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This study contributes to answering the question, can critical success factors of small businesses in emerging markets advance United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Specifically, this study aims to explore the critical factors contributing to the success of small businesses and ultimately the UN SDGs in the emerging market of Nigeria.

The design is survey research testing the Lussier success vs failure prediction model for small businesses in Nigeria. The methodology includes a logistic regression model to better understand and predict the factors that contribute to success or failure using a data set of 201 small businesses in Nigeria.

The findings support the validity of the Lussier model (p = 0.000) in Nigeria as the model accurately predicted 84.4% of the small businesses as successful or failed with a high R-square value (R = 0.540). The most significant factors (t-values < 0.05) that predict the success or failure of businesses support the findings that business owners that start with adequate capital, keep records and financial controls, use professional advice, have better product/service timing, and have parents who own businesses can increase the probability of success.

The study provides a list of critical success factors contributing to the growth of small business in Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa. The findings can help entrepreneurs avoid failure and advance UN SDGs 1, 2, 8 and 10. Implications for current and future entrepreneurs, public agencies, consultants, educators, policymakers, suppliers and investors are discussed.

This is the first study to determine the factors that contribute to the success or failure of small businesses in Nigeria using the Lussier model. It also discusses how to advance four of the UN sustainability goals. Results support the Lussier model's global validity that can be used in both emerging and developed markets, and it contributes to the development of theory.

The study explores the current  public sector accountability practices in sub-Saharan African region. Specifically, this study assesses whether accountability is related to integrity, internal control system and leadership in the public sector of a developing country.

Structural equation model (SEM) is used to predict the drivers of public accountability in a developing country. A survey design with quantitative analysis is used to analyze responses from directors or heads of agencies or departments in the ministries of a developing country.

The result shows that integrity, internal control and leadership practices positively and significantly impact public accountability. These findings suggest that public accountability in the developing economic context is a function of these aforementioned factors to ensure efficient public sector accountability and governance. The findings could assist policymakers in Sub-Saharan African country to enhance accountability among different departments and agencies of government.

This study makes an important contribution by providing evidence of drivers of public accountability from the perspective of public sector entities in Sub-Saharan African country, to complement the extant literature that has focused largely on developed economies

This paper aims to empirically investigate the factors attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into emerging economies.

This study uses secondary data from the World Bank and the Global State of Democracy Indices of 16 West African countries (WACs) over the period from 1989 to 2018. Fixed- and random-effects econometric regression models are used to assess the nexus between 12 macroeconomic indicators (including political risk and cultural factors) and FDI inflows into WACs.

The critical drivers of FDI inflows into WACs are the richness of natural resources, market size or gross domestic product (GDP), imports and exports of goods and services, trade openness and the currency's strength as measured by the exchange rate. The result also reveals that French-speaking countries attract more FDI than other English-speaking countries. The previously cited determinants of FDI, such as infrastructural development, inflation, tax and political stability, are insignificant in determining FDI inflows into WACs.

This study uncovers the critical drivers explaining the FDI inflows into WACs, where FDI accounts for 39% of external finance. The study's contribution is that Francophone WACs attract more FDI than Anglophone WACs. The most important drivers of FDI are abundant natural resources, GDP, imports, exports, trade openness and exchange rate.

The study explores the sustainability practices among Indigenous butchery businesses in a developing country, and in this context, Ghana. Qualitative interview data are employed to understand the start-up procedures, sustainable factors, benefits, opportunities, challenges and strategies that advance the sustainability of butchery businesses. The results show that starting a butchery business depends on a person's tradition or cultural heritage, apprenticeship, training and skills or past experiences. Other factors include support from family and suppliers, dedication and diligence to work, managerial experiences and good luck that may be relatively linked to religious prayers. This study is one of the few studies that extensively explore the possibility and sustainability of Indigenous butchery businesses in Ghana. The approach used does not only provide practicable findings limited to research purposes but also suggestions that are applicable to daily practices and policy formulation.

Africa's diverse geographic regions are replete with indigenous business knowledge and practices embedded in the traditions, values and culture of the people. Many of these practices have been explored in the previous chapters of this book. This final chapter provides viable recommendations for adopting and improving Africa's indigenous business practices and methodologies. We expect that these observations and recommendations will support Africa's educators', business actors' and policymakers' efforts to draw from and apply rich insights from indigenous business knowledge and practices. However, beyond this, we hope that international enterprises operating in the continent can learn about the uniquely African business values and incorporate them appropriately into a context that fits. This concluding chapter, therefore, discusses how these objectives may be achieved.

Africa's history of trade, production and financial services that propelled the continent's economic systems existed long before an era of colonisation commonly recognised as beginning in the nineteenth century. By the time the decolonisation of a majority of African countries was achieved in the mid-twentieth century, the African economic identity had been, to a great extent, relegated by Westernised methods and orientations. Today, Indigenous practices are once again resurfacing in Africa's ongoing search for sustainable development, with increasing calls to resuscitate and incorporate these age-long business orientations. This introductory chapter provides readers with a synopsis of all the themes of this second of a two-volume edited book with a focus on the philosophies and practices of Indigenous businesses, which, if successfully explored and scaled up, would make significant contributions to Africa's economic infrastructure.

The growing emphasis on “managerialism” in police and the pressure to employ scientific methods of performance measurement warrants the need for a structured framework. The scope of police duties is large as it relates to several preventive and corrective action related to public safety and crime management. A challenge in measuring police performance is to take into consideration a range of variables that can potentially influence performance. The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured framework for measuring different facets of police efficiency, which is especially useful in managerial decision making.

This paper uses data envelopment analysis and discusses efficiency measurement in terms of the technical, managerial and scale efficiency, resources utilization patterns, returns-to-scale analysis and measurement of super-efficiency. The application of framework is based on the data of the police stations of Lahore, a large metropolitan city in Pakistan.

The paper shows the application of different measures of efficiency in making decisions pertaining resources allocation, prioritizing areas for improvement and identifying benchmarks for performance improvement. Different measures of efficiency are presented in the form of a structured framework.

Managers can use this framework to glean rich insights into different types of efficiency and sources of inefficiency. Further, a discussion of variables provided in this paper can be especially useful in determining trade-offs during the selection of inputs and outputs.

The key contribution of this paper is in providing a multifaceted efficiency measurement framework, that is capable of providing rich insights into the sources of inefficiency and helps scientific decision making. To the best of our knowledge, such a multifaceted approach has not been provided in previous publications.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the problem of anti-social financial practices which seems to be a taken-for-granted reality in many parts of the world and particularly in developing countries. The paper locates the role of actors within the theory of transformational model of social activity proposed by Bhaskar (1989) and advocates radical reform to minimise attendant problems created by these antisocial financial practices.

The paper proposed Bhaskar’s (1989) theory of transformational model of social activity which suggests that the society provides the necessary conditions for intentional human activity and that intentional human action is a necessary condition for it. This is because it is difficult to separate people’s perception from the wider social context in which the phenomena arise and the way and manner in which the practices are constructed. To help understand why antisocial financial practices have become so deeply embedded in the Nigerian sociopolitical and economic systems, the views of significant others (professionals, tax officials, non-governmental organisations, media and regulators) were solicited about the structures that influence the activities of the social actor involved in these antisocial financial practices in Nigeria.

Using results from 24 interviews, the paper argues that social structures, such as globalisation, history, politics and social networks, have influenced and [re]shaped the attitudes and behaviours of actors towards committing antisocial financial practices.

The paper, therefore, advocates a radical reform that could minimise the attendant problems created by these antisocial financial practices of actors and the enabling structures.

Where antisocial financial practices are embedded in the society, they become part of the daily routines and in that process are normalised.

The paper is a general review of the literature and evidence on contemporary issues.

This study aims to make two major contributions. First, given the literature gap in housing unaffordability for different immigrant groups in Canada, it makes an essential contribution to the literature. To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first study of its kind to examine housing unaffordability by examining different immigrant groups. Second, differences in unaffordability can help understand the decline in welfare, as it can have financial implications and a negative impact on health outcomes. Third, this study’s findings are valuable for policy formulation to improve immigrant integration and ease the housing unaffordability crisis.

This study examines the determinants of housing affordability to investigate differences among various immigrant groups in Canada. A bivariate logit model using public microdata from the Canadian census estimates the determinants of moderate and severe unaffordability. Additionally, the separation of tenants and owners provides insights into the dynamics of unaffordability. The results show significant differences between immigrant groups with higher levels of unaffordability among Asian immigrants. The insights can help devise and implement housing assistance programs to address the challenges arising from the post-COVID-19 pandemic phase.

The results indicate that unaffordability declines with increasing age, education and full-time employment. Gender dynamics are evident, with women faring worse than men regarding the likelihood of extreme housing unaffordability. Households face a greater likelihood of unaffordability in more populous provinces and larger census metropolitan areas that struggle with the high cost of living, racial disparities and low income. Immigrants, especially from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, continue to struggle with chronic and severe unaffordability issues. The impact is much more severe for those renting, exemplifying the strain it is taking on the financial health of recent immigrants.

Given the literature gap in housing unaffordability for different immigrant groups in Canada, it makes an essential contribution to the literature. To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first study of its kind to examine housing unaffordability by examining different immigrant groups.