WORKPLACE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN THE NIGERIAN BANKING INDUSTRY

Emotional intelligence is a widely misunderstood, highly misinterpreted but very vital concept in every workplace. It is viewed as the ability to be aware of, and the management of one’s emotions. It is also regarded as the ability to relate to others in effective ways both personally and professionally in a wide range of contexts and roles. This study investigated the relationship between workplace emotional intelligence and return on investment in the Nigerian banking industry. The study adopted a survey method and the sample for the study consisted of two hundred and ten bank managers in South-South area of Nigeria. Data were collected mainly in the cities where there are high concentrations of banks through in-depth interviews and questionnaire instruments found to be reliable with cronbach Alpha values of 0.7 and above. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested using the spearman rank correlation coefficient with the aid of statistical package for social science. The results of our analysis at .05 level of significance showed that three competencies of emotional intelligence out of the four; namely self awareness, self management and relationship management were significantly related to return on investment. Our interview results also supported our findings. Based on the results, we conclude that workplace emotional intelligence influences return on investment. We therefore recommended that Organizations train their employees to acquire the competencies of work place emotional intelligence for greater performance

Adoption Triggers and Barriers of Mobile Banking Services in Nigeria

There has been tremendous growth in mobile banking penetration in many countries in the developed and developing economies and most interestingly in a number of developing countries such as Nigeria. Yet there are numbers of opportunities and threats in the mobile banking systems. However the major threat of mobile banking is its non-adoption by the banking customers. This research focuses on the perceived barriers to mobile banking adoption in Nigeria as a developing economy. The study adopted an exploratory qualitative method and this was conducted among banking customers spread across three regions of North, West and East of Nigeria. The basis of participants’ selection was being active customers of the Nigerian banks. Findings indicate that there is intention to adopt the mobile banking services; unfortunately, the intentions cannot be translated into action due mainly to lack of trust on issues such as the delivery channels/technology, communication infrastructures, government policies, etc. Findings further revealed that majority of respondents do not use internet and mobile banking services, due to several identified barriers. There is however a preference for the traditional banking approaches as opposed to the mobile banking services. The study recommends that banks and other financial institutions embark on massive awareness campaig

Conceptual Review of the Effects of Advertising on Consumer Buying Behaviour

Over the years, advertising has become a regular strategy for positioning products, services and ideas in the market place. Yet an over dependence on advertising could be counter-productive and disdainful for the targeted audience who often regard excessive advertising as information overload. In spite of the growing criticisms about the effectiveness or otherwise of advertising, its relevance in contemporary marketing management is not in doubt. This exploratory study was structured to critically to examine the usefulness of advertising in persuading consumers to adopt a new or an existing product, with a special focus on Nigeria as a developing economy. The aim primarily was to examine the effect of advertising on consumer buying behaviour within the Nigerian context. The study focused on revealing the relationship either positively or negatively, between advertising and consumer buying behaviour. It equally postulates what effect continuous advertisement of product has on consumer buying behaviour. The findings indicate that advertisements that are properly packaged will surely persuade consumers to experiment the particular product, and that such advertisement should be executed long enough to generate such curiosity that will motivate consumers to buy. The study recommends a proper understanding of various segments of customers and their buying behaviours. And the organisation as well as others, must endeavour to understand the buying behaviour of its customers in order to identify the - what, why, where, when and how - they buy; otherwise, an unstructured advertising campaign will not yield positive results

IMPEDIMENTS TO E-BANKING SERVICES MARKETING IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES – A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN BANKS

The extant body of literature are awash with various studies on e-banking services marketing both in the developed and developing economies. Within the developed economies, studies have been done in virtually all strands of electronic banking services; however same cannot be said of developing economies. This paper aims to critically investigate the impediments to e-banking services marketing within the Nigerian state. This study adopted a mixed method approach – comprising of both interview techniques and the use of questionnaires for data collection. Findings are multi-faceted and viewed from three angles viz: the user based, institutional based and the government related roles. Findings further revealed among others the poor educational imbalance especially between the North and South and the lack of adequate policy framework to safeguard customers’ money as some of the challenges. The strategic implications of all these are clearly discussed and clear cut recommendation derived for implementation by all concerned

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF OPERATIONAL RISKS IN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Risks abound in all spheres of life and mitigating same and its effects has become an uphill task especially for profit making organisations and financial institutions all over the world. The global financial crisis of 2008 has been attributed to depletion of trust in the banking sector and demise of some business organisations. One wonders if the banks and organisations concerned are doing anything to manage the risks of market failures with a view to maintaining good reputations in order to win back customers’ trusts and loyalties. The new formidable cyber warfare was also x-rayed with a detailed exploration of its debilitating effects on business continuity. In achieving the objectives of this study, the risk management strategies adopted by banks and other business organisations was explored. And the organisational culture was also explored to ascertain the extent of its effects on the risk management strategies adopted. Among others, this study recommends that in the spirit of contributing to the international convergence of modern supervisory practices, organizations and financial institutions must extend their arms of cooperation to other international bodies

The Impact of Information Communication Technologies in the Strategic Management of Financial Institutions

ICTs have contributed a lot in the strategic and operations management of financial institutions all over the world. Today, ICT is employed in all the departments of most financial institutions such as operations, customer services, marketing, administration, human resource, procurement, accounting, financial management, etc. The general consensus among various academicians is that ICTs have improved the processes of operations and management. It has also played significant roles in strategic and operational management and also determined the marketing mix, strategic decisions, ownerships, management and partnerships such as alliances and mergers. This study investigated the role of ICTs in the strategic and operational management of financial institutions using a qualitative research method involving the interview of top managements and operational staffs of four selected banks in the United Kingdom and Nigeria. Findings revealed that ICTs have indeed contributed a lot in improving the functioning of all departments of the selected banks such as marketing, operations, HR, finance, call centers, customer services, etc. The benefits gained by the various banks after the implementation of ICTs include better online and offline support for their customers, ROI justification, profitable sales volume, reduction of queues in the banking halls, and very interactive websites. There are however, many departments and other functional areas where ICTs have not been fully utilized. Moreover, many financial institutions have not fully adopted and applied ICT to all functional areas. The study recommends that these can be resolved through proper training, i.e. the provision of ICT related training to employees with respect to the strategic and operational management of the banks as well as exploration of the importance of the recruitment of external consultants who are specialized in their respective fields to render solid support

Fiscal Instruments and Economic Growth in Nigeria

The study investigated the impact of fiscal policy instruments on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1970- 2015, using time series data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin. Cointegration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Granger causality test were utilized in the analysis. The variables employed in the investigation include real gross domestic product (RGDP), government recurrent expenditure (GRE), government capital expenditure (GCE), tax revenue (TAR), external debt (EDT), domestic debt (DDT) and total export (TEXP). The results of the cointegration test indicated that long run equilibrium relationship exists among the variables under study. Similarly, the results of the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) revealed that government capital expenditure (GCE), tax revenue (TAR) and domestic debt (DDT) have negative and significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The results also indicated that government recurrent expenditure (GRE) and total export (TEXP) have positive and significant impact on economic growth in the economy. Similarly, the results showed that external debt (EDT) has positive and insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Furthermore, the result of the Paiwise Granger causality test revealed that unidirectional relationship exists between RGDP and GCE, GRE, TAR, TEXP with causality running from real GDP to GCE, TAR, and TEXP respectively. The result also indicated that causality runs from GRE to RGDP. However, the result showed no causality between EDT and RGDP. The implication of these results is that while RGDP is the major determinants of GCE, TAR and TEXP; GRE is one of the major determinants of real GDP in the Nigerian economy. Therefore, the study recommends that government should expand its recurrent budget expenditures more than its capital budget expenditure in Nigeria, since it has positive and significant contribution to economic growth in the economy. In so doing, economic growth will improve. More so, government should as a matter of urgency review its tax policy in the country, bring in experts free of corruption in the implementation and administration of tax policy in Nigeria. It is only in this way that the contribution of tax revenue to economic growth will positively improve in the economy. Keywords: Fiscal policy, Economic growth, Cointegration, Vector error correction model, Granger causalit

A Mathematical Model of Gang Membership and Control

Authors: Anorue, Onyinyechi Favour* and Atuma, David Esther Received: 23November 2022/Accepted 18 January 2023 There is an increasing growth in gang membership worldwide and especially our nation Nigeria, this prompted the study as a means to contribute to the social stability of the country. We considered gang membership as an infectious disease that spreads through out a given population. We formulated a modified SEIR model to look into the transmission dynamics of gang by bringing into consideration, control techniques as measures to reduce the spread and activities of gang members. In analyzing the model, we proved that the disease free-equilibrium is locally and globally asymptotically stable when the reproduction number  and unstable when  The transmission pattern shows that investments in job provisions, technical crafts and programs geared towards recreation and other after-school activities factored into a compartment continues to be the best resource in curbing gang membership and its activities considering from rehabilitation point of view in the numerical simulation

The Relationship between Unemployment and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Granger Causality Approach

The study examined the relationship between unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria; and specifically focused on the impact of unemployment on economic growth for the period 1980-2013. Cointegration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique and Granger causality test were employed in the analysis. The variables utilized in the investigation include real gross domestic product (RGDP), unemployment rate (UNEMP) and private consumption expenditure (PCE). Stationarity test was conducted and the results indicated that all the variables except UNEMP were stationary at level; however, UNEMP became stationary after first differencing. The cointegration test result revealed that long run relationship exists among the variables under study. More so, VECM result showed that unemployment has negative and significant impact on RGDP. Finally, the Granger causality results indicated unidirectional relationship between UNEMP and RGDP, with causality running from RGDP to UNEMP. Based on the findings above, the study therefore, recommends that government should as a matter of urgency create more employment opportunities to absorb the teeming population of the unemployed labour force in the country through modernization of the agricultural sector, bring in modern equipment in the facilities of agriculture to make the sector more attractive to all citizens despite one’s qualifications and profession, as that alone would go a long way in reducing unemployment level in the country. Keywords: Nigeria, Economic growth, Unemployment, Cointegration, Granger causality