Artificial intelligence for employee engagement and productivity

Given the rapid and sustained growth of Aspen over the past decade, the main aim of this study is to identify and analyze the growth strategies, adopted by Aspen over the period from 2004 to 2014. The research method used was a descriptive study through a single case study of Aspen by analyzing secondary data in the form of publicly available company reports and presentations, as well as financial results, issued between 2004 and 2014. The study finds that, guided by strategic and visionary leadership, Aspen adopted a number of growth strategies including (i) organic growth, as a key factor in creating incremental value for Aspen and its stakeholders, (ii) inorganic growth, in the form of carefully planned and well executed acquisitions, aligned to the Group strategy, (iii) extending territorial coverage through global expansion, particularly into emerging pharmaceutical countries, and (iv) ongoing investment in production capabilities as a means of achieving a strategic advantage. Despite the challenges of intense competition, restrictive legislation, pressure on medicine prices, currency volatility and market specific risks, Aspen has delivered double-digit earnings growth to its shareholders for 16 consecutive years.

The paper presents a review of the literature and advances a set of propositions concerning the employees’ perceptions on the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance. The study is aimed at filling the gap in the literature on the employees’ perception regarding human resource policies and the relationship to organizational performance. Social information processing theory is used to advance the insights on how employees’ performance about human resource policies may influence the organizational performance. The review indicated that there is a positive relationship between the employees’ perceptions of human resource policies and overall performance of a given organization. A positive perception of the implemented policies influences various individual outcomes such as commitment, engagement, and satisfaction, amongst others. Shared perceptions among the employees are also considered to have a considerable impact on the organizational performance. Nevertheless, there is a need for further research to explore the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance in more detail.

Working capital management is germane for the success of the banking industry in Nigeria, especially the current state of the sector, which is engulfed with the effect of the global decline in oil price that has resulted in non-performing loans, deterioration of the bank asset quality, laying-off of staff amongst others. This is one of the reasons why the profitability of the banking sector deeply depends on the efficient management of a bank’s working capital. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine how profitability of banks can be enhanced through the working capital management. To empirically carry out the analysis, panel data which consist of ten (10) deposit money banks in Nigeria for seven years (2010–2016) employing the panel fixed effect, panel random effect and the pooled OLS for the two models, which were used as proxies for bank profitability, which includes return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) to examine the best measure for bank profitability, with the indicators of working capital; net interest income, current ratio, profit after tax, and monetary policy rate. Results of the study showed that working capital management has a significant effect on the profitability of the selected banks and that return on asset is a better measure for bank profitability. Therefore, the study recommends that there should be a periodic review of the minimum capital base of the Nigerian deposit money banks so as to mitigate the effects of inflation and inculcate the consequence of time value of money, because the purchasing power of one (₦1) naira or one ($1) dollar today would not be sufficient to purchase what it can purchase today for tomorrow.