The technological choice of Kainji hydro-electric dam in Nigeria— a blessing/curse

Whereas the socio-economic considerations under which the Kainji Dam technology was chosen were mitigated purely by some political factors, nonetheless, the bottle-necks in the Nigerian Electricity Market cannot be easily linked with the political mitigation. The problems emanated from some uncontrollable artificial and natural factors. Despite these problems, Nigeria would not have been better off without the Kainji Dam technology, given the new developments which accompanied its inception.     

Resource mobilisation,institution and inclusive growth in Africa: Evidence from spatial analysis

This study accommodates spatial effects in the nexus between tax resource mobilisation (TRM) institutions and inclusive growth using panel data from 48 African countries. By adopting the spatial Durbin-fixed effect model, the study shows that spatial dependence and interaction matter when modelling TRM, institutions and inclusive growth relationships. It is also explicit that various disaggregated and aggregated tax components have not played significant roles in increasing inclusive growth in Africa, except property tax. The result suggests the need to harness the role of property tax for revenue generation in stimulating inclusive growth in view of its growth benefits over its distortions. Further evidence shows that all individual proxies of African institutions dampen inclusive growth. These results also pinpoint the weak governance structures that constitute huge constraints on the participatory tendencies of economic growth and reflect the institutional exclusiveness inherent in Africa. Regarding the interactive effects of institutions and TRM on inclusive growth, findings further reveal that existing institutions in Africa weaken the tax administration structures in propelling TRM to actualize inclusive growth. The study informs policy implications.     

Investigating the twin-deficit phenomenon among oil-exporting countries: Does oil really matter?

This study empirically investigates the existence of twin deficits—the impact of fiscal policy on the current account—among selected major oil-exporting countries. Given the huge effects of the oil proceeds on these economies, the study separates the effects of oil on the fiscal balance from its effect on the current account balance. The investigation took a further step by grouping these countries—based on their fiscal policy actions over the period of years under review—into pro-cyclical and counter-cyclical fiscal countries. In line with the existing literature, the impact of fiscal balance on the current account balance takes into consideration the contemporaneous effects brought about by exchange rate fluctuations, the growth in GDP, rate of openness and the growth in money supply. The models are estimated based on a panel of 31 oil-exporting countries over the period 1984–2013, using the two-stage least squares estimation techniques. The results from all countries estimations reveal the existence of twin-deficit in the total economy. In the non-oil economy, on the other hand, the evidence of twin-deficit disappears. This evidence is also reported in the counter-cyclical fiscal countries. Results from pro-cyclical fiscal countries indicated the total opposite, revealing the existence of twin-deficit in the non-oil economy, while this evidence does not occur in the total economy. The indisputable conclusion is that oil dominance continues to blur the existence of twin deficits among the oil-exporting countries.     

Career success schemas and their contextual embeddedness: A comparative configurational perspective

We introduce career success schemas as critical for understanding how people in different contexts perceive and understand career success. Using a comparative configurational approach, we show, in a study of 13 countries, that two structural characteristics of career success schemas—complexity and convergence—differ across country contexts and are embedded in specific configurations of institutional factors. Adopting complexity and convergence as primary dimensions, we propose a taxonomy of career success schemas at the country level. Based on this taxonomy, we contribute to the understanding of subjective career success across countries, discuss the importance of schemas for organisational career systems in multinational enterprises, and propose specific guidelines for future comparative careers research.     

The technological choice decision making process: An example from Nigeria—the Kainji hydro-electric technology: A multi-purpose development technolog

This paper examines the technological-cum-economic/social/political criteria under which technological decisions are made. An example—The Kainji Dam hydro-electric technology—from Nigeria (a buyer of technology) is selected as a case study. The study shows the importance of socio-economic criteria in the process of making any technological choice decision. Nonetheless a close interplay of some political factors may mitigate purely the socio-economic considerations in the technological choice decision making process. This is evident in the choice of the Kainji Dam technology in Nigeria.     

Stressors,work engagement and their effects on hotel employee outcomes

Our study aims to revisit the challenge-hindrance stressor framework among customer-contact employees. Specifically, our study links challenge and hindrance stressors to four critical employee outcomes via work engagement (WE). These outcomes are quitting intentions, service recovery performance, creative performance, and job performance. Data came from hotel employees in customer-contact positions in three waves and their direct supervisors in Nigeria. As hypothesised, WE fosters service recovery, creative, and job performances, while it mitigates quitting intentions. Inconsistent with our predictions, hindrance stressors boost WE and challenge stressors exert detrimental effects on WE. Although WE links challenge and hindrance stressors to the aforementioned outcomes, the signs of the mediating effects are not congruent with what is hypothesised in the study. These unexpected findings agree with Bakker and Sanz-Vergel’s [2013] proposition that categorisation of job demands as challenge or hindrance stressors may not always be straightforward.     

Agricultural market policy reforms and growth in Nigerian export crops

The paper investigated the prospect of selected export crops in meeting the demand of emerging commodity and futures market in Nigeria within the context of a counterfactual model, The data covered about three decades （1973-2000）. The model was estimated to capture two economic policies in the period namely stabilization （1973-1985） before introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme （SAP） and liberalization policy （1986-2005） that followed SAP The results indicated positive divergence between factual and counterfactual trends for palm kernel, cocoa, coffee and rubber but neuative for groundnut after SAP