Search results

Brain-drain insurgency has become pervasive amongst professionals and the last option for everyone in the country to realise a sustainable quality of work-life (QWL). All youths now in the country have perceived migrating to the international workspace as a noble idea. This study investigates the incidence of brain-drain and QWL amongst academics in Nigerian universities.

To sparkle a clearer understanding concerning factors preventing the QWL amongst Nigeria's lecturers, this study utilised a cross-sectional research design to survey the participants across all departments in federal institutions through an explanatory research approach. This study applied an array of adapted scales to evaluate members of academic staff track of what provoked the incidence of brain-drain amongst Nigerian lecturers and possible influence on their QWL. The study surveyed 431 members of academic staff in Nigerian universities to collect useful data and employed a structural equation model (SEM) to analyse the obtained data.

The outcome of this study highlights that there is a horrible condition of service amongst Nigerian lecturers, a poor compensation system, poor academic research funding and lack of autonomy are bane to the QWL experienced in Nigerian tertiary institutions today. This study indicates that poor staff development and inadequate university funding are part of the justification that provoked brain-drain insurgence, and allowed the government to lose their skilled and competent egg-heads in the university to other foreign nations of the world.

This study demonstrated that brain-drain has become part of Nigeria's national life given that all professionals are seeking better life where their skills, competence and energy would be valued. Brain-drain was not common until these days amongst academics and fewer studies were noted but this study showed a novel paradigm regarding the QWL and brain-drain trajectory.

The study presents the push–pull motives and behavioural intentions of youth tourists and how these provide the foundation for the planning and development of Ghana’s tourism future. Since youth tourism (YT) is regarded as a niche market globally, the purpose of this paper is to identify the prospects of this form of tourism in a developing nation.

The study has utilised a convenience sampling approach in gathering data from 557 youth tourists, adapting existing instruments for measuring push–pull motives, satisfaction and behavioural intentions. The reliability and validity of the instruments were established through confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s α analyses. Structural equation modelling is used to establish relationships.

The results revealed the positive effects of push and pull factors on tourists’ satisfaction as well as the significant influence of tourists’ satisfaction on youth behavioural intentions. However, push factors positively influenced pull factors of youth tourists.

The conclusion and recommendations of this study might not be congruent with the factors that motivate adults or student tourism, satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

The findings of the research validate the viability of YT activities and the behavioural intentions for future tourism market in Ghana. Ghana’s tourism sector should design interesting and competitive offers that attract youth tourists and address tourism growth.

To date, investigation into motives, satisfaction and behavioural intentions of youth tourists as the basis for future tourism development remains a virgin field in Ghana. This study has timely attempted to address this gap.

This paper aims to explore the motivations behind women in a developing South Asian country – Sri Lanka – to embark on entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, which is a doubly masculine hegemony operating within a culturally nuanced gendered context.

The study employs a qualitative research approach, conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 STEM women entrepreneurs, following the theoretical lenses of push and pull motivation theory and gender role theory.

Although the motivations of STEM women entrepreneurs cannot be exclusively categorized as either push or pull factors, the pull factors had a greater influence on the participants in motivating them to become entrepreneurs. The primary motivators for starting businesses in STEM were: inspiration from something or someone, inner calling, the identification of business opportunities, the need for flexibility, necessity and/or desire to help society. It was often difficult to identify one dominant motivator in many instances, as many factors were interlinked to motivate women to start a business. The study also revealed that gender ideologies could stifle the participants' motivation, while the inner need to break these gender ideologies implicitly stimulated their motivation.

The study contributes to and expands the knowledge of STEM women entrepreneurs in general and to the limited existing knowledge of STEM women entrepreneurs in developing countries specifically. The paper brings contextual novelty as Sri Lanka produces more female STEM graduates than men, which is unique compared to most other parts of the world.

The choices that international students make regarding abroad study destination selection or leave the host country after graduation are influenced by a variety of factors that are both related to positive and negative aspects of the host country.

This study builds on the push-pull factor theory and examines the factors that influence international students' decision to choose abroad study destination (Finland) or leave the country after their graduations. The data were collected through an online survey of 195 international students currently studying in Finland and were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. This method offers a flexible and robust approach to test relationships, particularly in situations where sample size and the conceptual model are small and complex.

The results show that international students' choice of study destination (Finland) is influenced by the host country's quality of life, academic excellence and economic factors such as salary and benefits. Unfamiliarity with the culture and language barriers have a negative impact on their decisions to stay in the host country after graduation.

By utilising a comprehensive analysis of both push and pull factors in relation to the host country, this study unveils a novel perspective in the field of international student mobility. The results provide insights to the institutional leaders and policymakers into how to attract and retain international students by focusing on the factors that matter most to international students. To attract more international students, higher education institutions (HEIs) should include career development activities, e.g. job fairs, language training, scholarships and internships in their curriculum. Moreover, it provides recommendations on how to create a welcoming and supportive environment that promotes academic excellence and career development.

Sociological researches about tourism of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are growing in number. These studies are carried out mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries, although nowadays tour operators, travel agencies, cruise and airline companies have started to reserve more and more services and promotions to this group of travellers all around the world. To fill this gap, the paper presents the results of a research that involved 650 Italian LGBT Millennial travellers.

Using the exploratory technique of multiple correspondence analysis, the research focussed on the study of decision-making processes, finding out the factors that drive young LGBT people to prefer one destination over the others, distinguishing motivations between pull and push factors.

For Italian LGBT Millennials, tourism means more than just recreation. Tourism could also represent a strategy that gives them temporary escape from social prejudice and inequality, since tourist experiences provide an opportunity to re-build LGBT people' sexual identity and enjoy social freedom that LGBT people are deprived of whilst being at home.

The analysis allowed to underline some differences. Even if LGBT people share the burden of being as a member of a sexual and gender minority, LGBT people attribute a slightly different meaning to tourism, considering distinct push and pull factors.

Zoos are important urban tourism attractions. The challenge for zoos is finding a balance between attracting visitors and enhancing education and conservation management. This research contributes to a greater understanding of the conservation intentions of zoo visitors and how zoos can emphasise conservation management principles sustainably. This study aims to identify the variables that encourage conservation intentions among visitors to a South African zoo.

A destination-based survey was conducted in 2019 at the Johannesburg Zoo, and 445 questionnaires were administered through convenience sampling.

Exploratory factor analyses identified visitors’ conservation awareness because of zoos (pre-conscious, conscious and unconscious), behavioural intentions (advocating and supporting), motives (engagement, edutainment and escapism) and satisfaction (interaction and facility quality, and service and interpretation quality). The behavioural intentions were the dependent variables. Advocating conservation intentions (ACI) is an active role where zoo visitors feel a strong responsibility towards conservation and encourage others to the conservation cause. Supporting conservation intentions (SCI) relates more to loyalty towards visiting the zoo and subsequently supporting conservation. Stepwise linear regression analyses revealed that enhancing ACI relies on SCI, edutainment, conscious awareness, service and interpretation quality and total spending. However, enhancing SCI relies on ACI, interaction and facility quality and the motive, escapism, while engagement revealed a negative relationship.

The results show that zoos can encourage SCI to ACI by using interactive and entertaining interpretations to teach visitors about the zoo’s mandate and the importance of conservation while balancing their need to escape.

Human capital flight from Nigeria to developed countries has remained a topical issue. This paper aims to empirically analyze the push factors for the migrants who explore the various legal migrant schemes from a macro perspective. The authors examine human capital development and its role in contributing to human capital flight to more developed counties.

This paper is anchored on the push–pull model. Using secondary data from 1990 to 2019, the authors look at the relationship between human capital flight and variables such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate, population growth rate and Nigeria’s unemployment rate. The auto-regressive lag model (ARDL) was adopted to estimate the empirical relationship among these variables.

The results from the ARDL model suggest a positive relationship exists between population growth rate and migration rate. A negative relationship was, however, observed between life expectancy and migration rate. This study also found that an increase in the infant mortality rate negatively impacted migration significantly. Therefore, an increase in infant mortality rate lowered the migration rate. Finally, an increase in the unemployment rate increased migration; however, insignificantly.

The findings from this study are limited to the push factors influencing migration out of Nigeria. These factors are also restricted to variables for which data can be derived under the study’s scope. The results of this study have far-reaching implications, especially for policymakers and citizens alike. Better human capital development through enhanced life expectancy and reduced population in Nigeria will reduce the migration rate. Therefore, this study calls for the doubling of developmental and infrastructural efforts at all levels of governance.

This paper’s importance lies in its ability to elucidate push factors that influenced migration out of Nigeria empirically. An empirical approach to the subject matter will explain these factors and the degree to which they influence migration. This will guide the policy-making process in curbing brain drain, which is a major challenge in Nigeria.

The mass exodus of the professional healthcare workforce has become a cankerworm for a developing nation like Nigeria, and this worsens the already depleted healthcare systems in underdeveloped nation. This study investigated the rationale behind medical workers' brain-drain syndrome and the quality healthcare delivery in the Nigerian public healthcare sector.

To stimulate an understanding of the effect of the phenomenon called brain drain, the study adopted a diagnostic research design to survey the public healthcare personnel in government hospitals. The study administered a battery of adapted research scales of different measures to confirm the variables of interest of this study on a probability sampling strategy. The study surveyed 450 public healthcare sector employees from four government hospitals to gather pertinent data. The study used a structural equation model (SEM) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) to analyse the collected data from the medical personnel of government hospitals.

The findings of this study are significant as postulated. The study discovered that poor quality worklife experienced by Nigerian medical personnel was attributed to the brain-drain effect and poor healthcare delivery. The study further demonstrated that job dissatisfaction suffered among the public healthcare workforce forced the workforce to migrate to the international labour market, and this same factor is a reason for poor healthcare delivery. Lastly, the study discovered that inadequate remuneration and pay discouraged Nigerian professionals and allied healthcare workers from being productive and ultimately pushed them to the global market.

Practically, this study has shown three major elements that caused the mass movement of Nigerian healthcare personnel to other countries of the world and that seems novel given the peculiarity of the Nigerian labour market. The study is original and novel as much study has not been put forward in the public healthcare sector in Nigeria concerning this phenomenon.