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This paper aimed to examine the impacts of agricultural services on welfare of rural farmers in Ghana.

Using data from 1431 rural maize farmers, we employ multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability weighted regression adjustment to assess the impacts.

Results show that 19.8%, 9.7% and 3.42% of farmers adopted solely irrigation, extension and mechanization, respectively. Furthermore, utilizing a range of agricultural services significantly improves maize yields, gross income and per capita food consumption.

This study recommends strategies that target the adoption of combinations of agricultural services to enhance rural farmers’ welfare in Ghana and other developing countries.

While agricultural services are claimed to improve agricultural production and peasants’ welfare, their impacts are not studied exhaustively. This paper contributes by providing empirical evidence of the impacts of agricultural services on farmers’ welfare.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0745.

This paper examines the nexus between input credit access, farm performance and food nutrition in Ghana.

Using a random sample of 239 smallholder rice farmers, we utilized the endogenous switching regression model to address the self-selection issue and estimate the impact of input credit access on farm performance and food nutrition and further analyze the heterogenous impacts.

The results show that socioeconomic (age, education, sex, off-farm activity and farm size), institutional (extension contact and farmer-based organizations) characteristics and location variable significantly influence the decision to access input credit. After adjusting for both observed and unobserved factors, our findings reveal that access to input credit significantly improves rice yield, net profit and food nutrition of smallholder rice farmers in Ghana. Furthermore, results reveal that the effects of input credit access on rice yield, net profit and food nutrition are heterogeneous and subject to farmers’ propensity to access input credit. Specifically, we find that those with a higher inclination to access input credit experience larger positive impacts, indicating a positive selection process.

Access to agricultural input credit is essential for the adoption of modern and climate-smart technologies in agricultural production. However, the persistent lack of access to input credit hampers agricultural productivity and constrains investment in farm input resources in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our study calls for proper targeting of input credit interventions to incentivize the uptake of farm input credit such as improved seeds and fertilizers to improve overall crop production and achieve food security.

The study utilized rigorous econometric methods to analyze the impact of input credit access on smallholder rice farmers' farm performance and food nutrition in Ghana. The findings provide valuable guidance for policymakers and future research on agricultural development in Ghana.

While big data analytics can spur innovation among firms, it is unclear whether it can effectively drive value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture to deal with disruptions and the ever-changing demands of customers. This study therefore aims to examine how value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture can be improved through big data analytics capability (BDAC). This study advances the discourse by investigating how the market environment and strategic orientations play significant but little-studied roles in enhancing or lessening BDAC’s impact on business model innovation (BMI).

Drawing on dynamic capability and contingency perspectives, a model of five hypotheses was developed and validated using survey data from 208 managers of manufacturing firms in Ghana. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was used for the analysis.

The findings revealed that BDAC and strategic orientation (market and learning) directly influence the dimensions of BMI (value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture). The findings further showed that strategic orientations partially mediate the BDAC–BMI link. The authors also noted that the BDAC–BMI link is amplified at high levels of market dynamism.

The findings suggest that investing in BDA alone may not be sufficient to drive superior business model innovation. However, market orientation and continuous learning are crucial to fully realizing BDAC’s full potential in enabling value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture, especially in a dynamic market environment.

This study contributes to existing BMI literature by being the first to examine how BDAC facilitates value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture in developing countries. This paper also advances BM literature by theorizing and validating important but rarely studied roles of strategic orientations and market dynamism. Thus, this paper extends the understanding of the conditions and mechanisms through which the effect of BDAC on value creation, value proposition, value delivery and value capture can be optimized.