Akanganngang Joseph Asitik and Benjamin Musah Abu
This paper assessed the causal effect of women empowerment in agriculture (WEA) on household food security in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone of Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper assessed the causal effect of women empowerment in agriculture (WEA) on household food security in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone of Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used the extended probit regression with endogenous treatment to account for potential endogeneity of empowerment and food security using data from the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Feed the Future baseline survey.
Findings
All three indicators of women empowerment positively impact food security. In specific terms, when women participate in crop and livestock decision-making in the household, and when they have access to cultivable lands, their households have lower probabilities of being severely or moderately hungry. Also, crop decision-making exhibits the highest impact on food security.
Practical implications
While there may be several policy options to eradicate food insecurity challenges in Ghana, the policy measure of empowering women in agriculture needs attention. Priority should be given to empowering them in production decision-making.
Social implications
There is the need to sensitise households on the importance of women decision-making within the household and their access to land.
Originality/value
In the context of the empowerment literature, from our search, this study is the first in applying the hunger scale as a measure of food security and represents the first attempt at examining the effect of women empowerment on food security in Ghana.
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Benjamin Musah Abu and Issahaku Haruna
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connections between financial inclusion and agricultural commercialization among farmers in Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connections between financial inclusion and agricultural commercialization among farmers in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to address endogeneity and sample selectivity bias, the study employs endogenous switching regressions (ESRs) to examine whether financially included and financially excluded maize farm households differ in their commercialization behavior and whether financial inclusion affects commercialization. The Heckman Treatment Effect (HTE) model is used to test for robustness of the results. The data used contain a random sample of 2,230 maize farmers across the ten regions of Ghana.
Findings
The results from the ESRs show that financial inclusion significantly fosters agricultural commercialization. Specifically, financially included households sell 13.25 percent more output than their financially excluded counterparts. In terms of the counterfactual, financially excluded households would have sold 5.04 percent more output if they were to have access to financial services. Results from the HTE model confirm that financial inclusion promotes agricultural commercialization.
Practical implications
Financial inclusion is low among maize farmers; this implies that there are more benefits to be gained by ensuring that farmers have access to a broad range of financial services.
Social implications
The findings imply that the quest for the integration of smallholder farmers into markets cannot overlook measures to ensure financial inclusion.
Originality/value
It represents the first attempt at linking financial inclusion to agricultural commercialization using econometric methodology. The study serves as a foundation paper and for that matter will serve as a guide to future research on the financial inclusion-agricultural commercialization nexus.
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Haruna Issahaku, Munira Alhassan Muhammed and Benjamin Musah Abu
This paper aims to estimate the determinants of the intensity of use of financial inclusion by households in Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to estimate the determinants of the intensity of use of financial inclusion by households in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the reality of a household using one or more financial products or services, this study uses the generalised Poisson model applied to GLSS6 and GLSS7 data collected in 2012/2013 and 2016/2017 respectively, to estimate the determinants of the intensity of use of financial inclusion. To deepen the analysis, a multinomial probit model is also applied.
Findings
Results show that infrastructural variables such as roads, public transport and banks stimulate the intensity of financial inclusion. In addition, agricultural development characteristics such as markets and cooperatives are essential for the intensity of inclusion.
Research limitations/implications
There is a need to incorporate how many services or depth of services that people use as part of the conceptualisation of financial inclusion, as this can provide more policy-relevant evidence to enhance priority setting in financial inclusion policies. Also, micro-level financial inclusion studies in agrarian economies should consider exploring agricultural development and infrastructure variables in the modelling framework. As lead to further studies, count models of financial inclusion should consider exploring cross-country analysis, the use of panel data, or other methodological approaches to provide more robust evidence.
Originality/value
Previous studies have not modelled financial inclusion based on a count model as a means of measuring intensity though conceptualisations highlight the fact that people use varied financial products or services. Following from this angle, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first attempt at analysing the underlying determinants of the number of financial products or services used by households.
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Paul Kwame Nkegbe, Abdelkrim Araar, Benjamin Musah Abu, Yazidu Ustarz, Hamdiyah Alhassan, Edinam Dope Setsoafia and Shamsia Abdul-Wahab
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
The study uses only the ratio of sales value to output value definition for commercialization and acknowledges use of multiple definitions could be superior.
Originality/value
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.
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Samuel Sekyi, Benjamin Musah Abu and Paul Kwame Nkegbe
The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers’ access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity in the Northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers’ access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity in the Northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Secondary data from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,968 farm households were used. The conditional mixed process (CMP) framework was applied to estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity simultaneously. As a system estimator the CMP corrects for possible heterogeneity and sample selection bias.
Findings
The results from the estimations revealed that age, literacy, farm non-mechanized equipment, and group membership were the variables influencing farmers’ access to credit. Credit constraint conditions were determined by household size, locality, group membership, and household durable assets. Finally, the results showed that productivity of farmers was dependent on marital status, household size, locality, farm size, commercialization, farm mechanized equipment, group membership, and household durable assets.
Originality/value
This paper is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to use the CMP framework to jointly estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity. The results indicate that estimating credit access and constraint models separately would have yielded biased estimates. Thus, this paper informs future research on farmers’ credit access, credit constraint, and productivity for informed policymaking.
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Lokman Mohd Tahir, Sui Liang Lee, Mohammed Borhandden Musah, Hadijah Jaffri, Mohd Nihra Haruzuan Mohamad Said and Mohd Hanafi Mohd Yasin
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issues and challenges faced by headteachers in practicing the suggested distributed leadership (DL) approach in three primary…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issues and challenges faced by headteachers in practicing the suggested distributed leadership (DL) approach in three primary schools to their middle layer leaders.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed a case study design and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. A total of three headteachers were interviewed in examining and exploring challenges within the DL practices. The transcripts from the semi-structured interviews formed the basis of the findings.
Findings
The findings suggest that senior teachers lack confidence in making decisions and rely on the consent from headteachers even though they are empowered to make their own decisions. Another significant issue faced by headteachers when distributing their leadership is the ability, expertise, experience, and willingness of teachers to hold leadership roles and responsibilities.
Originality/value
The results are important since there have been few empirical studies on the issues and challenges faced by headteachers in practising DL approach in primary schools in the context of Malaysia. This initiative sidelines the traditional school leadership approach which emphasises on the accountability of headteachers as the sole school leader.
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Samuel Kwaku Agyei and Benjamin Yankey
The purpose of this paper is to assess the motivations of timber firms in Ghana to undertake environmental accounting and reporting (EAR) and the perceived benefits from it.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the motivations of timber firms in Ghana to undertake environmental accounting and reporting (EAR) and the perceived benefits from it.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey method involving primary data from a census of 13 timber firms in Kumasi (Ghana) and descriptive statistics including Kendall’s coefficient were used to analyze the perceptions of practitioners on EAR.
Findings
The study offered support for the political economy, legitimacy and stakeholder theories generally applied to the study of EAR. Specifically, the study concluded that EAR is common to timber firms in Ghana. Pressure from government, media, shareholders’ influence and the existence of environmental committee or department in the company are perceived to influence timber firms’ level of environmental disclosure. Meanwhile, perceived benefits from EAR include fostering cordial relationship between timber firms and the society, preventing government fines and improving firm reputation.
Research limitations/implications
The presence of biases in the responses of survey method studies can be difficult to eliminate. However, given the benefits associated with getting practitioners views on EAR and the reliability/validity procedures that the instruments and respondents were subjected to, this weakness was reduced to its barest minimum.
Practical implications
The study recommends that governments should adopt green tax policy to encourage EAR while regulatory bodies make EAR mandatory.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the discussion on EAR from the perspective of practitioners in the timber industry of Ghana, which has been neglected in previous studies.
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Anand Kumar, Tatiana King and Mikko Ranta
This study aims to conduct a comprehensive literature review to examine the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and firms’ engagement in environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to conduct a comprehensive literature review to examine the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and firms’ engagement in environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities. The review focuses specifically on academic papers published in ranked accounting and finance journals.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis combines a structured literature review with citation analysis, topic modeling using a machine learning (ML) approach and a manual review of selected articles published between 2000 and 2021.
Findings
This paper contributes to corporate governance and ESG literature by conducting an in-depth review, offering a comprehensive analysis of the existing findings and identifying future research directions. From the reviewed literature, this paper proposes the following thematic areas: board characteristics, ownership structure and their impact on a company’s engagement in ESG activities; CEO characteristics and their influence on a company’s involvement in ESG activities; corporate governance and ESG as sources for transparency and legitimacy; internal and external assurance of a company’s involvement in ESG activities; and gender diversity and a company’s involvement in ESG activities.
Originality/value
The study provides a comprehensive understanding of corporate governance and ESG literature. The innovative combination of methods, including ML and manual techniques, enhances the ability to identify key research topics and uncover research directions in the field. Moving forward, this paper suggests several promising directions for future research, including examining the influence of emerging technologies on ESG reporting and assessing the impact of regulatory changes and context on the link between corporate governance and firms’ involvement in ESG practices.