PurposeThis paper aims at identifying the major obstacles to business enterprise in an emerging economy and how these obstacles are associated with different characteristics of the enterprises.Design/methodology/approachThe study relied on the World Bank Enterprise Survey data on Ghana and applied binary and ordinal probit regression techniques to estimate the associations between the characteristics of the enterprises and the identified obstacles. Significance testing of the associations is also conducted.FindingsThe five main obstacles perceived by most of the enterprises in the study are access to finance, electricity, access to land, customs and trade regulations and tax rates. These obstacles are associated in different ways to growth rate (high vs low growth), scale (small and medium vs large), age, size of employees, the experience of the top manager and ownership (wholly domestic vs foreign ownership).Research limitations/implicationsAs a cross-sectional study focusing on Ghana, the findings are informative about the major obstacles facing business enterprises in an emerging economy; however, the ecological validity of these findings may be limited to factors specific to Ghana.Originality/valueGiven the representativeness of the Enterprise Survey, policymakers can rely on these findings to formulate useful policies to promote the operations of business enterprises.
This study critically examines contemporary issues and lending activities to small scale farmers for agricultural production. The Agriculture sector is the mainstay of Ghana's economy and small scale farmers play a dominant role in the sector which explains why this study concentrates on this sector. A survey research was conducted using both structured and unstructured questionnaires. A total of 127 farmers, 18 key informants and 10 rural banks were interviewed. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the effectiveness of rural banks. Allocations of the various loans (agriculture, cottage industry, trade and transport and others social credit) in the rural banks' credit portfolio were significantly different among the four loans categories (ANOVA p = 9.6E-29). From the tukey-kramer procedure, there was a difference in average amount of loan disbursed between agriculture and trade, and between agriculture and social credit with Q-Statistics of 3.84. The means for trade and social credit were larger than that of agriculture and by implication agriculture is treated less favourably in rural banks credit schemes and portfolio. These findings lend credence to the claim that rural banks are not sticking to their core mandate of prioritising credit provision to rural agriculture and have strayed into other endeavours.
PurposeThis study aims to examine the impact of economic globalization on bank profitability in Sub-Saharan Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is based on panel data of banks spanning 2008–2016. Relying on the KOF Globalization Index, the study uses financial globalization and trade globalization as measures of economic globalization. The authors employ the system generalized method of moments technique to establish the relationship between economic globalization and bank profitability while controlling for the effect of bank-specific and macroeconomic factors.FindingsThe results show a negative significant effect of financial and trade globalization on bank profitability, signifying the intense competition of banks in Sub-Saharan Africa accelerated by globalization. The negative effect of economic globalization holds irrespective of the indicator of bank profitability. Bank size exerts a significant effect on profitability though the impact is negative for return on equity measure. The findings further reveal a positive significant impact of GDP growth and inflation on profitability.Originality/valueThis paper presents a pioneering work on the impact of economic globalization on bank profitability in the Sub-Saharan African context per the researchers' knowledge.
The study investigates the fact that advertising has served as a dominant promotion mix tool in the banking sector in Ghana. The continuous reliance on advertising by financial institutions suggests an appreciable level of trust in it as a communication tool. The use of other measures to create awareness and attract customers in financial services has been used to a limited extent. More often, the quest to stir interest and inspire consumers to patronise a product or service in financial institutions has seen organisations latching on to advertising with other ways of influencing favourable customer decisions being jettisoned. This work explores other modes of winning customer buy in viewed in comparative terms with advertising. The data was analysed based on the objectives of the study. The main objective is to ascertain the extent to which advertisement leads to patronage of products and services of banks. Quantitative techniques were utilised in order to attain quantifiable understanding into the degree of impact of advertising on customer decision making in the banking sector.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.