Ethics and social responsibility in the Nigerian insurance industry: a multi-methods approach

The concern about how business should behave as one of the dominant institutions in society, widely referred to as corporate social responsibility, has been a subject of interest among academics and practitioners all over the world. The increasing global outlook of business activities and the need to understand environments in most parts of the globe have also made this concept relevant for all time. This thesis therefore relates to a study, which assesses the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility for organisational effectiveness in a developing and African country. It was argued that ethics and social responsibility must first be perceived to be important for business success, before managers’ behaviour can become ethical and reflect greater social responsibility. Using a mainly qualitative approach and aided by some quantitative analysis, the study explored the perceived importance of this construct (ethics and social responsibility) for organisational effectiveness among insurance managers in the Nigerian insurance industry. This exploration and the analysis are based on the theoretical assumptions that personal and situational factors do influence managers’ perception of the importance of ethics and social responsibility and its business assumption. These, therefore, constitute major outcomes of the study. Given that the study is the first of its kind in the insurance industry, and Nigeria, a developing economy, its outcomes further aids our understanding of how managers in an African socio-economic context perceive the construct and their readiness to translate it into business practice. Above all, the thesis demonstrates that the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility for organisational effectiveness is a function of industry and product nature, individual moral values, corporate ethical values and organisational commitment. The findings suggest that meeting customers’ expectations reinforce trust-relationship, which in turn is moderated by some other personal-situational factors. The findings also indicate that highly idealistic managers were more sympathetic towards the welfare of others, and have higher perception of the important role of ethics and social responsibility for business success

Reinsurance and the determinants of the ceding decision of life insurance companies in Nigeria : an empirical analysis

PURPOSE: This paper is an empirical analysis of Nigeria's determinants of the ceding decision of life insurance companies. It is birthed from the notion that reinsurance, though highly beneficial to the insurance industry, is rarely undertaken by life insurers. Thus, this study aims at expounding on the determinants of reinsurance decisions of life insurance companies in Nigeria and the relationship of each determinant with ceded reinsurance.METHODOLOGY: An ex-post facto research design was adopted, and a sample size of seven (7) core life insurance companies in Nigeria was selected using the purposive sampling technique. Data were sourced from the Nigerian Insurers Digest and the websites of the select insurance companies covering the years 2011 to 2019. Descriptive analysis and unit root tests were conducted on the data to justify its suitability. Data were further analyzed using the panel data regression, and a decision was arrived at using the Hausman and redundant fixed effect tests.RESULTS/FINDINGS: The analysis showed a significant relationship between leverage and ceded reinsurance, firm size and ceded reinsurance, as well as return on assets and ceded reinsurance, while underwriting risk and reinsurance price had insignificant relationships with ceded reinsurance. All the explanatory variables also had positive relationships with the ratio of ceded reinsurance. Thus, it was concluded that leverage, firm size and return on assets are major determinants of the ceding decision of these companies, while underwriting risk and reinsurance price are not.ORIGINALITY AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This study is an original work of the authors. It practically shows the relationship between the factors considered by life insurers in deciding to cede their risks and ceded reinsurance. With previous studies on reinsurance and its benefit to the insurance industry, this study brings factors that impede the life insurer from deriving these benefits. Therefore, it was recommended that to encourage life insurers to cede more risks, policymakers and regulators should align specific regulations on leverage, firm size and return on assets of life insurers in Nigeria.peer-reviewe

Assessing the Relationship between Sales Quotas and Moral Judgement of Insurance Salespersons: The Moderating Effects of Moral Values, Quota Failure Consequences, and Corporate Ethical Climate

There is an increasing call for managers in the Nigerian insurance industry to espouse higher level of ethical behaviour to earn the trust of customers, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders. Arguably, this will enhance market penetration, increase patronage and higher level of profit. Theoretically however, ethical behaviour can be institutionalized in organizations if the top management support ethical behaviour through punishment and reward (high ethical climate). Other than corporate ethical values, managers’ beliefs about the rightness and wrongness of an action in a particular situation could also be a function of his/her personal moral philosophy. With respect to financial services, one aspect of marketing which have been empirically shown to have influence ethical judgement and behaviours of managers is sales quotas. When salespersons are assigned higher sales quotas, which are perceived as difficult, the tendency to engage in unethical behaviour to achieve this target becomes higher. In this study, we assess and extend the theoretical relationship between moral judgement of salespersons and perceived quota difficulty in the insurance industry. The study also explores the moderating effects of salesperson’s ethical values (idealism and relativism), corporate ethical climate, and quota failure consequences on the proposed relationship. With a structured questionnaire, data was collected from respondents in the target industry through a multi-stage sampling strategy. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to assess the factorial structure of the measures used in the study, their reliability and validity. Using correlation and regression analysis, the results were presented and discussed with managerial implications for the Nigerian insurance industry

Multitasking, but for what benefit? The dilemma facing Nigerian university students regarding part-time working.

Students working part-time while studying for a full-time university degree are commonplace in many Western countries. This paper however, examines the historically uncommon part-time working activities and career aspirations among Nigerian university students. In particular, how working is perceived to contribute to developing employability skills, and whether it is influenced by their self-efficacy. Survey data from 324 questionnaires was collected from a federal university, although the data analysis used a mixed-method. The findings indicate that despite low levels of part-time working generally among students, older, more experienced, higher level and female students, place a premium on the skills that part-time work can develop. Moreover, self-efficacy and being female, is a significant predictor in understanding part-time work and career aspirations. This study offers originality by focusing on students’ part-time work, the value working provides, and its link with career aspirations, within a relatively unexplored context of Nigeria

Between Re-capitalisation and Consumer Confidence: The Missing Links in the Nigerian Insurance Industry’s Quest for Corporate Success

This is a joint article written in collaboration with four other collagues who lecture in different higher institutions in Nigeria. The copyright of this artcle belongs to the Nigerian Journal of Risk and InsuranceThe recent re-capitalisation in the Nigerian Insurance Industry was underscored by the need to build strong companies that will bolster the industry’s capacity to bear risk, deliver quality services to the insuring public and contribute to the country’s economic growth and development. With a population of over 140 million where only a fraction of these have insurance policies the ability of the industry to garner sufficient pool of premium to meet its restoration function and stimulate the economy through short and long term investments is seriously threatened. Given this low and poor market penetration, we argue in this paper that success in the industry can only be achieved if consumer confidence in insurance services is restored. While demonstrating that the special nature of insurance business opens it to ethical abuse, the paper argues that failure to evince higher ethical behaviour from insurance practitioners is due to its devoid of trust. In furtherance of this argument, we proposed an integrated model of ethics-based trust as an effective way of getting the industry out of the present doldrums