Does Managerial Training have any impact on the performance of MSE Managers? Empirical evidence from Ghana

Received the best full paper award in the performance management trackAdopting the human capital theory as a lens, this study investigates the impact of managerial training on the performance of the managers of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in Ghana. The study uses primary data collected from 506 MSEs who are clients of Financial Non- Governmental Organisations (FNGOs) in the Volta Region of Ghana. Managerial Training (MT) and Performance has been measured on a five-point Likert scale anchored by strongly disagree (1) and strongly agree (5). MT has been measured using 4 main constructs namely, training content, training efficiency, training frequency and training accessibility whilst performance was measured using 12 items. The study controlled for business age, industry category, manager’s educational level and gender. The study shows that managerial training content, efficiency, frequency, and accessibility are statistically significant in explaining performance among MSE managers in Ghana. Secondly, the study also shows that industry category, managers educational level, and business age influences the performance of managers. However, gender is statistically insignificant and does not have any impact on the performance of MSE managers in Ghana. The study, therefore, argues for the delivery of managerial training which is content-rich, efficient, frequent and accessible to MSE managers to develop their managerial capabilities (Fatoki, 2011; Newman et al., 2014)

Distinctiveness of Asian Driver and Western Garment Technologies in Uganda

Over the past centuries, hard and soft technology transfer to developing countries had largely emanated from Western economies. It has been argued that these Western made hard and soft technologies are capital and skills intensive, rely on high-quality and pervasive infrastructure, and produce products for high-income consumers. Meanwhile, developing countries over the last two to three decades have witnessed a growing influx of hard and soft technologies from China and India (Asian Driver, AD, economies). The debate is that AD technologies are appropriate for the operating conditions in developing countries. This is because they are assumed to be labour intensive, tolerant to weak infrastructure, low cost, operate on small scale basis, accessible and less skills intensive. In order to validate (or otherwise) these assumptions, this research examines the distinctiveness and profitability of AD and Western hard and soft technologies using garment making machines in Uganda as a case study. I build this research on five key economic theories-the concept of hard and soft technology, technical choice, appropriate technology, technical change, the rise of the Asian drivers, technology transfer and diffusion. The study shows five important findings (I) Uganda’s landlocked nature makes the cost of transferring technologies into the country more expensive than for the country’s maritime neighbours-Kenya and Tanzania; (II) relative to the Western machines, the distribution of the AD garment making machines is wider in Uganda. This spread is a function of access to finance, information and the location of the machine operator; (III) the assumption that the AD technologies are tolerant to weak infrastructure, low cost, was validated; but contrary to my expectation, the frequent breakdown of the AD garment making machines makes them relatively skills intensive; (IV) relative to the Western garment making machines, the level of profitability of the AD machines is higher in rural areas but lower in urban areas. Thus, the wider spread of the AD garment making machines does not necessarily reflect their level of profitability; (V) relative to other Western made machines, the use of manual AD garment making machines is appropriate for increasing output, creating jobs and small scale enterprises at a minimum cost. China and India are respectively becoming the main sources of hard and soft technologies

The nexus between technology absorption and firm growth in Africa: A resource-based perspective

By drawing upon the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, this study investigates the effects of human capital, credit, and electricity on technology absorption among firms in Africa. The technological absorption index for 40 African countries was used to measure technological diffusion and the capacity to absorb new technology among African firms. Secondly, the World Bank’s data on access to credit and electricity for 40 African countries was also employed as explanatory variables. The findings indicate that to support technological absorption and diffusion among African firms, a broad access to credit, electricity and effective human capital development is imperative. Access to credit, electricity and human capital were significant in explaining variances in technological absorption. More so, whiles education quality is significant, African governance structures are insignificant in driving technological absorption

On the consequences of scarcity mindset:How 'having too little' means so much for ethnic venture failure

Drawing on the psychological concept of scarcity mindset as a lens, we explore UK-based ethnic entrepreneurs' accounts of their behaviors and choices to theorize ethnic business venture failure. Our findings suggest the constraints of 'having too little' entrepreneurial resources can induce three organizing tensions in organizing, community embeddedness, spatial and segment spawning, and dispositional optimism––which may operate in combination or serially to precipitate ethnic venture failure. Our findings contribute to research on conflicting demands in entrepreneurship by showing how resource constraints, sometimes played out in the form of enduring inequalities within markets and society-at-large stymies the conversion of contradictory yet mutually constituting demands in organizing into potentially productive outcomes

A review of micro‐practices in commodity value chains in the global south

Micro-practices in the commodity value chains (CVCs) have experienced dramatic evolution through digital technology (DT). This article reviews the literature to identify four critical periods in this evolutionary cycle, from 1980 to 2020, to explicate the dimensions through which DT has foregrounded the burgeoning patterns of change in practice. Focusing on three key levels of micro-practices: farm level, production level, and institutional level, a nuanced analysis of the role of relevant stakeholders in mobilizing resources and provides support to leverage DT. Our study shows how stakeholders' receptiveness has facilitated the radical (re)construction of micro-practices in CVC. Implications for theory and practice are outlined

The three pointers of research and development (R&D) for growth-boosting sustainable innovation system

Research and development (R&D) is frequently touted and labelled as the fundamental engine for creating sustainable innovations and achieving climate transitions. Yet, recent R&D efforts have struggled to live up to the widespread life-altering results they delivered in the 1960s when the term R&D was coined. In our attempt to address this concern, we propose a sustainability pathway model to achieving an economically viable innovation system that is anchored in three important pointers of R&D which have long been viewed as mutually distinct components in R&D budgets—investment, talent, and learning institutions. Directing attention to the pervasive need to align R&D investments with talents and learning institutions, we delineate how these pointers of R&D coming together to constitute a trivalent force may drive a growth-boosting sustainable innovation system. While there is no simple recipe which suggests an optimal combination of new scientific understanding, technologies, and process that could help produce the much-needed innovations and technological change, we present a set of propositions that highlights opportunities for reflection on existing R&D investment strategies and serves as a bridge to connect the emergent scholarship on sustainability with the intellectual traditions of R&D in innovation management

Ethnic business failure: a scarcity mind-set perspective

We integrate insights from the psychological concept of ‘scarcity mindset’ and mixed embeddedness to theorise ethnic venture failure. We explore the sentiments and choices of UK-based ethnic entrepreneurs to theorise the ‘cause-of-death' of their unsuccessful ventures. The scarcity mind-set lens we develop suggests the constraints of ‘having too little’ can induce four organising tensions – spatial spawning, ethnic embeddedness, dispositional optimism, and service nepotism – which operate in combination or serially to precipitate ethnic venture failure. We contribute to research on conflicting demands in entrepreneurship by finding that a paucity of resources stymies the conversion of contradictory yet mutually constituting demands into productive outcomes. In this way, we illuminate contextualised entrepreneurial organising demands that require reconciliation to capture value. In advocating the purposeful pursuit of paradoxes as a means of addressing failure, our study analyses stories of unsuccessful ventures in ways that explicitly acknowledge enduring inequalities within markets and society at-larg

A phoenix rising? The regeneration of the Ghana garment and textile industry

Some African countries’ premier industries, such as textiles, garments and agro-processing, which floundered in the face of market liberalization and stiff competition from cheap imports, are now going through regenerative changes, with some beginning to tell a cautionary tale of a leap upwards. Focusing on the Ghana garment and textile industry, we draw on a framework that integrates social practices and everyday general-purpose technologies to explore the rise, decline and regeneration of the industry. Explicating a fine analysis of how the performative reconfiguration of social practices and functional sources of innovation and technologies may combine to support innovation-driven growth, our study sheds light on how loosely connected actors within a hitherto floundering industry can learn to transform their situated practices to drive their ‘industrial regeneration’. Implications for the theory and practice of industrial regeneration are outlined

In direct breach of managerial edicts: A practice approach to creative deviance in professional service firms

Drawing on practice as a meta-theoretical lens, we explore creative deviance (CD): wilful violation of managerial orders by employee(s) to pursue creative ideas. Data for our inquiry comes from in-depth interviews with middle managers and employees in two professional service firms (PSFs). We argue that two distinct organising processes are necessary for the emergence of CD in practice: organising configuration and formalisation of R&D processes. We develop these dimensions to produce a typology of interrelated ideal types of outcomes when employees are explicitly instructed to stop pursuing an idea. We found three salient organising practices (technical concerns for efficiency and metrics, suppression of metistic knowledge and disjointed managerial responses to violations of sanctioned organising procedures), which may operate in combination or serially, to foster CD in practice. We conclude with some key implications for the theory and practice of creativity in PSFs. © 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd