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The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that are likely to predict the likelihood of a small firm choosing to participate in formal training programmes. The objective is to inform public policy and practice with regard to what SMEs must do in order to realise the benefits of participating in formal training programmes like their counterpart large firms so as to remain competitive.

The study uses a logistic regression model to ascertain the critical factors that are likely to predict SMEs’ chances to engage in formal training programmes. The data that inform the logit model are based on a non-probability sample of 85 SMEs drawn from Accra, the capital of Ghana.

The major findings are that firm size and having younger owner-managers that are daring play a critical role regarding whether or not small firms in Ghana will offer themselves for formal training programmes. However, firm size, including having young and daring owner-managers reflect the internal resource capacity of a firm. The results imply that the internal resource capacity of a firm is critical in predicting whether or not a small firm will offer itself for a formal training programme, although the changing trends from the external environment are also crucial.

As a result of the lack of an available sample frame, the study is based on a non-probability sample and so it must be noted that the results must be interpreted in that context. Besides, the study sampled SMEs located in Accra, the capital of Ghana, thus future research must extend the study to cover the rest of the nine regions in Ghana. A further analysis based on probability sampling is needed to strengthen the results.

Consequently for the growth and the development of SMEs in developing countries, the need for owner-managers to first focus on internal resource building is key. What this means is that owner-managers cannot ignore the conscious attempt to monitor, develop and grow their own internal resource strengths before that can be aligned to any changing trends from the outside environment.

The paper provides evidence as regards why most SMEs worldwide find it difficult to participate in formal training programmes. The findings seek to enhance the understanding of the barriers to the growth of SMEs’ line of research.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the role of strategic leadership under conditions of uncertainty and unpredictability. The authors argue that highly improbable, but high-impact events require the upper echelons of management, traditionally the custodians of strategy formulation to offer a new kind of strategic leadership focused on new mindsets, organizational capabilities, more in tune with high uncertainty and unpredictability.

Drawing on strategic leadership, and complexity leadership theory, the authors review the literature and present a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of strategic leadership under uncertainty. The authors conceptualize organizations as complex adaptive systems and discuss the imperatives for developing new mental models for emergent leadership.

Strategic leaders have a key role to play in preparing their organizations for episodic disruptions. These include developing their adaptive capabilities and building resilient organizations to ensure their organizations cannot only bounce back after a disruption but have the capacity for transformation to new fitness levels when necessary. Strategic leaders must engage with complexity leadership by seeing their organizations as complex adaptive systems, reconfigure their leadership approaches and organizations to build strategic adaptive capability.

This is a conceptual paper and the authors cannot make any claims of causality.

Organizational leaders need to reconfigure their mental models and leadership approaches to reflect the new normal of uncertainty and unpredictability. Developing the strategic adaptive capability of organizations should prepare them for dealing with high impact events. To assure business continuity in the face of disruptions requires building flexible, adaptable business models.

The paper focuses on how managers can offer strategic leadership for a new normal that challenges some of our most cherished leadership and strategic management paradigms. The authors explore the new mental models and leadership models in an era of great uncertainty.

The historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger (1999), once wrote that “a basic theme of American history has been the movement, uneven but steady, from exclusion to inclusion” – a movement “fueled by ideals” (p. 173). He might well have been talking about the United States’ public education system where it has become evident that segments of its pupil population have been overlooked or neglected. The good news is that there have been some efforts to ameliorate this problem. However, despite these efforts, there continues to be lingering problems for culturally and linguistically diverse students with gifts and talents. In this chapter, we address how to maximize the success potential of these students.

In the livestock industry in Nigeria, maize is a major source of energy and it is expensive because of competition between man and animal. Dry plantain peel of minimal cost was used to replace the maize fraction of the diet of rabbit in order to reduce cost. The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance characteristics of rabbit fed plantain peel.

The feeding trial had five treatments, T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅ in which the maize fraction in the diet was replaced at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent, respectively. Completely randomized designs were used and each treatment was replicated thrice with three rabbits per replicate. The parameters taken were feed intake and weight gain on a daily and weekly basis. Feed conversion ratio, total feed cost and cost per weight gain were calculated.

The results show that there was no significant difference in the weight gain between the control diet (T₁) and T₃ (p < 0.05). The feed conversion ratio was relatively similar in T₁ and T₄. The cost per weight gain reduced from N53.57 in the control diet to N33.39 in T₃ (75 per cent replacement).

In the livestock industry, maize is expensive because it serves as food for both man and animal. The results indicate that the feed cost of rabbit could be reduced by replacing the maize fraction of the diet with 75 per cent dry plantain peel.

The present study investigates the relationship between servant and authoritarian leadership, and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors in followers’ conflicts, thereby contributing to integrating knowledge on leadership styles and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors. This study aims to investigate leadership and conflict management in a context hardly studied: local religious communities or convents within a female religious organization.

The authors collected quantitative survey data from 453 religious sisters, measuring their perception of leaders’ behaviors. These religious sisters live in local religious communities within a Catholic Women Religious Institute based in Nigeria (West Africa) and in other countries across the globe.

Results show that servant leadership relates positively to leaders’ third-party problem-solving behavior and negatively to leaders’ avoiding and forcing. Moreover, authoritarian leadership relates positively to leaders’ third-party avoiding and forcing behaviors.

This study expands theory development and practices on leadership and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors. The authors associate servant and authoritarian leadership with leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors: avoiding, forcing and problem-solving, in followers’ conflicts. The authors offer practical recommendations for religious leaders on servant leadership and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors.

The transition from school to work or to post-secondary training is a critical period for all students (Gilmore, Bose, & Hart, 2001; Zaft, Hart, & Zimbrich, 2004). Thus, a challenge for educators is to develop educational programs and services that embrace the characteristics that is prevalent in highly successful adults with and without disabilities. For years, adolescents and adults with development disabilities did not receive much attention from general or special educators. Fortunately, special educators now are reorganizing the complex needs of these older individuals and are making progress in designing interventions to meet their diverse needs. However, they alone cannot ensure the success of these students in secondary and post-secondary situations (see Hart, Mele-McCarthy, Pasternack, Zimbrich, & Parker, 2004). Legislators and policymakers must consider the special needs of this population in reforming secondary education; and general and special educators must share the responsibility of preparing them for graduation and post-secondary planning (see Bailey, Hughes, & Karp, 2004). In addition, community services must join forces with educators and employers to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with a continuum of services throughout their life span. Many students with developmental disabilities find themselves unprepared at college entry in a number of areas including inadequate knowledge of subject content, underachieving in academic skills, poor organizational skills (e.g., time management and study skills), poor test taking skills, lack of assertiveness, and low self-esteem (Dalke & Schmitt, 1987; Mull, Sitlington, & Alper, 2001; Stodden & Whelley, 2004).

Every successful program needs someone to champion its cause. This also applies to programs for students with disabilities. It is upon this person's shoulders that responsibility falls for initiating the steps to bring disability programs to fruition at an institution. Support services are typically coordinated by this full-time staff member who is responsible for providing students with disabilities a variety of “academic adjustments” that are mandated under Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act. Again, this law requires that post-secondary institutions make modifications to their academic requirements and ensure that they do not discriminate against a qualified student with a disability (Frank & Wade, 1993; Simon, 2001). These modifications may include appropriate academic adjustments such as the provision of course substitutions, adaptation of instruction methods, alternate exam formats, and modifications in the length of time for the completion of requirements; or the provision of auxiliary aids, such as taped texts, sign language interpreters, guide dogs, use of tape recorders, readers or writers, and access to adaptive technology (see Pavone & Rotatori, 1994). The individual who provides these core supports is often instrumental in linking students with disabilities with other support services on campus (e.g., writing laboratory, math tutorial, and academic development center) (Smith, 2004).

Evidence shows that before the arrival of the colonial masters in Nigeria, the people who inhabited the landmass referred to as Nigeria had an organized form of governance (Audu, 2014; Ibenekwe, 2014). The area had over 470 ethnic groups with three major ethnic groups: Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo. All the ethnic groups had their unique form of government. However, two dominant forms were identified: the centralized and the non-centralized government. One common form of government is the hierarchical nature and the bureaucracy involved. Even though the people did not practice democracy the way the western world would define democracy, the people developed the type of democracy that ensured the utilization and mobilization of all the human and material resources needed to achieve the ethnic group's common goal. The precolonial leaders emphasized that leadership actions and activities should be directed at achieving societal needs, growth, and development. Hence, they applied sanctions using all the instruments of governance or the divinely developed source when necessary to ensure that no leader acted contrary to the belief in the common good. Leaders could not have pursued the common interest if they had a leadership mindset emphasizing selfish motives over the common interest. Thus, it is not unreasonable to state that servant leadership principles were applied even when not mentioned in literature.

This study aims to examine the influence of training and development (TAD), including performance appraisal (PFA), on the performance of microfinance institutions in a developing economy.

A random sampling drew 100 microfinance institutions in Ghana's Greater Accra Region. Then, a purposive sampling approach selected a cross-section of employees in these institutions. Finally, the data were collected from a sample of 367 respondents, such as managers, utilizing a survey questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypothesized relationships.

The study results indicate that PFA has a statistically significant positive relationship with organizational performance, and this relationship is partially mediated by job satisfaction (JBS). Interestingly, the TAD process does not have a statistically significant positive relationship with organizational performance when JBS is present in the model. In fact, JBS fully mediates the relationship between TAD and organizational performance.

The study is limited to microfinance in tiers two and three in Greater Accra city of Ghana and did not include the entire country. Although the city of Accra provides a generalized representation of the research, which can be replicated, some variables and results may be impacted if other tiers of microfinance organizations are incorporated.

TAD, as well as PFA, enhance the performance of microfinance and can be utilized as tools for competitive advantage in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (e.g. microfinance institutions). The study accentuates the value of TAD, PFA and JBS in microfinance in a developing country like Ghana.

This is an original study investigating the effect of TAD and PFA practices on the performance of SMEs in a developing country like Ghana. Also, the study analyses JBS as a mediation variable to performance using SEM, which advances the research methodology in this research field.

It has become increasingly apparent that one's perception of issues depends largely on his or her personal history. Human beings, professionals, and stakeholders vary in their perspectives, strategies, and solutions. Rather than arbitrarily selecting issues or seeking consensus among interdisciplinary but disparate groups, it is critical to examine the broader array of values and issues that impact learners with exceptionalities and the future of special education. In addition, it is important to conceptualize effective techniques to reverse traditional problems or difficulties while considering the “cycles” of change in general and special education. These cycles are based on the view that educational perspectives have their time since they come and go. When they are innovative, they become the status quo and become finally obsolete as the next group of methods, beliefs, and educational initiatives takes hold. In special education, we have fundamental values that must be respected and followed to deliver services to learners with exceptionalities. These values are sometimes not valued by ill prepared and unprepared professionals, especially since good professionals believe in change. This chapter focuses on how these values can be respected to protect and advance special education and education as a whole.