Investigating the Independent Variables that are Influencing Managerial Decisions - Management Assignment Help

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CHAPTER TWO
2.1 Introduction
Under this chapter, the researcher will be discussing on investigating the independent variables that are influencing managerial decisions to deal with COVID-19.
Ghana's industrial sector accounts for around 25.3 percent of the country's overall GDP. Ghana's industrial production is expanding at a pace of 7.8 percent, making it the world's 38th fastest rising industrial output.
Some of Ghana's most important industrial industries include electronics, vehicles, electric cars, aircraft, light manufacturing, aluminum smelting, food processing, cement, and small commercial shipbuilding. (REF)
2.2 Definition Of The Key Concept.
2.2.1 COVID-19
It is an acute human illness caused by a corona virus that can produce severe symptoms and, in some cases death, particularly in the elderly and those with underlying health problems. It was first discovered in Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019, and WHO declared it a pandemic in 2020. ADDIN CSL_CITATION {"citationItems":[{"id":"ITEM-1","itemData":{"DOI":"10.1056/nejme2002387","ISSN":"0028-4793","PMID":"32109011","abstract":"Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted Anthony Fauci comments on the early clinical features and epidemiology of cases reported in Wuhan, China, along with current mortality data, noting that the outb...","author":[{"dropping-particle":"","family":"Fauci","given":"Anthony S.","non-dropping-particle":"","parse-names":false,"suffix":""},{"dropping-particle":"","family":"Lane","given":"H. Clifford","non-dropping-particle":"","parse-names":false,"suffix":""},{"dropping-particle":"","family":"Redfield","given":"Robert R.","non-dropping-particle":"","parse-names":false,"suffix":""}],"container-title":"New England Journal of Medicine","id":"ITEM-1","issue":"13","issued":{"date-parts":[["2020"]]},"page":"1268-1269","title":"Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted","type":"article-journal","volume":"382"},"uris":["http://www.mendeley.com/documents/?uuid=131b0454-8698-42b0-a7d1-2214930f7811"]}],"mendeley":{"formattedCitation":"(Fauci, Lane and Redfield, 2020)","plainTextFormattedCitation":"(Fauci, Lane and Redfield, 2020)","previouslyFormattedCitation":"(Fauci, Lane and Redfield, 2020)"},"properties":{"noteIndex":0},"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"}(Fauci, Lane and Redfield, 2020).
COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new coronavirus strain. Corona is represented by the letter CO, virus by the letter VI, and disease by the letter D. Formerly, this disease was referred to as ‘2019 novel coronavirus’ or ‘2019-nCoV.’ The COVID-19 virus is a new virus linked to the same family of viruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS) and some types of common cold. (Bender, 2020).
2.2.1.1 Historical overview of Coronavirus Disease 2019.
In December 2019 a series of cases were reported, describing patients admitted to hospital with a new disease characterized by pneumonia and respiratory failure caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), in Wuhan, a province of Hubei (China). Covid -19 in its simplest term is a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus. Coronavirus are large group of viruses that are common among animals. (Ghana Health Service). Coronaviruses contain the largest known RNA genomes (26e32kilobases). In SARS-CoV-2, the RNA genome codes for four structural and 16 non-structural proteins (nps). The structural proteins are the S, M, N, and E proteins. Research has now revealed that the globalization of the infection appears to have been caused by a mutation in the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2, that has dramatically increased its transmissibility (platto et al.)
The virus was first diagnosed on 1st December, 2019 and was reported to the World Health Organization’s regional office on 31st December. The World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International concern on 30th January 2020 and was declared a Global pandemic on 11th March, 2020 at a press conference held by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, General Director of the W. H. O. On February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) termed this etiological agent as COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease, 2019). Despite the adoption of extensive containment measures, the disease continued to spread, affecting the rest of Asian countries, the Middle East and Europe. (Medicina intensiva, 2020).
The symptoms of the COVID-19 differ from people in different ways. Some people will develop mild to moderate illness when they are infected and can recover without any special treatment. But others also develop more severe symptoms. Most common symptoms include fever dry cough, tiredness, and less common symptoms include, aches and pains, sore throat, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, headache, loss of taste or smell, a rash on skin, or discolouration of fingers or toes. The serious symptoms are, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure and loss of speech or movement.
Mode of spread: The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, so it’s important that you also practice respiratory etiquette (for example, by coughing into a flexed elbow:
Prevention: wearing of nose mask, frequent washing of hands, and practising of social distancing. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face.(World Health Organisation).
Causes: the coronavirus disease is caused by coronavirus.
Interestingly, with African mentality, we taught due to the hot temperature in the sub-Sahara regions the virus wouldn’t be able to stay in the atmosphere for long that means no cases wouldn’t have been recorded here, that was just a mere assumption. African has recorded a total case of 3,561,586, 88,675 deaths in 47 countries as 10th June, 2021 (WHO Africa Region Number, 2021).
Ghana has also been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ghana recorded its first case on 12th March 2020. The cases were imported by two travelers from European countries turkey and Norway. Ghana has recorded total cases of 94,913, with 92,881 recovery cases, and recorded 789 dead cases and currently 1,092 active cases, 5 people are critical state now and 12 cases are severe now. This was reported by Ghana health service on 19TH June, 2021 on their website.
The emergence of this novel coronavirus has had a huge impact on the world’s economy and it has given Ghana it fair share of the challenges. Although government is putting good measures in place to help combat the impact of the covid-19 but things just cannot turn around over a night. Though, the covid -19 has slowed down the Ghanaian economy but has equally opened Ghana up to some good and innovative ways of solving our problems internally(Amponsah and Frimpong,2020).
Employment issue. According to the Trade Union Congress report, about 42,000 people lost their jobs April 2020 in Ghana. 75% of them were small traders, daily workers and wage-laborer(s). The pandemic affected most organization n employees but the employees in the some private felt the huge impact. The covid-19 has had huge impact on our educational sector due the measures taken by the government to control the spread of the virus which in turn affected the employees in the private school. They had to stay home, their source of income was cut, which affected their purchasing power and when demand it low, and it affects productivity and the profit margin of firms which long run affects the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GPD). Moreover, petty traders like hawkers had return to their jobs, but some salaried workers faced work difficulty to get their jobs back after the lockdown with some also facing a cut of up to 50% in their salaries. The closure of drinking bars, cinemas, beaches, night clubs, tourist sites as well as air, sea and land travel caused a lot of employees to lose their job resulting in rise in the unemployment rate as that that time and yet some still remain closed.
The Trade Union Congress report as of June 2020 shows that Greater Accra and the Greater Kumasi are the hardly hit regions in the country with an unprecedented rise in the unemployment rate in the Ghanaian economy.
2.1.2 The impact of Covid-19 on the sectors of Ghanaian economy
Ghanaian economy has been divided into three sectors, the primary sector, the secondary and the tertiary sector. The primary sector comprises of the agriculture such as farming both crops and animals and the allied sector such as mining, fishing and forestry. The secondary sector comprises of all the industries engaged in the production and manufacturing activities within the country and the tertiary sector involves all service provision industries like information technology, hotels, restaurants, education, real estate, banking, transport, and travel and tourism industry.
Primary sectors: Ghana’s agriculture sector. The agricultural sector has been the backbone of the Ghanaian economy which is massively contributing to the country’s gross domestic product each and every year. The agricultural sector practically provides us with all the basic needs for our survival ranging from food, clothing and many more and without this sector our existence on this earth would have been something else. (reality assumption). The sector employs an estimated 60% of the Ghanaian population (Ghana Statistical Service, 2020). Amidst the pandemic, the Agriculture Sector was the main driver of GDP growth, recording 8.2% in 4th quarter of 2020(Ghana statistical service, 2021).
It is the largest sector of the country that provides income for the most households especially the rural residence of the country. (Assumption). According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the prices of agricultural produce increased between10–20% during the COVID-19 pandemic era due to the restrictions in the movement of people and in other sense due to selfish nature of some 7 traders, they intentionally increased the prices of their goods for instance gari ‘olonka’ which was sold for GHS 7.00 increased from that to GHS 20.00. The already weak rural-urban food network was negatively affected as fewer middlemen moved into farming communities to buy due to restrictions and this caused some kind of shortage in some agriculture produce in urban centers which resulted in price increased. The drastic reduction in the number of fresh food retailers in our markets and the decision of some managers to close restaurants, hotels and other local eateries has massively reduced the bulk purchase of fresh food. Due to the lockdown and restrictions from the COVID-19 protocols, numerous market women who were engaged in the carting of fresh foods from rural communities due to fear of spoilage from the slower pace in the purchasing of fresh foods as a result of lockdown measures. While low-income earning, individuals stay at home adhering to precautionary measures, this affected the income of families as w ell as their purchasing power. Owing to the poorly managed food supply chains, price hikes set in. As a result, many people were deterred from buying fresh food. A typical scenario is where people buy tomato paste, which has relatively not increased in price, rather than buying a fresh tomato that is more expensive. Livestock farmers were badly affected by the low sales during the pandemic era where most people were not able to gather for their usual Easter celebrations. Most poultry farmers were affected
Manufacturing sector.
The secondary sector which comprises of all the industries engaged in the production and manufacturing activities within the country experienced an extraordinary growth from GHS 4548.69 million cedis to GHS 5112.15 million cedis in the first quarter of 2020. This sector was doing well before the emergence of the pandemic which slowed down their contribution to the country’s GDP due to lockdown. Though certain essential producer of personal protective equipment (PPE) were excluded from the lockdown, many other companies were forced to closed due to the restriction in movement which affected many employees more especially those in the private companies. Some were asked to work from home but other were laid off (operational workers). The COVID-19 significantly affected the manufacturing and extractive sectors of the Ghanaian economy leading to a fall in the prices of extractive items on the global market and in Ghana (Laing, 2020).
According to Ghana Statistical Service in collaboration with UNDP conducted ( How COVID-19 is affecting firms in Ghana, Business Trader Survey(2020), the indicated in their report that about 36% firms had to close during the partial lockdown with 16.1 continuing to be closed.
They indicated that, firms in the manufacturing sector were most affected followed by trade
‘Many investments in the manufacturing sector of the country were moved from the sector into the hoarding of hard currency leaving the manufacturing sector to be suffocating. In Ghana, AngloGold Ashanti mine workers tested positive for the virus and the site was closed for some weeks pending results from the contact tracing, testing and treating.
The COVID-19 shock forced many firms to reduce costs by reducing staff hours, cutting wages, and in some cases laying off workers. The impact of the COVID-19 on Ghana’s manufacturing sector continues to ravage on with a downward review of Ghana’s economic growth from 5.8% to 1.5% by the International Monetary Fund (Bamfo et al., 2020).
Tertiary sectors: The tertiary sector involves all service provision industries like information technology, hotels, restaurants, education, real estate, banking, transport, and travel and tourism industry. Some industries in this sector were hugely affected whiles some used this pandemic to their advantage. For instance, the telecommunication sector was hugely patronized in those tough times, many activities were schedule, ranging from academics, various zoom meetings and other meeting well, live streaming programs, online courses and people took advantage of the lockdown season to learn new staffs on YouTube. Education sector was affected badly. Tourist site and other entertainment staff remain closed. These closed industries also contribute to the country’s GDP but since they are closed down no earnings are generated from there.
2.2.2 Manufacturing sectors
is defined by the US government, "comprises establishments, engaged in mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substance, or components into new products, " as well as those engaged in assembling of component parts.
 

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