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The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which Chiefs are involved in Ghana’s decentralization process and assess the benefits and challenges associated with the formal inclusion of Chiefs in local governance in Ghana.

The study applied a qualitative inductive approach and employed interviews and focus group discussions to gather data from selected traditional areas within the Volta Region of Ghana.

The findings reveal conflicting roles being performed by Chiefs and local government actors leading to role conflicts.

Though the study is limited with respect to its scope, it opens up the debate regarding the position of Chiefs in Ghana’s decentralized local governance system and also serves as a useful point of reference for future research in the decentralization process and the Chieftaincy institution.

The paper provides an opportunity for stakeholders in Ghana’s decentralized local governance system to review the current decentralization policy to take care of the concerns of the traditional authorities at the grassroots. The recommendations, among others, call for a great deal of consensus building between the Chiefs and local government actors to enhance the success of the decentralization process.

The paper provides evidence regarding the loopholes in the structure of Ghana’s decentralized local governance system which appear to exclude the traditional authorities thereby affecting the smooth running of that system.

Increased competition amongst the hotel industry players has challenged managers not to focus their attention exclusively on ways to attract and satisfy their customers, but to invest in customer retention strategies with the potential to ensure superior performance of their hotels. This study aims to determine strategies to retain customers in hotels in Ghana, an emerging market. A cross-sectional survey was employed to collect data from 677 hotel employees in 56 Ghanaian licensed hotels. Based on SmartPLS, study findings indicate that customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention embedded in the tangibility and reliability dimensions of the lodging quality index are important for customer retention among hotels in Ghana.

In the development of a firm’s market orientation, management commitment plays a critical role. This study aimed to examine the influence of management commitment on market orientation on the basis of the MARKOR framework of market orientation. This was done through a survey of three-star, four-star and five-star licensed hotels located in Ghana. PLS-SEM was used to analyse data based on SmartPLS. Results showed a positive relationship between management commitment and the behavioural processes included in the MARKOR framework of market orientation: intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness to intelligence. Results also revealed that intelligence dissemination mediates the relationship between management commitment and responsiveness to intelligence. Intelligence generation was not found to mediate this relationship. This study has extended current knowledge by elaborating how management commitment influences market orientation practices.