Online presence is fast becoming a marketing hub for contemporary businesses. Often known as digital marketing, the phenomenon offers several opportunities to businesses. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are using their online presence to launch stern competitive promotions and interact with consumers. Against the backdrop of the stern competition, digital marketing is being utilized to drive sustainable strategies for SMEs. This study leverages the theory of planned behavior to explore the impact of digital marketing adoption on the sustainable growth of SMEs in Ghana. Using a structured questionnaire and SmartPLS version 3.3 for the data analysis, 533 owners/managers of SMEs in Ghana were drawn to administer the questionnaire. Our findings suggest that, while attitudes toward digital marketing did not influence the intention to use digital marketing, perceived behavior control and subjective norms were found to affect individuals’ intentions to use digital marketing. Additionally, the results proved a direct positive link between subjective norms and actual behavioral use of digital marketing. Finally, the relationship between the actual use of digital marketing and SMEs’ sustainable growth was also proven positive, affirming that digital marketing significantly improved the sustainable growth of SMEs in developing countries. This study contributes to the multiplicity of factors that influence the behavioral tendencies of managers of firms in their quest to adopt digital platforms to enhance their sustainable growth. The study’s results serve as guidelines for prospective adopters of digital platforms as they develop their sustainability strategies.

Social media is gradually transforming diverse business ecosystems due to the limitless capabilities they offer. Given this, emerging businesses across the globe are leveraging this innovation to improve their operations. While the literature on the usage of social media by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is still emerging, the outcomes from existing research have not been coherent. Amid this, limited empirical evidence has been adduced on the affordance of the technology for the SME ecosystem in developing economies, particularly Ghana. Following this, this study aims to fill this research gap by investigating the impact of social media usage on the long-term sustainability of SMEs, specifically in Ghana. Using empirical data from 424 respondents who are representatives of manufacturing SMEs in Ghana, using SmartPLS techniques, the study confirmed that, generally, social media usage does not only have a positive impact on SMEs but drastically drives their motivations towards resilience and sustainability. The results further revealed a positive and significant effect of social media usage value creation, business connections and opportunities on SMEs’ sustainability. This study contributes to knowledge of social media usage and sustainability from a developing country’s perspective. This study offers several implications for theory and practice.

The public sector continues to be under intense pressure to improve its innovation performance. Consequently, stakeholders are calling for more empirical studies on the antecedents of innovation, especially from a developing country’s perspective. Motivated by this call, we investigate the impact of institutional creativity and institutional innovation capacity on public innovation performance in the context of Ghana. Key to our model is that, institutional creativity and institutional innovation capacity are also enabled by inter-agency collaborations, institutional leadership, and stakeholder pressure. The partial least squares structural equation model is employed to estimate the survey responses of 195 respondents from fifty public sector institutions. The empirical analysis confirms that organizational creativity has a positive and significant impact on innovation performance, innovation capacity has a negative and insignificant impact on innovation performance, and inter-agency collaboration and institutional leadership contribute positively to institutional creativity and innovation capacity. However, stakeholder pressure negatively impacts both institutional creativity and innovation performance. This study contributes to knowledge on the antecedents of public innovation performance from a developing country’s perspective. It also advances theories on public innovation performance.

Social media has emerged as an assertive communication and brand-building tool in the dynamic entrepreneurship landscape. This study explores the influence of social media usage on the performance of start-ups, focusing on the mediating role of brand image. The research employs a quantitative approach, collecting data from 450 start-ups in Ghana through surveys. Data collected was processed and analyzed through PLS-SEM. The findings of the study supported all the formulated hypotheses. The outcome suggests that, social media, brand image and innovation capabilities all have direct and positive linked with startup performance. Additionally, the findings proved a mediating role of brand image between social media usage and startup performance. Understanding the dynamics between social media, brand image, and performance is vital for start-ups seeking to thrive in competitive markets. Based on the outcomes in the findings, the study recommends social media marketing tool for startup businesses in Ghana to stern competition and drive sustenance. This research contributes to academic literature and practical insights, offering nuanced perspectives on leveraging social media as a strategic tool for cultivating a brand image and influencing overall start-up performance. The implications of the study findings serve as guideline for startups and young entrepreneurs’ in developing countries as they develop their marketing strategies.

This study examines sustainability strategies among ethical SMEs in the manufacturing sector, navigating tensions between moral imperatives and market pressures. Drawing on paradox theory, a PLS-SEM approach was adopted to test the conceptual framework, using valid survey data from 415 manufacturing SME respondents across Ghana. Findings indicated that three of the hypotheses were significant, while the moderating hypothesis (organizational slack) was insignificant. Extending the contribution, these findings are systematically compared with empirical evidence from Central European countries. This cross-regional comparison reveals both convergences, such as the primacy of cognitive abilities over resource abundance in driving sustainability strategies, and divergences, including the dominant role of regulatory pressure in Central Europe versus moral imperatives in Ghana. The comparison also confirms that the non-significant moderation of slack resources holds across both contexts, reinforcing paradox theory's claim that cognitive navigation of tensions matters more than resource munificence. Results advance theory by integrating cognitive ability as a mediator in emerging-market contexts and by identifying institutional contingencies across African and European post-transition economies. Practical guidance is offered to policymakers on prioritizing ethical principles and cognitive capacity-building. Limitations include cross-sectional design and self-reports, suggesting the need for longitudinal and multi-country validations.