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As NITEL, Nigeria's former national carrier, has been unable to cope with provision requirements needed by the country to support its development needs, this has led to changes in the attitude of the Nigerian government to competition within the industry. It is the contention of this paper that NITEL could learn from progress already made by its counterparts (such as BT and AT&T) in developed countries such as the UK and USA, especially in the area of regulation and divestiture.

In order to examine these issues, this problem is addressed from two perspectives. In the first place, a comparison is carried out between the Nigerian telecommunications industry and progress already made in the UK and US telecommunications industry. In addition, although contextual differences do exist between the developed UK and US industry and the developing Nigerian market, such a comparison is seen as feasible based on previous research in this field. Arguably, it is suggested that divestiture amongst the numerous strategic initiatives is an option NITEL can explore.

The paper accepts that former monopolies BT and AT&T have developed divestiture theory and practice to address its failures. The question is whether these theories and practices might help NITEL address its challenges.

It is acknowledged that limitations within the paper might exist which may have impacted on the conclusion. In the first place, it could be argued that the existence of contextual differences between developed and developing telecommunications markets limits comparison between NITEL and BT/AT&T. Second, to an extent, it could be viewed as difficult to argue that divestiture successes in BT and AT&T could equate to similar successes in NITEL, especially considering the different economic realities NITEL has had to operate in. Third, it is also appreciated that it is difficult to effectively discuss the impact of a divestiture of NITEL without considering the significant changes in the use of telephony in Nigeria, i.e. the significant and increasing switch from fixed to mobile services.

The paper analyzes telecommunications companies in developing economies.

The purpose of this study is to assess how telecommunications companies in Nigeria leverage intellectual capital as a strategic resource for creating competitive advantage.

A previously published research instrument was administered and survey data were collected from 320 managers in 29 telecommunications companies.

Hypotheses related to the relationship of human, structural and customer capital and its influence on business performance were tested. Results show that Nigerian telecommunications companies have mostly emphasized the use of customer capital, exemplified by market research and customer relationship management to boost their business performance.

The over‐emphasis on customer capital to the detriment of other intellectual capital components is found to be undermining the productivity of Nigerian telecommunications companies.

This is the first published study of intellectual capital development in Nigeria.

In order to achieve a desirable level of market efficiency, regulators need to identify the strategic groups within an industry and understand the way the constituent groups relate to one another. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In the current study, factors that may lead to strategic group formation were developed and used as clustering variables in a k-means cluster statistical analysis to categorize the firms into strategic groups. The factors used are entry costs, timing of entry, technology type and scope of operations. In addition, the number and type of competitive actions employed by the firms in the industry were identified by structured content analysis of a public source. The competitive actions were used to examine the dynamics of the resulting groups within the context of competitive behavior, resource and scope commitments and corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. In addition, χ2 analysis was employed to ascertain the likelihood that actions of a firm will be responded to by firms from the same group or from outside the group.

License fees was found to be the most significant clustering variable. The study also showed that groups with significantly higher license fees carried out considerably more competitive actions, had higher resource and scope commitments and executed more CSR actions. In addition, the study revealed significantly more competition within strategic groups than between groups.

The absence of financial records for firms in the sample necessitated the use of CSR activity as a measure of firm performance. Some empirical studies have shown strong links between CSR and firm performance.

The study revealed high mobility barriers which prevent ease of movement of firms in the industry from one strategic group to the other. Therefore regulators who wish to promote competition must do so by identifying the strategic groups with significant market power and permitting entry not by lowering entry barriers but by allowing the entry of firms with proven resources similar to the firms in those groups and to stipulate similar commitments in entry conditions. The results also offer management practitioners an insight into competitive behavior in the industry.

The study utilized a unique data set (competitive actions of firms in the Nigerian Telecommunications industry as reported in the media) in contributing to empirical studies on competitive dynamics and strategic group literature.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the article in context.

This article is full of up‐to‐date information on the present state of the Nigerian telecommunications industries and infrastructure, and the histories of the main players competing for market shares. As this is a case study, the article comes to no firm conclusions as such, but provides a clear outline of the socio‐economic conditions in this particular market for potential investors and the problems faced by the major competitors.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of organizational knowledge on organizational performance.

A survey of 66 managerial cadre employees of firms in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry made up the population for this study. The research study is descriptive in nature and it adopted a qualitative research design. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

The study revealed that organizational knowledge dimensions such as individual-tacit, individual-explicit, group-tacit and group-explicit knowledge are essential to achieving organizational objectives and higher levels of performance. However, it is obvious that telecommunication firms in Nigeria are still laid back in their efforts to become aware of specific knowledge management strategies, especially with the adoption of specific information technology facilities that could achieve this goal.

Although organizational knowledge has been argued as a vital means of enhancing organizational competitiveness, most discussions in existing literature have been limited by a technology-based perspective of organizational knowledge. As a result, human cognitive skills have largely been expunged in relation to organizational knowledge discourse. Based on a conceptualization of organizational knowledge from a perspective that combine people and technology, this research proposes four dimensions of organizational knowledge that can be linked to performance.

AfrobitLink Ltd was an information technology (IT) firm with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. AfrobitLink started as a very small IT firm with less than two dozen staff. Within a few years of its founding, AfrobitLink established itself as a dependable organization known for delivering high-quality IT services. However, starting in 2004, AfrobitLink experienced rapid growth as it expanded to serve the telecommunications firms taking advantage of the deregulated market. This rapid expansion resulted in many challenges for AfrobitLink. The firm rapidly expanded into all 36 states in Nigeria, hiring a manager to oversee the company’s operations in each of the states. Poor hiring practices, inadequate training, excessive spans of control, low accountability, a subjective reward system, and other cultural issues, such as a relaxed attitude to time, resulted in low motivation, high employee turnover, poor customer service, and financial losses. By 2013, the firm was operating at a loss and its reputation was in shambles. Generally, the culture was toxic: employees did not identify with the firm or care about its goals, there were no performance standards, employees were not held accountable, self-interest and discrimination prevailed. The organization was in a downward spiral. Consultants were hired to help sort out the firm’s problems but these efforts yielded few results. Ken Wilson, the founder’s son, was hired in 2014 as VP of Administration to help get the firm back on track. As a change agent, Ken had to decide how to address the issues facing the firm and how to achieve profitable growth.

Primary sources included interviews with the company CEO, his wife, his son, and a volunteer staff member. Secondary sources included the company website. The names of the people and the firm in the case have been changed to provide anonymity.

This case is intended for use in graduate courses (although it can also be used in upper level undergraduate courses) in change management/organization development, organizational behavior, leadership, or international management. For graduate courses, students may focus on application or integration of several theories or concepts. For upper level undergraduate courses, students may focus on application of a single theory or concept. Below are suggested texts or readings for each type of student by subject.

Change management theories (e.g. Lewin’s force field analysis (Schein, 1996), Kotter’s eight-step change management process (Kotter, 2007), The change kaleidoscope approach (Balogun and Hailey, 2008)), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981), attribution theory (Kelley, 1972), leadership theories (e.g. Hersey and Blanchard, 1969), intercultural/international management theories (e.g. Hofstede, 1980, 1991).

The purpose of this paper is to use the consumer-based discrepancy theory to examine consumers’ behavioral motivations for using mobile devices and the factors that influence the rapid diffusion of Chinese mobile devices in Nigeria.

Data were collected using focus group interviews with samples cutting across users, technicians and experts from Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s industrial capital. This study conducted a thematic analysis of the data with NVivo Pro 11 for deductive coding.

The authors found that weak regulatory environment opened the Nigerian mobile market to the influx of mobile devices from Chinese local manufacturers. Though largely absent in developed markets, Chinese mobile devices are household names in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Having studied the Nigerian market, Chinese mobile device manufacturers have incorporated features and specifications in their mobile devices that are adapted specifically to this market. Our findings also show that these “China phones and tablets” are significantly inferior to those manufactured by global brands. However, consumer complaints have led to significant improvements in their quality. Consequently, due to their successful diffusion, Nigeria is being used as a launching pad to other African countries.

While the study could not look at the economic, environmental and health implications of the high death rate of the mobile devices, it however provides useful insights on the application of the consumer-based discrepancy theory: expectation vs performance, in the Nigerian mobile market context.

The study is the first to empirically examine the diffusion of Chinese mobile devices in one of the key emerging markets in Africa. The study provides blueprint for the local regulatory authorities on how to strengthen their regulatory oversight and also advances critical understanding on how Chinese mobile device manufacturers can improve their technologies and optimize market opportunity in Africa.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of global system for mobile communications (GMS) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, emphasizing the nature and characteristics of the activities for which it is used, the factors that promote or beset its use, its benefits and the quality of services provided by the operators.

The study adopted a descriptive survey design. A two‐stage stratified sampling technique was adopted for selecting a sample of 456 staff and students of the University of Ibadan that form the target population. The questionnaire was the main data collection instrument while frequency and percentage distributions were the analytical tools adopted.

Findings show a significant use of the GSM for social activities (getting in touch with friends and relations) while its use in research and academic activities was less significant. Also a number of inhibitors of effective GSM use in the University of Ibadan such as limited network coverage, unstable network and difficulty in making calls, etc. were identified.

This study, apart from throwing light on the patterns of the use of GSM in the University of Ibadan, serves as a guide to policy makers to review the policy on telecommunications so as to allow for more and more competitors to engage in the telephony service. The study recommends that the government need to promote a competitive mobile phone market for more players to come into the sector and an upgrade in the communication standard for better GSM services in Nigeria.

Drawing on the emotional labour theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of cultural orientation on emotion regulation and display processes for service employees.

Based on a Nigerian study where literature is scarce, data were gathered from semi-structured interviews conducted with 40 call centre service agents.

The findings identified three key values around reinforcing social cohesion, anticipated self-curtailment, hierarchy and expressions of servility based on broader societal needs to promote relational harmony when managing customer relations during inbound calls into the call centre.

The extent to which the findings can be generalised is constrained by the limited and selected sample size. However, the study makes contributions to the service work theory by identifying the extent to which communication of emotions is informed in large parts by local culture and seeks to incite scholarly awareness on the differences of emotional display rules from a developing country other than western contexts.

This paper is among the first to focus on the interface between culture and emotional labour from a Sub-Saharan African context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of technological capability (TC) and technology management (TM) on the development of China’s telecommunications industry by examining two interrelated questions: Which is the order parameter for China’s telecommunications industry? and What are the relationships between TC and TM? The paper will develop models to analyze TC, TM and the development of China’s telecommunications industry quantitatively.

The paper reviews literature related to TC and TM and investigates the technical features of China’s telecommunications industry. Then, the paper makes a theoretical analysis of the relationships among them. First, it analyzes the effects of TC and TM on the industry and tries to explore the order parameter. Second, the paper analyzes the interaction between TC and TM. Then, the paper applies the Haken model to construct an analysis model. It also constructs models for measuring TC and TM. Using the data of China’s telecommunications industry from 1991 to 2010, the paper identifies the order parameter for the industry and tests the relationships between TC and TM.

The paper finds that TC plays a dominant role in the development of China’s telecommunications industry. The paper also finds that TC promotes the development of TM. However, TM fails to promote the development of TC. The paper presents two other important findings. The first one is that China’s telecommunications industry has constructed a positive feedback mechanism for continuous development of TC, which provides an impetus for industry upgrades and development. The second one is that there is no positive feedback growth mechanism for TM capability, which has increased the lag between TM and TC and has become one of the important reasons why TM does not promote TC.

Theoretical and managerial implications are put forward. Thus, TC must be improved to propel the development of China’s telecommunications industry; TM should be greatly improved and an effective growth mechanism for TM should be constructed; the synergy between TM and TC should be achieved. Research limitations are also pointed out. Thus, the results in this paper probably cannot be generalized to other industries; it does go on to discuss the synergetic mode of TM and TC that can best compel industrial development, and it does not explain what the growth mechanisms for TM and TC should be.

The paper is original, as it provides new perspectives of TM and TC for analyzing industrial development, and it provides the method and model for quantitatively analyzing TC and TM at an industry level. It discovers the order parameter and new problems of China’s telecommunications industry, which no one has identified before. The paper also offers references for analyzing other industries from the perspectives of TM and TC.