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There is an existing relationship among shareholders, boards of directors and management of companies. Corporate governance practices of companies are expected to ensure that this relationship maximises the wealth of shareholders. Differences exist among corporate governance of companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Companies, for purposes of liquidity, hold cash, but cash holdings also add to the cost of financing, according to working capital theories. The study, thus, sought to examine the relationship between corporate governance practices, ownership structure, cash holdings and firm value.

The study deployed the seemingly unrelated regression to reduce the problem of multicollinearity resulting from the strong relationship between cash reserves and some control variables.

The study found no significant relationship between board size and firm value. Similar findings were also made on the relationship between proportion of non-executive directors on the board and firm value. However, firms audited by the big four audit firms are valued higher by the capital market. Cash holdings of firms negatively affect performance, and this is statistically significant. A positive relationship arises between a firm’s cash holdings and its value as a result of debt financing, even though this is not significant.

The study is the first of its kind that deploys Tobin’s Q as a measure of firms’ value to reflect investors’ valuation of firms in Ghana. The study is also the first of its kind to test the interactive effect of debt financing and cash holdings on firm value in Ghana.

By relying on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this paper aims to understand the relative importance of attitude, subjective norm (SN), behavioral control, self-identity (SI) and past behavior in the prediction of green purchase behavior among Ghanaian consumers.

In total, 306 graduate students were surveyed on the environmental considerations in their purchase behavior using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The results of the study indicate that, in general, attitude and SI are more important than SN in influencing green purchase intention in a collectivistic country, such as Ghana. Yet, most respondents were neutral in their responses to questions as to whether they are green consumers and/or if they consider themselves to be concerned about environmental issues.

This is the first attempt to study environmental consideration in purchase decisions in Ghana, a resource-rich, emerging and one of the strongest economies in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this study is to understand the driving forces of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence organizations’ “license to operate” using data from the Ghanaian business environment.

This study used purposive sampling with a well-structured questionnaire as a data collection tool. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to study the driving forces of CSR initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence their social license.

The findings indicate that CSR initiatives are driven by the normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures. The regulative pressure has no significant effect on CSR initiatives. The authors found no difference between the services and the manufacturing sectors as far as the results are concerned using multi-grouping analysis.

From the results, the importance of normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures as the driving forces of CSR are established. The finding indicates that CSR demands by suppliers, customers the extent to which organizations perceive their competitors have benefited from initiating CSR are benefiting, the willingness of investors to invest in companies whose CSR activities are best and the opinion on the extent to which the District Assembly and the Chief Executive in the district, the Chiefs, the Churches, the Opinion leaders have significant impact on CSR initiatives.

The results indicate the need for suppliers and customers to continually demand from corporations to initiate CSR activities as organizations seem to respond to these pressures, and these initiatives are also likely to be mimicked by other organizations in the same industry to enable this drive the social responsibility agenda. Investors and community members are also encouraged to invest and accept, respectively, organizations with very good CSR records to send a signal to companies who see CSR as a cost instead of performance enhancement.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area of CSR from a developing country’s environment. This is also one of the few works that investigate the driving forces of CSR and social license using the institutional theory based on data from the African business environment.

Several research studies on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) have been done using the survey methodology. However, the use of surveys often relies on the measurement of variables, which cannot be directly observed, with attendant measurement errors. The purpose of this study is to develop a methodological framework consisting of a combination of four tools for identifying and assessing measurement error during survey research.

This paper evaluated the viability of the framework through an experimental study on the assessment of project management success in a developing country environment. The research design combined a control group, pretest and post-test measurements with structural equation modeling that enabled the assessment of differences between honest and fake survey responses. This paper tested for common method variance (CMV) using the chi-square test for the difference between unconstrained and fully constrained models.

The CMV results confirmed that there was significant shared variance among the different measures allowing us to distinguish between trait and faking responses and ascertain how much of the observed process measurement is because of measurement system variation as opposed to variation arising from the study’s constructs.

The study was conducted in one country, and hence, the results may not be generalizable.

Measurement error during survey research, if not properly addressed, can lead to incorrect conclusions that can harm theory development. It can also lead to inappropriate recommendations for practicing managers. This study provides findings from a framework developed and assessed in a LSS project environment for identifying faking responses. This paper provides a robust framework consisting of four tools that provide guidelines on distinguishing between fake and trait responses. This tool should be of great value to researchers.

The study aims to examine the micro-level implications of implementing a circular economy (CE) business model on firms’ financial performance and the effect of organizational culture in this context.

Using a survey method to obtain 617 usable questionnaires from diverse business sectors in Ghana, a largely unexplored region and relying on institutional and legitimacy theories.

The study shows that the implementation of CE policies, such as the reducing, reusing, recycling, recovery and restoration of resources used in manufacturing, distribution and consumption processes, contributes to improved financial efficiency. Furthermore, organizational culture moderates by way of strengthening the positive relationship between CE and business financial performance.

This study contributes to the literature on circularity and the broader discourse on ecological issues by arguing that institutional and legitimacy theories, which are both from the political economy theory, suggest that firms’ economic activities will be influenced by the political, social and institutional context. Therefore, the firm’s decision to embrace a different business model such as CE should be seen from the political environment involving rules and regulations, social dynamics both within and outside the organization and the institutional structures within which the firm operates. These mechanisms establish a business case for the implementation of CE initiatives and is guided by intent and specific goals. This motivates and encourages employees to be more involved in their duties and interactions leading to high levels of employee satisfaction, which improves productivity and profitability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm’s reputation in terms of product and service quality, management performance and attractiveness as well as reputation on overall performance from a developing country’s environment.

The partial lest squares structural equation modeling was used to study the relationship between CSR and firm’s reputation as well as the overall organizational performance using a survey of informants from Ghana.

Using data from firms in Ghana, the study demonstrates that CSR initiative by firms will have a positive relationship with firm’s reputation in terms of product and service quality, management performance and attractiveness as well as overall performance. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that enhanced reputation by firms through social responsibility initiatives will lead to firms’ overall performance from the Ghanaian business environment.

The main limitation of this work is the source of the data originating from only executives from Ghana where managers are sometimes skeptical giving out such information; this might have some influence on the results. In addition, there could be potential endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity issues. It is therefore recommended that future studies should consider these issues to check as to whether the same results could be achieved. Specifically, results indicate that when organizations invest in CSR initiatives, they are likely to achieve product quality, improved management performance and an attractiveness as well as overall performance.

The research shows how CSR initiatives can enhance firm’s reputation and overall performance of a firm.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area CSR and reputation from a developing country’s environment.

The paper aims to investigate the role of corporate governance in the relationship between small businesses financing choice decisions on the business performance.

The paper was situated within the financial growth cycle theory and stewardship theory and survey approach was adopted for data collection. The statistical analysis was conducted by using partial least square structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that the interaction of corporate governance and financing choice decisions strengthens the performance relationship. Further, corporate governance mediates the positive relationship between financing choice decisions and performance. Thus, suggesting that corporate governance can carry the effect of the financing choice decisions to business performance.

The findings of our research reveal that, small businesses who follow solid corporate governance procedures should expect higher business performance. This is because financing decisions alone will not assure positive business performance unless they are tied to a broader perspective of effective corporate governance practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that contributes to the small business financing choice and performance literature by combining the strengths of financial growth cycle theory and stewardship theory to explain the financing choice decisions and, in particular, the role of corporate governance in the relationship. Further, the study is unique in its nature because it presents a successful model for small businesses in emerging economies to concentrate more on the role of corporate governance in enhancing business performance.

Accountability within the framework of circular economy (CE) is unknown even though the concept of CE is increasingly gaining momentum among governments, policymakers and academics. The purpose of this study is to investigate how accountability expresses itself in the CE.

This study draws on the institutional logics theory and adopted an exploratory qualitative study aimed at eliciting stakeholders’ perspectives on how accountability manifests in the context of CE. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews of cross section of Ghanaians. Respondents were recruited using the purposeful sampling method, and data saturation was reached with 35 respondents. Concurrent data collection and analysis were carried out, and emerging themes were investigated as the research progressed.

The results indicate that accountability manifestations take on a variety of forms and shapes through both formal and informal processes within the circularity space. The specific areas of accountability manifestations are through the social system embedded in the society, through the organization’s responsibility and transparency, through regular reporting to stakeholders using appropriate metrics, through agency and answerability to relevant stakeholders and through governance systems embedded within social interaction. Additionally, this study discovered that accountability manifestations would contribute to the firm’s sustainability by enhancing competitive advantage through stakeholder engagement, improving risk management and promoting creativity and innovation.

Given an apparent gap in the literature on circularity and accountability, as well as a call for further studies on the reflections of accountability within the CE, this study provides empirical evidence to fill these gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the moderating role of organizational culture in the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty in the banking sector using data from the Ghanaian banking sector. The idea is to understand the relative importance of the various service dimensions to customers patronizing banking services in Ghana and to ascertain what drives customer satisfaction and whether this satisfaction has implication on their loyalty.

The study used a survey and relied on partial least squares structural equation modeling to study the relationship between service quality and its impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

The result indicates that the reliability, ambiance and social factors all have a significant positive relationship with the satisfaction of customers doing business with these banks. However, assurance and responsiveness of the employees seem to have no significant relationship with the satisfaction of customers. It is also important to indicate that organizational culture seems to strengthen the positive relationship between the service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The results further indicate that customer satisfaction has a direct positive relationship with customer loyalty.

Reliability, ambiance and social factors remain the three most important drivers of customer satisfaction in the banking sector in Ghana. It is, therefore, important for bankers to consistently undergo training and education in order to deliver more reliable services to customers. Managers should also make efforts to groom employees, provide attractive promotion materials, provide directions to the banks, make sure the banking halls are neat for customers while waiting and the provision of enough parking spaces for customers. One limitation of this work is that the data focused on only the Ghanaian banking environment.

The research shows the importance of the service quality constructs such as reliability, ambiance and the social factors on customer satisfaction and loyalty in the banking sector. The organizational culture seems to strengthen the positive relationship between empathy, reliability, tangibles and customer satisfaction. It is therefore important for banks to continue to build cultures that will commit employees to their work, so that they feel the sense of ownership of quality in order to contribute meaningfully.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area of service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty from a developing country’s environment using the stimulus-organism-response model. In addition, this work further highlights the importance of the moderating role of organizational culture in the relationship between the service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the various supplier selections construct impacts on firm’s operational competitive capability as well as an overall performance from a developing country’s environment.

Structural equation modeling was used to study the relationship between supplier selection criteria, competitive operational capabilities and overall organizational performance using survey of informants.

In this work, the authors demonstrate that an effective supplier selection will lead to an enhanced competitive capability of the buying firm. Specifically, the authors show that selecting suppliers based on quality will lead to an improved quality of the buying firm, service will lead to improved delivery time and supplier strategic fit will lead to reduced cost, improved delivery time and improved flexibility of the buying firm. Furthermore, the buying firm competitive operational capabilities in terms of improved delivery time will lead overall performance from the Ghanaian business environment. The results indicate no significant difference between the manufacturing and service sectors.

The results indicate the relevance and the implications of the various supplier selection criteria from a developing country’s environment such as Ghana.

The research shows how supplier selection criteria should be structured to enhance operational competitive capabilities and overall performance of the buying firm.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and build on the literature in the area of supply selection strategies from a developing country’s environment.