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In spite of the observation that nurse managers’ style of authority in sub-Saharan Africa is one of antagonistic vibe and lordship, there is not much information on the kind of leadership provided in the hospitals by nurse managers. Following the notion that transformational leadership is a solution to many leadership problems and often creates valuable positive change in followers, this study aims to examine the level of transformational leadership behavior of nurse leaders; determining the effects of the sub-constructs of emotional intelligence (EI) on the transformational leadership behavior of leaders; and determining whether there is a difference in the exhibition of transformational leadership behavior due to the gender of leaders.

The study uses five of the major public hospitals in the Greater Accra Region (the capital) of Ghana. Evidence of such links would be considerable for Ghanaian healthcare providers in their quest to find potential nurse leaders to train, so as not to dwell highly on the seniority criterion in the selection of leaders. Using a quantitative approach, the Wong Law EI Scale (2002) and leadership items adapted from Rafferty and Griffin (2004) were used to collect the data. A descriptive statistics (mean) revealed that nurse leaders from the selected hospitals exhibited a high level (M= 3.90, SD = 0.14) of transformational leadership behavior.

A multiple regression analysis revealed that three of the sub-constructs of EI significantly affected transformational leadership with the “self-emotion appraisal” construct having the strongest effect on transformational leadership behavior (β = 0.508, p = 0.000). However, the others’ emotion appraisal sub-construct did not significantly affect transformational leadership. Furthermore, the results from the independent sample t-test revealed no significant difference in the exhibition of transformational leadership due to gender.

Based on the findings, when leaders are trained to be emotionally intelligent and their skills are fostered, they are more likely to exhibit transformational leadership behaviors, which will further result in organizational effectiveness and follower satisfaction. Hospitals must focus on the control of one’s emotions at work, and subsequently, understanding others’ emotions. In developing transformational leaders, there is the need to identify some tools that will increase EI level, more specifically, traits related to the understanding of others’ emotion. The findings from this study indicate that one of the factors to check when selecting nurse leaders should be their EI and not necessarily a matter of seniority in many cases in emerging economies.

The originality of this study is in the fact that it focuses on an emerging economy, which is under researched. In Ghana, the criteria for promotion of nurse leaders’ is based strictly on seniority and age and not on factors such as the leaders EI. The profession of nursing is such that leaders need to understand that certain soft skills such as EI are considered necessary to transform the hospitals and staff they lead. This study, therefore, sheds light on these key areas from the perspective of an emerging economy, which are usually not in the domain of literature in the area of healthcare leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms that link transformational leadership to employee job satisfaction by examining the moderating effect of contingent reward on the relationships.

The study employed explanatory and cross-sectional survey design. Data were obtained from 315 bank employees and analyzed using correlational and multiple regression techniques.

The results revealed that there are positive relationships between the dimensions of transformational leadership and job satisfaction which are augmented by contingent reward. However, the relationships of idealized influence and intellectual simulation to job satisfaction are moderated by contingent reward, implying that, in the banking sector, the positive influence of these transformational leadership traits on employee job satisfaction can be enhanced by contingent reward.

The paper makes an important contribution to the existing organizational literature by establishing the utility of contingent reward as a moderator on the relationship between transformational leadership and employee job satisfaction in a banking sector.

With the spate of growth in public and private institutions, higher education systems are also getting more complex, so the task of managing and monitoring the sector is becoming more specialized and demanding. Public higher education institutions (HEIs) operate through committees, and the effectiveness of the committees will determine whether the institutions will achieve their vision and mission. This study aims to identify the critical factors that contribute to committee effectiveness in HEIs in Ghana as well as the factors that constrain committee effectiveness in HEIs in Ghana. The present study sought to measure the contribution of trust, communication, roles, goals, relationships and mutual respect to committee effectiveness in HEIs.

In total, 805 respondents were sampled from ten public universities in Ghana. All the respondents are part of statutory committees in their institutions. Team effectiveness survey by Azmy with Kwofie et al.’s survey for measuring effectiveness in teams was used for data collection and was analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis.

The study found that mutual trust and effective communication significantly contribute to committee effectiveness in HEIs. It also exposed that committee roles, committee goals, committee relationship and committee leadership constrained committee effectiveness in HEIs.

This research is limited by the fact that only six team effectiveness factors were considered for the study when many others could have been considered. It also does not measure probable moderators or mediators that might have had some effect on the influence of the factors under consideration on committee effectiveness.

This study will help managers of public universities to strengthen the factors considered in the committee to build solid, creative and productive committees and universities through team-building seminars and training workshops. It provides practical knowledge of factors that promote and those that hinder team effectiveness so that appropriate preventive measures can be taken to ensure team effectiveness in all committees.

The study departs from research in the private sector corporate entities into a unique area of HEI governance. It should be of great value to the higher education governance discourse in Ghana and Africa.

This paper has three main objectives. The first objective examines the degree of interrelationship between the level of brand equity and the performance of SMEs, while the second objective examines the extent of the antecedents of brand equity (brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty) in predicting SME performance. The last objective examines the effect of brand equity on the performance of SMEs when the level of brand loyalty is high.

Questionnaires were used in collecting data from managers and customers of SMEs. The sample comprises 98 managers and 311 customers of SMEs. In order to ensure that various sectors of SMEs were covered, stratified random sampling was used; thus, 40 per cent of the SMEs were from the trade sector, 30 per cent from the agriculture sector, and 30 per cent from the small manufacturing sector. However, a simple random sampling method was used in the selection of customers.

It was found that there is a positive relationship between the various dimensions of brand equity and SME performance. Results from the regression analysis indicate a strong predictive power of SME performance by brand association and brand loyalty compared to brand awareness and perceived quality. The study concludes that the performance of SMEs and brand equity is high when there is high brand loyalty among customers.

This study did not examine the level of control and the major decision-making factors when deciding on the focus of brand building in both small and large enterprises. Studies could be conducted to compare the predictive power of the antecedents of brand equity in different industries (services, manufacturing and trade) for both SMEs and large enterprises.

Managers of SMEs must devote their attention to the building of brand loyalty among customers irrespective of the industry in which they operate. Strategies must also be developed for brand associations as it is a prerequisite for the growth and continuous survival of businesses in a highly competitive market.

The originality and value of this paper lies in the cross-sectional survey method (different industries) that was used as well as the use of the CBBE model in examining the competitiveness and performance of SMEs.

Leadership and governance are all about “people” and the “common welfare”. Africans have an Ubuntu philosophy which culturally calls on individuals to promote the welfare of collective society. It is therefore paradoxical to note how African leaders and governance regimes perform poorly when it comes to the usage of public resources to create conditions for collective human welfare. Why do leaders instead of championing societal advancement rather advance their selfish, egoistic and sectional interests? This study aims to unpack a prevalent paradox and discuss a new approach of linking the rich Ubuntu philosophy to Africa’s governance and leadership discourse.

This study discusses from secondary sources of data, mainly drawn from journal articles, internet sources and scholarly books relevant to leadership and public administration in developing African countries and how Ubuntu African philosophy can be deployed to ensure leadership ethos. In attempt to obtain a more comprehensive and systematic literature review, the search covered all terms and terminologies relevant to the objective of the study. The search process mainly comprised four categories of keywords. The first category involved the concept as approximately related to leadership: “leadership and civic culture”, “Ubuntu culture” and “African collectivist culture”. For the final category, words such as “crisis”, “failure” and “experiences” were used.

This study contends that the preponderance of corruption and poor leadership in Africa is anti-cultural, anti-human, anti-ethical and anti-African; hence, those individuals who indulge or encourage leadership paralysis are not “true Africans” by deeds but merely profess to be. Linking the African Ubuntu philosophy to public leadership, the study maintains that the hallmark of public leadership and governance is to develop the skills of all and caring for the society.

This study draws attention to the need for leaders to espouse virtues so that leadership becomes a tool to promote societal welfare. The hallmark of public leadership and governance is to develop the skills of all and caring for the society. It involves weighing and balancing professional and legal imperatives within a democratic and ethical context with an ultimate responsibility to the people and public interest. It is not a responsibility to a particular set of citizens, but a commitment to be just and equitable to all. The preponderance of corruption and bad leadership is anti-cultural, anti-human, anti-ethical and anti-African; hence, individuals who indulge or encourage leadership paralysis are not true Africans by deeds but merely profess to be.

This study draws a clear link between indigenous African cultural value system and ethical public leadership. It draws congruence between Africa's Ubuntu philosophy of civic virtue and Africa's leadership/governance. This will bring about a renewal of thoughts and practice of public leadership on the continent, as it has been demonstrated that a true African seeks collective social welfare and not selfish interest.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirical studies on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and solid waste management (SWM) in Ghana and India to synthesize the “crucial lessons” for urban managers and policy makers in developing countries.

A systematic review of empirical studies was carried out, the search process comprised four categories of keywords combined differently across three main search engines in order to obtain a pool of more relevant literature on the study. Sorting for relevance was done at various levels; retrospective content analysis of relevant empirical studies on PPP and SWM in Ghana and India was subsequently carried out to draw lessons and policy suggestions.

PPPs have mainly been impressive in coverage of waste collection in the Ghanaian context, whilst in India, emphasis has been on injection of technology and effectiveness into SWM. It is also observed that in both cases the PPP processes have lacked adequate openness, transparency and sufficient stakeholder engagement. In the Ghana cases, mostly, urban authorities hardly pay attention to details in the partnership deed and also ignore monitoring of private partners. Poorly performed PPPs do occur when one of the partners relent on his role which could have a cascading effect on other actors.

Whilst PPP is a strong candidate to address the SWM challenges of urban centers in developing countries, this does not necessarily come about by joining the bandwagon. Merely entering into a partnership deed with private waste management companies without paying due attention to details of the contract will usher urban managers into a state of schizophrenia. The paper presents five key lessons to inform policy and practice.

The paper draws lessons from multiple cases of PPPs in Ghana and India by synchronizing lessons adaptable to city authorities and policy makers in developing countries.

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of projects is a very important aspect of project execution and management. This is because proper M&E practices have a significant effect on the successful delivery of projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of project M&E practices on construction project success criteria.

Structured questionnaires were used to solicit the views of project professionals in the Ghanaian construction industry. The questions were developed through critical review of literature and complemented with a pilot interview on the subject. This paper utilized a partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) to establish the impact of project M&E practices (constructs) on project success based on the hypothesis.

Results showed that M&E practices had a positive statistical significant relationship with construction project success criteria. In addition, health and safety performance and project scope showed a strong significant relation with M&E practice, implying that, in developing countries, these two main constructs should be given critical attention in achieving project success.

The findings of this study may be useful to organizations in determining M&E techniques that are relevant and contribute highly to project success. This may go a long way to increase productivity and accelerate the rate of successful project delivery.

The application of rigorous analysis, PLS–SEM, gives a more reliable information on M&E practices that can ensure successful delivery of construction projects.

This study aims to investigate the impact of institutional investors distraction on firms' choice between bank debt and public debt.

The study employs the measure of institutional investors distraction from Kempf et al. (2017), which captures exogenous attention-grabbing events in other aspects of institutional investors' portfolios holdings to examine this research question. The study uses a sample of 16,047 firm-year observations comprising 2,521 US firms for the period of 2000–2016.

The result shows a significant positive association between institutional shareholder distraction and firms' bank ratio. Cross-sectional tests show that the positive association between institutional shareholders distraction and firms' bank ratio is stronger for firms in poorer information environments and for firms facing greater competitive threats from rivals.

This study underscores the important governance role played by institutional shareholders and the consequence when such a monitoring role is impaired. In particular, firms with distracted shareholders rely on expensive bank monitoring and scrutiny to supply their additional monitoring capacity.

The prevalent practice of construction supply chain (CSC) in developing countries with a focus on Africa was presented in this chapter. Two African countries (South Africa and Ghana) were selected due to the extensive literature on the CSC emanating from the countries. The impediment to the effective management of the CSC in the two African countries was also examined in this chapter. It was discovered that the vital inhibition to the performance of CSC in developing countries is the adoption of culture from developed countries without a proper model for ensuring its implementation in developing countries. Also, no model has incorporated the principles and technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) to manage the CSC. The failure to adopt the 4IR technologies like block chain, big data and the internet of things has prevented the proper application of CSC practices in developing countries. CSC practices like collaboration, integration, lean supply chain, information sharing, financial management and communication are the primary practice in developing countries. Finally, this chapter called for the development of a model for managing the CSC in developing countries in alignment with the principles of the 4IR.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for handling end of life (henceforth EoL) scenarios of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) panels, which includes different options available to businesses and end-users, as well as promoting the collaboration between government and all relevant stakeholders.

This paper adopts purposeful sampling, secondary data and content analysis to develop an appropriate conceptual framework that helps to create awareness of the appropriate options for dealing with the EoL cases of solar PV panels.

From the data analysis, it is revealed that reuse, repair and recycling of solar PV panels can ensure value creation, public-private partnership and a solution for education in sustainability, and thus, prolonging the useful life cycle of the products.

This paper limits the analysis on developing economies and the use of selected literature based on the recycling of solar PV panels.

This paper is an initial attempt to create an awareness by identifying, analyzing and educating the stakeholders to handle appropriately any EoL scenario of solar PV panels.