No abstract

It has been a major source of contention among economics scholars, that tourism is a major driver of socio-economic development in the world and serves as a major source of revenue across countries. Hence, this paper examines the effects of exchange rate fluctuation on tourism sector output in Nigeria for the period of 1995 to 2015, using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), granger causality test and co-integration approach to ascertain this relationship. Results revealed that exchange rate fluctuation indeed has a significantly negative effect on tourism sector output in Nigeria, and that an increased fluctuation reduces the contribution of the tourism sector to GDP. The granger Causality test result showed that there is a unidirectional causality and long run relationship between contribution of tourism sector to GDP and the contribution of the Tourism sector to employment, real effective exchange rate, and the international number of tourist arrival. Among various recommendations in the study is for the government of Nigeria to review existing economic policies that affect the exchange rate fluctuation, as these some of this policies may be responsible for the consistent increase in exchange rate fluctuation, as these could substantially reduce the number of tourist arrival and tourism sector output.

In this study, we aim at investigating factors significantly affecting innovation behavior of SMEs in developing country context. To realize the research objective, a thorough literature view on SME innovativeness has been realized and initial model for the study has been constructed. Data collected by self-administered questionnaire from SME CEOs and high level managers of Uzbekistan and China sample SMEs has been analyzed by Multivariate Logistic Model to make inference about significant determinants of SME innovativeness. The findings of the study suggest that CEOs with higher education, their innovation goal-oriented determination, and competition pressure from home market and abroad due to high export orientation of the SME and government incentives for innovations are being main forces making SMEs realize innovations. Internally, innovative SMEs are being led by CEOs with higher education degree and who well fits the great importance of innovations in their company strategy.

The demand for electricity generation around the world has significantly increased over the past decades, this is due to the growth in the world’s population, industrialization, economic activities and technological innovation; with various countries opting for alternative sources of renewable energy sources to replace the use of fossil fuel sources of energy whose availability has rapidly declined. The Nigeria power sector has experienced a major setback in power generation, distribution and the power consumption rates in the country has been very low compare to other African countries in electricity per capita. This study examines the designing of an affordable solar photovoltaic (PV) system in Nigeria using the cost and benefit method. Furthermore, a proposed PV electrification model was designed to calculate the Financial Internal Rate of Return (FIRR), Net Present Value (NPV) and Sensitivity analysis of installing a mini-grid system within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The result however showed that the system efficiency was calculated as FIRR was 17.5% and the NPV was at N320,897,841 which suggest that the project on this scale is economically viable in the FCT, making the life cycle cost per kWh, including the grid extension cost relatively low. Furthermore, the result obtained revealed that electricity generated from solar energy can contribute to the country’s economy and also eliminate or cut the pollution and toxic waste from the burning excess fossil fuel that releases large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere which affects human health and the environment.

The intensity of competition has increased within the Nigeria banking system, due to series of reforms that led to implementing organizational development in the industry as away of repositioning the country's economy to achieve the objective of becoming one of the 20 largest economy by the year 2020. Creating a sustainable competitive advantage therefore has become paramount importance considering the institutional changes that were introduced in form of strategy to conform to the changing norms and patterns of operation in the industry. Such strategies include merger and acquisitions, private placement, re-engineering process, right sizing and so on. This paper attempts to evaluate employee's perception of change effect as a competitive advantage on the Nigeria banking industry, thereby assessing employees' perception of change effect on personal job outcome variables in relation to change success. Using multiple regression analysis, the findings of the study reveal the existence of significant relationship between employees' perception of change success and the personal job outcome variables. The beta analysis shows that employee perception of job commitment; good salary and job security were the strong determinants of employee perception of change effect with perception of self-actualization and career progression as the weak determinants. It is proffered in the paper that change agents in the banking industry should always consider the aspect of job security and motivational incentives when implementing change.