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The aim of this study is to examine how market orientation, innovation, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) jointly impact business performance.

This study adopts a quantitative research design. Research evidence was collected via a questionnaire‐based survey of marketing managers and executives of telecommunication companies in Ghana. The hypotheses developed following a review of scholarship on marketing, strategy and corporate citizenship were tested through regression analysis.

The results indicate that firms' degree of market orientation and CSR have significant impact on innovation, which then influences business performance. Furthermore, market orientation has direct significant effect on CSR, which tends to mediate the influence of market orientation on business performance.

The use of longitudinal research that combines managers' evaluation with a survey of consumers, employees, and other relevant stakeholders is suggested to confirm the results of this study.

This study suggests that innovation and CSR are two key ingredients for transforming market orientation into a successful business strategy. Managers are to note that even “doing good” (a CSR initiative) requires a sense of innovation for it to trigger any significant financial performance for the business.

This study introduces a model in which the relationship between CSR, market orientation, and performance is mediated by innovation. The empirical evidence enhances the existing literature on marketing, corporate citizenship, and strategy.

The aim of this study is to generate insights into whether market orientation – as defined by Kohli and Jaworski – is being practiced in the Ghanaian public sector.

Based on a case‐study of a local government, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (the Assembly), semi‐structured interviews were conducted with departmental heads and their assistants to collect data. A total of 14 key informants participated in the interviews, and this sample size compared favourably with prior qualitative studies.

The assembly collects intelligence on citizens' present needs, their earning potential and the political and technological environment, ignoring citizens' satisfaction with development projects. Meetings are regularly held by the various units in the Assembly to share and discuss the generated intelligence, yet one can see little consideration of citizens' needs and their satisfaction with projects in these discussions.

Further research into local governments across multiple regions in Ghana, or from a range of countries within Sub‐Saharan Africa, could provide an opportunity for greater generalisability of the results.

Local authorities must develop formal procedures for monitoring citizens' satisfaction with services, programmes and development projects. There is need to harness the intelligence inherent among staff with the use of focused communication or knowledge management strategies.

Recent efforts to extend market orientation application to the public sector have over‐concentrated on western countries. Based upon empirical evidence from a non‐western (Ghanaian) context, this study further assuages fears that market orientation may not be applicable to public institutions like local government.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research has blossomed in this new millennium. This has been due to: the increasing concern expressed by policy makers about corporate social responsibility; the pressure exerted on firms to demonstrate high ethical standards; and for developing countries, the increasing demands on their firms exporting to Europe and other western countries to document adherence to high ethical standards in order to be competitive. This study sought to ascertain and document the extent of recognition, nature and content of socially responsible actions by firms located in Ghana.

The study used a sample of companies listed in the Ghana Club 100 database, an annual ranking of the most prestigious firms in Ghana. The study adopted an in‐depth, exploratory and comparative approach in examining the CSR issues from the perspectives of local versus internationally‐connected firms in Ghana.

The key findings of the study were that, although local companies are familiar with the concept and do, indeed, practise some amount of CSR, they subscribe less to the contemporary notion of CSR; they are less strategic, less moral and ethical in their approach to CSR. Thus, internationally‐connected Ghanaian firms seem to have a better grasp of the various dimensions of CSR and how these could be used to business and strategic advantage.

Future research indications might be the fashioning of a CSR typology for Ghanaian firms and an investigation of the relationship between CSR and financial performance.

Reports findings in the first nation‐wide study carried out in the area of CSR and will interest academics and practitioners working in and on the area.

This paper examines the dark side of mentoring, its far-reaching effects and organizational interventions for navigating it.

Literature review and narrative analysis are adopted to achieve the objective of the paper.

Review of extant literature highlights the multiple consequences of the dark side of mentoring. Recommendations include specialized training interventions, period appraisals of formal mentoring arrangements, zero-tolerance ethical frameworks and employee assistance programmers.

A substantive portion of literature on mentoring has lauded its benefits for career progression and competitive advantage. This viewpoint explores its limitations and liabilities in an organization.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of internet on the e-lifestyle of the youth of emerging markets (EMs) in contemporary digital world using Ghanaian youth as a case study.

Survey data were obtained from students of five leading universities in Accra, the nation’s capital, between February and June 2017. Of the 300 questionnaires administered, 276 were usable representing 92 per cent collection rate. Respondents were randomly approached and oriented on the object of the study and asked to complete the instrument voluntarily using the face-to-face approach at student events. Both the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the structural equation modelling procedure of partial least square (PLS-SEM) were used to analyse the data.

From the study, drivers of the e-lifestyle of youth in EMs were listed in order of importance: socio-importance, interest, entertainment, necessity, novelty, academic, transaction and concern needs. Surprisingly, the quest for academic information does not motivate the youth to surf the internet compared to aspiration to satisfy social, interest and entertainment-driven needs.

E-lifestyle addiction compels the youth to surf the internet via mobile phones, computers and other devices for e-lifestyle satisfaction, requiring internet service providers, marketers and academics to develop innovative e-lifestyle products to stimulate continuous internet usage of internet by the youth.

This study provides practical insight for internet service providers, web and application developers and members of the academic community to consciously develop internet-based products that direct the youth towards fulfilling e-lifestyle motivation.

The convergence of the youth on the internet will in no doubt impact social behaviour, thereby influencing lifestyles.

As very little work has been done on youth e-lifestyle in EMs, this study serves as a pioneering work in EMs using Ghanaian youth as a case study. Ironically, students of EMs spend less time on the internet doing academic concerns compared to social activities. Additionally, the importance of transaction (payments) needs as a driver of internet use among the youth has been emphasised in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social interaction ties, trust and business networks in the acquisition of foreign business knowledge and foreign institutional knowledge. It also assesses the effect of these types of knowledge on small and medium enterprises’ (SME) export performance. Furthermore, this study determines the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign business knowledge, foreign institutional knowledge and export performance.

This study used a survey research design using data from nontraditional SME exporters in Ghana. There were 257 respondents who were employees (managers/owners) of SMEs in Ghana. The model was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Social interaction ties, trust and business networks have a significant effect on the acquisition of foreign business knowledge and foreign institutional knowledge. Furthermore, foreign business knowledge and foreign institutional knowledge have a significant positive effect on export performance. The path between foreign business knowledge and export performance is also moderated by absorptive capacity. However, the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign institutional knowledge and export performance is not significant.

This study uses social capital to explain how SMEs acquire foreign business knowledge and foreign institutional knowledge, and how both affect SMEs’ export performance. Furthermore, it tests the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign business knowledge, foreign institutional knowledge and export performance.

The digital divide is supposed to place disadvantaged economies like Ghana in a position where using information and communication technology for development might not be an immediate reality. The purpose of this current study is to argue that the adoption of e‐business practices has benefit for small Ghanaian exporters' organizational improvement, and begin a first‐level investigation in that regard.

This study was exploratory and focused on a sample of active, non‐traditional exporters in Accra. This sample represented the best typology of small export firms in Ghana that had been regular exporters from 2000‐2004. In all, 60 firms responded to questionnaires on e‐business and exporting. Analysis of the data was mainly by means of descriptive statistics.

One‐way ANOVA analysis revealed that the export firm internationalization (measured by export intensity) has no bearing on the level of e‐business involvement or perceptions of the strategic value of e‐business. However, export firms who were more involved in e‐business had a higher perception of the usefulness of e‐business to their export operation. One‐way ANOVA analysis also revealed that for the export firms involved in some e‐business activity, the more internationalized they were, the more importance they attached to e‐business as providing some sort of organizational improvement leverage.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, more research is needed to study internal and external barriers to e‐business adoption by these firms, as well as the relationship between e‐business adoption and performance.

One of the first e‐business studies focusing on export firms on the disadvantaged end of the digital divide.

The paper discusses how market orientation impacts marketing performance in the hotel industry of Ghana. The research was a qualitative research that covered a sample of nineteen19 hotels in Ghana by using a two-stage nonprobability sampling comprising convenience sampling and purposive sampling. Personal interviews were conducted to collect primary and qualitative data from hotel managers of the sampled hotels. Template analysis was used to analyze the data in order to understand how market orientation impacts selected marketing performance indicators. The study has provided insight into how market orientation impacts marketing performance indicators, precisely sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. The limitations of the study are that it is a cross-sectional study and it involved only officials of the hotels as participants. Also, the study does not explain how customers perceive market orientation practices and how market orientation affects customer buying behavior. Research implications are that longitudinal research design and involvement of customers as participants should be considered in future-related qualitative studies. The contribution of this study to knowledge is that it has given some explanations to how market orientation impacts sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention in the hotel business.

This study aims to examine the effect of market orientation on foreign knowledge acquisition. It also assesses the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign knowledge acquisition, firm innovativeness and performance.

A questionnaire was administered to 257 respondents who were owners, managers or owner/managers of export firms in Ghana. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

The findings show that customer orientation significantly influenced foreign business knowledge acquisition but not performance, and that competitor orientation significantly influenced both foreign business knowledge acquisition and firm innovativeness. Absorptive capacity was found to play a significant role in linking foreign business knowledge to innovativeness.

The study adds to the literature on knowledge management in firms by identifying the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign business knowledge acquisition, innovativeness and performance.