Synthesizing the economist’s and the psychologist’s approaches to litter control for sustainable waste management

This study used both quasi-experiment and contingent valuation survey to explore the applicability of deposit-refund system (DRS) to water-sachet litter management in Nigeria. In the experiment, a DRS was established to incentivize the participants to return emptied sachets of water. A contingent valuation survey of 454 sachet-water consumers selected using quasi-systematic sampling technique was conducted. Experimental results showed that the number of sachets returned by the experimental group – those subjected to DRS – was significantly greater than that of the comparison group – those not subjected to DRS. Logit regression results showed that refund size increased the odds of returning sachets by 42.0%. Increasing the redemption time decreased the odds of turning in sachets by about 16.0%. A one-minute increase in the time spent on redemption would result in about 2.4% decrease in the probability that participants would comply. Income decreased the odds of compliance by about 31.0%, while age reduced the odds of compliance by about 2.2%. These results imply that the DRS reduced water-sachet littering in the study area, and that income, refund amount, redemption time, age and perceived effectiveness of DRS influenced consumers’ compliance with DRS. Hence, an appropriate motivating DRS would reduce litter and its attendant problems, such as hygiene, plastic pollution, flooding, aesthetic loss, non-naturally degradable toxic compounds, degradation of natural habitat ant its endangered species. The government should, therefore, implement a DRS and set up recycling plants, or encourage private recycling firms, in order to accommodate used sachets that would end up piling up.

The rich body of literature examining the entrepreneurship education-entrepreneurship intention relations tends to neglect the influence of contingent and other mediating factors on the relationship. This elusion creates an erroneous assumption that entrepreneurship intentions are insulated from external influences and the entrepreneurship education-intentions relationship is an automatic, directly linear interaction. Contesting this premise, this research explores the influence of exposure to entrepreneurship education (EE), mediated by precursors (such as attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) to entrepreneurial intentions on the actual entrepreneurship intentions (EI) of vocational education students at a particular institution in Zimbabwe. Drawing on a cross-sectional research design and 154 randomly selected students, the study examines the extent to which they intended to engage in entrepreneurship careers in the near future. A non-parametric technique, the Spearman correlation test, and regression analysis were employed to test the relationships between EE on the direct determinants of EI, between the immediate determinants of EI and actual EI and to test a number of predictive effects. The results demonstrate that EE had a positive correlation with the direct determinants of EI. In addition, EE predicted all the immediate determinants of EI, except for subjective norms. Lastly, there was no evidence to support a direct predictive effect of EE on EI, controlling for other psychological factors. To a large extent, the results validated the Theory of Planned Behavior as a guiding tool for estimating any premeditated entrepreneurial behavior. Thus, the Theory remains an invaluable theoretical lens for academics, educators and policymakers’ evaluation of effective ways of enhancing the grooming of potential entrepreneurs.

This study aims to build a framework for the variables affecting interest in sharia e-commerce, such as attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and religiosity. Using a convenience sampling method, this analysis involved 212 young people, who represent the most significant proportion of e-commerce clients. The survey measurements and hypotheses testing used the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The results of the study show that attitude (ß = 0.261, p = 0.000), subjective norm (ß = 0.264, p = 0.000), perceived usefulness (ß = 0.241, p = 0.013), and perceived ease of use (ß = 0.185, p = 0.032) have a positive relationship with intention to use sharia e-commerce for youths. In addition, perceived ease of use (ß = 0.759, p = 0.000) also significantly affects perceived usefulness as a moderator to intention. In comparison, perceived behavior control (ß = –0.042, p = 0.505) was an insignificant factor in using sharia e-commerce. This study also shows that religiosity (ß = 0.648, p = 0.000) is essential in a person’s attitude toward intending to use sharia e-commerce. The insignificant relationship between perceived behavior control and intention to use sharia e-commerce is believed to be because both conventional and sharia e-commerce are easily operated. Thus, youth people have not noticed many differences in using sharia e-commerce.