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Purpose This paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model of supplier selection decisions in the public sector. The study seeks to determine the relative importance of a broad range of non-economic variables in explaining supplier selection decisions during strategic organizational purchases. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a national sample of 341 senior staff and top management team (TMT) members in 40 public sector organizations in Nigeria by using structured questionnaires. Findings Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis shows that government policy requirements, social ties of organizational actors, party politics, decision-makers’ experience and the perception of instrumental ethical work climates are the most important determinants of strategic supplier selection decisions, followed in a descending order of importance by the perception of rules ethical work climates, self-enhancement personal values, CEOs’ structural position, self-transcendent personal values and the perception of time pressure. Findings also indicate that the choice of a supplier per se is not an important determinant of organizational performance. Originality/value No prior study has brought together, in a single model, the broad range of variables employed in this study with a view to exploring their relative importance in explaining public sector supplier selection decisions in a non-western country context. The findings of this study have implications for Marketing Managers looking to do business with public sector firms in emerging markets.

This paper presents the development of a web-based examination system that focuses on automated resolution of faults such as power, network, or component failure that may occur when an e-learning system is used to conduct an examination. This system can withstand various challenges that hinder the adoption of e-learning technologies in developing countries. This is important because it will reduce the time and cost involved in conducting large scale examinations by tertiary institutions without the need to upgrade existing infrastructures. These institutions will not necessarily require uninterrupted power or network connection to conduct web-based examinations as the system can easily resume if such an incident occurs. The architecture of the proposed web-based online examination system provides for integrated management of functions such as question pool creation and update, examination monitoring, failure toleration and recovery, automated grading, and randomization. The system also eliminates the need for manual scheduling of examinations which requires much planning and is error-prone. Different examinations can be scheduled to run simultaneously. The design technology adopted for the implementation is a client/server technology. The incremental software development model in conjunction with prototyping technique was adopted in the development of the web-based examination system due to the iterative nature of the developed software.  The system was developed using PHP, JavaScript, Ajax and MySQL. The system has been applied to conduct an examination involving more than 20,000 students per semester at University of Calabar. It has been proved to save efforts of teachers and students.

This study examined the roles of price differentials offered by industrial goods vendors and quality specifications for industrial products in determining organizational buyer decision to patronize one vendor rather than another. Using survey data generated from 321 respondents in the three categories of business consumers in the Southern Senatorial district of Cross River State, our hypotheses were supported. Results of data analysis show that price differentials and quality requirements for industrial product significantly influence organizational buying behaviour. Our findings also suggest that because price differential are perceived by the customers as a gauge of value and quality, marketing managers of industrial goods and services stand to gain more by adopting strategies which give special attention to the ways buyers trade-off costs and benefits of various products.

Introduction: This study centered on integrated marketing strategies and performance of hospitality firms amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our specific focus was to determine the effects of advertising, sales promotion, social media, and public relations on the performance of hotels as survival strategies amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: We adopted descriptive research design. Primary data were obtained from 226 customers of 15 hotels using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics while hypotheses testing was carried out using multiple linear regression in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 23). Findings: The findings of the study revealed that advertising, sales promotion, social media and public relations had significant positive effects on performance of hotels. Conclusions/and Recommendations: The findings of the study have provided reliable empirical evidence to confirm that the adoption of integrated marketing strategies such as advertising, sales promotion, social media and public relations could potentially enable hotels improve their marketing performance amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, practical recommendations and suggestions for further research were made accordingly.