Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) that is intended to promote the functioning of the organization but violates ethical norms impacts employees' in-role performance negatively due to the potential reputational and economic damages that such behavior may cause. Based on social exchange theory, we suggest that leader-member exchange (LMX) and affective organizational commitment moderate the UPB-performance relationship. We test our hypotheses with dyadic data collected in two waves from 218 employees and their 22 direct supervisors working in a federal government ministry in C & ocirc;te d'Ivoire. Our findings support our hypothesis about the negative effects of UPB on employee performance and show that employees engaging in UPB hurt their own performance appraisal. We also find evidence for the moderating effects of LMX and affective organizational commitment. Our study contributes to a greater understanding of the effects of UPB in public organizations.

RESUMO As economias em desenvolvimento (EDs) no Sul Global são responsáveis por muito mais consumo do que produção. A continuidade dessa tendência mostra o subdesenvolvimento persistente dessas nações e também destaca uma tarefa desafiadora para alcançar a meta das Nações Unidas de um mundo desenvolvido e sustentável até o ano 2030. A literatura na área de Estudos de Organização e Gestão está repleta de explicações sobre os papéis das instituições formais para o desenvolvimento das capacidades de produção e industrialização dos países. No entanto, esses estudos são dominados por análises do Norte Global, especialmente dos EUA. Enquanto isso, são poucas as pesquisas sobre como as instituições informais em geral e, em particular, as instituições formais propostas pelas economias em desenvolvimento do Sul Global fazem para facilitar e promover a produção e a (re)industrialização. O presente artigo funciona como uma nota de pesquisa e uma chamada de trabalhos para uma edição especial que visa contribuir com o discurso emergente sobre a mudança estratégica das economias em desenvolvimento para a produção, por meio de uma compreensão mais profunda do papel das instituições informais no desenvolvimento econômico.

Developing economies ( DEs) in the Global South account for a significant amount of consumption than production. A continuation of this trend portrays persistent under-development of the nations in these economies, and it also highlights a challenging task for actualizing the United Nation's year 2030 goal of a sustainable developed world. The Management and Organization Studies literature abound with explanations about the roles of formal institutions for developing the production capacities and industrialization of economies. Yet, these studies are dominated in US-led Global North. Meanwhile, explanations about how informal institutions in general, and, in particular, formal institutions proposed by Global South developing economies, function to enable and advance production and (re)industrialization has received limited attention. This paper doubles as a research note and a call for papers for a special issue to contribute to the emerging discourse on the strategic shift of developing economies to production through a deeper understanding of the role of informal institutions in economic development.

Human Capital has a positive effect on performance especially when it is firm-specific. However, focus has been on the effects of firm-specific human capital on firm performance, and more recently on creating complementarity between individuals and firms. There has been little research on how (context-) firm-specificity and complementarity is actually created, and its effects on individual performance. This paper investigates when human capital specificity leads to superior individual performance by exploring knowledge, specifically tacit-knowledge, as a component of human capital using resource-based theory. Data was collected from a purposively drawn sample of sales staff in a sales and distribution company. Results show that human capital is fundamentally task-specific and that individual sales performance is driven by task-specific human capital from within and outside the firm, and by the level of complementary resources provided by the firm. However, even with same tasks that can be performed across firms, complementarity is only created between the firm and individuals' human capital developed within the firm. The findings suggest that human capital is fundamentally task-specific. Findings also suggest that all employees, not just star employees, may be unable to replicate same performance across firms. Consequently, the transferability of human capital may depend more on the transferability of its application to tasks than has been acknowledged in extant research, and realized in practice.

This chapter examines public relations (PR) in sub-Saharan Africa’s public sector. It discusses the theoretical perspectives of public relations and their application to the public sectors in Africa. We reviewed existing literature on public relations in sub-Saharan Africa’s public sector and the findings suggest that offline and digital media have played significant roles in Africa’s public relations over the past decades, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These tools have been deployed by the public sector for reputation management, crisis communication, information sharing, and feedback. However, the prevalent PR models and strategies practised in Africa may not be too effective in building public trust and resolving a crisis. We recommend that the public sector, in its quest to build public trust and resolve crises, should understand and adopt appropriate theories/models such as the situational theory of publics, the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), and the systems theory, for effective PR and crisis management in Africa.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) generally face more financing constraints than large businesses. However, the voluminous literature on SME financing has remained largely fragmented. This makes it difficult to harmonise findings that could potentially help SMEs in their search for more financing. This paper presents a review of extant research on SME finance and the financing constraints they face, with a focus on developing countries. The review reveals that although there are various sources of finance available to SMEs, some are more readily accessible than others because certain sources are still rudimentary in many developing countries. Certain demographics of SME owners and managers, such as age, education level, and gender, affect the ease with which SMEs can access finance. However, a lack of theory on SME funding still limits extant understanding of SME financing as most extant studies were conducted without providing any theoretical foundation. The paper concludes by providing a framework and some suggestions for a research agenda that could aid in this regard.

A chorus of scholarly voices has echoed the significance of spiritual intelligence in organizational settings. This paper provides fresh insights by investigating the relationship between spiritual intelligence (SI) and workplace outcomes using David King's four-factor Spiritual Intelligence SelfReport Inventory (SISRI-24). The study was conducted in Nigeria, a sub-Saharan African country, using a sample of 216 employees of a private university selected in a non- probabilistic sample. There was a significant relationship between SI and workplace outcomes such as job performance, job commitment, and job satisfaction. However, the effects of the dimensions of SI on workplace outcomes are varied. These results bring to fore the existence of possible variations in the meaning and dimensions of spiritual intelligence; and their effects on workplace outcomes across contexts. As spiritual intelligence correlates with positive employee outcomes, organizations should invest in discovering, developing, and deploying this domain of intelligence.

Contrary to popular perceptions that the African continent is culturally homogenous, its multi-cultural fragmentation is duplicated in every member nation. Nigeria, for instance, a Sub-Saharan West African country, is intensively heterogeneous with over 400 languages and a growing population of over 180 million people. Its diversity is entrenched and pervasive in contrasting cultures, religions, traditions, beliefs, historical and political antecedents. These intra-country cultural dynamics, typified in other SSA countries, portend challenges for intercultural researchers. In this chapter, three researchers reflect on their research experiences in urban and suburban parts of Nigeria and provide practical tips to field researchers intending to conduct research in Nigeria, and by extension, other parts of SSA. Specifically, the issues of power distance, ethical dilemma and illiteracy that characterise the setting indicate that intercultural researchers require a cocktail of theoretical and pragmatic research competencies to navigate the realities of conducting research in this context.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a review of variance decomposition studies of firm performance and the theoretical foundations that served as the antecedents and promptings for this stream of research. Known collectively as “variance decomposition literature,” these studies use variance decomposition techniques to partition firm performance into various classes of effects in a bid to unveil the relative importance of factors responsible for firm performance variance. Design/methodology/approach A review of papers published in SCOPUS and institute for scientific information indexed journals was conducted. Findings The study found that firm, industry, corporate, business group and country effects are the major effects included in most extant studies. However, of all effects, firm effects remain the dominant and most important impact on firm performance. The effects that affect firm performance are also interdependent. Practical implications Consequently, the decisions of managers in firms are still the most important element in helping the firm to navigate industry and contextual factors, especially during periods of recession. Originality/value From the review, research gaps were identified and suggestions for future research provided. There is still much to learn from variance decomposition literature in an age of new business models, unprecedented start-up firms and from developing and emerging market countries.

Understanding the link between human capital, competitive advantage and firm performance is a major focus of research in strategic human capital studies in strategic management and Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). Indeed, much progress has been made in understanding this link. However, strategy scholars have emphasized firm-specific human capital as the most strategic form of human capital, and mobility constraints as the route to human capital-based competitive advantage and superior performance. SHRM, on the other hand, have been primarily focused on human resource policies, practices and systems, and more recently on the ability, motivation, and opportunity framework. Consequently, there has been an implicit assumption that there is already an understanding of how human capital actually creates value in firms. This article presents a succinct review of extant studies and a model that explores value creation from human capital. The model, based primarily on the theory of strategic factor market, holds promise in furthering extant understanding of the link between human capital, competitive advantage and firm performance. The model takes a more holistic approach to the role of human capital in value creation in firms.

Despite postulations on the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign aid, and trade on growth, empirical evidence from extant research has been mixed. The focus of recent research has shifted from the growth effects of these international flows to their poverty reduction effects. However, results have also been mixed. Most studies have examined the empirical evidence of these flows separately and have mostly conducted single country studies. In this study, we use data from twenty-nine countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between the period 1990–2017 to analyze the effects of FDI, trade, and foreign aid on poverty reduction in a single model using the Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) technique. Our results show that FDI and foreign aid have a negative effect on poverty reduction in the countries studied. These results suggest that the level of FDI required to alleviate poverty has not been reached, and foreign aid have not been properly channeled. However, the results show that trade has a positive and significant impact on poverty reduction, especially in low-income countries. We conclude with policy recommendations.

Findings from research on emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) have posed some intriguing questions to scholars. While some of the questions are easy to explain through the lens of extant theories, others are more complex. Research on African multinationals is limited and being only a recent phenomenon, historical accounts of their internationalization is scarce. Early findings suggest that African firms exhibit distinct internationalization behaviour from other EMNEs. However, are EMNEs from Africa and their internationalization behaviour unique? This paper expounds the internationalization of three nascent African multinationals through the lens of extant theories and finds that multiple theories converge to explain their internationalization. Their distinct paths to internationalization come from their independent efforts in navigating Africa's diverse, and sometimes extreme, contextual challenges and opportunities. Alongside the global orientation of founders that originates from their education and experience, relationships from founders' networks also play a dominant role in the internationalization process of African EMNEs. The conditions for business, especially for internationalization, in Africa are unique, and sometimes extreme. Institutional voids and informal markets, for example, are pervasive and huge. However, the African context enables a nuanced understanding of extant theories and the linkages between theories in explaining internationalization of EMNEs.

Thunderbird International Business ReviewVolume 63, Issue 1 p. 95-96 BOOK REVIEW Looking “Back” to the “Future” of Business in Africa Ebes Esho, Ebes Esho orcid.org/0000-0001-5306-7194 University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this authorLyal White, Lyal White University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this author Ebes Esho, Ebes Esho orcid.org/0000-0001-5306-7194 University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this authorLyal White, Lyal White University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 August 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22087Citations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume63, Issue1Special Issue: Market Entry into AfricaJanuary/February 2021Pages 95-96 RelatedInformation

Small and medium businesses contribute to the economies of developed and developing countries. However, they face constraints that are very different from large businesses. Chief amongst these constraints is access to finance. This paper provides an integrated review of the literature on the financing of small and medium businesses. Applying a qualitative critical context text analysis, the authors explore extant studies and identify the major themes and the different literature streams on small and medium business financing. The paper concludes by providing suggestions for future research from the gaps identified in the literature.

Using data on listed companies on stock exchanges in African countries, we carry out a variance decomposition of the performance of business firms. We extend our analysis and investigate what exactly about country matters by analyzing the relative importance of specific country variables that have been postulated by different theories to have an impact on firm performance. Interestingly, our results show that the effects of a country’s culture on the performance of business firms is more than three times the effects of a country’s institutional framework and political framework. We also find that the effects of a country’s geographical location accounts for a substantial portion of country effects but not as much as a country’s culture, These findings suggest, contrary to extant emphasis on the possible explanations of industry-country interaction in the variance literature, that a country’s social and cultural context may be more important for business performance than a country’s structural framework.