A model of virtuous leadership in Africa: case study of a Nigerian firm

The nature and extent of Africa’s leadership challenge has been explored from multi-theoretical perspectives finding that amongst other issues, it is ethical in nature. This study therefore aimed to investigate and present a model of virtuous leadership within an indigenous African firm’s context drawing from the African virtue ethics of Afro-communitarianism. Using a qualitative case study design, it explored a model of virtuous leadership within a leading Nigerian pharmaceutical brand. Data was collected from multiple primary sources including semi-structured interviews and informal conversations as well as secondary sources. This study found a virtuous leadership model underpinned by four African primary virtues – Truthfulness, Courage, Humility and Humanity within a context of communitarianism. It also found that the nature and practice of these four virtues by the leaders within the context positively shaped employees’ moral characters through visible modeling but not without its flaws. It concluded that virtuous leadership models are essential within the African leadership context to rise above existing status quo to build communities of practices that are not business as usual but seeking the ultimate end of facilitating the flourishing of immediate and wider communities alike

Performance Improvement of Wireless Network Based on Effective Data Transmission

A major requirement of any computer network is scalability. This can be as a result of increase in the number of users, upgrading due to technological advancement, additional services, or the need for performance improvement. This will inevitably require changing infrastructure, deploying new applications, and dealing with security which definitely touches both hardware and software, in the sense that, the complexities of the hardware, software and firmware increase with the attendant growth of the network and maintainability. However, for the network to remain reliable and efficient, it is necessary that, implementation and administration of it requires a means of monitoring both the model of the network structures and processes occurring in them. The efficiency and throughput of the network depend on improving the effectiveness of data transmission carried out by the network protocols. This paper discusses the use of a protocol to meet the technological challenge towards improving the performance and throughput of a wireless network based on effective data transmission

Development of Web-based Interactive Map Using Object-Oriented Programming Concept

The program incorporates an interactive map which responds to origin and destination selection, by analyzing the relative positions of both locations and creating real-time routes on the road network to display to the user the required path from the origin to the destination and the approximate distance/time required. System design is based on the Model- View-Controller (MVC) design pattern, and the application has been developed using Adobe Flash CS3 (with ActionScrip

Surviving in Africa: the response of multinational corporations to institutional deficiencies and their broader moral implications

Developing a lasting strategy to survive in the African business landscape would be incomplete without careful considerations of the role of culture and corruption in the region. This chapter aimed at understanding how multinationals operating in the Nigerian pharmaceutical landscape in the last fifty years have responded to corruption in the region. By conducting eleven in-depth interviews with managers from across different levels of two major American pharmaceutical multinationals, the research uncovered a dominant bureaucratic culture of compliance. From this culture emerged five different response strategies employed by these multinationals in responding to the institutional deficiencies in the region. This paper concludes by discussing the likely impact of these on employee moral capacities

Development Of An SMS Based Alert Systemusing Object Oriented Design Concept

An automated lecture alert management system has been developed using java programming concept knownfor its portability. This backend system was interfaced with the GSM network through USB port of a PC and GSM modem. The desktop SMS application was developed using C# programming language. It generates updates and reminder from a time schedule stored in a database thereby making the system a time triggered application

Fan Speed Control of Processor Based On Environmental Temperature

Temperature is a physical property that is an essential part of life and Maintaining control of it is of paramount importance to man. Temperature is measured with various types of measuring instruments. But beyond the need to measure temperature, it must also be controlled and monitored. In an industrial setting with heavy equipment that need a round the clock cooling system so as to perform optimally without breakdown, it is important to have a mechanism that monitors the temperature situation, one that can detect the slightest threat to the condition of the systems as regards temperature change. Also temperature control can be used in personal computers to prevent overheating of the processor. This work involves sensing the temperature level of an environment and if a temperature out of range is detected, the fan speed increases to maximum. W hen the temperature drops below a threshold again, the fans are turned back off. The circuit is designed using a temperature sensor that is a thermistor. The temperature transducer is used to sense the temperature of the environment at that point in time and an indication shown on an LED

Investigating the interaction between corporate bureaucracies and employees’ moral identities in explaining moral behaviour

How CAN organisations make ‘good’ people do ‘bad’ things? This question has become more pertinent with rising cases of corporate scandals emphasising the importance of understanding the role of organisational context in behavioural ethics involving individuals and groups in organisational sociology. Few empirical studies exist in the literature that examines the role of context in workplace morality of employees and managers. This dissertation aims to develop this research on the role of context in morality, by offering an exploration of bureaucracy and its effects on employee morality drawing on two theories: Moral Identity Theory (Aquino and Reed, 2002) and Kohlberg’s (1961) Cognitive Moral Development (CMD). My key findings suggest that a bureaucracy is not merely a cluster of related characteristics or general typology as it is often abstracted in the literature and relevant theory (e.g Weber, 1978). Instead, even within the characteristics of a common type, there are subtle differences. Six multinational pharmaceuticals paired into three matched case groups were investigated along two Weberian dimensions - Rules and Managerial Control from which four different hybrids of bureaucracies were discovered namely: Traditional Bureaucracy (a context of strict rule-based compliance and personalised managerial control); Caste Bureaucracy (a culturally charged rule-based bureaucracy that fosters a caste controlled structure); Charismatic Bureaucracy (a system of unwritten rules and personalised managerial control underpinned by the charisma of leaders) and Entrepreneurial Bureaucracy (a hierarchical structure without rules and managerial control supporting opportunism). The effects of these hybrids on employee morality were found to be generally negative except the charismatic bureaucracy, which encouraged moral awareness in employees through the visible charisma of its leaders. Other hybrids typically encouraged a general pattern of inflated moral identity through rule compliance for instance that inspired an inflated sense of moral and professional competence in employees. By this, the bureaucracies were discovered to encourage conventional reasoning level (Kohlberg Stage 3) in individual employees such that conformity is the norm, to the detriment of individual critical moral inquiry - the vital component of ethics. Finally, all these helped the bureaucracies influence an overwhelming number of persons within them to become socialised in displaying loyalty to their organisations rather than to their professions, implying that the bureaucracies encouraged ‘expertise’ over ‘professionalism’ (Koehn, 2006). It was therefore concluded that for bureaucracies to empower employee morality, tacit means rather than explicit rule compliance methods must be employed

Design and Development of a University Portal for the Management of Final Year Undergraduate Projects

Processes associated with undergraduate final year projects have always been a manual process which requires a lot of paperwork and could sometimes be a cumbersome and tiring task for the personnel in charge. The manual process sometimes leads to time wasting, impeding of project work because the student carrying out the project work is not able to update the lecturer on the level of execution of the project. Also due to unavailability of a content management system or repository, duplicity of previously carried out final year projects is experienced. It could be sensed by the project supervisors or the personnel in charge that this particular project has been done but where is the proof? Where is the system that out rightly bounces the topic back when the student puts it forward or bring forth a list of projects that has keywords present in the chosen project topic? This project work therefore, eliminates or reduces the error of allowing a student to carry out a project that has been done before as well as cutting down on the cost and time required by the student to produce a quality technical report. It also helps to prevent the forgery of signatures usually experienced during the final clearance stage of the students after the conclusion of the project work. During the clearance stages, the completed stages will be noted by the computer until the final stage of the clearance stage is completed and the print button can be clicked upon by the student to bring forth the completed clearance form. In this work, we developed an intranet portal platform that can integrate all the processes above into one syste

Automation and Easy Accessibility of Medical Services in Nigeria (ICT and Medicine)

The Internet and Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures are transforming the future of healthcare management. The cost of healthcare delivery systems, products, and services continue to rise unabated, especially in Nigeria – a developing nation that needs technology transfer. Knowledge is one of the crucial resource and precondition to strengthen health systems. Access to knowledge has large impact on health system management and up to date patient care. The great challenges lie in the optimal utilization of rapid spreading information and communication systems (ICTs) and innovative applications such as telemedicine and e-health. Telemedicine is the practice of diagnosis, consultation and treatment between physicians and distant patients through the use of telephone and computers that transmit data for remote television viewing and treatment from a distance. The concept of telemedicine is a dream to come through in Nigeria, but if developed and taken right to the community hospitals, it can prove to be very beneficial, especially in giving timely treatment to wounded soldiers or plague patients, as a majority of the specialists prefer being stationed at big urban centers, with the rural populace being the real sufferer. Modern health information systems are a requisite for efficient and equitable resource allocation. Moreover, the Internet has pushed networking technology into the mainstream and it is without doubt the most important network, both in terms of technology advances and social impact, in the world. However, telemedicine provides a cost effective means of technological transfer both machine and expatriate advice through ICT connectivity.

Design and Implementation of a Virtual Machine Video Conferencing Application

Videoconferencing today is faced with the challenge of limited number of participants per time, and also the need for large and fully equipped conference rooms. This might not be a problem to a large enterprise, but for the small to medium-sized business, access to a videoconferencing facility involves either a very costly rental fee or is completely impossible. The aim of this work is to design and implement a videoconferencing prototype (OpenMeeting) with added functionalities which will solve problems facing the traditional way of conducting meetings