This work was aimed at investigating the impact of human capital-driven factors, personality-driven factors, and environmentally driven factors on the entrepreneurial potential of the students at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Ghana. With 188 respondents retrieved out of 249 questionnaires sent to Information Technology and Business Administration final year students of UPSA, Ghana, and using ordinal regression analysis, the following results were revealed: the “Entrepreneurial potential” of the students depends on their personality traits of “Need for achievement” and “Risk tolerance” and the human capital factor of “Entrepreneurship education and training”. “Entrepreneurship education and training” is the most significant predictor with a p-value of 0.004, followed by “need for achievement” with a p-value of 0.033, and then “risk tolerance” with a p-value of 0.036.

The yearly global percentage fraud loss was on the downward trend, with only 2013 being an abnormal case. Again, telecom revenues went up gradually from 2008 to 2017. PBX hacking and Subscription fraud appeared for all the years (2013 to 2017) in the top 5 fraud methods, and for fraud types, subscriber/identity (ID) theft was prevalent in 2008 and 2011 but did not show up in the top 5 for 2013, 2015, and 2017. Rather, lately, that is from 2011 to 2017, interconnect bypass fraud and International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF) have become prevalent. Five fraud types and methods stand out: Subscription Fraud, PBX Fraud, Subscriber/Identity (ID) theft, Interconnect Bypass Fraud (IRSF), and International Revenue Share Fraud.

The general objective of this work was to contribute to the general body of knowledge and research work in the area of post-merger and acquisition organizational performance and performance improvement in the Telecommunications industry. Again, it was also aimed at coming out with conceptual and theoretical frameworks that could be helpful to mergers and acquisition researchers and Telecommunications global firms who acquire Telecommunications companies in Africa or emerging markets, to ensure continuous performance improvement in the short to long term. This work employed purely secondary data from mergers and acquisitions literature and author’s personal experiences of mergers and acquisitions to come out with frameworks. Four theoretical frameworks were developed from the conceptual framework. Each of the theoretical frameworks can be used to determine post-merger and acquisition organizational performance from the perspective of the employee, the customer, and the non-customer. The theories behind the frameworks have also been discussed thoroughly. These frameworks can be employed by any researcher who would like to research into post-merger and acquisition organizational performance.

It is not out of place at all for stakeholders to demand for performance figures after a while in post-M & A era. Outcomes are expected to match with merger or acquisition motives. The concept of organizational performance is related to the survival and success of an organization. The general objective of this work was to contribute to the general body of knowledge and research work in the area of post-merger and acquisition organizational performance and performance improvement in the Telecommunications industry. To achieve the general objective, the research was aimed at exploring how a balanced scorecard approach could be employed to analyze how to improve upon post acquisition organizational performance on periodic basis; that is to align business activities to the vision and strategy (medium to long term) of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. A framework was developed based on the balanced scorecard to show how a typical acquired Telecom company’s performance could be improved on periodic basis. This model or framework can be used by managers of acquired Telecom companies as it presents a holistic performance improvement strategy to ensure overall creation of value for shareholders.

Mergers and acquisitions represent the ultimate in change for a business. Despite this, it is common knowledge that mergers and acquisitions do fail and they do not necessarily create shareholder value. The main aim of this piece of research work was to contribute to the general body of knowledge in the area of failure rates, and the perspectives on why mergers and acquisitions fail. The objective was to investigate from literature on the failure rates and perspectives on why M & As fail, present the various discussions and arguments on the subject matter, and then catalog them for researchers and students in this particular field. It was found that the integration stage of the whole merger and acquisition process was the most problematic area which contributes to merger and acquisition failure, and that the problem in the integration stage has to do with the human factor (the employees-coping with cultural differences, politics, lack of effective communication, etc). Another factor that occurred most after the human factor is poor strategies that are rolled out after the deal is sealed. Again, M & A failure rate is very high; averaging about 50%, regardless of the initial high hopes.

The main objective of this work was to catalogue and bring to the fore, the various driving forces or motives that push leaders of Telecom companies to enter into mergers and acquisitions. The aim was to do a comprehensive review of literature on motives for mergers and acquisitions in the Telecommunications industry, to help researchers in this particular area, and also managers of Telecommunications companies, to understand better the dynamics of mergers and acquisitions worldwide. The work was purely a review of literature on motives for mergers and acquisitions. After a comprehensive review, the motives which stood out were Synergy, Growth, Improving market standing, creating wealth for shareholders, and Empire building for managers, in that order.