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This study aims to investigate the relationship between managerial corporate social responsibility (CSR) mindset and business performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the mediating role of CSR practices and the moderating influence of institutional forces.

A structured questionnaire was administered to 221 SME managers. The data was analysed using the Hayes process in SPSS to test the hypothesized relationships.

This study found that a managerial CSR mindset significantly improves operational and financial business performance. In addition, CSR practices mediate the relationship between managerial CSR mindset and business performance. Furthermore, institutional forces moderate this relationship, highlighting the critical role of external factors in shaping SME performance.

The findings suggest that SME managers should adopt a proactive managerial CSR mindset and integrate CSR into their core strategies to enhance business performance. Moreover, managers must be responsive to institutional forces as they adjust their strategy to meet external pressures to ensure sustainable performance.

This study demonstrates the theoretical explanation of how CSR practices serve as a conduit through which a managerial CSR mindset improves business performance under varying conditions of institutional forces.

The purpose of this study was to examine students’ innovation capability in virtual team projects from the COVID-19 pandemic era.

The researchers conducted an empirical study and the data were collected from a total of 308 participants engaging in virtual team projects. A structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the relationship of the conceptual framework.

The findings showed that virtual team culture positively influenced propensity to innovate. Also, knowledge management and communication influenced propensity to innovate through the mediation of support for innovation.

Developing a strategy for propensity to innovate in any organization demands that project team members should be able to seamlessly communicate. Developing knowledge management, communication and support for innovation strategy in a virtual team may prepare an organization for permanently different post-pandemic events and the future turbulent business environment.

This study highlights innovation capability for the propensity to innovate, a topic that is not widely researched, especially in the context of virtual teams.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of supportive organisational culture (SOC) on the differential impact of work-based learning (WBL) on employee agility, ambidexterity and proactive goal generation.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted using an online structured questionnaire with 443 respondents in Ghana. The data set was analysed using structural equation modelling.

The outcomes of the study show that WBL has a significant and positive impact on employee agility, ambidexterity and proactive goal generation. However, the effect on employee agility was higher, followed by proactive goal generation and employee ambidexterity. The moderating effect of SOC on H1, H3a and H3b was found to have a decreasing effect.

This study augments knowledge by examining how different approaches to WBL collectively affect proactive goal generation, agility and ambidexterity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to examine the differential impact of summative WBL approaches on employee outcomes.

Through the lens of the Social Exchange Theory, this study investigates the role of emotional and psychological well-being in explaining the relationship between academic stress and friendship quality.

Using a cross-sectional quantitative research design, the study gathered data from 298 tertiary students. Statistical analysis was conducted using Hayes Process Macro in SPSS.

Results from the study challenge conventional assumptions, indicating a positive and significant relationship between academic stress and friendship quality. In addition, the study revealed that psychological well-being partially mediates the relationship between academic stress and friendship quality, while emotional well-being fully mediates the relationship between academic stress and friendship quality.

This study is limited to the tertiary institutions in Ghana. Future studies may consider expanding the scope to other levels of education to gain a more comprehensive perspective of the variables of the study.

This study presents a novel approach by examining the proposed model within the Ghanaian setting. It offers valuable perspectives on the interplay between academic stress, well-being, and friendship quality.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of human resource management (HRM) practices on the level of innovativeness observed within the service sector of Ghana, taking into account the potential mediating role of innovation capability.

The research used a quantitative methodology to fulfill the study's objectives. A Web-based survey questionnaire was designed to gather data from a sample of 168 respondents, selected through a convenient sampling technique. The proposed model was tested using the Process Macro Model 4 by Hayes in SPSS version 26.

The study’s outcomes indicate that there is no statistically significant correlation between HRM practices and firm innovativeness. However, the mediating role of innovation capability was observed to fully account for the relationship between human HRM practices and firm innovativeness. Additionally, a positive and significant association was identified between HRM practices and innovation capability, as well as between innovation capability and firm innovativeness.

It is important to note that the findings are limited to the perspective of employees within the service sector of Ghana. Therefore, future research could explore the manufacturing and/or extraction industries in Ghana to obtain a more comprehensive understanding. Furthermore, a larger sample size could be considered in future studies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study presents a novel examination of the hypothesized model within the Ghanaian context, providing valuable insights into the relationship between HRM practices, innovation capability and firm innovativeness.

This study aims to investigate the effects of several individual elements vis-a-vis the environment that affects students’ choice of a career. The study assesses the effects of cognitive-person factors on the career decision-making of tertiary students and analyses how chance events moderate these relationships.

The study used the survey research design to gather data from 302 final-year tertiary students from four (4) Faculties and sixteen (16) academic departments of a Technical University in Ghana. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires and analysed using the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The study reveals that students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations are two cognitive-person factors that positively and significantly influence students’ career choices. However, chance events of tertiary students were found not to moderate the relationship between cognitive-person factors and students’ career choices.

Understanding how several cognitive-person factors influence the career choice of students through the lens of social career-cognitive theory could enable researchers to advance knowledge in the career choice process. Counselors and guidance coordinators need to motivate and encourage career/job exploration and development by identifying sources of psychosocial support available to students.

This study identifies the cognitive person factors that drive career decisions and provides one of the initial attempts to investigate how chance events moderate students’ cognitive-person career choice relationship.

While corruption has long been recognized as a destructive social problem, the subject has not yet been given much attention in the literature of the management of procurement of infrastructure projects in Ghana. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss corruption practices inherent in public procurement of infrastructural projects in Ghana with the aim of identifying corruption related challenges that must be addressed in order to actualize the expected economic gains of infrastructural projects.

Drawing extensively on existing literature and published data, the methodology adopted for the paper consisted of multi‐stage critical review of pertinent literature; review of 2007 Annual Report of the Public Procurement Authority and review of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663). The study assumes value‐laden axiological philosophy, where the values and experiences of the authors provided the basis for the discussion.

Conflict of interest, bribery, embezzlement, kickbacks, tender manipulation and fraud are observed corruption practices in the Ghanaian infrastructure projects delivery system. The severity of corruption practices have intensified the search for more innovative means of delivering infrastructure projects that will achieve value for money. In the pursuit to control corruption practices, this would require constitution of a sound procurement system and pro‐social equity policies that would foster good governance, corporate social responsibility, transparency, accountability, judicious public expenditure and national progress. The Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) is observed to proffer solutions for these underlying constructs but not without challenges.

The nature of the research is review and explanatory without any empirical analysis to support the discussions and thus the results cannot be generalized on a broader context of public procurement practice in Ghana.

Implementation of sound procurement performance measurements would be imperative in the bid to curb corruption practices. The paper suggested a number of business approaches to combat corrupt practices in Ghana, which are explained in terms of political, psychological, technical, operational and retaliatory measures. In this paper, it is proposed that knowledge about and debating corruption related issues is just as important to the modern public procurement as are the abilities to creatively and logically introduce monitoring systems when planning, executing and completing projects.

The work is novel providing meaningful insights into conceptual basis for a detailed empirical analysis. Being a pioneering study, further research tailored to compare the extent of corruption practices in various sectors of the economy of Ghana would be novel.

The purpose of the study is to examine performance differentials in the hospitality industry through organisational culture.

The study adopted the positivism philosophy, thus relying on the quantitative approach. A structured questionnaire was deployed to gather data from 162 sampled respondents.

The study finds that mission, involvement and consistency as dimensions of organisational culture have a significant positive relationship with performance of the hotels. However, adaptability as an organisational culture dimension has no statistically significant relation with performance.

Through this study, key stakeholders in the hospitality industry will understand that deploying organisational culture in businesses is important in enhancing performance of businesses.

The study is underpinned by the organisational excellence theory, and its main contribution to the literature is by proposing that when firms deploy excellent cultural attributes, their performance will improve.

This study explores the role of external pressure, engagement capability (ENC), alliance capability (ACA), environmental sustainability commitment (ESC), and circular supply chain capability in circular economy performance.

Through a cross-sectional survey and data collected from 124 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana, this study employs partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the proposed model.

The findings reveal the following; first, external pressure has a significant impact on ESC. Second, ESC positively impacts ACA, ENC and circular supply chain capability. Third, ACA and ENC mediate the relationship between ESC and circular supply chain capability. Finally, circular supply chain capability has a significant impact on circular economy performance.

The originality of this study lies in testing a novel model that confirms that SMEs respond to external pressure by enhancing ESC as well as develop engagement and alliance capabilities to improve circular supply chain capability to achieve circular economy performance goals.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on affect social exchange theory and related literature to develop and test a research model linking employees’ perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to their outcomes [performance and organisational pride (ORP)] with moderating variables: perceived work motivation patterns (autonomous and controlled motivation) to sustain firm’s operations through their employees.

The authors used Ghana as a case for this study due to recent turbulences in the banking sector of Ghana. A sample data of 244 subordinate/supervisor dyads from rural and community banks was collected with a time-lagged technique and analysed through a structural equation modelling for this study.

These employee’s perceptions of CSR positively related to their performance and ORP. Autonomous motivated employees had a stronger positive moderated impact on perceived CSR-Performance link whereas controlled motivated employees recorded a stronger impact on perceived CSR-ORP link.

Based on these results, managers and human resource (HR) professionals can aim at acquiring favourable employees’ perception of their firms’ CSR initiatives. In that, it can help firms to remain in business particularly in difficult times. Also, autonomous and controlled motivators may seem inversely related, however, they are not contradictory to each other. Both can coexist within a firm and it is crucial that HR professionals and managers endeavour to balance them discreetly to attain organisational goals.

Despite the growing interest in CSR across continents, CSR outcomes on employees among small and medium scale firms especially in Africa has fairly been toned-down by respective management of firms, governments and researchers.