Browsing by Author "Buame, S.C.K."
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Item A Comparative Study of Purchasing and Stores Management in Private and Public Hospitals(University of Ghana, 2001-06) Owusu-Afriyie, S.; Buame, S.C.K.; Sefa, K.A.; University of Ghana, College of Humanities, Business School, Department of Public Administration and Health Service ManagementEvery organization, be it primary, manufacturing, or service depends on materials and services to enhance its operations. Material requirements are either in their raw form, which are used as inputs in the manufacturing process or finished goods, which are used as consumables in the running of the organization. To ensure continuity of operations, organizations require systematic and regular supply of materials, which must be purchased and stocked to be issued, out when the need arises. Purchasing and Supply is therefore one of the basic and most important function of every organization. Indeed no organization can operate effectively and successfully without materials, equipment and services. In the public health institutions in Ghana, purchasing and stores management function has not been approached professionally as it should be. As a result most public hospitals such as Korle Bu Teaching Hospital have experienced malpractices in this area, which have attracted criticisms from the general public. Little has been heard about the private hospitals with regards to problems and malpractices in the field of purchasing and stores management. It is in the light of problems associated with purchasing and stores management in public hospitals that the researcher decided to undertake comparative study of purchasing and stores management of private and public hospitals to find out, first, which of the hospitals meets professional standard in purchasing and stores management. Secondly, to make the necessary recommendations to be implemented by those institutions which do not meet the professional standard of practice in order to improve the Purchasing and Stores Management functions to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Purposive sampling technique was used to select two public and two private hospitals. The two public hospitals were Kibi District Hospitals, located at East Akim District of the Eastern Region, and Koforidua Central Hospital located at Koforidua also in the Eastern Region. The two private hospitals were Holy Family Hospital, located Nkawkaw in the Kwahu South District in the Eastern Region and Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited Hospital otherwise known as Ashanti Goldfields Company Hospital which is located at Obuase in the Adansi West District of the Ashanti Region and Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited Hospital otherwise known as A.G.C. Hospital which is located at Obuasi in the Adansi West District of the Ashanti Region. The former is owned and run by the Koforidua Diocese of the Catholic Church and the latter is owned and run by Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited a Mining Company in Ghana. Data for the study were obtained from both secondary and primary sources. The secondary sources included hospital reports, minutes of meetings, research findings, newsletters and newspapers. Primary data were collected through two main methods namely, personal interview using questionnaire as a guide and personal observation. The personal interview was the main method of data collection and personal observation was used as complementary method. Three officers of the Hospital, Administrator, the Purchasing Officer or the Supplies Officer/Stores Officer and Accountant from each of the hospitals were selected as the respondents for the personal interviews. The interview questionnaire was divided into two sections - one on purchasing and the other on stores management. The questionnaire and interviews inquired about the availability of qualified purchasing and stores staff, authorization of purchases, purchasing initiation, segregation of stores, purchasing and accounting duties, availability of stores and purchasing departments, security at stores, availability of storage facilities, computerization of stores and purchasing functions, procedure for accepting goods to stores, supplier evaluation, registration of suppliers, assessment of stores performance and many others. Some of the questions were open-ended and others were closed-ended and multiple choice. The responses from the personal interview were recorded manually. Content analysis and descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the responses. The content analytical method was used for the open-ended questions. The statistical package for social sciences (S.P.S.S.) was used for the statistical analysis. The results indicated that Ashanti Goldfields Company Hospital met professional standards in almost all the indicators used in the study followed by Holy Family, and Koforidua Central and Kibi District Hospitals - in that order. Kibi District Hospital, one of the Public hospitals was most delinquent in the professional practices. Recommendations were made for implementation by the public hospitals in order to improve the purchasing and stores management to contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of these hospitals. In addition, the Ministry of Health was advised to understudy in detail the Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited Hospital’s purchasing and stores management for possible adoption by all public hospitals.Item Customer Retention Strategies in the Airline Industry in Ghana(University of Ghana, 2013-06) Simon, A.; Buame, S.C.K.; Hinson, R.E.Customer Retention is a cine qua non for the survival and sustainability of firms in today‟s competitive but volatile business environment. Retaining the customer is good for the health and the general wellbeing of firms. The economic benefits of customer retention cannot be over-emphasized as it culminates in the overall profitability of firms. The open skies policy in the air transport industry in Ghana sparked intense competition and has witnessed proliferation of airlines into the industry. This calls for deliberate workable strategies aimed at not only acquiring customers but also keeping them as well so as to prevent customers from defecting to competitors. Several studies have been conducted to identify the importance of customer retention especially in the banking sector. Little is known about the design of workable customer retention strategies in the airline industry in Ghana. The aim of this study was to find out the correlation between constructs of Relationship Marketing (RM), Airline Service Quality (ASQ), Airline Switching Barriers (ASB) and Service Recovery (SR) and Customer Retention in the airline industry in Ghana. A quantitative method and researcher-administered questionnaire was used to investigate the problem. The survey design was a cross-sectional non-experimental study of 337 respondents which was sampled by using a multistage probability and non-probability sampling techniques. Bivariate and standard multiple regression models were used for analysis. The analysis of the study clearly revealed that all the four constructs used in the study namely; RM, ASQ, ASB, and SR are significantly and positively associated with customer retention with the duo constructs of ASQ and ASB being the most significant. Despite limitations such as generalizability, the findings of this study provides evidence that airline industry professionals need to pay close attention to these strategies especially Airline Service Quality and Airline Switching Barriers and fine-tuning them to reflect the exigencies of the time and also to ensure their continued use and adoption for an improved Customer Lifetime Value.Item Entrepreneurial Intent. A twelve country evaluation of ajzen;s model of planned behaviour(International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behaviour, 2010) Buame, S.C.K.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the ability of Ajzen’s Theory of Planned behaviour to predict entrepreneurial intent in 12 countries representing all ten of the global regional clusters as identified in the GLOBE project.Item Franchising in African markets: Motivations and challenges from a Sub‐Saharan African country perspective(Thunderbird International Business Review, 2019-04) Kastner, A.N.A.; Mahmoud, M.A.; Buame, S.C.K.; Gabrah, A.Y.B.The purpose of this article is to explore and understand the motivations and challenges of franchising in an African economy. While interest in franchising is increasing in African markets, there is a paucity of research on franchising from the perspective of local African firms participating in these international relationships. The motivations and challenges of franchising from the perspective of African businesses have not been largely investigated so far. Using in‐depth interviews, we allow motivations and challenges at play to emerge. Convenient and snowball sampling techniques were used for choosing the unit of analysis, which resulted in four respondent firms. A thematic approach was adopted for analyzing the data from the field. Support services, brand name, and franchisor's experience are identified to be the motivations for franchising. Financial assistance from the franchisor, demand, and competition also play a key role in an African firm's decision to franchise. Legal constraints and infrastructure constraints were the key challenges faced by franchisees in Ghana. The findings of this study may hold for franchisees in other African markets. However, contextual differences may be considered in the application of these findings.Item Healthcare Branding and Consumer Patronage in Ghana.(University of Ghana, 2014-07) Mensah, P.; Narteh, B.; Buame, S.C.K.; University of Ghana, College of Humanities, Business School, Department of Marketing and Consumer ManagementHealthcare is a very personalized and important service that is globally used which considerably affects economies and the quality of daily lives. In most parts of the world and Ghana, healthcare is experiencing unprecedented growth with changing cost structures and healthcare laws are also evolving. As a corollary, healthcare providers are experiencing increased competitive pressures providing consumers with a lot of options and making them active decision makers in their healthcare choices with insistence on greater quality of service. Though healthcare providers especially those located in metropolitan areas are making a concerted effort to apply the concept of branding to differentiate their services from the competition in order to enhance patronage for their hospitals, they still lag behind other service industries in this regard. Several studies have been conducted on service branding especially in the banking and telecommunication sector. However, scanty attention is given in literature to branding and clients’re-patronage in the healthcare industry as a whole and particularly in Ghana. On this premise, this study sought to investigate the relationship between healthcare branding and consumer re-patronage in Ghana. A quantitative approach was employed and structured questionnaire was used to gather data. The study was a cross-sectional survey of 318 outpatients (respondents) of 4 (2 public and 2 private) hospitals who were purposively and conveniently sampled. Data was analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis and multiple regression models. The findings revealed both direct and indirect influence of branding on clients’re-patronage. Specifically though branding influences client's re-patronage of hospitals services, it does so more through the hospital brand image. These findings therefore brought to light the need for hospital managers to focus on building strong and positive hospital brand image by focusing on services, brand elements (name and signage), facilities and personnel. Particularly, by enhancing their array of services, improving the status and performance of the physical health facilities and environment, and raising and keeping the standards of medical staff competence and practices, hospitals create impressions of a wholesome healthcare provider, with reliable services which form the basis for consumer re-patronage decisions in healthcare.Item International retail firm acceptance: Beware of the flattery(International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2015-01) Buame, S.C.K.; Acheampong, G.The study explored the effectiveness of ingratiation theory methods in achieving acceptance within the institutional contexts of emerging markets. The study reviewed literature on ingratiation theory, retail internationalisation and institutional to develop a conceptual model for testing. Data was collected using a systematic sampling procedure from Ghana using structured questionnaires and analysed by means of factor and regression analysis. The study found that ingratiation methods are not effective in overcoming institutional pressures in retailing sector in developing countries. Thus international retail firms should be careful in adopting these methods. This study contributes to internationalisation literature among retail firms in the developing and emerging economies by cautioning firms on the use of ingratiation theory methods. Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.