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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence Ghanaian tertiary students’ career choices. The paper explores the dimensionality of the career choice factors within the Ghanaian context and also ascertains their degree of influence on students’ career choices.

The study employs survey method of research and a set of questionnaire was used to examine the factors that influence students’ career choices. A total of 354 undergraduate students from the Ashesi University College in Ghana participated in the study. Factor analysis was conducted on the career choice factors and differences in response between science and business students were ascertained by means of independent sample t-test.

The findings of this study indicate that university students in Ghana place much premium on intrinsic value and employability/financial prospect in their career choice decisions than such factors as prestige and desired working conditions.

The findings of this study are relevant for policymakers and tertiary education providers interested in making the study of science an attractive option for university students in Ghana.

The findings of this paper highlight some of the underlining reasons for the unpopularity of the study of sciences among university students in Ghana.

In the accounting field, sustainability accounting (SA) has evolved as a valuable tool that links improvements in environmental, social and governance issues to financial performance. This study aims to examine the structure and evolution of SA research, map the state of knowledge and analyse the literature trends and gaps.

The study adopts a bibliometric review technique with data sourced from the Scopus database. A total of 7,049 extant literature spanning from 1982 to 2022 was analysed using the VOSviewer software.

The authors find a significant growth in the number of publications on SA research, primarily driven by collaboration among researchers from Europe and America. The analysis highlights emerging themes, structure and discusses in detail the changing phases of SA research over the past four decades while highlighting key events that have impacted the development of SA research. Furthermore, the dominant theories used by extant studies are discussed and potential avenues for future research are provided. The authors draw the attention of the research community to the dominant authors, the most cited articles, prominent publication outlets and countries advancing research in this field.

This study advances knowledge on SA research by providing a retrospective assessment of the state of knowledge in the field while highlighting avenues for future research.

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.

The purpose of this study is to examine citizens’ perceptions of government performance and its impact on their willingness to pay taxes.

Data from the Afrobarometer round eight surveys, with a substantial 39,624 observations across 34 African countries, was analysed using ordinary least squares.

The authors uncover compelling evidence that although Africans generally have a positive attitude towards paying taxes, their decision to pay taxes is influenced by their perceptions of the government’s performance. Specifically, they find that perceptions of how the government handles economic management, provides basic health needs and protects the rights of people with disabilities significantly influence individuals’ willingness to pay taxes. Surprisingly, the authors find that although Africans rate their governments as high performers in resolving conflicts, that demotivates them from paying taxes.

These findings emphasise that citizens’ tax compliance goes beyond simple willingness; they also expect governments’ performance to meet their expectations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to examine individual taxpayers’ perceptions of their government’s performance and its role in enhancing tax compliance across Africa.

This paper aims to review corporate fraud, as a concept, and the emerging research trends in corporate fraud research from 1957 to 2022 using bibliometric analysis techniques.

A total of 7,750 publications from the Scopus database were first assessed using performance analysis to explore the descriptive nature of the bibliographic data, and subsequently, citation, co-citation, co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling analyses were conducted using the VOSviewer software.

The results indicate there has been increasing growth in fraud research over the years, especially since the global corporate scandals of 2008. Although fraud is a global issue, the results suggest that most extant studies originate from developed economies, with a high level of collaboration amongst scholars in these countries. In addition, the co-occurrence analysis indicates that research into corporate fraud has largely focused on its determinants and corruption. The determinants identified are further clustered in the paper as individual, organizational and national-level factors.

The findings should inform practitioners and policymakers of the state of knowledge on corporate fraud which could be useful in developing strategies and policies to mitigate its occurrence.

The study points to the need for research collaborations among scholars in developing economies to increase investigations into the occurrences of fraud.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to holistically assess the intellectual structure of corporate fraud studies from its inception and the trends over time.

This study aims to investigate the belief that the innovative/skilled use of financing and dividend policy decision techniques depends on the firm’s host market classifications (frontier, emerging and developed markets).

Using survey studies with similar questions, the authors reviewed, tallied and compared firm characteristic subgroup mean values of 2.4 and above (≥ 60% usage rate) per technique per market classification for the financing decisions analysis. In the dividend policy analysis, the authors tabulated existing rank results per market classification.

Managers in Malaysia significantly issue stock based on whether the firm's recent profits have been sufficient to fund their activities; this technique is of low value to US and Ghanaian managers. Managers in Ghana significantly limit their debt so their customers/suppliers are not worried about the firm going out of business; this technique has low value for Malaysian and US managers. Managers in Malaysia significantly issue debt when it gives investors a better impression of their firm prospects than issuing stock; this technique is not valuable to Ghanaian and US managers. On dividends, Ghanaian and sanctioned Iranian managers significantly consider cash availability before a dividend decision; this has low value to emerging and developed market managers.

These findings suggest that managers must customise their sets of valuable financing and dividend techniques to reflect the business risks and hurdles per their firm’s host market classification – as markets may determine a technique’s usefulness. Also, the innovative/skilful use of financing and dividend techniques decreases as managers move from developed to frontier markets, possibly due to degrading market conditions.

A global comparative study of survey literature covering frontier, emerging and developed markets is rare in the literature.

This paper reviews scholarly literature on electronic banking (EB) research over a three-decade period. The focus of this review is to evaluate the intellectual structure and trends and unearth new areas in the research domain of EB.

Drawing data from the Scopus database, a bibliometric analysis was performed on 2,391 research articles published in the EB domain. The articles were examined and synthesized through volume analysis, citation analysis, authorship analysis and the level of collaboration, co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis. A well-known bibliometric tool, VOSviewer, was used to create and analyse various bibliometric maps, networks and tables.

This study uncovers the temporal and spatial trends of publications on EB, the most influential documents, authors, productive publication outlets, countries in the domain, the status of collaboration and the major themes that have been studied in the literature. The publication trail over the years has been gauged using overlay visualization.

This paper highlights new concepts that have emerged in EB over the past three decades and suggests future avenues for research in this area.

Research in the domain of EB is empirical, with only a handful of studies being literature reviews. This is the first-of-its-kind study that aims to trace the development of electronic banking over the past 29 years, from 1994 to 2022, through bibliometric analysis and network visualization.

The purpose of this study is to examine the key predictors of whistleblowing intention of accountants within the organization. By relying on the benefit-to-cost differential theory, this study examines the influence of professional skepticism, cognitive styles and perceived organizational support on whistleblowing intentions while controlling for the effect of some demographic variables on the estimated results. Further, the authors ascertain whether the threat of retaliation moderates the relationship between professional skepticism and whistleblowing intentions.

Data was obtained from professional accountants licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana by means of self-administered questionnaires. The partial least square-structural equation modeling technique was used to test for the hypothesized relationships in this study.

The results of this study suggest the intention to report wrongdoing within the organization is influenced by individuals’ level of professional skepticism, cognitive style and the perception that they will have the backing of their organization in reporting wrongdoing. Moreover, the authors also find females and individuals who have advanced in age to have greater motivation to report wrongdoing in the organization.

This study contributes to whistleblowing literature by highlighting the effect of professional skepticism on whistleblowing intentions. Also, this study provides empirical support for the applicability of the benefit-to-cost differential theory to the whistleblowing literature.

This study examines the multidimensionality of the environmental literacy concept among university business students in Ghana. The study also investigates the relationship between students’ interests in environmental issues and knowledge levels of environment and assesses how these two constructs influence students overall environmental behaviour and actions.

Using a total of 591 business students from the University of Ghana Business School, the study uses exploratory factor analysis to examine the multidimensionality of environmental literacy concept. A structural equation modelling-based approach was used to examine the relationship among the study constructs.

Based on the factor analysis results, the study documents that environmental literacy concept can be grouped under four distinct factors (general environmental factors; industry-related factors; environmental assessment factors; and accounting-related factors). The regression results indicate a direct and positive relationship between students’ interest in environmental issues and their environmental literacy level. Also, students’ interest and their knowledge levels of environmental issues were found to be good predictors of actual students’ involvement in activities that promote sustainable environment.

The conclusions of the study are based on only data from one public university, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

The study is unique as it is the first empirical study to investigate environmental literacy levels in higher education in the Ghanaian setting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the whistleblowing intentions of external auditors and the factors that influence their intentions.

Using the survey methodology, data was collected from 339 external auditors from licensed private audit firms. The partial least squares structural equation modelling technique was used to analyse the data.

The results indicate that external auditors have a greater propensity to blow the whistle on wrongdoings and they prefer to report wrongdoings using internal channels than external channels. The study further found uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and long-term orientation to be good predictors of whistleblowing intentions.

The findings have practical implications for human resource practitioners who seek to foster job synergy and encourage the reporting of wrongdoings. Also, it has useful implications for policymakers who seek to enhance whistleblowing activities.

Theoretically, this study is among the first to provide empirical support for the applicability of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory at the individual level within the whistleblowing discourse from an African perspective.