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Robotics and automation are successful in construction, health and safety, but costs and expertise hinder their use in developing nations. This study examined mobile apps as a more accessible and affordable alternative.

This descriptive study explored the use of mobile apps in construction, health and safety management. It used a literature review to identify their availability, accessibility, and capabilities. The study consisted of four five stages: searching for relevant apps, selecting them based on versatility, examining their specific functions, removing untested apps and discussing their functions based on empirical studies.

A comprehensive literature review identified 35 mobile apps that are relevant to health and safety management during construction. After rigorous analysis, eight apps were selected for further study based on their relevance, user friendliness and compliance with safety standards. These apps collectively serve 28 distinct functions, including first-aid training and administration, safety compliance and danger awareness, safety education and training, hazard detection and warnings.

This study suggests that mobile apps can provide a cost-effective and readily accessible alternative to robotics and automation in health and safety management in construction. Further research is needed to accurately assess the efficacy of these apps in real-world conditions.

This study explored the use of apps in health and safety management, highlighting their diverse capabilities and providing a framework for project managers, contractors and safety officers to select suitable apps.

This study was conducted to identify, summarise, analyse and categorise mobile device applications (Apps), relevant to the construction industry and to explore their uses and exposure levels.

The research method involved reviewing literature and searching for Apps. The construction Apps were found by developing key phrases. These key phrases were used to develop search strategies, which were then used to find the construction Apps. The Apps found were categorised based on the similarity of their uses.

The 136 Apps identified were summarised, analysed, and categorised into 11 groups of distinct construction operations and tasks. The “Design and Drawing Apps”, “Measurement and Estimation Apps”, “Management Apps”, “All Round Apps” and “Construction Site Apps” recorded 29, 28, 26, 21 and 11 numbers of Apps, respectively. The Autodesk Sketchbook, GPS Field Area Measure, MagicPlan, Measure and TSheets were the top five in terms of the number of downloads. These Apps in terms of their exposure levels in the construction industry record 4.76%, 2.38%, 0.52%, 0.48% and 0.42%, respectively.

This paper provides a catalogue of the continuum of construction Apps for a wide variety of construction operations/activities which are available for construction professionals and provide guidance on their uses to assist in selecting appropriate Apps for specified operation/tasks/activities in the construction industry. Construction professionals may benefit from increased productivity, efficiency and ease of working.

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the El Nino and its effects on maize production in three municipalities: Ejura, Techiman and Wenchi in the transitional zone of Ghana. Using a mixed approach, the study details the effects of the El Nino on rainy season characteristics, particularly, rainfall amounts and distribution, onset and cessation of rains, duration of the rainy season and total seasonal rainfall and how it impacted smallholder maize production.

The study used a mixed method approach in collecting and analyzing data. For stronger evidence building, (Creswell, 2013) the authors combined interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) to collect the qualitative data. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to extension officers, management information system officers and other relevant personnel of the Ministry of Agriculture in the three municipalities. Six FGD’s were held for maize farmers in six communities in all three municipalities.

The study shows that the 2015 El Nino had dire consequences on farm yields, subsequently affecting farmer’s incomes and livelihoods. The study further finds that complex socio-cultural factors, some unrelated to the El Nino, aggravated the effects on maize farmers. These include the lack of adequate climatic information, predominance of rain-fed farming, a lack of capacity to adapt and existing levels of poverty.

The study recommends inter alia, appropriate use of seasonal rainfall forecasting to enhance better farming decision-making and the development of elaborate climate variability interventions by national and local agencies.

This paper aims to empirically investigate the impact that financial sector reforms have on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ghana.

Composite financial sector reform index was constructed, which was made up of various forms of reform policies that were implemented from 1987 to 2016. The auto regressive distributed lag bounds test was used to establish cointegration between variables. Having controlled for other covariates that affect FDI such as trade openness, exchange rate, gross domestic product per capita, inflation and by using the fully modified ordinary least squares method, the estimations are robust as it uses a semi-parametric correction to avoid for any possible issues of endogeneity and serial correlation.

Results from the paper reveal that financial sector reform deepening boost FDI with a 2.167% increase in FDI following from a unit percentage improvement of the financial sector reforms. Considering the various categories of reforms, the results reveal that competitive reforms have the highest impact on FDI followed by privatization reforms with positive and significant elasticity coefficients of 2.174% and 0.726%, respectively. Behavioral reforms revealed a positive effect on FDI, albeit insignificant.

The paper contributes to policy by providing empirical evidence on the effect of financial sector reform on FDI inflows in Ghana. As far as the review of literature is concerned, this paper provides the foremost empirical evidence on the subject with sole emphasis on Ghana. Thus, this paper suggests the deepening of the financial sector reforms, improving competition and maintaining macroeconomic stability.

The need for context-specific adoption models led to the development of the firm technology adoption model (F-TAM) model. Among small to medium-scale enterprises (SMEs); however, firm-level factors were rather insignificant in engendering SME level adoption of technological innovation. This study aims to examine the effect of firm size and other moderating and mediating factors on the relationships between personal, firm, societal and technological factors proposed in the stakeholder-oriented F-TAM among SMEs.

A research instrument was developed, reviewed by experts, and pilot tested with a sample of 25 respondents. Data were purposively collected from four hundred (400) SMEs and analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The study discovered that employees, societal and technological factors moderate the relationship between firm factors of adoption and firm adoption. Without these moderating effects, firm factors of adoption would have been insignificant at the SMEs’ level of organizational technology adoption. The study further discovered that firm size, as well as risk propensity, also affect the relationships proposed in the model.

Data was collected on voluntary adoption from the most cosmopolitan area of a developing country. It, therefore, needs further contextual validation across the country and different countries.

The engagement of innovations in firms must be planned with employees and society as major stakeholders.

The significance of this finding is the study’s emphasis on an eco-system approach for examining the phenomenon of innovation adoption. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effect of firm characteristics on is proposed eco-system of stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to introduce new tools to develop a more precise and focused bibliometric analysis on the field of digitalization in healthcare management. Furthermore, this study aims to provide an overview of the existing resources in healthcare management and education and other developing interdisciplinary fields.

This work uses bibliometric analysis to conduct a comprehensive review to map the use of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) research models in healthcare academic studies. Bibliometric studies are considered an important tool to evaluate research studies and to gain a comprehensive view of the state of the art.

Although UTAUT dates to 2003, our bibliometric analysis reveals that only since 2016 has the model, together with UTAUT2 (2012), had relevant application in the literature. Nonetheless, studies have shown that UTAUT and UTAUT2 are particularly suitable for understanding the reasons that underlie the adoption and non-adoption choices of eHealth services. Further, this study highlights the lack of a multidisciplinary approach in the implementation of eHealth services. Equally significant is the fact that many studies have focused on the acceptance and the adoption of eHealth services by end users, whereas very few have focused on the level of acceptance of healthcare professionals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a bibliometric analysis of technology acceptance and adoption by using advanced tools that were conceived specifically for this purpose. In addition, the examination was not limited to a certain era and aimed to give a worldwide overview of eHealth service acceptance and adoption.