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This paper reexamines the relationship between bribery and firms' performance with a recognition that not all illegal payments are equal over the business life cycle. Some payments are in effect more likely to occur during firms' establishment or expansion, such as when obtaining an operating license, a construction permit or a connection to public utilities, while others tend to occur during regular activities, for instance when dealing with tax or customs officials. Using data from the World Bank's Entreprise Surveys of more than 46,000 firms across 69 developing countries, and an empirical model that accounts for both endogeneity of and self-selection into bribery, the results suggest that corruption greases the wheels of commerce for infant and expanding firms, as it is associated with increased productivity, investment, and likelihood to enter export markets. However, for firms in their regular activities, corruption acts more like sand in the wheels, as it harms performance. This heterogeneous nature of illegal payments along the business life cycle calls for differentiated and targeted policies aiming at curbing corruption in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper carries out a detailed analysis of the effects of R&D and human capital as well as their interactions with innovation on export behavior of manufacturing and service firms in Ghana using a dataset of 720 firms that merges the Enterprise, Innovative Capability and the Innovation Follow-up Surveys respectively for Ghana. Using a bivariate probit regression, the results show that R&D and human capital (employees' education, slack time and formal training) are positive and significantly related to the propensity for firms to export in Ghana. The cross derivatives (differences) for the interaction terms (R&D and innovation, and education and innovation) also showed that these interaction terms have positive effects on the likelihood for firms to export but are significant only for a negligibly small fraction of the sample. Thus, there is no much statistically significant evidence in support of the mediation role of innovation in the relationship between R&D/education and the export behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile money is a mobile-phone-based financial tool that can transfer money safely and quickly across a wide geographical area. Mobile money has transformed the way businesses in Eastern sub-Saharan Africa operate. Nowadays, banks team up with mobile-money-service providers and pay interest on deposits and grant loans based on financial transactions in mobile-money accounts. In this paper, these recent developments are investigated in order to determine whether the adoption of mobile money by firms can actually help them mitigate the vexing problem of access to finance. To answer this question, the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys Program data set for the year 2013 is used, thus making the study applicable to the present time. The results obtained, after controlling for a large number of firm-level characteristics and using a newly introduced measure to identify access-to-finance status of the firms, indicate that firms which use mobile money are more likely to obtain loans or lines of credit. Further analysis shows that the firms that use mobile money are more productive than other firms in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the sudy was to ascertain the extent to which Staff Monitored Program (SMP), initiated by the Government of Angola, has affected the performance of firms based in Angola. This study focused on Angola because of several reasons: first, it appears that there is no academic study that examined the proposed relationship in Angola; second, the vast majority of studies have concentrated on Common Independent States (CIS), China, and India, but a few in the African Continent; and finally, Angola is one of the newest countries embracing the concept of economic reform. Certainly, the study provides insight into the role of free-market policies on firms' market performance in the transition economy. Based on the data obtained from 180 firms representing domestic and foreign businesses with most of their headquarters in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, São Tomé, the USA and the UK, multiple regression analysis indicated that foreign exchange reform policy and international trade reform policy were the major determinants of firms' performance. Further, the study found little support for the hypotheses that investment, and infrastructure development reform policies have led to improved firm performance. Finally, managerial implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed along with future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of the study was to explore, through secondary research, the potential influence of the top management (key decision makers) of firms on the degree of internationalization of firms in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, an attempt was made, firstly, to characterize the problem of low exports and low firm internationalization in Sub-Saharan Africa with a view to discussing the potential influence of the characteristics of key decision makers on firm internationalization. Secondly, to explore the competence theory and determine whether it could provide a viable analytical framework to facilitate future empirical investigations into the influence of key decision makers (top management) on firm internationalization focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. Previous studies on firm internationalization from different parts of the world including Sub-Saharan Africa were examined. The characteristics and behaviors of top management reported to relate strongly to high levels of firm internationalization and export performance were extracted. The literature on competence then was examined with a view to obtaining theory that would be used to integrate the various managerial variables, which strongly related to high levels of firm internationalization. The process of analysis and integration resulted into the development of the Competence Model of Firm Internationalization, which has been proposed. The analysis indicated that the top managers of firms had profound influence on the level and intensity of export activities mainly through the firms' production and marketing functions. The managerial implicationsof the findings and future research directions are discussed along with the limitations of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]