The Use of Social Media in Public Relations: A Case of Facebook in the Ghanaian Financial Services Industry

The technological advancement of the 21st century has revolutionized the business environment in such a way that corporate communication has been migrated from offline into online. The use of social media in corporate communication has resulted in the use of Facebook as a Public relations (PR) tool for organizations. The purpose of this research is to find out how organizations use Facebook as a PR tool to foster relationship with current and potential customers as well as the general public. Purposive sampling is used to select four companies from the financial services sector of the Ghana club 100. Content analysis is used for data collection and both qualitative and quantitative analysis are utilised for data analysis.  The results indicate that all the selected companies use Facebook often as PR tool; however there is more one way communication resulting in less interaction to increase the relationship and foster closer relationship between the organization and its public. The interaction is more from the organization to the customers and the public with few responses from the customers. There is a need for more two way interaction between the organizations and their publics. Keywords: Public Relations, Social Media, Facebook, Technology, Publics, and communicatio

An Analysis of the Effect of Consumer Dissatisfaction on Negative Word of Mouth

Consumers engage in Word of mouth for due to satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool that can make or break an organization. A satisfied consumer will spread positive word of mouth while a consumer who is dissatisfied will spread negative word of mouth about the products and services. In this paper we test empirically to see how Xiaomi customers in China and a few other countries such as United States of America, Australia and Africa, including South Africa express their dissatisfaction level through negative word of mouth using SPSS as a means of analysis. Main findings and conclusions are discussed. Keywords: Dissatisfaction, word of mouth, xiaomi, no company feedback, consumer feedbac

Contribution of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors to Teacher Motivation

Teachers feel their work is becoming increasingly stressful and their status is falling leading to less job satisfaction with a concomitant loss in motivation. This study sought to find out in quantitative terms, the amount of motivation that the intrinsic and extrinsic socio-economic factors make to teacher motivation. The research design employed for this research is quasi-experimental. Two thousand and ninety-eight (2,098) teachers were selected from the Upper East Region of Ghana. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected. The results showed that intrinsic and extrinsic socio-economic factors do motivate teachers in the execution of their work. However, not a strong association exist between teacher motivation and the intrinsic and extrinsic socio-economic variables. Not much of teacher motivation depends on socio-economic factors. Per the findings of the study, the association between the degree of motivation that teachers receive from the intrinsic and extrinsic socio-economic factors, M€, and the percentage of respondents that claim they are motivated by the factors, f€, could be represented by the polynomial relation, M€ = µ3(f€)3 - µ2(f€)2 + µ1(f€) - µ0. Intrinsic and extrinsic (socio-economic) factors cannot sustain the motivation of teachers permanently, even though the lack of them will lead to demotivation of teachers

Trade-offs, synergies and acceptability of climate smart agricultural practices by smallholder farmers in rural Ghana

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) has been promoted by governments and international development institutions as an intervention to address climate change and deliver triple wins. Yet, the trade-offs and synergies associated with CSA practices have not been explored. This study develops composite indices for prioritizing CSA practices to better inform policy about their trade-offs, synergies and acceptability. The aim of this study was to examine smallholder farmers’ uptake of CSA practices, the drivers of such uptake and the benefits (positive and negative) of CSA practices on agriculture, livelihoods and the environment. We employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process with workshop participants across two study districts in Ghana’s transitional and Sudan savannah agroecological zones. Results showed differences in CSA practices prioritized for achieving the productivity, adaptive capacity and mitigation goals between the two agroecological zones. Results also showed synergies and trade-offs associated with the implementation of CSA interventions, for example, irrigation may increase farm productivity (synergy) while contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) simultaneously (trade-off). Additionally, there are various perceived acceptance and efficiency levels of CSA practices by smallholder farmers and agricultural development officers. These results have implications for the implementation of future CSA action plans in vulnerability hotspots in dryland farming systems

Recommendations for cervical cancer prevention and control in Ghana: public education and human papillomavirus vaccination

Globally, cervical cancer is a major public health issue causing increasing morbidity and mortality especially in low and middle-income countries where preventive and control measures are lacking. In Ghana, it is the most common cancer among women. Approaches to reduce the incidence and mortality of the disease in Ghana have had little success due to lack of accurate data on the disease among other factors, to inform policies on prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, the lack of clear commitment, policy direction and resources has hinderedthe scale-up of some of the initiatives implemented to curb the cervical cancer situation in Ghana. In this paper, we make recommendations on cervical cancer education and human papillomavirus vaccination. A collaborative approach is needed involving both private and government organizations, health professionals and the general public. Public education on cervical cancer and HPV vaccination needs to be delivered through a mixture of systems including both healthcare facilities and outreach programs, involving teachers, youth groups, community members and professional bodies. The vaccination of adolescents aged 10-14 years using the nonavalent HPV vaccine will beimportant in reducing the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in Ghana. The integration of public education on cervical cancer prevention, HPV vaccination and screening programs into both medical and public health services is critical in achieving high coverage of these programs.Funding: NoneKeywords: Cervical cancer, Education, HPV vaccination, Prevention, Ghan

Why “formal” climate adaptation strategies fail in sub‐Saharan Africa: Ignoring adapters’ agency in the case of smallholding agriculture farming practices in Bono East Region of Ghana

This paper reviewed a body of literature on climate adaptation options in sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) smallholding agriculture and complemented it with a case study involving experts interviews, focus group discussions, large-scale household surveys, and farmer practices observation while drawing insight from the concept of “everyday adaptation and interrupted agency” and agency theory to assess farmer perceived limitations with climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate-wise food systems (CWFS) practices for climate adaptation in the SSA. The study noted that the narrow focus on CSA and/or CWFS as a silver bullet for climate change adaptation suitable for smallholding agriculture ignores food producers’ agency to undermine sustainable and inclusive adaptation solutions. Moreover, smallholder farmers’ everyday climate adaptation practices could be grouped into three categories; on-farm adaptation, off-farm adaptation, and Indigenous agroecological adaptation options. The on-farm adaptation options are usually agriculture intensification and extensification. The off-farm adaptation options include livelihood diversification activities, petty trading, seasonal labor jobs, and migration. The Indigenous agroecological adaptation strategy uses observing nature and weather elements to predict the onset of the rainy season. The study noted that smallholders’ adaptation options, which is an expression of their agency, are motivated by smallholders’ desire to be resilient to changing climate, increase productivity and income, and social network influence but not necessarily because the strategy is being promoted by the government or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Therefore, we propose a sustainable food agency (SFA)—a multifaceted blended constellation of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, as the best approach to addressing the climate crises in the SSA. The SFA allows individuals or groups to decide what climate change adaptation options best work for them to adapt to changing climate and produce and distribute their food without undermining the economic, social, and environmental bases that generate food security and nutrition for present and future generations

Co-worker support and affective commitment during a global crisis : evidence from an emerging economy

A pandemic causes several disruptions and difficulties in work processes and the lives of workers. Given that the agricultural -sector remains an integral sector to human existence and livelihood, it was important to examine ways of ensuring that employees in the agricultural sector remain satisfied and committed during the novel COVID-19 pandemic. Underpinned by the Social Exchange Theory, this study sought to empirically examine the extent to which instrumental and emotional co-worker support affect employee affective commitment via job satisfaction. Primary data was obtained from 250 employees of 8 agro-processing companies in Ghana. Structured self-administered questionnaires were utilised and SPSS v26 and AMOS v26 were used for the data analysis. The results showed that instrumental and emotional co-worker support were positively and significantly related to employee affective commitment. Job Satisfaction also mediated the relationships between instrumental and emotional co-worker support and affective commitment Drifting from previous studies which largely focused on employees’ affective commitment in service-based organizations, this study provides insights from the manufacturing sector. Additionally, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly disrupted on-site job structures and interpersonal interactions, this study addresses how co-worker support in such circumstances affect employee job satisfaction and affective commitment

Feedforward neural network model estimating pollutant removal process within mesophilic upflow anaerobic sludge blanket bioreactor treating industrial starch processing wastewater

In this a, three-layered feedforward-backpropagation artificial neural network (BPANN) model was developed and employed to evaluate COD removal an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor treating industrial starch processing wastewater. At the end of UASB operation, microbial community characterization revealed satisfactory composition of microbes whereas morphology depicted rod-shaped archaea. pH, COD, NH, VFA, OLR and biogas yield were selected by principal component analysis and used as input variables. Whilst tangent sigmoid function (tansig) and linear function (purelin) were assigned as activation functions at the hidden-layer and output-layer, respectively, optimum BPANN architecture was achieved with Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (trainlm) after eleven training algorithms had been tested. Based on performance indicators such the mean squared errors, fractional variance, index of agreement and coefficient of determination (R), the BPANN model demonstrated significant performance with Rreaching 87%. The study revealed that, control and optimization of an anaerobic digestion process with BPANN model was feasible

Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans