The impact of kidnapping on foreign ownership of firms in Nigeria

Nigeria is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that has faced high incidents of kidnapping. As a result of that, some studies have investigated its determinants and economic consequences in Nigeria. However, no study is yet to investigate its impact on the foreign ownership of firms. This is a research void that this article has attempted to fill. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, we found empirical evidence of the negative impact of kidnapping on the foreign ownership of firms. An increase in the kidnapping rate by one (1 per 100,000 of population) will reduce the foreign ownership of firms by 4.855–10.098% depending on the econometric model. There is also empirical evidence that the impact of kidnapping on foreign ownership will vary by geographical regions in Nigeria and by firm size. Policy implications were deduced from our findings.     

Business failures in institutionally weak environments: An examination of Virgin Atlantic’s failed adventure in sub-saharan africa

In view of the paucity of scholarly work on how conditions in weak institutional environments at organizational founding can persist leading to eventual international joint ventures (IJVs), this paper utilizes the case of Virgin Nigeria Airways to illuminate our understanding of the subject. Based on semi-structured interviews, we developed a four-phase model that demonstrates the persistent interactions of internal and external factors. The four phases are as follows: pre-formation resource mobilization, formation and embryonic challenges, decoupling and rebranding, and phasing out. Phase 1 highlights political and non-political activities geared towards venture formation and resource mobilization. Phase 2 focuses on the decoupling of functional activities and the loss of legitimacy in response to changing political and economic conditions in the country. Phase 3 sheds light on triggers for corporate rebranding activities resulting from loss of identity and legitimacy. In Phase 4, we highlight the dispute with the government that typified and culminated in the airline's demise. We identify and examine the implications of these findings.     

Transfer of corporate governance practices into weak emerging market environments by foreign institutional investors

We advance the practice transfer theorising of corporate governance (CG) by developing a framework that uncovers how foreign institutional investors (FIIs) improve on CG practices of firms in weak institutional environments. Using hand-collected data for 85 listed Nigerian firms covering the 2011–2016 period, we show that FIIs bypass the weak regulatory environment in emerging markets by transferring good CG standards to host countries. Furthermore, FIIs’ ability to enhance the CG quality of firms in such environments is moderated by their home country’s legal system, with FIIs from countries with strong legal enforcement having an enhanced ability to improve CG practices of firms in weak institutional environments. However, cultural differences between the FIIs’ home and host countries negatively moderate this relationship. Our results are robust to the choice of estimation technique and various sources of endogeneity.     

Solar-powered cold-storage and agrifood market modernization in Nigeria

Modern cooling technologies that utilize renewable energy sources have been increasingly recognized as promising tools to address various challenges emerging in progressively complex agrifood systems in developing countries. Knowledge gaps about the actual impacts of these technologies in developing countries remain, especially in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA). This study fills this knowledge gap by providing evidence from the evaluation of recent interventions in northeast Nigeria in which seven small solar-powered cold storages were installed across seven horticulture markets. Combinations of difference-in-difference (DID) and variants of propensity-score-based methods suggest that cold storage significantly increased horticulture sales volumes and revenues of market agents. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that increased net revenues for market agents may be sufficiently large to recoup cold storage investments and operating costs within a reasonable time frame. Using cold storage also reduced the share of food loss. It lengthened the products' shelf-life while raising prices received by market agents and farmers, which were associated with improved product quality, expanded value-adding activities by market agents, and increased use of advance payments.     

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: Heterogeneous Governance,Claims Making and Forced Eviction in a Megacity

Residents of informal settlements worldwide face challenges defending their land tenure. In contexts with overlapping systems of governance these challenges are even more complex and claims to land tenure more precarious. How do heterogeneous systems of governance, a characteristic of some global South megacities, affect evictions? This article presents an in-depth case study of the informal Otodo Gbame waterfront settlement's struggle to defend its customary land tenure through multiple authorities in Lagos, Nigeria. The analysis reveals how a heterogeneous system of governance disempowers citizens by obscuring the locus of power and creating confusion when communities make claims on the state. Communities find themselves claiming rights to the city that receive varying degrees of recognition from the many authorities within the heterogeneous system. In Lagos, the state weaponizes this heterogeneous system in pursuit of modern development and urban growth.