Joseph Mpeera Ntayi

Competitive advantage: mediator of intellectual capital and performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of competitive advantage in the relationship between intellectual capital and financial performance in Ugandas microfinance institutions. The major aim is to establish the role of competitive advantage in the relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts MedGraph program (Excel version), Sobel tests and the Kenny and Boran approach to test for mediation effects.Findings – Competitive advantage is a significant mediator in the association between intellectual capital and financial performance and boosts the relationship between the two by 22.4 percent in Ugandan microfinance institutions. Further findings confirmed a partial type of mediation between the intellectual capital, competitive advantage and financial performance.Research limitations/implications – Only a single research methodological approach was employed and future research through interviews could be undertak...

Intellectual capital and performance: testing interaction effects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction effect of intellectual capital elements and how they fuse to affect financial performance in microfinance institutions. The major purpose is to explore the appropriate blend or mix of intellectual capital elements that explains the source of value creation – hence performance – in microfinance institutions.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts the ModGraph program (Excel version) along with the Kenny and Boran approach to test conditional hypotheses.Findings – The magnitude effect of human capital on performance depends on any of structural or relational capital; hence the assumption of nonadditivity is met. However, no significant interaction effects were established between relational and structural capital.Research limitations/implications – Only a single research methodological approach was employed and future research through interviews could be undertaken to triangulate. Furthermore, the findings from the present study are cr...

A model for effective board governance in Uganda's services sector firms

Purpose – The present study was carried out with the purpose of establishing a model of effective board governance in Ugandas service sector firms.Design/methodology/approach – This study is cross‐sectional. The analysis was conducted using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) software on a sample of 128 service firms in Uganda. The perceived effective board governance in Uganda was measured by the perceptions of 128 respondents who are managers or directors in each of those service firms. Three confirmatory factor analysis models were tested and fitted.Findings – The three‐dimensional model of effective board governance in Uganda – consisting of control and meetings’ organization, board activity and effective communication – was determined to be the best fitting model. Evidence in support of relevant theories of board governance was adduced.Research limitations/implications – Although plenty of literature on corporate governance exists, there is scarce literature on effective board governance conceptual...

Performance management practices, employee attitudes and managed performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish the relationship between performance management practices, employee attitudes and managed performance.Design/methodology/approach – Using a disproportionate stratified purposive approach, a sample of 900 employees was drawn from four public universities in Uganda.Findings – The paper reveals that performance management practices and employee attitudes are crucial for achievement of managed performance in public universities.Research limitations/implications – This was a cross‐sectional study that inherently has common method biases. Such biases could be minimised with replication of the study using a longitudinal study approach that would also unearth all salient issues that could have remained untouched.Practical implications – The paper emphasises the need for public universities to institutionalise result‐oriented relationships and adapt in the external hyper changing environment.Originality/value – The paper calls for a new approach to managing emplo...

Perceived Project Value, Opportunistic Behavior, Interorganizational Cooperation, and Contractor Performance

Predictors of contractor performance have attracted the attention of researchers in the developed world. However, research from sub-Saharan Africa to corroborate these findings has remained sparse. What exists is speculative and at best anecdotal. Using data from construction firms in Uganda, this study finds that commitment to the project, perceived value of the project, interorganizational cooperation, and opportunistic behavior are significant predictors of contractor performance. This has both policy and managerial implications, which we present in this paper.

Knowledge management and organisational resilience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of the mediation effect of innovation in the relationship between knowledge management and organisational resilience.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts a cross‐sectional design to collect data used to carry out mediation analysis.Findings – Innovation had an effect on organisational resilience. Knowledge management did not have a direct effect on organisational resilience, except through the full mediation of innovation. This suggests that without organisational innovation, parastatal organisations may not improve their level of resilience.Research limitations/implications – The sample size was small, covering only parastatals. The results may be different in the private sector. The study was cross‐sectional which is limited to trace long‐term effects of knowledge management and organisational innovation on organisational resilience. Therefore, a longitudinal study may be undertaken, subject to resource availability.Practical implic...

Collaborative relationships and SME supply chain performance

SMEs especially those in developing countries face a number of challenges that affect their performance and survival in the long run. One of the challenges that has not been widely explored is that of SME supply chain performance. This study attempts to examine the relationship between collaborative relationships and SME supply chain performance in Uganda. SME supply chain performance is an important area because SMEs account for a large percentage of the private sector. Our study established that collaborative relationships explained 29.5 per cent of the variation in SME supply chain performance. Information sharing and incentive alignment were found to be significant predictors of SME supply chain performance while decision synchronization was not a signification predictor. These findings are important and raise implications for theory and managers of SMEs in Uganda.

Performance Management Practices, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Adoption and Managed Performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for managers of public universities to pay attention to performance management practices and information communication technology (ICT) adoption in order to achieve successful managed performance.Design/methodology/approach – Using a disproportionate stratified purposive approach, a sample of 900 employees was drawn from four public universities in Uganda.Findings – The results revealed that performance management practices that are vested in agency relations and goal setting with ICT adoption are necessary in the achievement of managed performance in public universities.Practical implications – Building a positive employer‐employee relationship and involving employees in setting goals and targets is crucial for successful management of organisations. ICT adoption will further facilitate service quality, service delivery and cost reduction.Originality/value – This paper calls for a new approach to managing employees in public universities in d...

Preferred Interpersonal Distances: A Global Comparison

Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.

Towards building project‐stakeholder commitment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of project communication on project‐stakeholder commitment. Earlier studies have emphasized the significant influence of project‐stakeholder commitment to project success; and to date, lack of stakeholder commitment is still listed as a key cause of project failure. In an effort to improve project stakeholder commitment, the paper investigated project communication as a key antecedent of project‐stakeholder commitment.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopted a cross sectional study design and results were drawn from a sample of 92 citizenship projects conducted by 16 commercial banks in Uganda. Data collection was based on a specific type of project in order to obtain context‐specific responses.Findings – The results obtained after running a hierarchical regression indicated that intra‐project communication and extra‐project communication had a positive combined predictive potential of project‐stakeholder commitment with a Beta coefficien...