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This paper investigates the moderating-mediation roles of synchronous and asynchronous learning, as well as virtual self-efficacy between digital learning space experience and continuous use among learners in Ghanaian institutions of higher learning.

A convenience sampling technique was used in the selection of 604 students who answered questions on digital learning space experience, synchronous and asynchronous learning, virtual self-efficacy and learner continuous use within the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study employed regression analysis to measure the hypothesized paths.

The findings show that asynchronous learning partially mediates between digital learning space experience and learner continuous use, but the mediating effect of synchronous learning between digital learning space experience and learner continuous use was not significant. Further, virtual self-efficacy significantly moderates the mediated relationship between asynchronous learning and learner continuous use, but the moderated mediated role of synchronous learning was not established in the study.

Generalization of the study findings is limited due to the sampling scope, which was restricted to students of IHL in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

In this research, the academic scope of digital transformation was expanded from both digital structure elements and psychological perspectives within the domain of higher education literature.

The government of Ghana since independence has undertaken steps to develop educational infrastructure setup. This notwithstanding, the educational sector is beset with challenges such as low-quality education and low enrolment rates in Senior High Schools (SHS) of children from large households, among others. Given the myriad of challenges bedevilling the education sector, there have been calls for collaboration among public leaders to promote education. The paper, therefore, examines traditional leaders' roles in promoting quality education in Ghana.

Through a desk review approach, the study examines the role of traditional leaders in promoting quality education in Ghana. This approach was adopted due to its flexible nature.

The study found that traditional leaders have provided educational materials and resources to deprived schools. They have established scholarship schemes for needy but brilliant students, promoted gender parity in education, constructed educational facilities and promoted a healthy teaching environment.

The paper provides stakeholders in Ghana’s educational sector with the opportunity to review educational policies and include traditional leaders to influence educational policies. The recommendations call for support from the GETFUND and Scholarship Secretariat of Ghana to assist community-initiated projects and scholarship schemes established by traditional leaders.

The paper provides evidence to support the importance of traditional leadership, which has come under criticism from a democratisation perspective in contemporary times.

Mobile banking (m-banking) can be defined as a service offered by a bank or any other financial institution that allows the customers of such establishments to carry out a variety of banking operations via a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, tablet or personal digital assistant. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that influence customers to adopt and subsequently use m-banking services in Ghana using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) model with age, educational level, user experience and gender as moderators.

Using questionnaire survey, the study sampled 300 users of m-banking services in Ghana as respondents. The primary data collected were analyzed using SmartPLS software.

Findings of the study indicate that Habit, Price Value and Trust are the main factors influencing adoption and use of m-banking in Ghana. Individual differences of gender, age, educational level and user experience responded differently as they moderate the relationship between UTAUT2 constructs and use bahaviour. The applicability of UTAUT2 model was confirmed in the context of the research.

M-banking is a new phenomenon in Ghana’s financial industry, thus it is imperative to understanding the customer adoption behavior. The outcome will aid financial institutions to develop strategies that will sustain the interest of consumers to embrace m-banking.

This paper is among the first ever known attempts to examine m-banking adoption in Ghana using UTAUT2 model.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of nature and a range of institutional sources of start-up finance on micro and small enterprises' (MSEs) productivity growth in Ghana.

Using a unique non-farm household enterprise survey data from Ghana, this paper estimated TFP or Solow residual as a proxy for MSEs' productivity growth as well as other for robustness checks.

After controlling for firm-level characteristics such as size, age, ownership type, etc. the study finds that debt finance was positively associated with productivity growth, while financing from donation or charity did not. Second, this paper found significant positive associations between a more formal financing source such as formal and semi-formal financing sources and MSE's productivity growth. This finding was robustly confirmed by manager's growth perception. Further, compared to internal finance, external financing sources were found to be positively associated with productivity growth – indicating complementarities among all external financing sources.

Further research will be needed to validate these results, particularly using enterprise ongoing finance or working capital rather than start-up capital.

The study contributes to the finance literature by studying the impact of nature and institutional financing sources on MSEs' productivity growth in the African context.

Entrepreneurial personalities have been widely recognised as important drivers for the development of entrepreneurial competencies, which are the skills, knowledge and abilities that enable entrepreneurs to start and grow successful businesses. Yet, there has been relatively little research focused specifically on entrepreneurial personalities that influence entrepreneurial competencies among people with physical disabilities. Therefore, this study aims to explore the entrepreneurial personalities among people with disabilities (PWDs) and explain how they influence several aspects of entrepreneurial capabilities.

A qualitative approach, namely, phenomenological approach, has been conducted; meanwhile, a total of 12 respondents were interviewed as the data has reached the saturation level.

The findings revealed that successful PWDs entrepreneurs possess a range of traits and characteristics that contribute to their success, which include need for achievement, internal drives, external factors, extraversion and openness. These factors drive the enhancement of the PWDs’ entrepreneurial capabilities.

Essentially, this study is one of the few studies that suggests that an integrative personality model influences PWDs’ entrepreneurial capabilities and their business development. This model takes into account the unique experiences and challenges faced by PWDs, which help to better understand the traits and characteristics that contribute to their success as entrepreneurs.

As custodians of takaful contributors’ tabarru’ (donation) funds, takaful operators are expected to fulfil a stewardship role propagated under the precepts of Islam. The purpose of this paper is to analyse takaful operators’ stewardship, focusing on investment practices.

Structured interviews were conducted with senior investment staff from all of Malaysia’s takaful operators. Questions, developed using Delphi-style techniques, allowed a five-point Likert scale response addressing specific issues revolving around seven dimensions of governance quality – using the Malaysian Rating Corporation’s (MARC’s) governance rating guidelines for Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). Interviewees’ responses were assigned composite scores.

Malaysia’s takaful operators score well on most prescribed governance quality dimensions, although performance varies between operators and across dimensions. Areas for improvement are identified, especially regarding disclosure of information and contributor involvement in takaful operators’ management.

Predetermined questions restrict flexibility in obtaining takaful operators’ information; however, end-of-interview, open-ended questions were asked to tap interviewee opinions on pertinent issues. A focus on takaful operators’ governance quality and stewardship of investments means findings may not be representative of all operational aspects of their businesses.

This study identifies governance quality guidelines which takaful operators may benchmark against and identifies where best to focus attempts to improve performance. These guidelines will also assist regulators assessing takaful operators’ stewardship performance.

This study uses governance quality as an indicator of stewardship, a concept aligned with the precepts of Shariah. It covers the opinion of the takaful industry in a country with a comprehensive Islamic financial system, Malaysia, extending understanding of takaful operators’ governance quality.

This paper aims to investigate the association among trustee board diversity (TBD), corporate governance (CG), capital structure (CS) and financial performance (FP) by using a sample of UK charities. Specifically, the authors investigate the effect of TBD on CS and ascertain whether CG quality moderates the TBD–CS nexus. Additionally, the authors examine the impact of CS on FP and ascertain whether the CS–FP nexus is moderated by TBD and CG quality.

The authors use a number of multivariate regression techniques, including ordinary least squares, fixed-effects, lagged-effects and two-stage least squares, to rigorously analyse the data and test the hypotheses.

First, the authors find that trustee board gender diversity has a negative effect on CS, but this relationship holds only up to the point of having three women trustees. The authors find similar, but relatively weak, results for the presence of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) trustees. Second, the authors find that the TBD–CS nexus depends on the quality of CG, with the relationship being stronger in charities with higher frequency of meetings, independent CG committee and larger trustee and audit firm size. Third, the authors find that CS structure has a positive effect on FP, but this is moderated by TBD and CG quality. The evidence is robust to different econometric models that adjust for alternative measures and endogeneities. The authors interpret the findings within explanations of a theoretical perspective that captures insights from different CG and CS theories.

Existing studies that explore TBD, CG, CS and FP in charities are rare. This study distinctively attempts to address this empirical lacuna within the extant literature by providing four new insights with specific focus on UK charities. First, the authors provide new evidence on the relationship between TBD and CS. Second, the authors offer new evidence on the moderating effect of CG on the TBD-CS nexus. Third, the authors provide new evidence on the effect of CS on FP. Finally, the authors offer new evidence on the moderating effect of TBD and CG on the CS–FP nexus.

With the upgrade of natural language interaction technology, the simulation extension of intelligent voice assistants (IVAs) and the uncertainty of products and services have received more and more attention. However, most of the existing research focuses on investigating the application of theories to explain consumer behavior related to intention to use and adopt IVAs, while ignoring the impact of its privacy issues on consumer resistance. This article especially examines the negative impact of artificial intelligence-based IVAs’ privacy concerns on consumer resistance, and studies the mediating effect of perceived creepiness in the context of privacy cynicism and privacy paradox and the moderating effect of anthropomorphized roles of IVAs and perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) of IVAs’ companies. The demographic variables are also included.

Based on the theory of human–computer interaction (HCI), this study addresses the consumer privacy concerns of IVAs, builds a model of the influence mechanism on consumer resistance, and then verifies the mediating effect of perceived creepiness and the moderating effect of anthropomorphized roles of IVAs and perceived CSR of IVAs companies. This research explores underlying mechanism with three experiments.

It turns out that consumers’ privacy concerns are related to their resistance to IVAs through perceived creepiness. The servant (vs. partner) anthropomorphized role of IVAs is likely to induce more privacy concerns and in turn higher resistance. At the same time, when the company’s CSR is perceived high, the impact of the concerns of IVAs’ privacy issues on consumer resistance will be weakened, and the intermediary mechanism of perceiving creepiness in HCI and anthropomorphism of new technology are further explained and verified. The differences between different age and gender are also revealed in the study.

The research conclusions have strategic reference significance for enterprises to build the design framework of IVAs and formulate the response strategy of IVAs’ privacy concerns. And it offers implications for researchers and closes the research gap of IVAs from the perspective of innovation resistance.

The role of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics in shaping corporate policies has attracted increasing academic attention in the past two decades. In this review, the authors synthesize extant research on CEO attributes by reviewing 232 articles published in 29 journals from the accounting, finance and management literature. This review provides an overview of existing findings, highlights current trends and interdisciplinary differences in research approaches and identifies potential avenues for future research.

To review the literature on CEO attributes, the authors manually collected peer-reviewed articles in accounting, finance and management journals from 2000 to 2021. The authors conducted in-depth analysis of each paper and manually recorded the theories, data sources, country of study, study period, measures of CEO attributes and dependent variables. This procedure helped the authors group the selected articles into themes and sub-themes. The authors compared the findings in various disciplines and provided direction for future research.

The authors highlight the role of CEO personal attributes in influencing corporate decision-making and firm outcomes. The authors categorize studies of CEO traits into three main research themes: (1) demographic attributes and experience (including age, gender, culture, experience, education); (2) CEO interactions with others (social and political networks) and (3) underlying attributes (including personality, values and ideology). The evidence shows that CEO characteristics significantly affect a wide range of specific corporate policies that serve as mechanisms through which individual CEOs determine firm success and performance.

CEO selection is one of the most crucial decisions made by corporations. The study findings provide valuable insights to corporate executives, boards, investors and practitioners into how CEOs’ personal characteristics can impact future firm decisions and outcomes that can, in turn, inform the high-stake process of CEO recruitment and selection. The study findings have significant practical implications for corporations, such as contributing to executive training programs, to assist executives and directors attain a greater level of self-awareness.

Building on the theoretical foundation of upper echelons theory, the authors offer an integrated theoretical framework to consolidate existing empirical research on the impacts of CEO personal attributes on firm outcomes across accounting and finance (A&F) and management literature. The study findings provide a roadmap for scholars to bridge the interdisciplinary divide between A&F and management research. The authors advocate a more holistic and multifaceted approach to examining CEOs, each of whom embodies a myriad of personal characteristics that comprise their unique identity. The study findings encourage future researchers to expand the investigation of the boundary conditions that magnify or moderate the impacts of CEO idiosyncrasies.

This paper aims to ascertain stakeholder’s willingness to contribute towards food banking implementation and further develops a framework for implementing food banks in developing country, Ghana.

Structured questionnaire was used to obtain response from 385 respondents using multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics was used to determine frameworks for food banking, whereas Heckman two-stage regression was used to analyse factors influencing stakeholder’s willingness to contribute towards food banking.

The results revealed that respondents preferred food banking with pantry, which is similar to the American model. Respondents were willing to contribute a minimum of (GH₵1–200, US$ ¢ 0.17-34.12) cedis and a maximum of GH₵ (400–600, US$ 68.23-102.35) monthly towards food bank implementation. Age, marital status and household head had a negative influence on stakeholders’ willingness to contribute towards food banking implementation, whereas income level and food bank awareness influenced willingness to contribute towards food bank implementation positively.

The study gives insight on stakeholder’s willingness to contribute towards food banking via cash or kind and further develops a framework for implementing food banking in Ghana.

This study provides empirical contributions and vital information about stakeholders preferred food banking models and framework for implementing food banking, which Government can use as a social intervention policy to help vulnerable Ghanaians. In addition, findings from the study can enlighten and guide non-governmental organizations, individual philanthropists and other corporate bodies who want to contribute to food security, food poverty, hunger alleviation and development through food banking implementation.

In a developing country such as Ghana where there remains a paucity of food banking research, this study adds to existing literature by providing vital information of stakeholders preferred food banking models and frameworks for implementing food banking.