Impact of Leadership for Startup Companies

Startups play a vital role in employment opportunities, creating new markets, and economic developments in a nation. However, several challenges, such as financial and scalability factors, confront startups at the initial stages because of the highly uncertain startup business environment. Recent research has confirmed that the development of startups is indeed connected to leadership. A literature review revealed that entrepreneurial leadership, as opposed to mainstream leadership theories, is more suitable to explain the complex leadership process in startup growth and development. A qualitative, single case study was conducted to investigate the leadership characteristics of successful startup founders to explain the impact of leadership on startup performance. The researcher adopted the primary data collection method to include interviews with 17 founders and leaders from four startup companies. Four data themes were identified: The impact of leadership behavior on startup culture; Leadership approaches driving startup success; Developing emerging leadership behavior because of changing startup business environment; and Improved organizational performance driven by leadership development. Compared to an extensive literature review and anticipated themes, the finding the impact of leadership behavior on startup culture was the most significant, followed closely by Developing emerging leadership behavior because of changing startup business environment. Overall, the emerging leadership styles, including entrepreneurial leadership and humble leadership, appeared to have a positive impact on startup performance. However, the humble leadership style was not explored in the literature review because of its infancy in the academic circle. As a result, it does not contribute significantly to the existing body of knowledge

Assessment of Survivors’ Perceptions of Crises and Retrenchments in the Nigeria Banking Sector

Using the Neo Liberal and Organizational Justice theories as the theoretical framework, this study assesses the perceptions of bank employees who survived of the crises and retrenchment that swept across the Nigerian banking sector. Four banks were purposively selected for the study. Two out of these four banks, namely: First Bank Nigeria Plc. (FBN) and United Bank for Africa Plc. (UBA), are among the old generation banks (OGB), while the other two: Access Bank and Eco Bank are new generation banks (NGB). A total of 256 employees of these banks selected through the simple random sampling technique constituted the samples for the study, while questionnaires and in-depth interviews (IDIs) were used as data collection instruments. Frequency percentage distribution formed the main tool of statistical analysis. Findings revealed that the popular perception among the survivors both in in NGB and OGB is that the crises were aggravated by poor corporate governance, and corrupt practices by the Executive Management of some banks. Also, though survivors perceived the reforms introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria in response to the crises as having functioned to quell the crises, a large proportion of them, 83% in OGB, and 82% in NGB still blamed the crises for the large-scale job losses in the sector. Findings further revealed that these surviving employees, mainly those of NGB indicated not having control over the retrenchment procedures and outcomes. Consequently, they perceived the retrenchment process as unfairly executed, leaving them with a sense of uncertainty and job insecurity. The study concluded that there is clear need for bank management to display integrity in retrenchment decisions while also maintaining fairness in dealing with survivors.  Keywords: Crises, Retrenchment, Survivors, Perception, Banking Sector.

Environmental and human behavioral factors associated with Vulvovaginal Candidiasis among single and married Women in Eket

Vulvovaginal Candidiasis (VVC) is caused by the overgrowth of yeasts, mainly Candida albicans. Their prevalence is consequent on some known environmental and human behaviors including; intercourse frequency, menstrual protection methods, direction of vaginal wiping after sex, toilet type, toilet paper used, recent antibiotic use, underwear fabric, tight clothing and birth control methods. These behaviors are often neglected. The current study examines these factors and their relationship with Vulvovaginal Candidiasis (VVC) among Single and Married Women attending Heritage Polytechnic Health Centre, Eket. The prevalence of VVC was 63.3% with occurrence rate of VVC among married, single, pregnant and 20-34 age group, as 31.9%, 31.4%, 40.4% and 53.1%, respectively. The occurrence of VVC was positively associated with menstrual protection methods, direction of vaginal wiping after sex, toilet type, toilet paper used, recent antibiotic use, underwear fabric, birth control methods and tight clothing. There was no significant association between VVC and intercourse frequency among singles. Risk factor like toilet users, had no association with VVC among singles but had some level of association (p&lt;0.05) among the married. In conclusion, the high prevalence of vaginal candidiasis among women with genital infections shows there is a need for training of health laboratory workers in antenatal, STD, outpatient and family planning clinics on pH determination in order to improve the early detection of an alteration around the vaginal environment which may lead to VVC.</p