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The purpose of this paper is to explore the landscape of financial services in Africa through the prism of a selection of research papers.

This is a review of literature that focusses on access to financial services (i.e. financial inclusion) and empirical findings from research papers in this issue of the journal.

The landscape of financial services in Africa is as heterogeneous as the countries comprising the continent. Common features include low levels of financial inclusion, low financial literacy, constrained access to credit, costly credit when available, gender discrimination in account ownership, and use and inefficient foreign exchange markets. Nevertheless, there are promising innovations, especially the mobile money innovation, which have the potential to foster more inclusive financial systems.

All the papers in this volume are based on original research shedding new insights on various aspects of financial services in Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore how context as an antecedent to entrepreneurial digital competencies (EDCs) influences digital entrepreneurship in a resource-scarce environment.

The data comprises semi-structured interviews with 16 digital entrepreneurs, as owner-managers of small digital businesses in Cameroon.

The results reveal the ways in which EDCs shape the entry (or start-up) choices and post-entry strategic decisions of digital entrepreneurs in response to context-specific opportunities and challenges associated with digital entrepreneurship.

The data comes from one African country and 16 digital businesses thus the research setting limits the generalisability of the results.

This paper highlights important implications for encouraging digital entrepreneurship by focussing on institutional, technology and local dimensions of context and measures to develop the entrepreneurial and digital competencies. This includes policy interventions to develop the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, transport and local distribution infrastructure, and training opportunities to develop the EDCs of digital entrepreneurs.

Whereas the capabilities to adopt and use ICTs and the internet by small businesses have been examined, this is among the first theoretically sensitised study linking context, EDCs and digital entrepreneurship.

This chapter provides a critical assessment of an article on higher education and economic development, by analyzing the ways the authors reflect on the importance of building technological capabilities. The need to demonstrate the use of evolutionary economics and innovation systems approach in demonstrating higher education contribution to economic growth motivated the article. The critique begins by examining the dominant theories and reflective pieces used by scholars to explain higher education’s contribution to economic development, and then situate the evolutionary economics and innovation systems approach used in the article in this discourse. This critical assessment also delves into how the article approaches the subject matter of higher education; and, the methods used to gather evidence for the case of higher education in South Africa. The chapter then condenses popular views on the role of higher education in economic development and assesses whether “building technological capabilities” is one such view or it is an emerging role. In conclusion, the chapter synthesizes the various sections in the article and isolates the key issues that underpin each of the sections and how each issue is manifested in the higher education sector. The conclusion unloads the overall construction of the article to succinctly knit the bigger argument advanced by the article and provide reasons for the viewpoints supported by this assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cost leadership competitive strategy’s (CLCS) impact on firm performances and the mediating role of quality management (QM) practices in the context of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

A structures questionnaire data collected from 245 ISO 9000 certified MSMEs in India (65.1 per cent of response rate) have been utilised to understand the CLCS’s impact on firm performances. In the first step, the data adequacy tests were performed to check the reliability and validity of the questionnaire and survey data. After that, the partial mediating model (direct, indirect and total effect) along with structural equation modelling approach was employed to test the research hypotheses.

The study results revealed that no direct relationship exists between the CLCS and firm performances (0.12<β<0.13; p>0.05); however, QM practices entirely mediated their relationship (β=0.73, p<0.01). Among eight model parameters, with highest total effects on product quality improvement (β=0.6264) and process improvement (β=0.6028), the continuous improvement secured the rank 1, followed by information and analysis (β=0.2334) and supplier management (0.1839), respectively, at p<0.05. Based on the empirical results, it can be concluded that the continuous improvement via proper information and data analysis is the key to achieve CLCS’s goal in the MSMEs.

The study results’ generalisation towards the large organisations is limited. The survey result findings applicability to other developing countries should also be treated with caution because the Indian Government subsidised the MSMEs selected for this study. The study results will help managers in implementing CLCS at the organisational level. The successful implementation will facilitate a competitive advantage in the local market and will motivate them to think globally.

The research observation and findings are expected to contribute to the strategic management in manufacturing industries. The study also confirms the existence of strategic management in MSMEs in a developing country. Furthermore, the major contribution is to understand the mediating role of QM practices, especially continuous improvement effect on the relationship between CLCS and firm performances in a developing country. The results indicated that the CLCS is only possible when the managers in the manufacturing sectors emphasis on the QM practices in their firms.

This paper examines the mediating role of manufacturing strategies in the relationship between competitive strategies and firm performance.

This study gathered 250 responses from firms in a developing country's key manufacturing sectors, including mechanical, electronics, automotive, textile and food. First, descriptive statistics were applied to fix outliers like respondent biases, missing values and normality issues. Second, exploratory factors analysis (EFA) ensured data adequacy and homogeneity through Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett tests. Finally, confirmatory factors analysis (CFA) was used to identify the interactions (direct, indirect and total effects) between latent variables representing manufacturing strategies (quality, cost, delivery and flexibility), competitive strategies (cost-leadership and differentiation) and firms' performance (sales growth and profitability). In total, two structural equation modelling (SEM) models (SEM-I, SEM-II) were created to test the hypotheses.

Of the 40 items identified by the literature review, four were outliers, and three could not satisfy the EFA criteria (eigenvalue >1). Only 33 items could therefore reach CFA. SEM–I and SEM-II study results found no direct relationship between competitive strategies and firm performance (−0.03 = β = 0.08; p > 0.05). However, the findings revealed that cost-leadership could be an appropriate strategic choice and improved firms' performance if the quality and delivery are focussed (0.20 = β = 0.87; p < 0.001). While competitive strategies impact manufacturing strategies positively, the latter is only a mediator between the cost-leadership strategy and the firms' performance.

This research shows that the cost-leadership approach currently seems viable; however, flexibility and cost requirements were not satisfied due to infeasible product differentiation. These results will be beneficial to executives interested in investing in India's industries.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test an integrated model of the modified technology readiness index (TRI) with the extended expectation-confirmation model, in the context of information technology (E-ECM-IT) to explain the adoption and the intention to continue to use mobile payment applications (apps).

Data were collected from 426 users of mobile payment apps across South Africa. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to validate the factor structure of the measurement items while structural equation modelling was employed to validate the proposed model and testing the hypotheses.

The overall model explained 81 per cent of variance in adoption and 78.5 per cent in the intention to continue to use mobile payment services. “Drivers” were better predictors of adoption than “inhibitors” while satisfaction emerged as the strongest predictor of continuance intentions.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this study is the first to empirically test an integrated modified TRI and E-ECM-IT model to supplement the paucity of research on the topic. The results show that the integrated model provides an enhanced way to understand the factors that influence adoption and continuance intention towards mobile payment apps. The results also add to existing knowledge of mobile technology literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between work organisation, bullying and intention to leave (ITL) in the Australian hospitality industry, using pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure (PDR) to measure work organisation.

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 72 workers in Australian accommodation hotels. They were aged 20-65 years (M=38.26, SD=12.60) and 57.1 per cent were female. The proposed path model was tested with the Mplus (v.7) statistical package using Hayes’ (2009) procedure for mediation analysis.

There were positive bivariate correlations between all variables. The path model indicated that disorganisation and regulatory failure had direct positive associations with bullying. Financial pressure and bullying had direct positive associations with ITL.

The small sample may not be representative and the cross-sectional design and self-report data risk common method variance effects and preclude attributions of causality. Future studies should use more representative samples and longitudinal designs to address common method variance issues and facilitate causal inferences.

Bullying and turnover are significant problems in the hospitality industry, but the contribution of work organisation variables is poorly understood. The present study provides promising preliminary evidence on the potential role of PDR as an antecedent of both bullying and ITL.

During the past 26 years, there has been a phenomenal growth in the literature on workplace bullying. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the extant empirical studies on underlying and intervening mechanisms in antecedents–bullying and bullying–outcomes relationships.

In total, 53 studies on mediators and moderators in antecedents–bullying and bullying–outcomes relationships (2001-2016) were selected from academic databases (Google Scholar, Research Gate, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, etc.)

The review suggests that while a reasonable number of studies examine the role of mediators and moderators in bullying–outcomes relationships, such efforts are meager in antecedents–bullying relationships. The paper concludes by proposing some potential variables that can explain the underlying mechanisms in the bullying phenomenon and alleviate/aggravate the antecedents–bullying–outcomes relationships.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first review on mediators and moderators of workplace bullying.

The authors investigate how a gender-diverse board, a gender-diverse executive team, or a female chief executive officer (CEO) impact bank balance sheet and equity risk.

Using panel data of U.S. bank holding companies over the period of 1992–2019, the authors conduct panel regressions with bank and year-fixed effects to analyze how female directors, female executives, and female CEOs impact a wide range of bank risk measures, controlling for the bank, board and executive characteristics.

The authors find female directors significantly reduce all types of risk. Female executives reduce some balance sheet risk but have an insignificant effect on bank equity risk. However, the presence of female CEOs does not significantly reduce bank risk-taking. During financial crises, female CEOs even increase equity risk.

The findings are important to shed light on the ongoing debate on how gender quota policy could be efficiently used to balance the need for gender diversity while ensuring corporate performance. It could also improve social welfare by guiding proper public policy to ensure the efficient use of social labor capital and curb banks' excessive risk-taking incentives.

The authors provide the first empirical evidence demonstrating that female directors and female executives in the banking industry have different impacts on bank risk-taking. The authors also provide the first empirical evidence that female leaders have a different impact on two different types of risks: balance sheet and equity risk. The study is also the first to analyze the impact of female executives over multiple financial crises.