Business Administration

Oil prices have been highly volatile since the end of World War II. The volatility becomes even more serious in recent time. This has implications for the economies of oil exporting countries, particularly oil dependent countries like Nigeria. The paper examined the impact of these fluctuations on macroeconomic of Nigeria.

Financial markets could be money or capital markets. The commodities traded on these markets are financial instruments as equities. In Nigeria most quoted companies release their share prices on daily basis. The prices of equities fluctuate as a result of changes in the macro environment of the market from time to time. What are these environmental variables that affect the fluctuation of share prices in Nigeria? The objective of the research is the examination of macroeconomic variables that are responsible for share price fluctuation in Nigeria.Secondary data of Nigerian stock market share prices covering between 1980-2006 were used. Multiple regression was used to analyse the data. The results show inflation, money supply, total deficits index of industrial production, interest rate and GDP influence stock prices. It is recommended that in order to monitor and control stock prices in Nigeria through macroeconomic variables, emphasis should be given to money supply, GDP, and total deficits. Therefore, the economy got polarized into the deficit and surplus sector and the invisible funds of the surplus needed to be channeled to the deficit

Against the background of the importance of entrepreneurship to economic growth and development, this paper investigates the potential for achieving growth and development through entrepreneurship in underdeveloped economies. Specifically, the study investigated the availability of the environment for and the extent to which individuals and groups are able to recognize/create opportunity for providing goods and services; and the extent to which they are able to utilize such opportunities. The study collected primary data about the environment for entrepreneurship development in Nigeria, the extent and nature of opportunity creation and the prospect for carrying through innovations in the country. The data were collected from entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship professionals, using a well-structured questionnaire administered to a sample of 360 respondents, drawn from among the groups. The responses were analyzed using Kruskal Wallis and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. The study revealed that Nigerians are innovative and enterprising. It also revealed that infrastructural facilities, funding, and entrepreneurship education are significant impediments. The study also showed that economic growth in Nigeria is influenced by entrepreneurship growth, therefore the slow growth in entrepreneurship development in Nigeria contributed to the underdeveloped status of the economy. The study recommended specific solutions to the different entrepreneurship problems identified in the study.

Corporate diversification is a center of research in strategic management and finance. Many firms are experiencing a decline in their traditional activities' dues to environmental challenges, including competition, inadequate infrastructural facilities, and economic instability. The study examines the effect of income diversification on the financial performance of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Specifically, it determines the impact of product income segment diversification and non-product income segment diversification on quoted manufacturing firms' financial performance in Nigerian. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design using secondary data of 42 firms from the 63 quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria for 11 years (2007-2017) period. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is utilized for data analysis. The study found that both product income segment diversification and non-product income segment diversification significantly affect the financial performa...

Almost all employers tie at least some portion of their workers' pay to the workers' and / or the company's performance. Employees do not see a strong connection between pay and performance and employees' performance is not particularly influenced by the company's incentive plan. The study specifically identified the link between rewards and individual performance; and the types of rewards that elicit greater performance among sales people. The research employed questionnaire to collect data from respondents. Two research hypotheses were formulated and tested. The data used were primary data. Convenience sampling was used to select samples. Data were analysed by the use of Pearson's Chi-square technique (X 2).The study indicated that 56.00% of the respondents had between 1-3 years experience as sales representatives. 46.00% of the respondents indicated that salary alone influenced their performance. The hypotheses indicated that there is no significant relationship between demographic variables with performance except experience of respondents which significantly influenced performance. There was a significant relationship between rewards and performance. The study recommends that experience of salesmen should be a plank to determine their compensation and salary should be emphasized

Sound strategic decision making in manufacturing firms is bedrock for realizing the huge potentials of the sector. Against the background of inclement market structure conditions for manufacturing firms survival in Nigeria and plethora of empirical evidences supporting the dominance of firm strategic factors over market structure factors in strategy decision making, this study was designed to analyze the perceptions of manufacturing firms’ managers on effects of firm strategic factors on the strategy and performance of manufacturing firms in the country. A survey design was developed for the study involving the generation of primary data with the aid of structured questionnaire administered on 263 respondent managers selected using multistaged sampling procedure from 119 firms listed in the 2010/2011 Nigerian stock exchange Factbook. The multiple variables in the study were descriptively analyzed with MANOVA with Roy’s largest root as test statistic. The hypothesized none associatio...

Corruption has a major impact on growth in low-income economies, while ease of doing business has a major impact on growth in developed countries. The study empirically examines the effect of corruption on ease of doing business. The study analyses unbalanced panel data of corruption rank, corruption score, control of corruption, and inflation, together with other economic and financial institutional factors and ease of doing business score for the period of 2004–2017. Results indicate that: corruption rank, inflation, and import have negative and significant effect on ease of doing business; corruption score, control of corruption, lending rate spread, and education (skill level) have positive and significant effect on ease of doing business; gross capital formation and population have insignificant negative effect on ease of doing business; export and gross domestic product have insignificant positive effect on ease of doing business. The random effect model is a consistent and mo...

The uncertainty in Nigerian business environment has made it difficult for businesses to respond quickly to the unpredicted and changing environment. Therefore, the study evaluated the effect of learning organization on organizational survival with reference to selected Nigerian manufacturing firms. The study objectives were to: examine the influence of learning organization on organizational survival; evaluate the relationship between learning organization elements and organizational survival elements. Primary data were obtained through a questionnaire. A total of 359 respondents were randomly sampled from the study population of 5401 employees. Multiple regression and correlation were used for data analysis. The result of the regression showed that learning organization has significant impact on organizational survival (R Square of 0.959, p-value=0.000) and the result of the correlation analysis indicated that there is a positive significant relationship between learning organizat...

The ability to recognize our feelings and those of others and manage emotions well in ourselves is the major contributing factor to employees’ performance and organizational commitment. Emotional intelligence is relevant for predicting organizational commitment and employees’ work performance because most jobs require the ability to manage emotions. The objective of the study is to examine the impact of emotional intelligence on organizational commitment and employees’ performance in the manufacturing industry. Descriptive design was adopted for the study. 206 questionnaires were randomly administered to respondents out of which 120 were returned that were used for analysis. Regression analysis was used to analyse the collected data. The study revealed that there was a significant relationship between employees’ emotional intelligence, organizational commitment, and their performance. The coefficient of determination between EI and organizational commitment was 56.90%. Emotional int...

Most banks in Nigeria, in recent years are facing the challenges of labour turn over due to lack of job security of their employees. More so, most banks keep downsizing their employees and recruiting new ones as a result of changes in their services and work processes driven by technological trends and competitive environment. Therefore, it is logical for employees to keep changing their methodologies, thus giving room for continuous training and development. The objective of this study was to examine whether employees' training and development enhances work efficiency in the banking industry. Primary data were used for the study, which were generated through the use of questionnaires. The study took a sample of 395 respondents from a population of 35,386 from the five banks used as case study. Simple random technique was used to select the respondents. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, and Pearson's moment correlation. Multiple regression was employed to test the hypothesis. Major findings indicated that there is a positive correlation among all the variables. Result of model summary shows that the independent variables account for 39.1% of the variation in organizational performance. The result in the coefficient table however, indicated that only three variables were significant: organizational commitment to Training and Development, frequency of Training and Development and reward for best performance. The study therefore concluded that for training and development to have significant impact on organizational performance, employees need to be motivated during training programs. It was recommended that banks should introduce reward system for outstanding performance so as to motivate employees to always put in their best during each training session.

Oil prices have been highly volatile since the end of World War II. The volatility becomes even more serious in recent time. This has implications for the economies of oil exporting countries, particularly oil dependent countries like Nigeria. The paper examined the impact of these fluctuations on macroeconomic of Nigeria. Using VAR, the impact of crude oil price changes on four key macroeconomic variables was examined. The results show that oil prices have significant impact on real GDP, money supply and unemployment. It impact on the fourth variable, consumer price index is not significant. This implies that three key macroeconomic variables in Nigeria are significantly explained by exogenous and the highly volatile variable. Hence, the economy is vulnerable to external shocks. Consequently, the macroeconomic performance will be volatile and macroeconomic management will become difficult. Diversification of the economy is necessary in order to minimize the consequences of external shocks.

Pension fund is a pool of resources contributed by the employees with the aim of having enough resources to carter for their needs after retirement. Therefore, pension fund needs to be invested so as to meet the aim of the contributors. This study was carried out to evaluate the factors that determine investment of Pension Funds. The study used primary data, which were generated by the use of questionnaire. Respondents were selected from a sample of five PFAs in Nigeria using simple random sampling technique. A total of 125 questionnaires were administered on 18 items using likert scales. Data collected were analyzed using factor analysis by principal component. Economic, Risk and Security of real estate factors were identified as the major determinants of pension fund investment. The study concludes that variables such as interest rate, internal control system etc, are not critical in determining investment of pension funds in Nigeria. The study also recommends that pension fund ma...

Decisions taken by Pension Fund Administrators whether to invest in a particular asset class or not depend upon relative importance of different factors. The relative importance of these factors and the interactions among decisions taken by PFAs has remained unknown to the contributors. Therefore, this study is designed to examine factors affecting investment decision in PFAs. This research work examined the factors that influence investment decisions in Nigerian PFAs. The study also evaluated investment decisions in Nigerian PFAs based on both qualitative and quantitative factors. Primary data were used for this research, which were generated through the use of questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents from five PFAs in Nigeria. Data collected were analysed using factor analysis. The result of the study indicates that three factors were considered by PFA managers when making investment decisions: Economic, Risk and Security of real estate factors. The study concluded that National Pension Commission should be a bit flexible in its regulatory restriction of investment areas of PFAs to enhance a better investment decision making process. The study therefore, recommended that PFAs should use reward structure to ensure accountability of those that are in charge of investment decision making.

The uncertainty in Nigerian business environment has made it difficult for businesses to respond quickly to the unpredicted and changing environment. Therefore, the study evaluated the effect of learning organization on organizational survival with reference to selected Nigerian manufacturing firms. The study objectives were to: examine the influence of learning organization on organizational survival; evaluate the relationship between learning organization elements and organizational survival elements. Primary data were obtained through a questionnaire. A total of 359 respondents were randomly sampled from the study population of 5401 employees. Multiple regression and correlation were used for data analysis. The result of the regression showed that learning organization has significant impact on organizational survival (R Square of 0.959, p-value=0.000) and the result of the correlation analysis indicated that there is a positive significant relationship between learning organizat...

This study assessed the contributions of rice entrepreneurial activities to sustainable livelihood assets of rice farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria. A three stage sampling procedure was used to select four hundred respondents. An interview schedule was design to collect primary data. Data collected was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results further showed that most of the respondents participated in production (100%), processing (61.5%), marketing (53.0%) while few (22.3%) participated in transportation to a great extent. Results further showed that financial asset (mean=2.19), and natural assets (safe drinking water and irrigation water) with mean=15.7 and mean=15.4 respectively were the topmost assets accrued by farmers as a result of their participation in rice entrepreneurial activities. The leading constraint to rice entrepreneurial activities was inadequate access to rice processing equipment (mean=15.5). Correlation analysis revealed that age (r =-0.437)...

Corruption has affected many countries all over the world especially the developing countries. It has various implications for both the developed and developing economies. Corruption hampers development and thus raises the level of poverty in any economy that finds itself entrenched in corrupt practices. Corruption creates uncertainty and risk in the growth and development potential of any country. The study investigated the impact of corruption on economic development in Nigeria. Secondary data were sourced from World Bank reports on Nigeria and corruption reports from transparency international on Nigeria. The data were analysed using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression technique. Hypothesis tested with respect to Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was not accepted implying that the tests were statistically significant, meaning that Corruption Perception Index (CPI), a proxy for corruption in this research negatively affects economic development. On the other hand, the hypothesis tested on the Corruption Rank (CR) of Nigeria and Relative Corruption Ranking (RCR) of Nigeria among countries under review was not accepted meaning that the relative position of Nigeria among countries under review and Nigeria's rank on corruption cadre is also statistically significant. The findings show that corruption has a significant negative effect on economic growth and development. It is recommended that the Nigerian government should employ the strict application of anti-corruption codes as stipulated in the legislations that created the anticorruption agency without prejudice or double standard irrespective of the culprit's stature or position in the society. Transparency, accountability and the application of the rule of law in dealing with corrupt government officials and politicians can lead to improved CPI ranking, induce investment, and foster economic growth and development.