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The COVID-19 pandemic imposed movement restrictions and limited access to modern medical services, prompting the search for alternative solutions, such as indigenous herbal medicines. In Southwest Nigeria, female herbal producers, often with limited economic resources, play a significant role in herbal medicine production. Despite facing multiple challenges, these producers have demonstrated remarkable creativity in navigating the barriers. However, without deliberate efforts to preserve their creative values, indigenous herbal businesses face the threat of extinction. This chapter investigates the resourcefulness of female herbal producers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Southwest Nigeria and proposes strategies for sustaining their trade. Qualitative data were collected to identify the treatment patterns and trade dynamics among female herbal producers in the region. The findings indicate that movement restrictions during the pandemic disrupted herbal producers' access to treatment materials, yet they managed to meet their communities' health needs. These women often serve as first responders and primary healthcare providers in many local communities in Southwest Nigeria, and collaboration with the government will further enhance their effectiveness. The sustainability of indigenous herbal medicine production and trade by women can become a pathway to promote women's economic empowerment in Nigeria if given the necessary support. The chapter concludes with policy recommendations for sustaining the ingenuity of female herbal producers in Nigeria.

Africa is a vast, immensely diverse continent with hundreds of local languages, traditions, values, and cultures that shape the lives of its people. The vast resources available on the continent present numerous opportunities for economic development and prosperity. The preceding chapters in this volume have explored many of these resources, highlighting the importance of indigenous knowledge in driving sustainable business structures across Africa. This chapter concludes with practical recommendations for implementing and sustaining indigenous knowledge on the continent and building a more equitable and sustainable future for Africa. We anticipate that these observations and recommendations will aid African researchers, government and non-governmental organisations, educators, business actors and leaders, legislators, and the general public in thinking globally but acting locally to advance indigenous knowledge in Africa.

A Casebook of Indigenous Business Practices in Africa is a collection of business case studies that expand understanding of how indigenous enterprises apply entrepreneurial practices embedded in culture to achieve success. Indigenous methods are part of Africa's social and economic fabric, and these cases identify concepts and models that can accelerate growth in Africa. The value of these practices across regions of Africa cannot be overemphasised despite the dominance of Western business methods, which, though beneficial, are yet to drive the continent's developmental agenda. By exploring indigenous business practices in Africa, students, educators, practitioners, entrepreneurs and government decision-makers will be introduced to unique and sustainable practices that can foster inclusive growth and social and economic empowerment when contextualised within the business landscape. Identification of relevant orientations in indigenous practices that will benefit contemporary business frameworks and actors is a significant contribution of the authors of this book. Incorporation of these indigenous methods into management teachings and business practices is essential to the continent's economic growth and socio-cultural progress.

This study aims to determine the prevalence and predictors of postpartum depression (PPD) among nursing mothers in Nsukka, Nigeria.

This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey among nursing mothers in three hospitals in Nsukka, Nigeria. Data was collected using a self-administered Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS) and sociodemographic form. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square test and binary logistic regression.

A total of 270 nursing mothers participated in this survey, giving a response rate of 94.4%. The prevalence of PPD among the study group was 20.0%. However, women who did not have complications during childbirth were about two times (AOR = 0.417, 95% CI = 0.204, 0.852, P = 0.016) less likely to develop symptoms of PPD than women who experienced birth complications. In addition, women who had poor relationships with their partners have approximately seven times (AOR = 6.994, 95% CI = 1.110, 44.059, P = 0.038) higher odds of developing PPD compared with those women who had excellent relationships with their partners.

The sample size was small, hence, might limit the generalizability of its findings beyond the study group. Health-care practitioners should provide appropriate interventions to women at a higher risk of developing PPD on the need to maintain a healthy and supportive relationship with their partners.

This study provides unique insight into PPD among nursing mothers and its determinants from a different regional, socioeconomic, societal expectations, social support system, access to health care and cultural context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of construction practitioners on the prevalence of ethical misconduct within the invitation to tender and tender evaluation and award stages of construction contracts in Ghana.

Following a critical comparative review of literature resulting in the identification of 18 potential misconducts within the invitation to tender and 11 potential misconducts within the tender evaluation and award stages of construction contracts, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 65 construction professionals. Data obtained from the survey were analysed using both descriptive (i.e. frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (paired t-test), followed by gap analysis.

The findings revealed that corrupt, fraudulent, collusive or coercive practices, client divulging more information to the preferred bidder and inflating tender prices by tenderers in return for kickbacks are key unethical practices prevalent at the invitation to tender stage. Following these key unethical practices, the findings further suggested through gap analysis that submission of bids on non-working days and inadequate time for preparation and submission of tenders were the top two unethical practices that needed serious interventions at this stage. At the tender evaluation and award stage, the findings revealed that interference by influential people in political positions, fake tendering and bid shopping are prevalent. Again, from the gap analysis, interference by influential people in political positions and poor definition of selection criteria were identified to be the two key unethical practices that need urgent intervention at this stage of construction contracts.

This study holds a significant practical implication in the sense that key unethical practices at the invitation to tender and tender evaluation and award stages of construction contracts have been identified, and this provides a suitable basis for stakeholders that spearhead such activities to offer suitable interventions to control such practices.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge as it uncovers ethical misconducts within two important phases of construction contracts in a developing country setting. As there is a continuous effort by the international community towards finding lasting solutions to such misconducts, the findings from this study can be used as a starting point for appropriate policies to be put in place in Ghana to control such misconducts.

Studies showed that construction consultants' ethical negligence is a contributing factor to the time and cost over-run of projects. There is limited research on the issues that may have hindered construction consultants' ethical responsiveness during contract administration. Studies regarding influencing factors in the context of Nigeria's quantity surveyors' (QS) ethical responsiveness are rare. Thus, the study aims to investigate the perceived issues and proffers initiatives to promote QSs' ethical responsiveness on construction projects in Nigeria.

To determine the perceptions of QS regarding ethical responsiveness, a phenomenologically driven perspective via face-to-face interviews was conducted with 12 senior professionals in Lagos and Abuja that showed interest in participating in the study and were interviewed. A thematic approach was adopted to analyse the collated data.

Economic, societal and professional issues emerged as the three groups of issues that hindered QS's ethical responsiveness on construction projects in a developing country setting such as Nigeria. Findings show that for ethical responsiveness to be expressed on projects, key stakeholders should be ethically responsible. This is currently missing, especially in public construction projects. Initiatives that can promote key stakeholders' ethical responsiveness on construction projects are examined in this paper.

The paper embraces an important practical implication because practices associated with QS's unethical responsiveness and behavioural impacts on construction projects were identified. This will stir both the regulatory professional bodies and policymakers to enforce and implement feasible initiatives that can promote key stakeholders' collaborative ethical responsiveness on construction projects.

This paper is amongst the few papers that attempted to uncover issues that hinder QS's ethical responsiveness on construction projects in a developing country setting via a qualitative approach. Since these issues are rampant in developing countries, findings from this paper can be used to promote QS's ethical responsiveness in other nations with similar unethical issues.

The challenges confronting the Nigerian construction industry which led to the adoption of supply chain management (SCM) practice were evaluated in this chapter. It was discovered that the Nigerian construction industry is confronted with fragmentation and poor information management. The stakeholders within the Nigerian construction industry proposed the adoption of SCM to overcome the fragmentation and other shenanigans facing the industry. This chapter revealed that construction supply chain (CSC) practices within the Nigerian construction industry focus on waste elimination by adopting the lean concept. The focus on the lean concept could be attributed to the numerous research related to lean or the enormous waste emanating from the Nigerian construction industry. Regardless of the emphasis on lean, the Nigerian CSC is still confronted with fragmentation and heavy waste generation. Thus, this chapter proposed the adoption of principles and technologies driven by the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is a paradigm shift for the management of CSC in the country. It was discovered in this chapter that Nigerian construction supply stakeholders had not embraced the technologies and principles of the 4IR. The failure to adopt the technologies driven by the 4IR is attributed to the absence of a CSC model that depicts the management of CSC in alignment with the 4IR. This chapter called for developing a SCM model for the Nigerian construction industry in tandem with the principles and technologies of the 4IR.

The economic downturn in Nigeria calls for the need to appraise the survival strategies being adopted by organisations within the built environment, as it plays a major role in the development of every nation. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to appraise the survival strategies of organisations within the built environment, with a view to showcasing these strategies to ensure continuous survival of organisations within the industry.

The study adopted a survey approach, and construction professionals across the six geo-political zones of the country were sampled using structured questionnaire. Data gathered were analysed using percentage, Kruskal–Wallis H-test and factor analysis.

The study revealed that organisation- and workforce management-related strategies are the most adopted survival strategies in the country, as they have the highest factor loading and accounts for about 37 per cent of the total extracted factors. This is followed by the adoption of strategies relating to organisation’s innovation, diversification, financial management and organisation’s networking, the combination of which accounts for 27.5 per cent of all extracted factors.

Findings of this study imply that although organisations within the built environment see the need for effective management of their organisation and workforce in a bid to survive in the harsh economic situation of the country, more need to be done as regards the other identified survival strategies, as they can help ensure the survival of these organisations.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge as it showcases the survival strategies being adopted by the different organisations within the built environment in the challenging Nigerian economy, as against the usual common practice of studying specific organisations within the industry.

As Africa strives to catch up with the rest of the world at the economic, political and sociocultural fronts, there is an increasing coalescence around the need for backward integration and the revival of traditional business management practices as enablers in the global war for economic dominance. Unfortunately, a significant consequence of colonial rule was the systematic denigration and portrayal of traditional African institutions and knowledge systems as inferior to those of the West. Although the negative depiction of the African worldview has been extensively challenged in the academy, changes in their perception and adoption have remained slow. The ‘Igbo Apprenticeship System’ (IAS), widely recognised as the largest business incubator platform in the world today, is a great testament to the sophistication and resilience of indigenous African business models and the need to scale up their impact as a strategic step towards the economic emancipation of the continent. However, one fundamental aspect of IAS's success story that is hardly ever mentioned in the extant literature is its approach to conflict management. Understandably, business by its nature is competitive and conflict-prone. Nonetheless, the Igbos appear to have successfully managed different types of conflicts associated with their traditional business model without recourse to western methods or processes. Using a conceptual approach, this chapter attempts to examine the efficacy of the conflict transformation mechanisms in the ‘Igbo Traditional Business School’ (I-TBS) against the background of emerging challenges in the twenty-first-century business environments in Africa and around the world. From the prism of the Conflict Transformation Theory, the chapter argues that I-TBS can serve as a vehicle for the economic growth of the continent, but it must be prepared to deal with ‘new’ conflicts and demands arising from within and outside of its ecosystem.