Corporate Governance Reform in Nigeria: Upstream and Downstream Interventions

Purpose - Internal (e.g., firm performance, internal stakeholders) and external pressures (e.g., globalisation, technology, corporate scandals) have intensified calls for corporate governance reforms across varieties of capitalism. Yet, corporate governance practices among developing economies remain problematic. Drawing insights from Africa’s largest economy (Nigeria), this research relies on the resource dependence theory to address two questions - what are the prerequisites for effective reforms; and, what reforms yield robust corporate governance? Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a qualitative methodology comprising semi-structured interviews with 21 executives in publicly-listed Nigerian firms. The interviews were analysed using the content analysis technique. Findings - This article proposes two sequential reforms (i.e., the upstream and downstream). The upstream factors highlight the preconditions that support corporate governance reforms, i.e., government commitment and enabling environment, while the downstream reforms combine elements of awareness and regulation to proffer robust corporate governance interventions. Originality/value - This research further stresses the need to consider a bottom-up approach to corporate governance in place of the dominant top-down strategy. This strategy allows agents to participate actively in corporate governance policy-making rather than a top-down model, which imposes corporate governance on agents

The effect of government support on Bureaucracy, COVID-19 resilience and export intensity: Evidence from North Africa.

The literature on the imperativeness of government support for firm survival since the onset of COVID-19 is vast, but scholars have scarcely considered the impact of such assistance on managers' time, nor the extent to which support measures induce resilience and export activity. Accordingly, this study assesses the impact of government support on (1) bureaucracy and (2) resilience using data from 535 Moroccan SMEs. It further evaluates the influence of resilience on direct versus indirect exports, and espouses the institutional voids, resource-based and strategy-creation view to explain the associations through a contingency lens. The results demonstrate that (1) government support increases bureaucracy which, (2) surprisingly triggers and enhances resilience. Furthermore, (3) resilience has a positive impact on direct exports but (4) adversely affects indirect exports. Theoretically, the findings acquiesce extant calls for measurement specificity in export performance. Practically, stakeholders' attention is drawn to the value of managers' time well spent

Distribution of Selected Heavy Metals in Sediment of the River Basin of Coastal Area of Chanthaburi Province, Gulf of Thailand

The sediment samples from 24 stations in coastal area of Chanthaburi Province were collected during March 2012 to March 2013 and analyzed for heavy metal contents (Pb, Cd, Cr, Fe, Cu and Zn), pH, organic matters and grain sizes. The correlation analyses showed that heavy metal concentrations were affected by the content of organic matter and the size of clay particles. The evaluation of the quality of sediment was carried out using the geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and the enrichment factor (EF) as well as the comparison with those in the Thailand's sediment quality guideline (SQG) values. The results of the geoaccumulation index and the enrichment factor values of the heavy metals content in the sediments revealed that the study area was unpolluted and not enriched, respectively. The relationship between the heavy metals concentration and the organic matter, and the clay particle was proposed by using the multiple regression equations

Fake news on Social Media: the Impact on Society

AbstractFake news (FN) on social media (SM) rose to prominence in 2016 during the United States of America presidential election, leading people to question science, true news (TN), and societal norms. FN is increasingly affecting societal values, changing opinions on critical issues and topics as well as redefining facts, truths, and beliefs. To understand the degree to which FN has changed society and the meaning of FN, this study proposes a novel conceptual framework derived from the literature on FN, SM, and societal acceptance theory. The conceptual framework is developed into a meta-framework that analyzes survey data from 356 respondents. This study explored fuzzy set-theoretic comparative analysis; the outcomes of this research suggest that societies are split on differentiating TN from FN. The results also show splits in societal values. Overall, this study provides a new perspective on how FN on SM is disintegrating societies and replacing TN with FN.</jats:p

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): Taking stock and looking ahead for international business research

YesThe establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has opened new avenues of research interest in International Business and International Management. However, scholarly work in this fledgling area of research has been disparate and often lacking in the assessment of core international business implications of the emergence of the AfCFTA on member states as well as non-member states. This is because, as yet, no systematic attempt has been made to explore the AfCFTA in the context of IB research, or project future IB research directions. Hence, in this paper, using the PRISMA method we have systematically identified the current published research and scholarly work on the AfCFTA and provided a robust picture of the current state of knowledge and available literature on the AfCFTA while at the same time outlining potential areas for future international business researc

1946: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

Abilene Christian College Lectures - 1946 INTRODUCTION It has been our purpose at Abilene Christian College down through the years to provide in the Annual Bible Lectureship programs that which would be appropriate for the time and most useful to the students and to the Lectureship visitors. The general subject for the 1946 lectures is “Things That Cannot Be Shaken.” This subject was selected because one of the battles, if not the battle, which the church faces today is against those forces which would undermine the bases of gospel truth. Many denominational leaders, in one way or another, are denying even the fundamentals of fundamentals— God is, the Bible is God\u27s Revelation, Jesus Christ is the Son of God and The Kingdom Cannot Be Shaken. Many others, some without knowing what they do, are accepting false teachings and ideologies which, if allowed to run their course, will destroy all true religion. It is believed that the 1946 lectures and this edition of the lectures will help toward establishing in the hearts of men the truth of the important theses discussed. It was the purpose of those who arranged the program that the Lectureship should, also, hold up Christianity as a working, practical religion; hence, the meetings on “Work in New Fields” and “The Church at Work.” The attendance of this Lectureship was the largest in the history of these yearly meetings. On Wednesday evening Brother Nichol spoke to a crowd of approximately 1700 persons. Other evening lectures were attended by crowds almost as large. Visitors came from more than a score of States and, also, from Canada and Mexico. It is the hope of all of us at the College that the fellowship of the 1946 Lectureship and the instruction given by the various speakers will continue to do good for years without end. DON H. MORRIS

The DINGO dataset: a comprehensive set of data for the SAMPL challenge

Part of the latest SAMPL challenge was to predict how a small fragment library of 500 commercially available compounds would bind to a protein target. In order to assess the modellers’ work, a reasonably comprehensive set of data was collected using a number of techniques. These included surface plasmon resonance, isothermal titration calorimetry, protein crystallization and protein crystallography. Using these techniques we could determine the kinetics of fragment binding, the energy of binding, how this affects the ability of the target to crystallize, and when the fragment did bind, the pose or orientation of binding. Both the final data set and all of the raw images have been made available to the community for scrutiny and further work. This overview sets out to give the parameters of the experiments done and what might be done differently for future studies

Structure of S. aureus HPPK and the Discovery of a New Substrate Site Inhibitor

The first structural and biophysical data on the folate biosynthesis pathway enzyme and drug target, 6-hydroxymethyl-7,8-dihydropterin pyrophosphokinase (SaHPPK), from the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is presented. HPPK is the second essential enzyme in the pathway catalysing the pyrophosphoryl transfer from cofactor (ATP) to the substrate (6-hydroxymethyl-7,8-dihydropterin, HMDP). In-silico screening identified 8-mercaptoguanine which was shown to bind with an equilibrium dissociation constant, Kd, of ∼13 µM as measured by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR). An IC50 of ∼41 µM was determined by means of a luminescent kinase assay. In contrast to the biological substrate, the inhibitor has no requirement for magnesium or the ATP cofactor for competitive binding to the substrate site. The 1.65 Å resolution crystal structure of the inhibited complex showed that it binds in the pterin site and shares many of the key intermolecular interactions of the substrate. Chemical shift and 15N heteronuclear NMR measurements reveal that the fast motion of the pterin-binding loop (L2) is partially dampened in the SaHPPK/HMDP/α,β-methylene adenosine 5′-triphosphate (AMPCPP) ternary complex, but the ATP loop (L3) remains mobile on the µs-ms timescale. In contrast, for the SaHPPK/8-mercaptoguanine/AMPCPP ternary complex, the loop L2 becomes rigid on the fast timescale and the L3 loop also becomes more ordered – an observation that correlates with the large entropic penalty associated with inhibitor binding as revealed by ITC. NMR data, including 15N-1H residual dipolar coupling measurements, indicate that the sulfur atom in the inhibitor is important for stabilizing and restricting important motions of the L2 and L3 catalytic loops in the inhibited ternary complex. This work describes a comprehensive analysis of a new HPPK inhibitor, and may provide a foundation for the development of novel antimicrobials targeting the folate biosynthetic pathway