Chantel De Vos, Lawrence Ogechukwu Obokoh and Babatunde Abimbola Abiola
This paper examines the determinants of savings among low-income households, regarded as non-Ricardian households (NRHs), in South Africa. NRHs comprise low-income households…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the determinants of savings among low-income households, regarded as non-Ricardian households (NRHs), in South Africa. NRHs comprise low-income households largely depending on government welfare benefits for sustenance. This research investigates socio-economic factors determining savings pattern of low-income households in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The research makes use of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) data set wave one to five. The longitudinal survey models are analysed in determining the socio-economic characteristics of NRH in South Africa. The estimators include Pooled ordinary least square (OLS), fixed and random effects methods.
Findings
The household grant contributes positively to the level of savings, but the savings level is still considerably low: majority of the low-income households have zero or negative savings. The average size of a NRH is about twice the size of the Ricardian, despite the NRHs’ debt burden impoverishing them.
Research limitations/implications
The self-perpetuated poverty problem makes every factor in the vicious cycle both cause and effect of another factor, warranting reverse causality and threatening the reliability of Pooled OLS estimates for the research.
Practical implications
The growing cost of government grant hinges on the increased level of inflation while largely depending on the number of households entering the low-income threshold.
Social implications
The study recommends that the government creates a more enabling environment for NRHs to engage in productive activities. Also they create more low-skilled jobs and encourage reduction of birth rate among low-income households; this will reduce their expenditure and increase their level of savings and will assist in pulling them out of the vicious circle of poverty. Government can boost NRHs’ savings through increase in various grants.
Originality/value
The study makes significant contribution towards addressing the unfortunate situation of household savings among low-income brackets in South Africa. The research corroborates other studies on the effectiveness of the fiscal stimulus package to boost the welfare and savings condition of NRHs in South Africa. The result explicitly confirmed the redistribution policy of the grant to the low-income household. The grant has a significant positive effect on the savings pattern of the household. An increase in it beyond the poverty threshold could indeed break the vicious circle of poverty since the effect does not only stop at expenditure but also pass through to savings, which may ultimately boost investment. Further studies should continue the investigation of grant transmission channels to investment and income.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2019-0692
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Rhuks Temitope Ako, Lawrence Ogechukwu Obokoh and Patrick Okonmah
The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is expected of oil‐multinationals by the host‐communities in which they operate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is expected of oil‐multinationals by the host‐communities in which they operate in Nigeria's oil‐rich Delta region. It also suggests how the aggressive opposition of the host‐community to the oil exploration activities of oil companies may be curbed.
Design/methodology/approach
The method is purely review of extant literatures and deductive arguments that will give insights to how conflict situations arising from denial of rights can be resolved through CSR and stakeholder's perspective.
Findings
The paper concludes that the major determinant of success of most companies in the world rest in the performance of their CSR to the host‐community, stakeholders and the society in general.
Practical implications
The oil‐companies operating in the Niger Delta region have to re‐assess their CSR objectives towards improving their delivery to the intended beneficiaries otherwise the pervasive violent conflicts in the region will persist with adverse consequences on the corporate image, reduced profits of the oil‐companies and high cost of the product due to disruptions in production.
Originality/value
The paper usefully points out that the Niger Delta region that hosts Nigeria's oil upstream sector has been enmeshed in violent conflicts essentially due to the adverse socio‐environmental effects the industry has on their communities. The companies however assert that they operate as responsible corporate entities and as such their operations and activities benefits their host‐communities rather than induce violent conflicts.
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Sunday Ikechukwu Owualah and Lawrence Ogechukwu Obokoh
This study aims to investigate the efficacy of entrepreneurship training in providing meaningful self‐employment for the restive youths in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the efficacy of entrepreneurship training in providing meaningful self‐employment for the restive youths in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in order to channel their youthful energies into more productive economic activities instead of vandalism and hostage‐taking.
Design/methodology/approach
Data obtained from a structured questionnaire on a random sample of 100 youths in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers States was factor analysed with varimax rotation to identify the most critical factors likely to influence entrepreneurial career. Spearman's ρ was applied to ascertain the overall agreement among the respondents on state basis.
Findings
Government, non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) and institutional financial support, personal traits, experience and tolerance for risks, role model influence and availability of infrastructure and personal financial resources were the factors rated important in influencing a career in entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
The small size of the sample and focus on a limited number of states in the Niger Delta region limit the generalisability of this study.
Practical implications
Youths can be empowered through entrepreneurship taking advantage of its job creation potentials.
Originality/value
This study provides state policy makers, oil companies and NGOs additional insights about the strategies to resolve a problem that is increasingly taking its toll on oil and gas exploration and production in the region.
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The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the question of whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be used as a link of trust between business and society, and which…
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the question of whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be used as a link of trust between business and society, and which role CSR plays in recovering distrust in businesses. It uses a mixed methods study of processes of moving businesses within the Danish water sector from a general trust-breakdown to trust recovery from 2003 to 2013.
Trust recovery is found to depend on stakeholders’ mutual engagement with each other and their willingness to share knowledge and learn from each other’s professional and institutional cultures and languages. An alignment of vocabularies of motives between regulation and voluntary CSR is found to be useful for building trust between conflicting parties. Furthermore the findings shows that the more stakeholders’ languages, motives and logics can coexist, the more trust can be recovered.
The research is limited by a study of one business sector in one country and the findings have implications greater than the local contexts of which it is researched, because it is usable in other sectors that suffer from severe trust-breakdowns such as government systems in both the public and private sectors.
This chapter suggests a theoretical extension of Bogenschneider and Corbett’s (2010) Community Dissonance Theory to embrace multiple stakeholders each having their own complex and unique culture and communication modus based on their institutional, professional or individual comprehensive language universes. This includes knowledge-sharing and educative diffusion of the stakeholders’ language universes’ vocabularies including its important nouns, verbs, terminologies, semantics, taxonomies and axioms as well as the stakeholders’ motives and logics implemented into these universes.