An integrated perspective on foreign ethical divestment

Much of the existing literature on foreign ethical divestment has been developed in isolation and scattered across multiple disciplines. This paper reviews the existing literature on foreign ethical divestment to extract emerging themes and outline new directions for future research. Our review uncovered that foreign ethical divestment decisions can be attributed to macro, firm and individual level factors. We therefore develop an integrated model to link the dynamics of ethical foreign divestment. The study identified a number of unanswered questions and implications for future research

Book Reviews

This issue of the CJAS includes reviews of two important books: The Mind of Africa by William Abraham, that was recently re-issued in paperback, and Building the Nation: Seven Notable Ghanaians, edited by Mercy Akrofi- Ansah and Esi Sutherland-Addy. We think that these commentaries provide critical illumation of these important texts, and we are grateful to Professor Emeritus Ivan Addae-Mensah, and Drs Amoah-Boampong and Richmond Kwesi for their thoughtful reflections

Strategic Ambidexterity and Its Performance Implications for Emerging Economies Multinationals

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the IBR Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Pervez Ghauri for his overall insightful suggestions, support, and guidance for this special issue. We would also like to thank the authors who have submitted their work. Our thanks also go out to our outstanding reviewers for the valuable comments and feedback given during the review processPeer reviewedPostprin

Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopic Detection of Aliphatic Alcohol Vapors With Surface-Mounted HKUST-1 MOFs as Sensing Media

We leveraged chemical-induced changes to microwave signal propagation characteristics (i.e., S-parameters) to characterize the detection of aliphatic alcohol (methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol) vapors using TCNQ-doped HKUST-1 metal-organic-framework films as the sensing material, at temperatures under 100 °C. We show that the sensitivity of aliphatic alcohol detection depends on the oxidation potential of the analyte, and the impedance of the detection setup depends on the analyte-loading of the sensing medium. The microwaves-based detection technique can also afford new mechanistic insights into VOC detection, with surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs), which is inaccessible with the traditional coulometric (i.e., resistance-based) measurements

Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopic Detection of Aliphatic Alcohol Vapors with Surface-Mounted HKUST-1 MOFs as Sensing Media †

We leveraged chemical-induced changes to microwave signal propagation characteristics (i.e., S-parameters) to characterize the detection of aliphatic alcohol (methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol) vapors using TCNQ-doped HKUST-1 metal-organic-framework films as the sensing material, at temperatures under 100 ◦C. We show that the sensitivity of aliphatic alcohol detection depends on the oxidation potential of the analyte, and the impedance of the detection setup depends on the analyte-loading of the sensing medium. The microwaves-based detection technique can also afford new mechanistic insights into VOC detection, with surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs), which is inaccessible with the traditional coulometric (i.e., resistance-based) measurements

Farmer uncertainty and demand for rice varietal identity information: DNA fingerprinting of smallholder rice varieties in Côte d’Ivoire

Information asymmetry is a key challenge facing farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly regarding the identity and quality of crop varieties and other agricultural inputs. In this research, we contribute to a recent economics literature that uses advances in DNA fingerprinting technology and affordability to directly measure the identity of crop varieties, allowing this variable to be compared with farmers’ beliefs about the varieties that they cultivate. In our study, we additionally utilize a novel approach in which we elicit the demand of rice farmers in central Côte d’Ivoire for information about the variety they cultivate as well as their own beliefs about how sure they are of the variety’s identity. We connect our DNA fingerprinting analysis of producer seed samples to survey questions related to producer beliefs and demand, and find that the majority of the farmers in our dataset are not certain about the identity of the variety they cultivate. We further find that around 98 percent of producers in our dataset are willing to pay to obtain the results of DNA fingerprinting analysis of the variety they currently cultivate, from a minimum of around $0.20 to a maximum of ~$36 USD

The Effects of Business Failure Experience on Successive Entrepreneurial Engagements: An Evolutionary Phase Model

This study draws insights from the literatures on entrepreneurial learning from failure and organizational imprinting to develop an evolutionary phase model to explain how prior business failure experience influences successive newly started businesses. Using multiple case studies of entrepreneurs located in an institutionally developing society in Sub-Sahara Africa, we uncover four distinctive phases of post-entrepreneurial business failure: grief and despair, transition, formation and legacy phases. We find that while the grieving and transition phases entailed processes of reflecting and learning lessons from the business failure experiences, the formation and legacy phases involve processes of imprinting entrepreneurs’ experiential knowledge on their successive new start-up firms. We conclude by outlining a number of fruitful avenues for future research

Environmental consciousness and choice of bulb for lighting in a developing country

Background: Most countries in the world especially those in Asia and Africa have been undertaking policies meant to help promote science, technology and innovation towards meeting some provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is still a sizable number of households who have not yet fully embraced energy-saving technologies. This study provides highlights on the economic and environmental benefits for investing in energy-saving light bulbs. Methods: Using a survey and a multistage random sampling approach, we administered questionnaires to 1650 households in Ghana. The relevant diagnostic tests associated with cross-sectional data were undertaken. We estimated a maximum-likelihood probit model with its associated marginal effects to find out how the choice of energy-saving light bulb (behaviour) is influenced by environmental consciousness (both local knowledge and global knowledge) and other demographic factors. Results: Our results are consistent with economic theory as well as what earlier empirical evidence found in literature. That is, environmental consciousness, education, income, etc. are very important in explaining the choice of buying energy-saving light bulbs in Ghana. Conclusions: Besides advocating for information that will make society more environmentally conscious, we further recommend the use of fiscal policies (i.e. subsidies) to support lower income brackets who are predominant in developing countries

Mapping QTLs for tolerance to salt stress at the early seedling stage in rice (Oryza sativa L.) using a newly identified donor ‘Madina Koyo’

Open Access Article; Published online: 13 Sep 2020Salt stress is a menace to rice production and a threat to food security worldwide. We evaluated 308 F4 families from Sahel 317/Madina Koyo for tolerance to salt stress at the early seedling stage. To better understand genomic regions controlling tolerance in the population, we genotyped the progenies and the two parents using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and regressed the genotypic data on their phenotype to detect QTLs. An average reduction of 63.4% was observed for all fitness-related traits among the F4 families. A total of 46 progenies recorded an average salt injury score (SIS) between 1–3 and were rated as tolerant to salt stress at the early seedling stage. A high-density genetic map was constructed for the 12 rice chromosomes using 3698 SNP markers. Multiple interval mapping identified 13 QTLs for SIS, shoot length, shoot dry weight and root length on chromosomes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 12, with trait increasing alleles coming from both parents. Two (qSDW2 and qRL2.2) and three (qSL2, qRL2.1 and qSIS2) QTLs at different regions on chromosome 2 and another two on chromosome 7 (qSDW7 and qSL7) were tightly linked. These QTLs could facilitate breeding for salt tolerance at the early seedling stage as direct selection for one, would mean indirectly selecting for the other. Fine mapping of these novel QTLs in a different genetic background is necessary to confirm their stability and usefulness in breeding for tolerance to salinity in rice