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The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate nursing students’ use of mobile learning (m-learning) and the factors contributing to their use of m-learning.

In total, 586 nursing students from three universities in Ghana participated in this study. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, sample t-test and multiple regression were used to analyze the data.

The research found that most students owned smartphones. Mobile technology was mainly used for doing homework. The result indicates that gender differences exist in terms of perceived usefulness of m-learning. In addition, age differences exist with regard to the perceived ease of use of m-learning. Furthermore, students showed positive attitudes toward the use of technology. Finally, perceived usefulness and attitudes toward the use of technology predicted students’ intention to use m-learning.

Despite the abundance of research on nursing education in other countries, there is a lack of research on nursing students’ use of m-learning and factors influencing their implementation of m-learning in higher learning institutions in Ghana. This study is important because it provides a clear description of nursing students’ use of m-learning and factors affecting their use in schools. Also, the author suggests that information from this study assists school administrators and nursing educators to understand students’ positions regarding m-learning in classroom.

This paper aims to develop and test a research model to explore the factors that influence pre-service teachers’ intention to use learning management system (LMS).

A cross-section study was conducted. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from participants. The total number of participants was 361 pre-service teachers. Partial least square structural equation model was used to analyze the data.

The findings of this study found that the research model explained approximately 43% of the variance in behavioral intention. Also, the findings revealed that attitude and social influence had an effect on behavioral intention to use technology, but the facilitating condition had no effect on behavior intention to use technology. Finally, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence had an effect on attitude while facilitating condition had no effect on attitude.

In technology acceptance research, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and technology acceptance model (TAM) have been broadly designed and empirically tested to elucidate the determinants that impact users’ intention to operate technology in the developed world. However, research on the validation of TAM and UTAUT to explain the determinants that influence preservice teachers’ intention to use a LMS in developing countries is insufficient. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the efficacy of the integrated model of TAM and UTAUT to explain preservice teachers’ intention to use technology and explore the influential determinants that explain preservice teachers’ intention to use LMS.

This study aims to analyze the efficiency of banks under board gender diversity and to examine the determinants of bank efficiency.

Data for analysis were sourced from annual reports of 21 banks for the period from 2009 to 2017. A two-step framework was used: first, an examination of efficiency scores with and without board gender diversity computed using data envelopment analysis; and second, a regression of board gender diversity as a determinant of bank efficiency using panel estimation on an unbalanced panel data.

The results reveal that gender diversity promotes bank efficiency up to a maximum of two female directors on a nine-member board of directors, suggesting a threshold effect on bank efficiency. Board size improves bank efficiency. Board independence is negatively related to bank efficiency. Also, powerful chief executive officers are detrimental for bank efficiency. Finally, the authors find that ownership structure, bank size, bank age and loan-to-deposit ratio are important factors affecting bank efficiency.

All bank-year observations with no female representation on the board were excluded. As such, this paper is limited to 21 banks. Future research should look at a larger data set and account for dynamic endogeneity.

The paper contributes to bank governance structure, namely, gender composition of boards, and provides an insight for regulators and shareholders to estimate the role of men and women on boards.

The novel feature of the efficiency model used is that it incorporates board gender diversity as an additional input variable, in line with the preposition of proponent of resource dependency theory.

The poverty puzzle persists in sub-Saharan Africa decades after some other regional bodies have recorded substantial gains in their poverty reduction efforts. This study seeks to explore the extent to which social inclusion influences poverty outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study constructs a social inclusion index and its sub-indices using principal component analysis and employs the Lewbel instrumental variable estimation method to test the impact of the computed social inclusion indices on poverty outcomes for 19 sub-Saharan African countries.

The results have shown that social inclusion reduces the proportion of the poor and the depth of poverty within sub-Saharan Africa significantly. We also observe a U-shaped relationship between social inclusion and poverty outcomes; thus, social inclusion’s poverty-reducing effect sees a reversal when it hits a certain threshold.

The study provides the evidence needed to inform the policy discourse on the poverty problem, which continues to plague sub-Saharan Africa.

With sub-Saharan Africa’s position as the region with the worst poverty statistics, the results of this study will prove useful in tackling poverty to ensure improved quality of life.

This study presents original evidence on social inclusion and its relationship with poverty.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2023-0640

Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are the engine of growth of most developing countries, as they employ a large number of people as opposed to large firms. Consequently, these enterprises should succeed in expanding to become significant employers and producers. However, what seems obvious at least through cursory observation is that the current state of SMEs betrays an economic loss with respect to the benefits that ought to be forthcoming from their potential. This loss can be triggered by a number of factors. The study determines the drivers of internal fraud and their impact on Ghanaian SMEs and prescribes coping mechanisms.

Primary data collected on 250 SMEs collected from various sectors across Accra, the capital of Ghana, are used for this study. Using a cross-sectional regression, the authors identify the key drivers of internal fraud that hamper the growth of Ghanaian SMEs.

The regression results show that although several fraud variables impact negatively the growth of the SME sector, it is only accounting fraud which is significant. This study also revealed that stealing, fake currency issued for the payment of goods or service and non-payment of goods or service account for almost 83 per cent of fraud cases experienced by SMEs.

The study was limited to the SMEs located in the Accra, the capital of Ghana.

The study will offer SMEs owners methods that will assist in their determination to fight fraud in the business that they manage.

The survival of SMEs is paramount to job creation. Consequently, combating fraud that stifle the growth of SMEs will allow SMEs to grow to their full potential and create more job opportunities for the unemployed. This will minimizes the social vices such as robbery, stealing, drug trafficking and prostitution that confront nations.

This study should be useful to managers of SMEs, auditors and the security agencies in developing economies in particular, in their quest to combat fraud within SMEs.

Fraud is a global economic menace which threatens the survival of individuals, firms, industries and economies, and the mobile money service is no exception. This paper aims to explore the main causes of fraud in the mobile money services in Ghana and the measures to combat the menace by the key stakeholders connected to the mobile money services. The paper is motivated by recent reports of numerous fraudulent transactions on the mobile money platform, and the need to clamp down these nefarious transactions with effective and practical measures to sustain the service.

A thorough review of existing studies on fraud risk relating to mobile money services was done revealing a paucity of literature on the subject. Primary data were gathered using an interview guide to explore the magnitude of the problem based on the views of employees of mobile money operators, mobile money agents, banking supervisors from Bank of Ghana, employees of partnering banks, employees of National Communications Authority and mobile money subscribers.

The study revealed that fraud in mobile money services is caused by weak internal controls and systems, lack of sophisticated information technology tools to detect the menace, inadequate education and training and the poor remuneration of employees. These factors disrupt the growth, and the smooth-running of the services. To curb this menace, a detailed legal code and internal fraud policy should be developed and used by mobile money operators and partner banks. Adequate training for mobile money agents should be encouraged coupled with public awareness campaigns to educate stakeholders especially the mobile money subscribers on the tricks of the fraudsters.

With the chosen research methodology and limited sample size, the findings may not reflect the views of all the stakeholders connected to the mobile money services. Therefore, future studies on this subject are entreated to use research methods which embrace larger samples to get more details about this menace.

The study will assist in tackling the mobile money fraud to sustain the service in the foreseeable future.

This paper contributes to scanty literature on fraud relating to the mobile money services by drawing lessons from a middle-income country.

This paper aims to empirically examine the relationship between disclosure and risk-taking of banks in Ghana. The study also aims to gain an insight into the general risk-taking behaviour of banks in Ghana for the period 2007-2011.

The study used panel regression model and relate risk-taking to disclosure, controlling for bank size, profitability, liquidity and treasury bill rate. Disclosure scores from a disclosure index are used as a measure of disclosure, likewise Z-score as a measure of total risk. Also, the ratio of provisions for loan losses to gross loans by each bank for each year was used to examine the general risk-taking behaviour of Ghanaian banks.

The study revealed that the election year and the immediate subsequent year are characterized by an increase in non-performing loans. Greater disclosure is associated with more risk-taking and vice versa. This implies that market discipline is not effective in Ghana. Treasury bill rate, profitability and liquidity were found to be economically meaningful and statistically significant in influencing risk-taking of banks in Ghana.

As there are relatively few studies conducted in this area, specifically among banks in Ghana, this study will broaden the scope of the literature on disclosure and risk-taking by providing empirical evidence.

The study examines the relationship between the consequential social cost of market power (i.e. welfare performance of banks) and cost efficiency using data covering the period 2009 to 2017 from the Ghanaian banking industry.

The study adopts the ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effect (FE) panel regression and the quantile regression (QR) approaches to control for heterogeneity and provide increased room for policy relevance. The two-stage least squares instrumental variables (2SLS-IV) regression is used to ensure the robustness of the findings against the problem of possible reverse causality.

The results indicate a positive relationship between banks' welfare performance and cost efficiency, which suggests that greater cost efficiency hedges welfare losses. In other words, welfare gains and cost-efficient banks are not mutually exclusive. Also, the results show evidence that the sensitivity of welfare gain to cost efficiency depends on the knowledge of local market dynamics. Further, the findings from the QR estimation suggest that, but for welfare loss at low (Q.25) to the median (Q.50) quantiles, cost efficiency is a necessary and sufficient condition to hedge the welfare losses.

The results demonstrate that financial consumer protection cannot be achieved without cost efficiency in the presence of both foreign banks and high market knowledge. Therefore, our paper suggests an integrated cost efficiency policy approach that has the complementary effect of a robust information sharing mechanism and incentives to hedge against welfare losses in the banking sector of emerging economies. Moreover, if welfare gain is synonymous with cost-efficient banks, then the presence of a quiet life is typical of financial consumer protection.

This study provides insight into the importance of cost efficiency to the public policy of financial consumer protection in an era of foreign banks' dominance. From the review of prior literature, this paper is the first to apply the QR estimation technique to examine the effect of cost efficiency throughout the conditional distribution of bank welfare performance rather than just the conditional mean effect of cost efficiency.

This study aims to assess the fraud cases, factors and control measures of financial fraud in the drug industry with evidence from Ghana. Drug industry and pharmaceutical are the same, and they are used interchangeably in this study.

Data from questionnaires were collected from 412 manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of the drug industry. Data were presented and analysed with descriptive statistics and probit regression.

Results show that, in general, stealing of drugs, stealing of cash, usage of fake cheques, falsified documents and dubious accounting practices are some of the fraud cases in the industry. Factors such as gender, educational level, religious beliefs, regulatory 7measures, pressure, rationalization and opportunities influence financial fraud in the drug industry. Control measures such as thorough assessment of products, regular review of fraud policies, installation of fraud-detection software and effective internal systems could reduce the menace.

The paper addresses a number of theoretical and systemic issues on financial fraud in the drug industry but with limited specific quantitative data or calculations as well as limited sample size. Further studies could offer a more quantitative approach with a larger sample size in an attempt, for instance, to estimate the financial costs of financial fraud to the drug industry.

This paper openly tackles various attempted frauds and financial malfeasances from stakeholder perspectives in the drug industry. Practical measures have been given to tackle the consequences of the menace.

This paper is geared towards providing valuable learning points for stakeholders in the drug industry to handle daily operations to assist them in detecting and preventing similar occurrence of financial fraud.

This paper aims to measure the extent of effects of insurance fraud on the financial performance of insurance companies in Ghana. It also examines the causes and stringent measures that can be used to fight against insurance fraud.

Primary and secondary data obtained from 39 insurers in Ghana are used in this paper. A multiple regression model is used to determine the relationship between financial performance and insurance fraud variables.

The results from the model indicate that statistically insurance fraud has a significant negative effect on the annual return on assets (financial performance) of insurers in Ghana. Also, weak internal controls, poor remuneration of employees, falsified documents, deliberate acts of policyholders to profit from the insurance contract and inadequate training for independent brokers are found to be the major causes of insurance fraud in Ghana. To deter insurance fraud, effective internal fraud policy, rigorous assessment of insurance policies and claims, adequate training for independent brokers on insurance fraud and modern information technology tools are paramount in fighting this menace in Ghana.

These findings are to have substantial impact on the techniques insurance companies will develop to fight insurance fraud and the policies that will be developed by governments and national insurance regulatory bodies to fight this menace.

The main value of this paper is the determination of the key variables that constitute insurance fraud and their impacts on the annual financial performance of insurance companies in Ghana.