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Purpose: This study aims to focus on assessing the status of agribusiness enterprises in Nigeria. The specific goals were to ascertain the level of performance of different categories of agribusiness enterprises, and determine the institutional and firm-level characteristics that influence agribusiness performance. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on secondary data. These data were sourced from the World Bank business enterprise survey. The World Bank Enterprise survey employed a purposive sampling technique to select major staple agribusiness categories in Nigeria. The categories selected were those included in the World Bank's categorization of agribusiness enterprises. These categories include tobacco, food, textiles, leather, garments, paper industries and wood. The individual firms included in the survey were randomly selected from the selected agribusiness categories. In total, 721 agribusiness firms were selected. Data were analyzed with multiple linear regression at a 5% probability level. Findings: The result of the analysis showed that small-scale agribusiness enterprises have the best performance based on an average of the five performance indicators considered in this study. The determinants of agribusiness performance showed that the credit constraint, size of enterprise, bureaucracy and corruption negatively and significantly affected the performance of agribusiness enterprises in the country, while the gender and educational status of the top manager were positively significant. Research limitations/implications: The findings imply that small agribusinesses are instrumental in the development of the agribusiness sector and by extension the economy of the nation. Originality/value: This study enhances the understanding of how best to deliver improved system-level performance policy and wealth creation, especially within the agribusiness subsector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper aims to identify the level of support and expand on the issues recently raised in the literature concerning critical mass theory and board gender diversity (BGD). Design/methodology/approach: The authors systematically searched relevant articles on the Scopus database in March 2024, identifying 132 articles. After removing book chapters, conference papers and reviews, the number was reduced to 122. An additional 16 were discarded as they were irrelevant (e.g. political, theoretical or conceptual) to the current study, leaving a final sample of 106 articles. This longitudinal study covers the period from 2016 to 2024. Findings: The paper finds compelling evidence supporting the critical mass theory and underscores the importance of corporate BGD in today's society. It also offers explanations for the few cases where critical mass theory may not be fully supported. It highlights that the performance benefits of corporate BGD, in many cases, only exist when there is a critical mass of female directors on the board. Practical implications: It lends support to policymakers in pursuing corporate BGD through quotas, provided that the incentive is not just to fill the numbers. Originality/value: The paper offers a unique perspective on the level of support for the critical mass theory. It is believed to be the first paper to conduct a longitudinal study to investigate the support for the critical mass theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]