Marketing Solar Energy in Ghana

Author(s):  
John Kuada ◽  
Esther Mensah ◽  
Andreea I. Bujac ◽  
Jeanne S. Bentzen

This chapter reports the results of an exploratory qualitative investigation into buying behaviors and growth challenges within the solar energy industry in Ghana. It is premised on the understanding that African firms may experience “liabilities of localness” when marketing renewable energy products developed in the West. That is, customers doubt their capabilities to produce and install these products. Thus, market-driven growth of the solar energy sector in Ghana requires firm-level capability development through institutional support that promotes effective cross-border inter-firm collaborations as well as trust-building relationships with local customers. The results of the study confirm these observations. They show that Ghanaian consumers tend to evaluate the capabilities of foreign solar energy providers as superior to those of local firms. However, collaborations between local and foreign firms have enhanced their credibility. Firms rely mainly on word-of-mouth recommendations to attract new customers and see customer price consciousness as a major growth constraint.

Author(s):  
John Kuada ◽  
Esther Mensah ◽  
Andreea I. Bujac ◽  
Jeanne S. Bentzen

This chapter reports the results of an exploratory qualitative investigation into buying behaviors and growth challenges within the solar energy industry in Ghana. It is premised on the understanding that African firms may experience “liabilities of localness” when marketing renewable energy products developed in the West. That is, customers doubt their capabilities to produce and install these products. Thus, market-driven growth of the solar energy sector in Ghana requires firm-level capability development through institutional support that promotes effective cross-border inter-firm collaborations as well as trust-building relationships with local customers. The results of the study confirm these observations. They show that Ghanaian consumers tend to evaluate the capabilities of foreign solar energy providers as superior to those of local firms. However, collaborations between local and foreign firms have enhanced their credibility. Firms rely mainly on word-of-mouth recommendations to attract new customers and see customer price consciousness as a major growth constraint.


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen P Y Lai ◽  
Henry Wai-chung Yeung

In the last decade or so, human geographers have paid greater attention to the significance of discourses. We acknowledge the importance of discursive constructions and metaphorical representations of economic space, and extend the argument by examining the practices that may follow from such discourses. With use of empirical data from a firm-level survey and interviews with representatives of electronics firms in Singapore, we focus on contested interpretations of the Asian economic crisis at the firm level: how they might differ from state-driven discourses, and the extent to which state discourses (embodied in ministerial speeches and policy initiatives) were accepted, contested, and negotiated through firm-specific practices. The different counterdiscourses and responses of local and foreign firms are also compared. Results show that discourses at the national (state) scale were challenged and contested by firms within the same national space economy because of such material conditions as firm-specific circumstances, spatial extensiveness of their intrafirm and interfirm networks, and their access to various formal and informal information channels. The sampled firms offerered their own readings of the crisis that often contradicted the effectiveness and usefulness of certain policy responses orchestrated at the national scale. Their abilities to weather the crisis were also differentiated significantly between local and foreign firms. The study therefore highlights the importance of understanding the complex interrelationships between discourses and practices at different spatial scales and their capacity to produce (un)intended geographical outcomes.


Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Chen ◽  
Xin Jin ◽  
Xu Xu

Abstract We study the impact of anticorruption efforts on firm performance, exploiting an unanticipated corruption crackdown in China’s Heilongjiang province in 2004. We compare firms in the affected regions with those in other inland regions before and after the crackdown. Our main finding is an overall negative impact of the crackdown on firm productivity and entry rates. Furthermore, these negative impacts are mainly experienced by private and foreign firms, while state-owned firms are mostly unaffected. We present evidence concerning two potential explanations for our findings. First, the corruption crackdown may have limited bribery opportunities that helped private firms operate. Second, the corruption crackdown may have interfered with personal connections between private firms and government officials to a greater extent than institutional connections between state-owned firms and the government. Overall, our findings suggest that corruption crackdowns may not restore efficiency in the economy, but instead lead to worse economic outcomes, at least in the short run (JEL L2, M1, O1).


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 987-1006
Author(s):  
Vincent Arel-Bundock ◽  
Clint Peinhardt ◽  
Amy Pond

When do governments impose costs on foreign firms? Many studies of foreign direct investment focus on incentives for government expropriation, but scholars are often forced to rely on indirect measures of expropriation to conduct empirical analyses. This article introduces a data set which includes information on over 5,000 political risk insurance contracts issued by the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation since 1961, and on all the claims filed by investors under these contracts. These detailed insurance data allow us to study the determinants of foreign investors’ losses from a variety of sources, including expropriation, inconvertibility, and violent conflict. To illustrate the benefits of these data for hypothesis testing, we adopt a comprehensive empirical approach and explore both shared and distinct causes across risk categories.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hutzschenreuter ◽  
Ingo Kleindienst ◽  
Florian Groene ◽  
Alain Verbeke

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address how firms adapt their product and geographic diversification as a response to foreign rivals penetrating their domestic market by adopting a behavioral perspective to understand firm-level strategic responses to foreign entry. Design/methodology/approach – The study proposes that strategic responses to foreign entry selected by domestic incumbents have both a framing component and a related, strategic choice component, with the latter including changes in product and geographic market diversification (though other more business strategy-related responses are also possible, e.g. in product pricing and marketing). This study tests a set of hypotheses building on panel data of large US firms. Findings – The study finds, in accordance with our predictions, that domestic incumbents reduce their product and geographic diversification when facing an increase in import penetration. However, when increased market penetration by foreign firms takes the form of FDI rather than imports, the corporate response appears to be an increase in product and geographic diversification, again in line with our predictions. Originality/value – The study develops a new conceptual framework that is grounded in prospect theory, but builds on recent insights from mainstream international strategic management studies (Bowen and Wiersema, 2005; Wiersema and Bowen, 2008).


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Ahmad Oktabri Widyananda ◽  
Dyah Wulan Sari

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) takes an important role in the development process, especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze FDI spillover on the level of technical efficiency in the large and medium manufacturing industry in East Java. This study uses a time-varying stochastic frontier approach for firm-level panel data of the East Java manufacturing industry. The results show that all factors in this study affect the level of technical efficiency of large and medium industries in East Java. Variable foreign share, FDI horizontal spillover, and firm size have a positive influence on the technical efficiency of the industry. Whereas the variable FDI backward spillover, FDI forward spillover and the level of market concentration negatively affect the level of technical efficiency of the industry. Finally, it’s needed to build synergies and sustainable relationships between products produced by domestic and foreign firms. Thus, the presence of foreign firms in East Java could have a positive impact on improving the technical efficiency of the domestic industry both at the upstream and downstream levels. Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment Spillover, Technical Efficiency, East Java IndustryJEL Classification: F21, L60, D24


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Lam My Anh ◽  
Dinh Thi Trang ◽  
Bui Hieu Ly

Nhận thức của người tiêu dùng Việt Nam về các sản phẩm năng lượng mặt trời ngày càng có vai trò to lớn trong việc thúc đẩy tiêu dùng nguồn năng lượng sạch này tại Việt Nam. Nhận thức của người dân về môi trường và các vấn đề liên quan đến môi trường có liên hệ mật thiết đến hành vi tiêu dùng của họ, hướng hộ đến tiêu dùng sản phẩm sạch - năng lượng mặt trời. Theo nghiên cứu trước, Murphy và cộng sự (1978) đã chỉ ra rằng mối quan tâm của người tiêu dùng đến với môi trường dựa vào các đặc tính và lợi ích của nó với môi trường.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sh. Kurbanov ◽  
Kh. B. Ashurov ◽  
B. M. Abdurakhmanov

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