BackgroundDocumentary evidence points to high unmet need for family planning across sub-Saharan Africa. Modern contraceptive use has been staggering over decades with unacceptable marginal increases given that one in three women still report unmet need in Ghana. This study sought to re-examine through a further analysis on the prevalence and determinants of unmet need for family planning in Ghana using married women extracted from the recent 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey.MethodData was analyzed using univariate, bivariate, logistic and multinomial logistic regression models.ResultsOf the 4527 women, more than a third (35.17%) experienced unmet need of which 20.19% had unmet need for spacing while 14.98% reported unmet need for limiting. The logistic results showed that older aged women, being employed and women with higher ideal number of children were less likely to experience unmet need. However, women who did not know the couples’ preferred number of children, women who had more than one union and those with higher number of living biological children were more likely to report unmet need. From the multinomial model, an increase in age, residing in a rural area, and being employed were associated with lower risk of unmet need for spacing. Additionally, Women who did not know the couples’ ideal number of children, women who had higher age when they got married, and women with higher number of biological children were more likely to report unmet need for spacing. Women who had a higher number of ideal children, women who had secondary or higher education, women from higher socio-economic households, were less likely to report unmet need for limiting. .ConclusionsWe recommend the strengthening of contraception services in order to address the various age specific needs and women within the different socio-demographic sects so as to reduce unmet need. Addressing the needs of women with increasing number of living biological children is equally paramount.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40834-018-0083-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Research has shown that most young and inexperienced faculty members require assistance in developing their career and meeting their teaching quota through mentoring. However, academic mentoring has not been effective in many research universities, especially those in the developing world. This study has investigated the factors that facilitate academic mentoring in a typical research university. The study adapted a quantitative methodology by drawing from a sample of 244 senior and junior teaching staff of a public research university in Ghana and used Multiple Regression as the basis for the study analysis to test the hypotheses. Findings showed a strong positive relationship between institutional career support and the process of mentoring. Findings also showed a strong positive mentoring relationship between senior faculty and inexperienced faculty, as well as between colleague faculty. Similarly, findings showed a very low presence of academic mentoring in the University of Ghana. This work contributes strongly to academic mentoring and discovers some legitimate antecedents of mentoring in institutions of Higher Education. By this, the work provides HE institutions with the value of developing their internal human capital asset that can leverage their performance.

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Purpose Despite several years of its implementation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy of Tullow Ghana has not been able to produce the desired results for host coastal communities in south-western Ghana. This inability has resulted in many community agitations, mistrust and unresolved conflicts between Tullow and the beneficiary communities of its CSR initiative. This paper aims to examine Tullow’s CSR programme by juxtaposing the company’s annual reports with beneficiary views on CSR need satisfaction in proximate communities to determine the effectiveness of the company’s communication strategy and its impact on the performance of the programme. Design/methodology/approach This study was conducted using both secondary and primary data. The secondary data comprised CSR reports from Tullow Oil Plc. and reflected the company’s attempts at addressing social, environmental and economic issues in its host communities of southwestern Ghana. At the time of this research (February-March 2015), only the 2012 and 2013 CSR reports were available, and so the researchers relied on the two reports for secondary data. These annual reports and other relevant documents were downloaded from the company’s website, as advised by officials of the company’s CSR programme. The primary data for the research were, however, collected using face-to-face interviews with leaders of the company’s host communities, and focus group discussions with a cross-section of ordinary residents of affected communities. In all, 20 community leaders (five chiefs, five stool secretaries and ten youth leaders) were interviewed on the nature and impact of Tullow?s CSR programme on the socio-economic development of host communities. Findings The study revealed that although Tullow’s reports show considerable CSR success in Ghana, the experiences of fishing communities in the country’s western region were largely inconsistent with the company’s reports on its CSR interventions for the fisher folks. The study also suggested that an improved community-outreach strategy is required to sanitise the relationship between Tullow and its CSR beneficiaries. Research limitations/implications A limitation of the study is that there are no current CSR reports of the company. Moreover, researchers would have wished to talk directly to company officials instead of relying on the company’s website for reports. Practical implications This study has unearthed a new pathway to improving Tullow Ghana’s CSR strategy. Unlike previous studies that have proposed a top-down approach (Ackah-Baidoo, 2012, 2013; Hilson, 2014) or a bottom-up redress (Andrews, 2013) of the conflict between Tullow Ghana and its host communities, these researchers have argued that the conflict between Tullow and its beneficiaries is a communicative one and that mistrust is one of the underlying factors of such community agitations. Social implications The study has pointed out that achieving an effective communication strategy is a shared responsibility between Tullow, the coastal fishing communities and third parties – NGOs, CSOs, and others. Tullow can help pursue this strategy by adopting a more inclusive CSR reporting and education. The current practice of uploading global reports on the company’s website is not helpful to the fishing community. Originality/value This study is an original piece of work with primary data collected directly from beneficiaries of the company’s activities. The study will contribute to CSR practice in Ghana particularly in the extractive sector.

This study investigates empirically the link between females in top management and firm performance in Ghana. This study employs the Instrumental Variable (IV) Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) technique of estimation in determining the impact of females in top management on firm performance using World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data across 720 firms in Ghana. This technique is very robust as it has the power to control for any possible endogeneity bias, which can lead to spurious results. After controlling for reverse causality, our results reveal that the inclusion of females in top management impacts positively on firm performance in Ghana. We further note that though innovation has direct positive impact on firm performance, there is no evidence of any moderating roles played by innovation or education in the link between female in top management and firm performance in Ghana. The results of our study should however be interpreted with a bit of caution as we have not been able to examine the time dynamics of our findings due to lack of reliable panel data. Apart from serving as a reference ABOUT THE AUTHORS Joseph Dery Nyeadi is asenior lecturer and achartered accountant with the SD-Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in Ghana. His areas of interest range from Corporate Finance to Corporate governance in African context. He has widely published in anumber of renowned journals including Cogent Finance and Economics, Journal of Accounting and Management, Cogent Business and Management, Journal of Global Responsibility, etc. Kofi Kamasa is a lecturer with University of Mines and Technology in Ghana. He has a PhD in Economics. His areas of interest include;

Purpose In recent times, employers are routinely advertising for position candidates with the capability to work with little or no supervision at all. This is probably because, as businesses strive to globalize operations, supervision has become both complex and expensive. While the general interest in employees with considerable levels of work autonomy may be a strategic one, particularly for banks, it is important to determine the impact of work autonomy on other critical success factors such as employee commitment to change management, innovativeness and quality supervisor-subordinate relationship. This study aims to examine the relationship between these variables by exploring the mediation effect of work autonomy on the relationship between employee innovativeness, quality of supervisor-subordination collaboration and employee commitment to change management in the banking sector of Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study used quantitative empirical strategies involving the distribution of questionnaires to a randomly selected sample of 400 employees of selected banks in Ghana. Data, so collected, were analysed using the PLS-SEM Software. Findings Results of the study revealed significant relationships between the quality of supervisor-subordinate collaboration, innovativeness and commitment to change. The findings further established work autonomy as an explanatory variable between the three employee behaviours – innovativeness, quality of supervisor-subordinate connection and commitment to change. Originality/value The novelty of this study lies in the interplay of quality employee relations, innovative employee behaviour and commitment to change processes as refereed by work autonomy to promote effective change management activities in Ghanaian banks. The outcome of the study led to the development of a theoretical model for organizational change management.

Many researchers have shown that religious factors are some motives for consumption. While a lot has been covered on the topic, some aspects are still to be discovered. A little is known on religious practices and purhase in Africa and particularly in the context of Burkina Faso. The purpose of this paper is to bring out the link between religious practices and the motives for beverages purchase by consumers. Burkina Faso is characterised by an extraordinary religious practice and an important purchase of beverages. It is important to know the reasons that lead some believers to purchase non-alcoholic industrial drinks, rather than alcohol industrial drinks. This complexity of consumer behavior and the lack of human knowledge of marketing, and of the explanatory factors of consumer behavior constitute barriers that become some management challenges for the marketing of bevrages. The methodology adopted in this research includes a qualitative approach. Qualitative data is collected from consumers. The number of semi-structured interviews considered in this research is 12. The collected data is transcribed by hand, and then it is analysed. First, the results show that high religious practices favors purchases of non-alcoholic beverages in the context. Second, the results show that low religious practices reduces purchases of non-alcoholic beverages in the same context.