Search results

Personality profiling in today’s business world has become an essential organisational development practice targeted at identifying a set of employees' traits, which differentiate an employee from one another. Given the assumption that personality traits form an essential indicator of developing the potential of an individual workforce, possible to establish how employees function in a certain job role and their suitability for the particular tasks in an organisation. This study aims to explore the relationship between personality traits, assessment centres (ACs) quality and management development in Nigeria telecommunication organisation among its managers.

The study employed multi-stage sampling techniques and further stratified the hierarchy of the management and finally used a simple random sampling strategy on each stratum. A combination of 482 managers in Nigerian telecommunication organisations participated in this study. The study investigated 12 hypotheses and 1 mediating postulation. Multiple scales were adapted to measure dimensions of endogenous and exogenous variables along the path of mediating variables of the study. The study employed a cross-sectional survey approach to administering the research instrument across all the departments among the managers of the organisations. A structural equation model of assessment was used to analyse the data collected from managers of the telecoms organisations.

The outcome of the study was significant, 10 of the postulated hypotheses were found to be significant while 3 were not significant. The study revealed that a combination of openness to experience, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness and extraversion personality have no significant relationship with the AC. Also, employees who are high in neuroticism like being emotionally unstable did not find a significant relationship with the AC. In a similar situation, the combined effect of all the big-five personalities was not significant in management development among the managers of the telecommunication industry. The AC is discovered to mediate between personality traits and management development. Individually, the big-five model finds a significant relationship with AC and management development, respectively.

The study is restricted to managers of the Nigerian telecoms industry alone and not all the entire workforce. It adopted cross-sectional analysis to make an inference on all the managers of the organisations. The implication is that the period of the view of a particular point in a sequence of the event may not be representative. Another implication is that the results from the cross-sectional design are for the relationship, and they do not indicate causation.

In practice, this study has shown that personality profiling is important to managing organisational behaviour to highlight a set of traits of employees suitable for peculiar roles. This study implies that personality elements constitute a vital signal of the potential development of the workforce. It helps to illuminate an individual functioning style in a certain task situation, therefore determining both professional and managerial suitability in performing a given role.

Although the benefits of customer loyalty are well researched and understood, a clear explication of how customer attitudinal loyalty evolves is lacking. Cultural discrepancies across contexts are also argued as restraining the search for universal and dominant antecedents of loyalty. As a result of the high collectivistic ranking of the Nigerian culture, the purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of attitudinal loyalty within the Nigerian telecom market.

This study is based on survey data obtained from 138 informants who are experienced users of telecommunication services in Nigeria. The cross-sectional data were examined for internal consistency using Cronbach α internal consistency measure whereas the proposed hypotheses were tested using a multiple regression technique after conducting series of validation tests to ensure that none of the assumptions of regression was violated.

The results indicate that service reliability and customer commitment explains 65 per cent of the total variance in attitudinal loyalty. Additionally, customer commitment was established as a stronger predictor of attitudinal loyalty than service reliability.

This study is limited to the extent that it used a convenience sampling approach which may not have allowed for a fully matched profile of the respondents. But the satisfactory fit of the regression model allows for the research to be a basis of a reliable comparison for future studies. Additionally, due to the limited evidence on how attitudinal loyalty evolves in the telecommunication sector, the results that emerged from this research should only be compared cautiously to the findings of previous studies.

For users of telecommunication services to become attitudinally loyal, telecom firms must get customers to become committed to their brands and also deliver reliable services. Consequently, capacity building investments that enable reliable services to be delivered and creative pricing structure and information sharing as well as promise fulfilment which attract customers’ commitment are therefore at the core of developing attitudinally loyal customers’ pool.

Although studies on customer loyalty are not new, the fact that this paper examined how attitudinal loyalty evolves in a saturated telecommunication context with a high collectivistic cultural ranking makes it a significant contribution to customer loyalty research because of the concentration of most studies in the western markets, the likelihood of disparities across markets influencing the antecedents of the construct and the absence of such research in the Nigerian telecom setting.

This paper explores the reasoning surrounding relationship value and quality, and further provides a blueprint on how positive word-of-mouth behaviour can be promoted through different routes.

Survey strategy was employed with focus on quantitatively developed questionnaires. Informants were recruited through mall intercept. All diagnostic tests, path analyses and, by implication, research hypotheses were conducted using the SEM-PLS technique.

All the hypothesized relationships were supported. Relationship value directly relates to trust, satisfaction and word-of-mouth behaviour. Value was also indirectly related to word-of-mouth behaviour through the relationship quality construct, but trust stood-out as a better mediator. Trust and satisfaction also came out as antecedents of positive word-of-mouth behaviour.

The relationship between relationship value and the relationship quality construct remains largely under-researched in literatures. This paper serves as a springboard for future research projects to extend understanding on how both constructs interact especially in a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) level. In addition, the paper offers a comprehensive insight on the behaviour of the relationship quality construct when it is tested as a mediator in a causal–effect model.

This study holds that by engineering superior value, a telecom provider is better positioned to build a sound relationship quality network and stimulate positive word-of-mouth through different routes.

Given the dearth of research on this area, this paper represents the first attempt to map out relationship value as an antecedent of relationship quality and word-of-mouth behaviour on a B2C level, and simultaneously explore the direct and indirect behaviour of both constructs in promoting word-of-mouth behaviour in a non-Western setting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms can influence customer loyalty through customer commitment by leveraging two constructs of service quality: service assurance and service reliability.

The analyses are based on 138 responses retrieved from experienced users of mobile phone services in one of the big cities in the South-eastern part of Nigeria through a survey questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the measurement model as well as the proposed hypotheses were examined through the partial least squares structural equation modelling procedure.

Service reliability is a direct predictor of customer loyalty while service assurance is not. Affective commitment has a direct positive effect on customer loyalty and partially mediates the relationship between service reliability and customer loyalty. In contrast, the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the relationship between service assurance and customer loyalty were positive but insignificant. Finally, affective commitment mediates the effect of continuance commitment on customer loyalty.

The mediating role of the individual components of commitment in the links between the individual dimensions of service quality and customer loyalty is largely untested in the literature. This line of inquiry can form the basis for future research proposals. Additionally, the outcomes that emerged from this research must be interpreted with caution due to the size of the sample on which analyses were based. Future research should employ larger samples.

Services organisations especially telecommunication firms may benefit from customer loyalty by pursuing a combined strategy of increasing service assurance, service reliability, affective commitment and continuance commitment both independently and in tandem.

As far as could be established, this paper is the first to explore the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the links between service quality dimensions and customer loyalty.

This research aims to explore the effect of change management on job satisfaction. A conceptual model involving knowledge management and resistance to change as moderators tested the relationships in the context of a developing country, India.

Data from 413 respondents from four important sectors – healthcare, education, manufacturing and information technology – were collected from southern India. First, the psychometric properties of the survey instrument were checked, and then hypotheses were tested using Hayes's PROCESS macros.

The results indicate that change management significantly predicts employee productivity and job satisfaction. Further, employee productivity mediated the relationship between change management and job satisfaction. This study also found that the resistance to change (first moderator) and knowledge management (second moderator) interacted with change management to enhance employee productivity.

This study has several contributions to the practitioners and academic scholars. The study has limitations, which are inherent in survey-based research, of common method bias and social desirability bias. However, the authors have taken adequate care to minimize these biases.

The three-way interaction (moderated moderated-mediation) tested in this research uniquely contributes to the literature on change management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this moderated moderated-mediation has been tested for the first time in the context of a developing country, India, and provides valuable insights into the practicing managers and change agents in bringing successful change in organizations.

The application of hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) can mitigate inadequate access to clean, stable and sustainable energy among households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Available studies on HRES seem to concentrate only on its techno-economic and environmental viability. In so doing, these studies do not seem to underline the likely challenges that follow the acquisition of HRES by especially low-income households. The ensuing reality is, of course, a limitation in the use of HRES in homes with low incomes. It is therefore imperative to analyze how a household with low income can afford this kind of energy system. The purpose of this study, therefore, lies in presenting a techno-economic, environmental and affordability analysis of how HRES is acquired.

To arrive at a grounded analysis, a typical household in SSA is used as an example. The analysis focused on the pattern of energy use, and this is obtained by visiting an active site to evaluate the comprehensive load profile. In the course of analysis, an optimal techno-economic design and sizing of a hybrid PV, wind and battery were undertaken. Additionally, an acquisition analysis was done based on loan amortization.

The interesting result is that a combination of the photovoltaic-gasoline-battery system is the most cost-effective energy system with a net present cost of $2,682. The system combination can lead to an emission reduction of approximately 98.3 per cent, compared to the use of gasoline generating sets, common mostly in SSA. If an amortized loan is used to purchase the energy system, and the payment plan is varied such that the frequency of payments is made quarterly, annually, semi-annually, bi-monthly, semi-monthly and bi-weekly, it will be observed that low-income household can conveniently acquire a HRES.

The result presented a framework by which a low-income household can purchase and install HRES. To facilitate this, it is recommended that low-income households should be given interest-friendly loans, so as to enhance the acquisition of HRES.

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.

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.

The dynamics of work have increased the importance of work conditions and job demand in the corporate environment. This has exposed the high predominance of work overload among employees and managers in social organisations. This study aims to investigate the contemporary determinants of workaholism (organisational culture, financial well-being and career development) and quality of work-life (QWL) in Nigeria’s information technology (IT) sector.

To synthesise an understanding of factors that are responsible for workaholic behaviour among employees in the IT industry, this study used a cross-sectional research design to investigate the phenomenon that accounts for such hysteric conditions. This study administered an inventory battery of scales to obtain data from the study population on a random sampling technique to measure the established constructs responsible for workaholism and QWL. This study surveyed 644 samples of IT professionals in Nigeria and used structural equation modelling and artificial neural networks to examine the data obtained from the IT professionals.

The outcome of this study was significant as proposed. This study demonstrated that compulsive work approach adversely affects employee QWL in Nigeria’s IT industry. Also, excessive work adversely affects employee QWL in Nigeria’s IT industry. This study further discovered that organisational culture and management pressure significantly affect the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. The results of this study showed that financial well-being significantly affects the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. Lastly, it established that career development significantly affects the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. This study concluded that if working round the clock is not completely removed from Nigeria’s IT cultural system, the industry will not be a safe environment and will not attract employees anymore. It has enabled many Nigerian workforces to quit working in Nigeria and migrate to international organisations.

This study has shown a meaningful dimension by discovering that workaholism is inherently in the cultural values and DNA of Nigerian IT institutions and not work addiction in itself for the employees. The novelty of this research has indicated that workaholism has not been documented much in the Nigerian IT sector.