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The current study proposes an integrative framework for examination of determinants of stock returns in US market based on the five-factor Fama and French (FF) model, macroeconomic variables and investor sentimental factors. The study is based on both value weighted and equally weighted monthly portfolio returns of all CRSP firms which are incorporated in the United States and listed on the NYSE, AMEX or NASDAQ.

The study applies PLS-SEM methodology to examine the major determinants of portfolio return.

The study suggests that investor sentiments are the major driving forces which positively influence the portfolio stock returns. The macroeconomic factors, the FF Factors and Momentum factor have negative influences on portfolio stock returns.

The study is the first of its kind which aim to determine the determinants of portfolio returns using the PLS-SEM methodology.

Islam is valid for every place and time, and it promotes fair and equitable employees’ relations as an essential corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy for successful organisations such as Fortune 100 companies. Whence, this study aims to explore Fortune 100 best companies exhibit better market performance and capitalisation relative to other companies in relation to their employees’ satisfaction as a significant contributor to better performance.

This study conducts two-stage robust least square regressions analyses on Fortune’s best a sample of Fortune companies list in 2017.

Tests of differences in mean indicate that Fortune listed companies have superior profitability, liquidity and firm size compared with the control sample data set. The regression results are also robust to the use of different measures of market performance, such as market capitalisation, price/earnings ratio and price/book ratio, as well as to the potential endogeneity problem. This study also reveals the top 10 employers with the highest number of employees with their number of times being ranked in Fortune best companies. The result is in line and compatible with the concept of CSR in Islam perspective which encompasses legal, economic, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities (Maruf, 2013). Islamic CSR promotes the behaviour of brotherhood and justice to balance employee rights and better coherence between self-interest and altruism. With that, satisfied employees contribute to firm performance.

Overall, this study extends the insight that satisfied employees may, in turn, mean better market performances for a company.

The findings corroborate human relations theories, as well as from the Islamic perspective, employee satisfaction results in greater market performances.

This research study examines the impact of social and governance initiatives on financial performance of global banks. The study is significant in the context of massive changes in regulations, government policy, social attitudes and market development attributed to banking sector.

The source of data for this study was ESG database of Thomson Reuters. The study was based on 472 global banks. The research paper uses two-stage least square model and the study covered the five-year period 2015–2019.

Banks with high intensity of social and governance-related activities have positive market-based valuation effects. Adequately capitalized banks tend to invest more in social initiatives. Banks' governance initiatives directed toward the use of anti-takeover defensive mechanisms are skeptically perceived by markets. Riskier banks tend to have less investments in social initiatives.

The findings are relevant in the context of expectations from policymakers, consumers and investors with respect to the role which banks ought to play in funding the development of a sustainable economy. The research finding that strong governance and social initiatives by banks are value-enhancing measures is a clear evidence of the significance of ESG initiatives as value-creating mechanisms as perceived by markets.

This study addresses the gap in the research, which examines the role of governance and social initiatives on value creation in the banking sector firms. The study examines the impact of different elements of governance and social initiatives on financial performance of banks.

The purpose of this study is to broadly examine the role of marketing–finance interface factors for value creation. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of discretionary expenditures such as advertisement on valuation of brands and firms within the framework of risk factors.

To test the model and hypotheses of this study as it has the possibilities of multiple causations among different variables used in the system. Some independent variables are not truly independent and there is a possibility of biased estimation and inconsistent results. Hence a dynamic simultaneous equation model is used including the instrumental variable approach.

The study provides evidence for direct association between brand value and firm value which is represented by the joint impact of both operating and stock market performance. The results establish the direct relationship between brand and firm value and signify the relevance of intangible value creation.

This study addresses the gap in the research which examines the role of marketing decisions on value creation which jointly impacts both operating and stock market performance.

The purpose of this study is to consolidate the existing literature on small retail and develop a conceptual framework using thematic analysis.

The relevant set of 224 articles has been obtained from the Scopus database by applying the PRISMA framework. Bibliometric analysis has been performed using Biblioshiny in Bibliometrix and VOSviewer.

Four major themes have been identified within the conceptual structure of the small retail domain, and a conceptual framework has been developed using the interlinkages within the themes. The intellectual structure of the domain has been explored using citation analysis, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling. Future research directions are also identified and documented based on the thematic analysis and overall consolidation of the literature.

This is perhaps one of the first attempts to consolidate the published literature on small retail using bibliometric analysis.

This study investigates the association between corporate sustainability disclosures and firm performance and value.

This study collected data from 694 manufacturing companies operating in 34 countries between 2007 and 2019, yielding 6,181 firm-year observations. This study employs a dual-model framework to analyze the influence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and Tobin's Q ratio. Two sets of control variables, firm- and country-specific, were incorporated to account for potential confounding factors. To validate the robustness of the findings, we utilized a battery of econometric techniques, including traditional ordinary least squares (OLS), firm-fixed effects, quantile regression, and instrumental variables-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM), applied to both the pooled and firm-fixed effects models.

The findings are contradictory: there is a negative relationship between sustainability disclosure and operating performance and return on equity, but a positive relationship between sustainability disclosure and firm value. The negative correlation is consistent with agency theory and the positive correlation is consistent with the legitimacy and shareholder theories. These results are robust to performance measures and estimation methods.

Short-term profit shouldn't deter sustainability. It boosts legitimacy, reputation, efficiency, and long-term market value. Investors must look beyond profitability ratios, embracing ESG metrics. Firms should see sustainability as strategic investment, not cost. Patience pays off: long-term gains await. Regulation can guide balanced growth, prioritizing both shareholders and societal well-being.

This study is the first to adopt a firm’s fixed-effect quantile regression, which provides deep insights into the role of sustainability disclosure in meeting stakeholders’ expectations.

In the present study, the authors intended to investigate whether the economic growth drivers such as per capita income, financial development, nonrenewable energy solutions and trade expansion have invigorated the level of environmental pollution in the eight developing nations of South and Southeast Asia.

Considering the possibility of the cross-sectional dependency, the authors employed relatively new econometric approaches, that is, the Westerlund cointegration test and cross-sectional augmented distributed lag mean estimation (CS-DL) for the period of 1990–2015.

The simulation results of the study confirmed an N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve, which raised a question on the existing economic policies in these nations. Further, the study reported that the improvements in the financial sector, nonrenewable energy consumption and trade expansion contributed to increasing the level of CO₂ emissions in the long run.

Based on the results, the authors intended to provide a unique policy framework because the present policies are generating a trade-off between economic and environmental goals. If the suggested framework is employed across sectors, the given countries may likely achieve the sustainable development goals by 2030.

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a hydrodynamic and thermal analysis of turbulent forced-convection flows of pure water, pure ethylene glycol and water-ethylene glycol mixture, as base fluids dispersed by Al₂O₃ nano-sized solid particles, through a constant temperature-surfaced rectangular cross-section channel with detached and attached obstacles, using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. Effects of various base fluids and different Al₂O₃ nano-sized solid particle solid volume fractions with Reynolds numbers ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 were analyzed. The contour plots of dynamic pressure, stream-function, velocity-magnitude, axial velocity, transverse velocity, turbulent intensity, turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent viscosity and temperature fields, the axial velocity profiles, the local and average Nusselt numbers, as well as the local and average coefficients of skin friction, were obtained and investigated numerically.

The fluid flow and temperature fields were simulated using the Commercial CFD Software FLUENT. The same package included a preprocessor GAMBIT which was used to create the mesh needed for the solver. The RANS equations, along with the standard k-epsilon turbulence model and the energy equation were used to control the channel flow model. All the equations were discretized by the finite volume method using a two-dimensional formulation, using the semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations pressure-velocity coupling algorithm. With regard to the flow characteristics, the interpolation QUICK scheme was applied, and a second-order upwind scheme was used for the pressure terms. The under-relaxation was changed between the values 0.3 and 1.0 to control the update of the computed variables at each iteration. Moreover, various grid systems were tested to analyze the effect of the grid size on the numerical solution. Then, the solutions are said to be converging when the normalized residuals are smaller than 10-12 and 10-9 for the energy equation and the other variables, respectively. The equations were iterated by the solver till it reached the needed residuals or when it stabilized at a fixed value.

The result analysis showed that the pure ethylene glycol with Al₂O₃ nanoparticles showed a significant heat transfer enhancement, in terms of local and average Nusselt numbers, compared with other pure or mixed fluid-based nanofluids, with low-pressure losses in terms of local and average skin friction coefficients.

The present research ended up at interesting results which constitute a valuable contribution to the improvement of the knowledge basis of professional work through research related to turbulent flow forced-convection within channels supplied with obstacles, and especially inside heat exchangers and solar flat plate collectors.

The business enterprises are increasingly focusing on buying and supplying of products and services in a manner to reduce the adverse impacts on the environment, society, and economy. In view of the above, the concept of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has received attention of the industry and academia due to its importance on environmental, social and corporate responsibility through economic performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The structured literature review attempts to map the various theories in the SSCM literature from the perspectives of economic performance, environmental dimensions, and social values and ethics.

As supply management is vital for enhancing organizational competitiveness, the present work attempts to investigate the theoretical perspectives in SSCM to develop an understanding of the current research activities and future potentials.

This work aims to gain a number of valid insights for the practitioners and the researchers. It also focuses on the perspectives of governance mechanisms for successful implementation SSCM practices in the business enterprises.

As the theory building initiatives with implications on the conceptualization of SSCM is limited in literature, this work has also been able to identify the trends and relevant research gaps to define the potential areas for future research.

This paper aims to focus on research work related to metamaterial-based sensors for material characterization that have been developed for past ten years. A decade of research on metamaterial for sensing application has led to the advancement of compact and improved sensors.

In this study, relevant research papers on metamaterial sensors for material characterization published in reputed journals during the period 2007-2018 were reviewed, particularly focusing on shape, size and nature of materials characterized. Each sensor with its design and performance parameters have been summarized and discussed here.

As metamaterial structures are excited by electromagnetic wave interaction, sensing application throughout electromagnetic spectrum is possible. Recent advancement in fabrication techniques and improvement in metamaterial structures have led to the development of compact, label free and reversible sensors with high sensitivity.

The paper provides useful information on the development of metamaterial sensors for material characterization.