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Change of climate is attributed to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere observed over comparable periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore smallholder farmers' perceptions of climate change and compare it with meteorological data, as well as to identify perceived adaptation barriers and examine the factors that influence the choice of adaptation options in eastern Ethiopia.

In total, 384 sample households were chosen from four districts of the zone. A cross-sectional survey was used to conduct the study. Primary data was acquired through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and semistructured interviews, whereas meteorological data was collected from the National Meteorological Service Agency of Ethiopia. A Mann–Kendall statistical test was used to analyze temperature and rainfall trends over 33 years. A multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to identify the determinants of farmers' choice of climate change adaptation strategies.

The result indicated that temperature was significantly increased, whereas rainfall was significantly reduced over the time span of 33 years. This change in climate over time was consistently perceived by farmers. Smallholder farmers use improved varieties of crops, crop diversification, adjusting planting dates, soil and water conservation practices, reducing livestock holdings, planting trees and small-scale irrigation adaptation strategies. Moreover, this study indicated that sex of the household head, landholding size, livestock ownership, access to extension, access to credit, social capital, market distance, access to climate change-related training, nonfarm income, agroecological setting and poverty status of the households significantly influence farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies.

Further research is required to evaluate the economic impact of each adaptation options on the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

Institutional variables significantly influenced how farmers adapted to climate change, and all of these issues might potentially be addressed by improving institutional service delivery. To improve farm-level adaptation, local authorities are recommended to investigate the institutional service provision system while also taking demographic and agroecological factors in to account.

This study compared farmers' perceptions with temperature and rainfall trend analysis, which has been rarely addressed by other studies. This study adopts an MVP model and indicated the adaptation strategies that complement/substitute strategies each other. Furthermore, this study discovered that the choice of adaptation options differed between poor and nonpoor households, which has been overlooked in previous climate change adaptation research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance on the performance of 37 commercial banks in Kenya over the period 2005‐2009.

The paper uses two measures of performance, i.e. return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), and the dependent variables and three measures of governance – namely the board size, independent directors, and CEO duality – as the key independent variables. The study follows a panel econometrics technique to investigate the relationship between governance variables and bank performance.

The main findings are as follows: a large board size tends to impact performance negatively; the existence of independent board directors tends to enhance the performance of the banks; and there is no evidence that CEO duality or otherwise has impact on the performance of commercial banks in Kenya.

The study therefore recommends that for commercial banks in Kenya to register high performance they need to check the size of their board of directors and also increase the number of independent directors.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first study on Kenya that has used advanced panel data techniques.

Organizational justice and its impact on employee commitment have received a lot of attention these days. The objective of this study is to see the effect of job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between organizational justice and employee commitment. Also, the role of academic rank as a moderator in the model is probed.

A moderating mediation structural equation model was used for randomly collected cross-section data on 285 employees from public universities in Ethiopia. Necessary condition analysis (NCA) was employed to check the importance of the variables. The Gaussian copula approach was used to check endogeneity in the structural model.

NCA confirms the importance of organizational justice and employee satisfaction as the independent variables. The Gaussian copula approach reveals no endogeneity problems in the structural model. The results supported the partial mediating role of job satisfaction in organizational justice and academic staff’s commitment. Moreover, though staff rank is not a necessary condition, it plays the role of moderator in the relationship between academic staff’s job satisfaction and commitment.

This paper affirms that public institutions must implement fair initiatives and procedures to promote academic staff satisfaction and commitment.

This is the first study to check the job rank as a moderator in the model comprising organization justice, employee commitment and satisfaction. Moreover, application of NCA and Gaussian copula adds to methodological innovation.

Achieving optimal nutrition among mothers and children is still a challenge in many developing country settings, including Ethiopia. Study on dietary diversity concordance of mother-to-child dyads is limited. Hence, this study aims to assess dietary diversity concordance among mother-to-child pairs and its associated factors in Gedeo zone, Southern Ethiopia.

A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out in Gedeo zone, South Ethiopia, from January 1 to February 15, 2019. A multistage sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data was collected by using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Data entry and analysis were done by Epi data version 3.1 and SPSS version 23.0 software, respectively. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used. Variables with p < 0.25 at bivariate analysis were chosen for multivariate analysis. Variables with a p-value of <0.05 were considered statistically significant.

A total of 665 mother and child dyads participated, with a response rate of 98.6%. High concordance of dietary diversity among mother-to-child pairs was 9%. Age of the mother (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.21; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.05–0.84), age of the child between 6 and 11 months (AOR = 5.2; 95% CI: 2.3–11.6), being female (AOR = 1.8; 95% CI: 1.0–3.4), previous history of infection (AOR = 4.4; 95% CI: 1.8–11.5), source of food from the market (AOR = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.12–0.81) and rich wealth index (AOR = 5.7; 95% CI: 2.5–12.9) were the significant factors of high concordance of dietary diversity.

The prevalence of high-concordant dietary diversity among mother and children dyads was very low. Therefore, ensuring multisectoral nutrition interventions that focus on both mothers and children should be considered to improve the good dietary diversity practice.

This study aims to examine determinants of farmers’ use of climate-smart agricultural practices, specifically improved crop varieties, intercropping, improved livestock breeds and rainwater harvesting in Wadla district, northeast Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional household survey was used. A structured interview schedule for respondent households and checklists for key informants and focus group discussants were used. This study used both descriptive statistics and a multivariate probit econometric model to analyze the collected data. The model was used to compute factors influencing the use of climate-smart agricultural practices in the study area.

The results revealed that households adopted selected practices. The likelihood of farmers’ decisions to use improved crop varieties, intercropping, improved livestock breeds and rainwater harvesting was 85%, 52%, 69% and 59%, respectively. The joint probability of using these climate-smart agricultural practices was 23.7%. The model results confirmed that sex, level of education, livestock holding, access to credit, farm distance, market distance and training were significant factors that affected the use of climate-smart agricultural practices in the study area.

The present study used the most selected locally practiced interventions for climate-smart agriculture.

This study aims to investigate the influence of corporate governance structures of non-bank financial institutions (NBFI) on their profitability.

The analysis is performed using data derived from the Bank of Ghana database during a nine-year period, 2006-2014. Correlated panels corrected standard errors model is used to estimate the regression equation. The study uses board size, board independence, gender diversity, CEO duality and tenure and board meetings as proxies for corporate governance. Audit committee size, independence and meetings are used as measures of audit committee activity. The study also uses the return on assets as measures of NBFI profitability.

Results of the study show that there exists positive relationship among board size, audit committee size, meetings of the audit committee and profitability. However, board composition, gender diversity, board meetings and audit committee independence show a negative relationship with NBFI performance. From the findings of the study, it is evident that there are mixed results regarding corporate governance mechanisms and profitability of Ghanaian NBFIs. The results imply that the Ghanaian NBFI industry have unique characteristics and may react differently to corporate governance structures.

The value of this study is in its contribution to the extant literature on corporate governance and profitability of NBFIs.