Ogechi Adeola

Enhancing Hospitality and Tourism Industry Competitiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa

Overall, the tourism potential of Africa remains unrealized. Our chapter presents a case for competitiveness in Africa; reviewing the TTCI results of eight African countries, their strong points and the challenges they face, as a basis for our recommendations of strategies to enhance the tourism competitiveness of Africa. We argue that enhancing the competitiveness of the industry requires a systems-thinking approach because while there are several challenges, these are interrelated. We suggest that the investments into tourism should be informed by data gathered from tourism research. There are other important strategies that can be embarked on, and we provide some directions and recommendations for these as our concluding remarks.

The Gender Question and Family Entrepreneurship Research

Gender in family entrepreneurship is still exploratory and, despite an increase in family entrepreneurship research, most of the studies give little or no information role of gender in family business. Existing research on family entrepreneurship tends to focus only or primarily on men, and the women appear invisible in the studies. However, there is little evidence that of extensive research focus on the issue of family entrepreneurship with the aim of building a cohesive understanding of gender in family entrepreneurship and the interactions existing between the different dimensions and components. Consequently, this chapter examines how gender issues are addressed in family entrepreneurship research. In particular, the chapter provides a critical review of the literature around the gender question in entrepreneurship, focusing on the resource-based view, organizational studies and gender in family entrepreneurship. Based on the review, a gender-aware framework is developed depicting three key areas for understanding the gendered process in family entrepreneurship: the determinants of women’s entry into family businesses, their gendered roles and the associated outcomes. Finally, implications and future research opportunities are identified and discussed.

Bridging Institutional Distance: An Emerging Market Entry Strategy for Multinational Enterprises

Despite attractive investment opportunities, multinational enterprises (MNEs) looking to enter emerging markets face multifaceted challenges. While much of the literature tends to infer that emerging markets of all types face similar institutional challenges, this chapter argues that significant differences exist across emerging markets, which may help explain variations in entry mode strategies of MNEs to these markets. Entering an emerging market requires development of a unique market entry strategy that focuses on narrowing the institutional distance (i.e., regulatory, cognitive, and normative) between MNEs’ home and targeted host markets. Within the context of the Nigerian market, cognitive and normative institutional distance likely poses a greater challenge to MNE success than regulatory institutional distance. This chapter identifies corporate social responsibility, social media engagement, governmental relations, and informal relational ties as key market entry strategies that enable MNEs to build legitimacy in the Nigerian market, which then helps minimize the costs of the cognitive and normative institutional distances. Thus, this chapter proposes that MNEs can boost emerging market entry success levels when they are able to build and leverage unique market entry strategies to bridge the institutional distance between their home and host country markets.

Kenya’s Blooming Flower Industry: Enhancing Global Competitiveness

Although Kenya was the largest producer of flowers in Africa and one of the world’s largest exporters of cut flowers, it faced increased competition from Europe, Latin America, and emerging African markets. Ratification of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and members of the East African Community (EAC) would give African exporters access to European markets that would, in turn, benefit from tariff-free imports. By early 2017, with three EAC member countries left to sign the EPA, internal EAC disagreements caused the ratification process to collapse. With the mid-2017 deadline for ratification approaching, the Kenya Flower Council, an association of independent growers and exporters, was searching for ways to enhance global competitiveness in the face of growing market challenges.

Financial inclusion, financial development, and economic diversification in Nigeria

The current oil-induced fiscal crisis in Nigeria has, once again, brought the country into the headlines as suffering great economic hardship. As a result, economic diversification is currently at the center of the debate on how Nigeria can improve its economic performance and achieve higher incomes. This discussion, however, has most of the times lacked an explanation of how financial development and financial inclusion can help to drive economic diversification in Nigeria. The literature is scanty in this regard. The objective of this study, therefore, is to contribute to this empirical evidence to the understanding of the impact of financial development and financial inclusion on economic diversification in Nigeria. The data for the study is from CBN Statistical Bulletin and World Development Indicators, for the period 1981 to 2014. It is well-known in the literature that employing the standard OLS techniques on non-stationary data may lead to spurious results. This study, therefore, uses the fully modified least square (FMOLS) which is designed to provide optimal estimates of cointegrating regressions. The results show that financial development has a positive effect on economic diversification, though the effect is not statistically significant. Additionally, financial inclusion, in terms of financial access and financial usage, has positive and significant effects on economic diversification. In other words, financial inclusion has contributed significantly to the diversification of the Nigerian economy. As well, GDP per capita, capital formation, and human capital development have positive and significant effects on economic diversification. FDI has positive effects on economic diversification, though the effects are not significant. On the contrary, exchange rate and trade openness have negative and significant effects on economic diversification. Financial inclusion can, therefore, be seen as a potent accelerator of economic diversification, and can help realize the national objectives of building shared prosperity and abolishing extreme poverty in Nigeria.

The impact of microfinance on financial inclusion in Nigeria

Many attempts have been made throughout history to establish institutions for supplying credit to the poor. In Nigeria, strategies to increase the income of the poor have existed in the form of rotating contributory savings schemes (referred to as Esusu, Itutu, Adashi, Bambam and Ajo in different parts of the country). However, in recent years, microfinance has become a veritable institutional mechanism for enhancing credit access for low-income groups. With the increasing number of microfinance banks in Nigeria and the mounting drive for inclusive financial systems, therefore, it would be worthwhile to assess the impact of microfinance on financial inclusion in the country. To achieve this objective, this study uses the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and the Dynamic OLS (DOLS) which were designed to provide optimal estimates of cointegrating regressions. The benefit of using the two approaches was to effectively assess the robustness of the parameter estimates to different specifications. This study, therefore, employs annual data of total commercial banks’ loans and advances, number of microfinance banks in Nigeria, and gross domestic product (GDP) as well as lending interest rates for the 1981–2014 period. The study found that microfinance and financial inclusion are linked by a set of long-run relationships. In the short run, the study found that microfinance has a positive but insignificant impact on financial inclusion, but in the long run, microfinance has a positive and statistically significant impact on the level of financial inclusion. The negative interest rate has a statistically significant impact on the level of financial inclusion both in the short and long run. Therefore, this study has established that microfinance, as well as interest rates, is a significant driver of financial inclusion in Nigeria. To increase financial inclusion in Nigeria, heightened drives for microfinance will be required. Microfinance represents a vehicle for the promotion of financial inclusion in Nigeria and should remain at the core of the pursuit of financial participation across all income levels.

Macroeconomic Determinants Of Non-Performing Loans In Nigeria: An Empirical Analysis

ABSTRACT:The intermediation role of banks which is vital for the development of any nation can be adversely affected by non-performing loans. This study investigated the macroeconomic determinants of non-performing loans in Nigeria, using time series data for the period 2005 to 2014 collated from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation annual report, World Bank Development Indicators and International Financial Statistics. The choice of the period 2005 to 2014 was premised on the fact that the number of banks in Nigeria was reduced from 89 to 25 in 2005 due to the banking recapitalization exercise initiated by the CBN which led to the consolidation of banks. The dependent variable used in the study was non-performing loan (NPL). Independent variables were gross domestic product growth rate (GDPGR), inflation (INF), lending rate (LR), exchange rate (ER), money supply to gross domestic product (M2GDP), and unemployment rate (UR). The outcome of the regression result showed that GDPGR has a positive relationship with NPL. The result also revealed that INF and ER have a positive relationship with NPL while LR, M2GDP, and UR have a positive and significant relationship with NPL. Of the six macroeconomic variables used in the study, it can be observed that only LR, M2GDP, and UR determine NPL in Nigeria while GDPGR, INF, and ER have a positive relationship with NPL but do not influence or determine NPL in Nigeria. The policy implication of this study is that the monetary authorities should ensure that the lending rate charged on loans by deposit money banks is reasonable to enable borrowers to repay the borrowed fund. Finally, the government should direct its monetary and fiscal policies towards reducing unemployment by creating an enabling environment conducive for business growth through the provision of social and infrastructural facilities.

The impact of macroeconomic conditions on sales performance in Nigeria

In emerging markets, sales teams often find it difficult to meet their quotas because they face a range of challenges as they strive to achieve their revenue targets. Identified challenges include the caprices of the macroeconomy. A clear understanding of macroeconomic factors that affect sales performance, therefore, is crucial for sales and marketing managers because the state of the macroeconomy can create winners, as well as, losers. For this reason, optimizing sales performance may call for a more rigorous attention to the character of the macroeconomy. This study evaluates the full spectrum of macroeconomic determinants of sales performance by importing macroeconomic perspectives into sales performance research, then interpreting the significance of these macroeconomic drivers on sales performance within the context of topical issues in the Nigerian economic landscape. The study employs a dynamic panel data approach to gain insights into the macroeconomic indices–sales performance nexus across a broad range of the 20 most active companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the period 2005-2014. The study shows that exchange rates, oil prices, domestic credits, total consumption expenditures, and federal tax revenues have a significant impact on sales performance. Thus, for sales teams to succeed, their sales plans must reflect the macroeconomic conditions of the Nigerian business environment. The swiftest road to success, therefore, is to dump the ‘business as usual’ mindset, which can speedily sink any corporation. Rather than adopting a relaxed stance and waiting for the macroeconomy to mend, sales teams can be innovative in the marketing of their companies’ products and services vis-à-vis the macroeconomic environment. The results of this study should be beneficial to sales teams and companies generally, as they advance new tactics to improve sales performance. Additionally, by importing key macroeconomic perspectives into sales performance research, this study helps academics, economists, investors, and other stakeholders understand the macroeconomic drivers of sales performance in emerging markets such as Nigeria.

An empirical investigation of the impact of bank lending on agricultural output in Nigeria: A vector autoregressive (VAR) approach

ABSTRACT:Before the discovery of oil in 1956, agriculture was the mainstay of the Nigerian economy as it accounted for more than 70% of the country’s gross domestic product. It served as a major source of employment, a key foreign exchange earner for the nation, and the provider of raw materials to industries. By the 1970s, oil had replaced agriculture as the country’s primary export. As crop exports declined, the nation became a net importer of basic food items. This change resulted in a decline of the agriculture sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP). One of the basic challenges now facing the agricultural sector in Nigeria is access to finances by farmers due to inadequate funding. This study examines the impact of bank lending on agricultural output in Nigeria. The study applied a VAR (Vector Autoregressive) approach over the period 1981-2013 with the use of time series data sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin. The variables used in the study are agricultural output (AGO), commercial loan to agriculture (CLA), and money supply (M2). The methodology adopted to test the impact of bank lending on agricultural output in Nigeria is the impulse response function and the variance decomposition of the VAR. The empirical findings of the VAR result show that there is no cointegration among the variables (AGO, CLA, and M2). The results also indicate that both CLA and M2 positively affect agricultural output in Nigeria, but the effect of CLA as shown by the variance decomposition is very low. Hence, it is pertinent for the government and monetary authorities to design favorable policies and create an enabling environment that will encourage banks to make more funds available to the agricultural sector; this will impact positively by increasing the level of agricultural output in the country thus contributing more to economic growth.