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This study aims to explore the impact of store atmospherics on urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ behavioural intentions to purchase apparel in an emerging African market context. This study also considers purchase antecedents to attitude, perceived behavioural control and social norms as determinants of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ apparel behavioural intentions.

Using non-probability sampling, specifically purposive and interlocking sampling, data collection was secured from 881 economically active Namibian urban bottom-of-the-pyramid respondents through interviewer-administered questionnaires. Covariance-based structural equation modelling assessed the significant relationships among all constructs in the conceptual model.

This study found that for favourable apparel behavioural intentions of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers to occur, apparel retailers should emphasise trust, perceived awareness and self-identity through apparel assortment and groupings, easy-to-read visible signage, together with competent, friendly and respectful sales personnel in their store atmospherics.

The findings of this study may guide apparel retailers in other emerging African markets to develop regional integration, market-based solutions and inclusive economic growth focusing on “non-essential” products, such as apparel, among urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers.

This study expands the intellectual boundaries of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ behavioural intentions towards “non-essential” products. The theoretical framework supports the integration of both the stimulus-organism-response model and the theory of planned behaviour into one single model for empirical investigation. Additionally, adopting a novel theoretical framework helped identify the impact of store atmospherics from a bottom-of-the-pyramid perspective in an emerging African market context, such as Namibia.

This chapter explores the principles of community empowerment and active participation in community development, highlighting the importance of inclusive practices for sustainable and equitable outcomes. It draws from diverse strategies and practical examples, showcasing the transformative potential of empowering community members. Through real-world case studies from places like Namibia, Bangladesh, and Brazil, readers gain insights into effective strategies for amplifying marginalized voices and enabling them to shape their destinies. The chapter addresses the challenges and benefits of participatory approaches, helping practitioners tailor strategies to complex community dynamics. It emphasizes the pivotal role of partnerships in strengthening community bonds and fostering collaborations among stakeholders. By embracing empowerment and participation, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers can contribute to a more equitable and sustainable future where communities thrive, and individuals actively shape their paths.

This paper aims to provide insights into the environment needed for advancing a digitally enabled circular plastic economy in Africa. It explores important technical and social paradigms for the transition.

This study adopted an interpretivist paradigm, drawing on thematic analysis on qualitative data from an inter-sectoral engagement with 69 circular economy stakeholders across the continent.

The results shows that, while substantial progress has been made with regard to the development and deployment of niche innovations in Africa, the overall progress of circular plastic economy is slowed due to relatively minimal changes at the regime levels as well as pressures from the exogenous landscape. The study highlights that regime changes are crucial for disrupting the entrenched linear plastic economy in developing countries, which is supported by significant sunk investment and corporate state capture.

The main limitation of this study is with the sample as it uses data collected from five countries. Therefore, while it offers a panoramic view of multi-level synergy of actors and sectors across African countries, it is limited in its scope and ability to illuminate country-specific nuances and peculiarities.

The study underlines the importance of policy innovations and regulatory changes in order for technologies to have a meaningful contribution to the transition to a circular plastic economy.

The study makes an important theoretical contribution by using empirical evidence from various African regions to articulate the critical importance of the regime dimension in accelerating the circular economy transition in general, and the circular plastic economy in particular, in Africa.

The paper aims at analyzing the co-movements between stock returns and oil prices (West Texas Intermediate, Brent) controlling or not for COVID-19.

It uses continuous wavelet transforms and wavelet coherence over the period July 19, 2019 to August 16, 2021 based on daily data. Continuous wavelet transforms provide an over complete representation of stock returns signals by letting the translation and scale parameters of the wavelets vary continuously.

There are not significant evidence supporting the fact that the COVID-19 has altered the relationship between stock returns and oil prices except perhaps in the case of South Africa. In fact, Southern African Development Community stock markets react more to oil prices than to health shock such as the COVID-19.

The findings of the study are original and have not been published anywhere prior.

The aim of this study is to identify the various knowledge formats suitable for mobile learning in Namibian public universities.

Taking a qualitative design, data were collected through focus group interviews of students in two public universities in Namibia.

Results suggest that students consume knowledge in various formats, with videos the most preferred format. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that students’ preferences are shaped by various factors such as costs and quantity of information.

The study was limited to two public Namibian universities. This limited scope, as well as its qualitative nature, means that findings cannot be arbitrarily generalized to other contexts but cardinal as a source of insight in contextually similar environments.

The findings reveal that teachers should be cognizant of the preferred knowledge formats for mobile learning to achieve its full potential in terms of effective teaching and learning. Therefore, teachers should package learning information for mobile learning in line with learners’ characteristics and preferences.

There is scant information on knowledge formats suitable for mobile learning. Consequently, this study contributes to the nascent body of knowledge on this important issue. Furthermore, although mobile learning uptake is on the ascendancy in Africa, to the best of our knowledge, no study of this nature has been undertaken in this context thereby leaving knowledge gaps for designers, researchers and practitioners in mobile learning.

This study uses relationship marketing theory to explore affective and calculative commitment as mediators in the delight–loyalty link. Furthermore, it investigates the role of perceived employee service delivery skills, perceived value and trust in the relationships between delight, affective commitment, calculative commitment and loyalty.

A descriptive research approach was applied, and the data were collected from 332 retail banking customers in an emergent market who are overall satisfied with their bank. A self-administered questionnaire collected data from 332 respondents who adhered to the stipulated requirements to participate in the study. These respondents were selected through purposive and convenience sampling. The constructs’ interrelationships were analysed via structural equation modelling. The measurement and structural models were also assessed.

Affective and calculative commitment and delight impact loyalty. Both affective commitment and calculative commitment were found to mediate the relationship between delight and customer loyalty.

The study enhances an understanding of the role of affective and calculative commitment in strengthening the delight–loyalty link from a relationship marketing theory perspective.

The study provides guidance to the retail banking industry in emerging markets on the importance of affective and calculative commitment in strengthening the delight–loyalty link. It further informs retail banks of the need to provide banking customers with products and service value that exceed their expectations to strengthen their future commitment and loyalty to their bank.

Guided by relationship marketing theory, the role of affective and calculative commitment in mediating the delight–loyalty link in an emerging market context is uncovered.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new vulnerability to income and multidimensional poverty estimation index (VIMPI). This index is designed to measure the likelihood of individuals falling into and remaining in poverty.

The paper introduces a new methodology that integrates the concepts of the well-being gap, individual and indicator-specific weighting, and vulnerability. This approach is simple to apply and accurately measures vulnerability with less susceptibility to measurement error and outliers. The index satisfies all poverty and vulnerability axioms, including transferability and monotonicity. The newly proposed method has been applied to Namibian and Ghanaian data and compared with similar techniques.

The results showed that Ghana's vulnerability to income and multidimensional poverty was 37.9% and 56%, respectively. Of the 37.9% of vulnerable individuals, 23.4% were at risk of falling into poverty, while 14.57% were at risk of remaining in poverty. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of VIMPI in accurately estimating vulnerability to poverty and its potential to inform targeted policies to alleviate poverty.

This paper proposes a new methodology to estimate vulnerability to income and multidimensional poverty.

The advancement of a profession depends on factors such as firm education, training programmes and vibrant professional associations. The purpose of this study is to provide baseline information on archives and records management (ARM) professionals from Africa, including their views on education and training programmes. Related studies have been limited to investigating the experiences of graduates from a few institutions within a limited jurisdiction. Similar studies have not been conducted by African-based ARM associations.

This study’s survey approach was administered electronically. Two surveys explored themes through 10 research questions in three categories: background information; characteristics of the education; and types of courses and extent covered during the study.

The two surveys had 107 and 179 respondents, respectively, domiciled in 19 African countries. In both studies, about 75% of the respondents had an undergraduate- or master-level qualification. Between 69% and 87% of the respondents from the first and second surveys, respectively, had completed their educational programmes within their home countries. There was varied sentiment on the types of courses and level of coverage within their studies. Legal and technology aspects were less covered in the curriculum than core subjects.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first with findings from ARM respondents across several African countries. It provides insight into the demographics and educational programmes. This study’s unique contribution provides baseline data for more detailed and nuanced studies that will explore data and investigate patterns within and among individual countries on the continent.

This paper aims to investigate the heterogeneous effects of macroeconomic and financial factors across various distributions of financial deepening in 22 African countries over the past two decades (2000–2019).

The paper uses a recent method of moments quantile regression, which accounts for the often overlooked heterogeneity effects. The analysis focuses on the banking sector, which is predominant in Africa, using a broad range of macroeconomic and financial indicators.

The findings show that gross domestic product per capita positively and significantly impacts financing deepening with an increasing marginal benefit as depth increases. Trade openness positively and substantially affects only high financial deepening. Real interest rate, real exchange rate and inflations negatively and significantly affect financial deepening, especially at higher than lower levels. Financial stability positively and substantially influences financial deepening with an increasing marginal benefit as the depth increases. Bank lending interest rate, bank lending–deposit rate spread, bank concentration and return on equity negatively and substantially impact higher levels of financial deepening than lower levels.

These findings are crucial to policymakers and development partners, as promoting a favourable financial environment and stable macroeconomic policies based on the heterogeneity of financial depths can increase debt financing in Africa.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempts to analyse the heterogeneous effects of macroeconomic and financial determinants on varying levels of financial depth in Africa.