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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 study empirically examines the effect of supply chain integration (SCI) on financial performance (FP) and controls for the mediating effects of supply chain agility (SCA), supply chain (SC) innovation and operational performance (OP).

Through a causal research design, structured questionnaires were used for primary data collection from 217 commercial poultry farms (CPFs) operating in the Bono Region of Ghana. Structural equation modeling was reflectively configured to test the formulated hypotheses.

SCI causes a statistically significant moderate positive variance in OP in terms of cost-effectiveness, order fulfillment rate, operating cycle, inventory turns, business process innovation. SCI is an insignificant weak positive predictor of FP (growth in revenue, profit, return on investment, sales growth) of CPFs operating in Ghana. Furthermore, OP significantly and positively mediates the predictive relationship between SCI and FP. Again, SC innovation significantly mediates the predictive relationship between SCI and OP. However, SCA fails to significantly mediate the predictive relationship between SCI and OP.

Focal firms' characteristics were ignored, although they may determine how SCI affects OP and FP in the presence of SCA and SC innovation.

Empirically, SCI has no direct impact on FP of CPFs but does so indirectly through the mediating role of OP.

Ghana's economy is largely agrarian, and the business of agriculture is dominated by smallholder farmers who are predominantly rural dwellers. As a result, efforts to lift rural farming households from poverty have been narrowed to the promotion of agricultural development to the neglect of the rural non-farm sector. However, this is fast changing in the advent of a burgeoning rural nonfarm economy and must engage the attention of policy actors. This study thus assesses the effect of non-farm participation on households' level of commercialization of agricultural crops in Ghana.

The study applies a generalized structural equation model (GSEM) to the Ghana Living Standards Survey round 6 dataset, a stratified and nationally representative random sample of 16,772 households in 1,200 enumeration areas.

This study finds that non-farm participation increases the produce sold to output ratio. It is concluded that non-farm engagement by farmers boosts commercialization in Ghana. Thus, for the Ghanaian and similar contexts, agricultural development interventions that incorporate non-farm activities are more likely to be successful in improving livelihoods.

The study uses only the ratio of sales value to output value definition for commercialization and acknowledges use of multiple definitions could be superior.

Various empirical studies have examined the link between the farm and nonfarm sectors. This paper is original in its approach as it tackles an aspect of the subject that has been understudied, namely, an exploration of nonfarm and farm linkages from the perspective of agricultural commercialization.

The purpose of this research is to understand the importance of value orientation on conspicuous consumption in the youth market segment in Southeast Asia. In particular, the focus is to understand three different types of value orientation (specifically cultural values, material values and religious values) and its effects on conspicuous consumption behaviour.

An integrative theoretical model is proposed based on Hofstede's cultural dimension, the materialism value scale and religious commitments to predict the relationship for the value orientations of Generation Y's (Gen Y's) conspicuous consumption behaviour. The data was collected from undergraduate students enrolled in general education courses in three universities in Malaysia. Using cross-sectional data, 262 sets of valid questionnaires were used to perform the statistical analysis for the measurement and structural model using partial least squares equation modelling (PLS-SEM) path modelling.

We position our study by raising the pertinent question of “Seriously, Conspicuous Consumption?” to establish a clear understanding of whether Malaysian Gen Y individuals are conspicuous consumers and, if they are, which of the three values matter the most. In order to answer the question of whether Malaysian Gen Y engages in conspicuous consumption, we arrive at an understanding that, given multi-value orientations, conspicuous behaviour can be motivated and impacted by one value orientation and constrained by others. Hence, value orientation offers an insightful explanation of one specific type of consumer behaviour in the context of Asia as an emerging global market. Thus, our study provides two key theoretically significant findings. In general, our findings provide insights into how the multi-value orientations (i.e. cultural, material and religious orientations) contribute to several bodies of literature—namely, conspicuous consumption, international marketing and transcultural marketing. The results revealed that collectivism and materialism were positively and significantly related to conspicuous consumption. Uncertainty avoidance, although significant, had a negative relationship with conspicuous consumption. The other values (masculinity, power distance and religious values) were not significantly related to conspicuous consumption.

Purchasing luxury goods is becoming an emergent phenomenon in Asia, particularly among young consumers. This paper provides marketing managers, particularly brand owners, with practical and realisable examples of how to plan and execute their marketing plans. A more profound understanding of this relationship may also serve to aid marketing managers in devising more focused marketing strategies and thus allocate marketing resources more efficiently. Hence, marketers could develop an effective communication strategy so that the target consumers will be aware of their goods because the purchase of luxury goods is likely to be motivated by social, cultural and personal factors.

This article examines the impact of value orientations on conspicuous consumption behaviour in Malaysian Gen Y consumers. The model proposed in this study is useful in predicting conspicuous consumption among Gen Y. By identifying the factors influencing this emergent type of consumer behaviour, global retailers will be informed about this particular market segmentation in terms of its preferences and desires. The article discusses the research findings and concludes with managerial implications and limitations.