and significant impact on private investment in the long-run but was not statistically significant in the short run. GDP was positive and statistically significant in the long-run on private investment and statistically positive and significant in the short-run. FDI was positive and statistically significant in the long-run but positive and insignificant in the short-run. This study finds that the appropriate policy implementation can deal with the increasing domestic debt and the sale of domestic debt to all donors. The results from the study have shown that they have a strong implication on the management of fiscal status of the country as this will help the economy. This research seeks to assist in longitudinal studies by other researcher in the field of academia and be of strong value to all. Keywords: Ghana, GDP, domestic debt, private investment

Source: KNUST
The impact of domestic savings on economic growth: an empirical investigation in Ghana

There has been much jubilation and hope after independence on 6th March 1957 that Ghana will steer the African continent towards fast economic growth and development. Though Ghana experienced relatively high growth soon after its independence, it had already shown negative per capita growth in 1965. In 2011, the World Bank projected Ghana to be the fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as Ghana witnessed a 14% economic growth in that year. This growth can only be realized through accumulation of human and fiscal capital. Domestic savings are crucial in financing high capital formation which leads to increased productivity, sustained growth and development. Unfortunately, Ghana has not witnessed gross domestic x savings above 20% of GDP. This study examined the mechanisms through which savings affect economic growth in Ghana. The study used the neoclassical production function gross domestic savings and other macroeconomic determinants are the main exogenous variables in the second model. The Thomas Tobin’s investment function is used to link gross domestic savings and investment in Ghana. The study used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) to examine the short run and long run relationships between the independent variables and the dependent variables. The Dickey-Fuller Unit Root was used to check the stationarity of the variables. The study concluded that gross domestic savings affect economic growth through gross investment only in the short run but this channel does not exist in the long run.

Source: KNUST
The impact of emerging regulatory regime on the private health insurance industry in Ghana

The study sought to examine how the current regulatory reforms in the insurance industry impact the services of insurance schemes in Ghana. The study used primary data comprising 60 employees in management positions in private health insurance companies in Ghana, and 5 personnel from the National Health Insurance Authority, the regulator. The employees were selected using purposive sampling technique, while the private health insurance companies that participated in the study were chosen using simple random sampling technique. Descriptive research, mean and standard deviation, as well as inferential statistics of ordinary simple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data of the study. The results of the study revealed that the main reason for the current insurance regulatory framework in Ghana is to ensure safety and soundness of insurers; offer protection to consumers; bring sanity into insurance industry; promote best practices; mitigate industry associated risks, and to safeguard the interest of all stakeholders for socio-economic development. The findings of the study also revealed that the current insurance regulatory measures were established to manage systemic risks and market failures. The result of the study also revealed that the regulatory framework has both positive and negative impact on insurance companies’ activities in Ghana. Moreover the findings of the study revealed that the regulatory challenges facing the insurers are logistical, education and training, human resource, legislative, and economic or financial ones. The results of the ordinary simple linear regression revealed that the regulatory challenges faced by insurers have a significant negative impact on the insurers’ overall satisfaction with the regulatory framework. Given these findings of the study, implication and recommendations are highlighted for policymakers, regulators and researchers.

Source: KNUST
The impact of employee relations on productivity; a case study of ECG Ashanti.

The purpose of this study was to examine and seek to provide some explanations to employee and management relations and their impact on productivity at Electricity Company of Ghana, Ashanti. Therefore, a descriptive research was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Seventy (70) employees and thirty (30) customers of the Electricity Company of Ghana were recruited as respondents of the study. It became evident that employee-management relations, employee-employee relations within ECG – Ashanti Region was generally poor. However, an appropriate working environment existed for them to have a fruitful relationship with each other. Interestingly, the study indicated that productivity of employees of ECG – Ashanti Region was generally good but most of the employees have not been appraised as a best worker since their time of working with the company. Moreover, a positive impact was identified to be existing between employee relations and employee productivity within ECG – Ashanti Region. Challenges confronting the smooth flow of employee relations within ECG – Ashanti Region are enormous; including poor encouragement from management to subordinates, existing communication gap between management and subordinates, non-existent of motivations for employees, nepotism, favoritism, and some employees regarding themselves above others. Therefore, customer satisfaction was hugely affected. It is highly recommended that a collaboration between employees and management of the institution will help circumvent the challenges and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty to the services and products of the company.

Source: KNUST
The impact of exchange rate on foreign direct investment in Ghana.

In spite of the several policies being implemented by the government of Ghana to enhance the flow of FDI into the economy, available data indicates that the level of FDI inflows has also been falling. This is worrying for a nation like Ghana which depends so much on FDI for growth and development. In the same vein, the exchange rate of the Cedi to major trading currencies has also been increasing. This is a key factor which most foreign investors before embarking on an investment in a nation, take into consideration. The study examined the impact of exchange rate on foreign direct investment in Ghana using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The study utilized annual time series data covering the period 1990 to 2017.The findings revealed that exchange rate had a statistically significant effect on foreign direct investment. Trade and interest rate had a positive statistical significance effect on foreign direct investment in the short run. The study recommends that, as the economy becomes more open in terms of being less restrictive on trade with other countries it will bring about a decrease in FDI inflows. This is not surprising because even though reductions in trade barriers are supposed to promote the attraction of FDIs, most of these policies geared towards the reduction of trade barriers are linked to opening up specific sectors of the economy to investment. These areas may not be of keen interest to foreign direct investors as such it is therefore necessary for the Ghana Investment Promotion Council to welcome policies that will open up the economy to more sectors. For instance the free zone board policy geared towards enhancing FDI inflows can be extended to more sectors of the economy in order to attract foreign direct investors into the economy.

Source: KNUST
The impact of external debt on economic growth in Ghana.

Ghana’s external debt has been on the increase due to the dependence of the Government on international capital markets to source for loans to finance most of her expenditure. High external debts can dampen confidence in a country’s economic reforms and thus take away the good intentions behind any economic reform to grow the economy. This study, therefore, investigated the impact of external debt on economic growth in Ghana. The study made use of data spanning the period 1983-2017 which was sourced from World Bank Development Indicators and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. The method of estimation was based on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model. The study established the existence of a long run relationship between economic growth and external debt in Ghana. In general, the findings appeared to support that external debt stock and the burden (induced by debt servicing) had a direct negative effect on output growth for the period covered. Gross fixed Capital also had a negative significant effect on economic growth in the long run and short run and this contradicts economic theory that posits that an increase in gross fixed capital should impact positively on economic growth. This can be related to the crowding out effect of investment on gross domestic product. Human capital, however, has a positive significant effect on economic growth in both the short run and the long run. It is recommended that the government takes fiscal discipline measures to ensure that external debt are kept at levels at par with our debt servicing policies. Also, our debt servicing approach needs to be revised where government projects that are financed with external loans should be capable of generating returns which should be used to pay off the debt without taking additional scarce resources to finance the debt. The policy where government takes loans to finance all forms of project should be relooked at by the government.

Source: KNUST
The impact of foreign aid on poverty reduction in Ghana from 1987 to 2017.

Over the years the need to reduce poverty particularly in the developing countries has become a major weight to most government and international community as a whole due to its effects on the welfare of the people. The major aim of this study is to empirically assess the relationship between foreign aid and poverty reduction in Ghana over the period 1987 to 2017. This work is based on a simple model where poverty is expressed as a function of several economic variables over time. The most critical of the variables considered is the inflow of foreign aid. Certain diagnostic tests such as VIF test for multicollinearity and ADF test for stationarity was performed on the dataset used to ensure that the results obtained are efficient and unbiased. The results of the OLS estimation showed that variables such as inflation rate are having insignificant impact on the poverty levels in Ghana. Other variables such as urbanization, net inflow, GDP growth and population growth were found to be significant at various levels of significance. The results indicate that there exists a negative statistically significant relationship between aid inflow and the number of people living below the poverty line, which is the proxy used to measure the level of poverty in Ghana in this study. That is, the higher the level of aid inflow the lower the number of poor people in the country. The results also point to the fact that a 1% increase in the level of foreign aid inflow will cause the poverty rate to decrease by 0.74%. The study recommends the increase in aids, through performance based allocation (PBA) criteria and aid programs assigned to expenditure to reduce poverty, since that will significantly lead to poverty reduction in Ghana.

Source: KNUST
The impact of good customer care on loan repayment in the microfinance industry: The case of Opportunity International Savings and Loans Company limited

The fierceness of the competition in the Microfinance business has resulted in constant search for strategies to retain and even attract new customers. One of such strategies is the giving of loans to customers. Sadly, the repayment of these loans has not only always been defaulted but also affected by many factors including the kind of treatment customers receive from their banks. This study delved into the impact of good customer care on loan repayment. The objectives of the study were to assess how important the Management of OISL considers good customer care service, to assess the level of customer care at the OISL, to unravel the relationship between good customer care and client repayment behaviour at OISL, to consider what factors necessitate prompt repayment of loans by customers of OISL and to assess what conditions result in loan repayment default by clients of OISL. The study sampled 147 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires and analysis was done with SPSS. The findings were both tabulated and presented in Charts. The study revealed that despite the relevance of customer care, the management of OISL do not deem it necessary and do not even have a customer care strategy. Again in terms of speedy attendance to customers, the staff of OISL are failing but in terms of reliability, delivery on promises, OISL is excellent. Again, According to the analysis, good customer care is effective in breeding a family of loyal customers. The study revealed that the act of prompt loan repayment is not a product of attitude but how ones’ business grows. On loan defaulting, the study established that poor retrieval mechanisms results in non repayment. The study recommends that management of OISL commits more into customer care, improve upon communication between customers and staff, train its staff in customer service and lastly provide adequate information to the staff on customer care strategies.

Source: KNUST
The impact of good customer care on loan repayment in the microfinance industry: The case of Opportunity International Savings and Loans Company limited.

The fierceness of the competition in the Microfinance business has resulted in constant search for strategies to retain and even attract new customers. One of such strategies is the giving of loans to customers. Sadly, the repayment of these loans has not only always been defaulted but also affected by many factors including the kind of treatment customers receive from their banks. This study delved into the impact of good customer care on loan repayment. The objectives of the study were to assess how important the Management of OISL considers good customer care service, to assess the level of customer care at the OISL, to unravel the relationship between good customer care and client repayment behaviour at OISL, to consider what factors necessitate prompt repayment of loans by customers of OISL and to assess what conditions result in loan repayment default by clients of OISL. The study sampled 147 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires and analysis was done with SPSS. The findings were both tabulated and presented in Charts. The study revealed that despite the relevance of customer care, the management of OISL do not deem it necessary and do not even have a customer care strategy. Again in terms of speedy attendance to customers, the staff of OISL are failing but in terms of reliability, delivery on promises, OISL is excellent. Again, According to the analysis, good customer care is effective in breeding a family of loyal customers. The study revealed that the act of prompt loan repayment is not a product of attitude but how ones’ business grows. On loan defaulting, the study established that poor retrieval mechanisms results in non repayment. The study recommends that management of OISL commits more into customer care, improve upon communication between customers and staff, train its staff in customer service and lastly provide adequate information to the staff on customer care strategies.

Source: KNUST
The impact of green supply chain management practices on manufacturing smes performance in the tamale metropolis. Moderating role of supply chain collaboration

The study focused on the impact of green supply chain management practices on manufacturing smes performance in the tamale metropolis. Moderating role of supply chain collaboration. The study adopted a descriptive research design and non-probability sampling was used and the study sampled two hundred and eleven (211) respondents. Questionnaires were used mainly for data collection. The study used quantitative approach in analyzing the data. The study found out that the manufacturing smes do not design products to ensure that they have reusable and recyclable contents, neither do they use life-cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental load of products. Meanwhile the firms reduce power consumption in products during manufacturing and transportation and they employ eco-technological equipment and process during manufacturing. The study established that also, the smes collaborate with suppliers to set up environmental goals and work with their suppliers to seamlessly integrate their inter-firm processes. Also, challenges that the manufacturing smes face were lack of government support, lack of alternate technology and fear of success and pressure of lower prices. The study concludes that, gscm not only assist them to perform directly economically, but also help them to perform socially and environmentally, which raises both their own and the community in which they operate the quality of life. Gscm procedures therefore have an effect on the manufacturing smes performance. The study recommends that policymakers, in particular the government and other environmental regulatory bodies, should give the necessary impetus to enforce already-existing regulations and further develop specific national regulations that will support and exert pressure on ghanaian manufacturing smes to adopt gscm practices in the manufacturing sector.

Source: KNUST