AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES AND ECONOMY

Service convenience is a good instrument that can be used to improve consumer behaviour in all companies. As a result, the study main objective is to examine the influence of service convenience on consumer behaviour in Osun Mall Osogbo, and other specific objectives are to examine the influence of access convenience on consumer behaviour in Osun Mall Osogbo, examine the influence of decision convenience on consumer behaviour in Osun Mall Osogbo, examine the influence of transaction convenience on consumer behaviour in Osun Mall Osogbo, Osun State. The study adopted survey research design. The target population for the study comprised of all Mall customers in Osun Mall at Osogbo, Osun state. The total population of Osun Mall customers are undefined due to improper record keeping. Research technique using employed to arrive at a certain number of customers for the total population of the customer. The questionnaire was developed by using Likert five scales which consists of relevant questions on the variables of service convenience and consumer behaviour. The formulated hypotheses were analyzed using simple linear regression. The findings from the study revealed that there is influence of Access convenience on Consumer behaviour with R^2= 0.354(35.4%), Sig. = 0.000. Also, the findings from the study revealed that there is influence of Decision convenience on Consumer behaviour with R^2= 0.280(28%), Sig. = 0.000. Also, the findings from the study revealed that there is influence of Transaction convenience on consumer behaviour with R2 = 0.295(30%), Sig. = 0.000. It was concluded that service convenience, a powerful developmental way of ensuring positive consumer behaviour. It was recommended that there should be improvement on a uniform service which should be provide to customers at their disposal and at a very minimal time in order to have easy access to services. Further, to provide all their information on products should be at an insight to the customer which will enhance their buying decision.

This paper examines how entrepreneurial activities can contribute to national development in Nigeria's cashless economy. The paper maintains that enhanced economic growth and development in the recent policy of the cashless economy of Central Bank of Nigeria can be achieved through active entrepreneurial endeavours. The paper concludes that government macroeconomic policies should be re-directed to revamp down turns in the economy in order to foster greater entrepreneurial skills, which in spread national economic development in the current Nigeria's cashless economy. The paper recommends a holistic or balanced approach in infrastructural development to advance entrepreneurial development in Nigeria.

The relevance of an efficient port system is a critical determinant of a country’s achievement of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), Country and Port Level Liner Shipping Connectivity Index (CPLLSCI), and the Logistics Performance Index (LPI). This research provides an empirical assessment of the newly opened Lekki Deep Sea Port (LDSP), a facility constructed under a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) structure between a Chinese consortium of investors, the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA), and the government. The study examined the perceptions of 192 randomly sampled freight forwarders on how the established independent factors of quality of facilities, cost of operations, and the attention paid to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (life below water) predicted their preference for the LDSP. A hierarchical linear regression model was applied to test the derived hypothesis. The results indicate that all the identified independent factors significantly predicted the respondents’ preference for the choice of LDSP. This research underscores the import of a collaborative arrangement between the public and private sectors in the funding, and management of transport projects requiring a huge financial investment. Finally, the study advocates the development of an Integrated Port Management System (IPMS) that will ride on the back of the deployment of automated operation, and Intermodal Transport System (ITS), this will achieve the purpose of having consistent positive indicators such as turnaround time, berth productivity, container dwell time, vessel productivity, port connectivity, safety and security, environmental performance, and resilience a norm rather an exception.

This study examines the relationship between debt management and economic performance in Nigeria from 1986 to 2023, with economic performance proxied by the Economic Performance Index (EPI). This study employed secondary time-series data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and the World Bank Report. Expo facto research design was applied and annual financial data was collected from Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics and Central Bank, while economic data was collected from World Bank for the period 1986-2023. The study utilized a Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) to study the impact using E-views 10. The findings reveal no significant relationship between foreign debt growth rate and the EPI, highlighting the inefficiency of external borrowing in driving economic outcomes. Similarly, domestic debt growth rate showed an insignificant impact on the EPI, suggesting the crowding-out effect of public borrowing on private investment and resource misallocation. Domestic debt servicing growth rate also demonstrated no significant relationship with the EPI, underscoring inefficiencies in debt repayment mechanisms. Conversely, foreign debt servicing growth rate exhibited a significant positive effect on the EPI, signifying that consistent repayment of external debt enhances economic credibility and facilitates access to international financial resources. However, foreign debt servicing growth rate showed no significant effect on unemployment rate, indicating limited linkages between debt-financed activities and employment generation. The study concludes that while effective debt servicing, particularly for external loans, can bolster economic performance, the broader economic impact of debt in Nigeria requires strategic management, resource optimization, and alignment with development priorities. Recommendations include improving debt utilization efficiency, fostering economic diversification, and enhancing transparency in public debt management.

This study investigates the relationship between compass management specifically strategic direction and competitive position, measured by brand strength, in Nigerian financial institutions, with a focus on Zenith Bank and Keystone Bank. Employing a descriptive survey research design, data were collected from 150 mid- and top-level management employees selected through stratified random sampling across five major banks. A structured Likert-scale questionnaire, validated by experts and demonstrating strong reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87), served as the primary data collection instrument. The study utilized regression analysis to test the hypothesis that strategic direction positively influences brand strength. Results from the regression model indicate a statistically significant positive relationship (p < 0.05) between strategic direction and brand strength, with an R² value of 0.61, suggesting that 61% of the variance in brand strength is explained by the clarity and consistency of strategic direction. The findings highlight the critical role of compass management in enhancing brand perception and competitive positioning within Nigeria’s banking sector. Zenith Bank, in particular, demonstrated stronger alignment between strategic direction and brand strength compared to Keystone Bank, emphasizing the importance of coherent leadership vision and communication in fostering customer trust and loyalty. This study contributes to the understanding of strategic leadership’s impact on brand equity and offers practical recommendations for financial institutions to reinforce their strategic vision through effective internal communication and alignment of marketing strategies with organizational goals. The study also suggests avenues for future research to explore additional compass management components that may further influence competitive advantage.

The foundation for improved audit quality in financial service firms lies in robust corporate reporting practices. However, as corporate reporting evolves, it becomes essential to examine how these practices influence audit outcomes. This study, therefore, explored the effects of corporate reporting practices namely integrated reporting, adoption of IFRS, and regulatory compliance on the audit quality of listed financial service firms in Nigeria. This study employed an cross-sectional research design, analyzing secondary data from listed financial service firms on the Nigerian Exchange Group from 2014 to 2023. The independent variables examined were integrated reporting (IR), adoption of IFRS (ARS), and regulatory compliance (RC), while audit quality was measured using audit opinion. A binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship between these variables, followed by diagnostics such as Multicollinearity and Goodness of-fit-test. The findings indicate that while integrated reporting does not significantly affect audit quality, the adoption of IFRS and regulatory compliance have significant positive effects on audit quality. This highlights the importance of adhering to international standards and regulatory frameworks in promoting higher audit. Reliability and transparency in the financial sector. The study recommends that financial service firms should continue to adopt IFRS and strengthen regulatory compliance, even though integrated reporting may not directly influence audit outcomes. This      research contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between corporate reporting practices and audit quality, particularly within the context of Nigeria’s financial service sector.

Information disclosure is supposed to be the channel that connects the shareholders with the managers according to agency assumption. However, this connection is strained when the credibility of the information disclosed by companies becomes questionable, especially when it relates to non-financial information such as; environmental, social, and governance disclosure that are voluntary in a country like Nigeria. This study investigated the effect of information asymmetry on quality of non-financial disclosed by publicly listed companies in Nigeria. The study is quantitative research; so, the longitudinal research design was adopted. The study focused on ten companies listed on the Nigeria Exchange Group purposively selected from the consumer goods sector. Data were collected from the annual reports of the targeted companies, for a coverage period of 2013 to 2022. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and panel data regression analyses. The findings revealed that information asymmetry have positive significant effect on social disclosure of public liability companies in Nigeria. It was also found that its effect on governance was positive but, insignificant. It however also showed significant and positive effect on environmental disclosure. The study concluded that information asymmetry can be reduced when full disclosure of non-financial information particularly the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) disclosure is maintained; thereby leading to reduction in agency problem. The study recommends that companies’ shareholders should glamour for more robust non-financial disclosure to reduce information asymmetry problem and gain global relevance and acceptability for sustainable development.

Rice (Oryza sativa) is a staple food crop in Anambra State of Nigeria and could be found in the homes of the higher class, the middle-income earner and the poor. The rice farmers in Anambra state in 2024 rain-fed cropping season were aged (about 46 years) and have been in the farming business for more than 20 years and the youths were not willing to take up rice production as a means of livelihood because they consider it an unprofitable enterprise. This study carried out a gross margin analysis of rice production enterprise in Anambra State in the 2024 rain-fed cropping season as a second-best approach to determine the profit level of the enterprise and it applied Monte Carlo Simulation techniques to estimate the expected average gross margin and its distribution for a typical rice farmer in the state. This study used secondary cross-sectional data which was primarily collected in a survey carried out in eight Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state during the 2024 rain-fed cropping season by the state’s Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP). The survey design was a multistage stratified sampling design. In the first stage, 8 LGAs out of the 21 LGAs in the state were selected for further sampling. The sample size of 543 was apportioned to the selected LGAs with proportionality to their sizes. In each of the selected LGA, systematic sampling was used to select the desired number of farmers from the sampling frame which was the updated listing of all VCDP beneficiary farmers in the LGA. The data was collated and managed with Microsoft excel spread sheet and statistical analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study computed the frequency of response of categorical variables and the descriptive statistics of the continuous variables. The estimated deterministic value of the gross margin was N 3,201,954.16. On simulating with the monte Carlo technique, after 2000 iterations the resultant expected gross margin was estimated at N 3,236,890 only. The average of the expected gross margin was N3,206,500; the expected minimum was N 767,194; and the expected maximum was N 5,748,844; and the expected class interval was estimated at N 498,165. The constraints identified in the study were: insufficient funds, scarcity and high cost of labour, scarcity and high cost of improved rice seeds, and difficulty of obtaining credit. Some of the recommendations made by the study were: (i) government should subsidize farming inputs like fertilizers and herbicides to reduce the cost burden on farmers and financial institutions should make credit facilities available and affordable to the farmers. (ii) Government should increase the ratio of the number of extension agents to farmers so that the farmers will have more frequent contact with extension agents. 

Oil palm is an important crop in Nigeria and the main products are palm oil and palm kernel. These are used for food and nonfood purposes. The older trees are aging and new ones are not springing up commensurably, thereby creating a supply gap in the industry. Farmers are risk-averse and tend to prefer short gestation crops. There is the need to stimulate local production and substitute for hard currency payments for the imports. This study is aimed at establishing that despite the long gestation period of oil palm, investments in the enterprise was viable and profitable. The objective of the study was to carry out an investment analysis of oil palm production in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. The questions guiding the study were whether oil palm production enterprise in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria provided a viable means of livelihood for the farmers specifically: (a) Is the Net Present Value estimated for oil palm enterprise positive? (b) Is the Internal Rate of Return estimated for oil palm production greater than the opportunity cost of capital? (c) Is the Benefit Cost Ratio computed for oil palm production enterprise greater than unity? (d) How robust are the estimated decision ratios and what effect did fluctuations on yield and prices’ level have on the production process? Knowledge of the economic indicators of oil palm production will enable prospective entrepreneurs rank oil palm production properly among other candidate enterprises (for selection) for investment as a means of livelihood. The research design for this study is quantitatively descriptive research design following the investment analysis of the firm. The data used in this study was secondary data which were primarily collected during the Commodity and Enterprise Analysis Survey of the Niger Delta Region, Nigeria. The data was collated and analysed using Microsoft Excel. It was found out that the base Internal Rate of Return was 35%, and the base Net Present Value was estimated at N5,815,473 and the Benefit Cost Ratio was estimated at 3.4. Since the Internal Rate of Return was greater than the hurdle rate of 14%, and the Net Present Value greater than unity, it was concluded that oil palm production in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria is profitable because it could pay back any loan and leave some surplus for the farmer. The estimated Internal Rate of Return was relatively stable and almost insensitive to small changes in yield, output price, total benefits, investment cost and operating costs. It is worthy to note that the annual incremental revenue without the oil palm enterprise was only N 20,960 per annum but with the oil palm enterprise the annual incremental revenue was N 2,227,640. This reaffirms the conclusion that oil palm production in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria is profitably viable. The oil palm farmers in the Niger Delta were constrained by the high cost, adulteration non availability of farm inputs especially fertilizers and agrochemicals. Similarly, agricultural loans were not readily available to farmers because commercial banks were risk averse and require expensive collaterals which the farmers could not afford. It is recommended that the government should assist the farmers by enacting policies that would ensure timely provision of unadulterated inputs including land, fertilizers and agrochemicals to the oil palm farmers at affordable prices.