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This study aims to investigate the use of discretionary spending, especially by incumbents, to win the election and whether incumbents can take more advantage of such spending than the new local government heads. This study also examines the political monitoring effect in suppressing discretionary spending. By using panel regression on 225 local governments during 2013–2016, the results indicate that political motive positively affects discretionary spending proportion ahead of the election. Following the public choice theory that although local government heads act on the interests of voters, their primary motivation is personal interest. Incumbent’s victory does not affect total discretionary spending and the financial assistance expenditure/transfer but has a significant positive effect on grant and social assistance spending. It generally supports Corruption Eradication Commission’s allegations of “returning the favor” is carried out by elected heads in one year following the election. But, it shows that incumbents are more able to utilize grants and social assistance spending than the new local government heads. Political monitoring from the opposition party has proven to have a direct negative effect on discretionary spending proportion. Tracking of the one year after the election should be done to prevent misuse of discretionary spending for incumbent political interests. The results of this study are expected to provide input to regulators to develop more comprehensive regulation, for example, strict sanctions for violations related to accountability for the use of such funds to limit the opportunistic behavior of the local government heads.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the digital shift in finance, leading to more people having access to financial services and presenting new opportunities and challenges. This chapter looks at how digital finance has changed during the pandemic, focusing on how it’s made financial services more accessible, helped lessen gender disparities, boosted digital financial understanding, and dealt with potential risks. Since the pandemic, the use of digital financial services has grown rapidly, helping to overcome geographical limitations and increase financial inclusion. This change has been especially helpful for marginalized groups and women, significantly reducing the gender gap in financial inclusion. Meanwhile, understanding digital finance literacy has become crucial for effectively using digital financial services. However, the move towards digitization brings its own challenges, especially new financial risks. These risks require increased consumer awareness, better education, and stricter regulation. The chapter concluded by saying that the path of digital finance after the pandemic is a mix of opportunities and challenges. As a result, we need a careful and balanced approach to increase financial inclusion while also protecting against potential financial risks, ultimately aiming for a fairer, more stable, and more inclusive financial landscape.

The main purpose of this chapter is to examine the attitudes and behaviors of digital consumers in omnichannel world. For this purpose, in order to understand the behavior of digital consumers, literature review has been made. The transformation of traditional consumers into digital consumers has been examined within the framework of marketing periods. What are the new types of consumers and demographic and psychographic characteristics of these, and how they are segmented in the market are important issues. Another important issue is how digital environmental factors affect digital consumers when shopping online. Purchasing processes of digital consumers and their behaviors, which channels they use and how they make purchasing decisions play an important role in understanding digital consumer behaviors. After the purchasing decision, it is examined whether digital consumers will transfer their experiences to other consumers, satisfaction and loyalty experiences, and whether they will buy again in digital environmental.

This chapter provides an overview of the explanations and factors affecting dividend policy. This study employs a systematic literature review approach to review a large sample of studies related to the dividend puzzle. Although the analysis reveals mixed evidence involving the theories and determinants of dividend policy, some determinants appear in numerous studies. However, no consensus exists on an optimal dividend to resolve the dividend puzzle, and the authors propose a model to deal with the same. When examining dividend policy, researchers should consider the firm, market, behavior, and other determinants. When making significant dividend or stock decisions, managers and shareholders should also contemplate the factors, interactions, inadequacies, and consequences. Future researchers should strive to take a more comprehensive view when resolving the dividend puzzle. This study provides a current and complete picture of dividend policy's available theories and empirical determinants. Its significant contribution is identifying some of the more consistently essential determinants of dividend policy while proposing a holistic model to address the prevailing dividend dilemma.

Fintech businesses have the tendency to revolutionize the entire world. Especially, the tasks associated with banking needs, and therefore, there is a significant scope for Fintech in the banking industry. Although when the country’s major population is unbanked and most of the population is also financially excluded, then the scope of Fintech gets exaggerated for microfinance institutions (MFIs), and therefore, the significance of Fintech for MFIs is much higher than the commercial and Islamic banks. Hence, this chapter has been written purposively to illuminate the impact, role, significance and implications of Fintech for MFIs in Pakistan in order to boost the knowledge and understanding of diverse stakeholders. The specialty of this chapter is that it is written specifically with reference to Pakistan as there is least research work with respect to the application of Fintech in MFIs. Similarly, the chapter also contains the anatomy of the value chain activities of MFIs and their linkage with the role of Fintech applications in boosting the performance of MFIs. Last, but not the least, the chapter also has a detailed discussion on factors that are required to boost the usage of Fintech in the MFI sector. Therefore, this chapter is pervasive for academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and students for grasping, understanding and applying recent knowledge towards the betterment of academic and pragmatic activities.

This chapter reviews the empirical evidence for Psychological First Aid (PFA) in the context and experience of the Southeast Asian (SEA) region. First, this chapter provides the definition and background of PFA and its core principles, to explain the basis for doing PFA as part of an integrated approach to disaster mental health. Second, the existing literature on the effectiveness of PFA is reviewed. Third, this chapter examines the application and adaptation of PFA in SEA. Implications and recommendations are provided at the end of the chapter.

Interest in the Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in connection with tourism is constantly growing not only among consumers but also among theoreticians. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of studies that focus on eWOM in the tourism sector using the snowball method. The article is based on a review of the literature of 60 studies that focus not only on consumer behavior in tourism and the impact of eWOM on tourism supply but also on the impact of hotel managers' responses to other consumer behavior and tourism companies. The results of the studies show that eWOM has a significant impact not only on consumer behavior but also on tourism supply. Manager responses can also strongly affect other consumer behavior in decision-making. When eWOM is distributed, consumers are influenced by their emotions, motives, and also by the websites to which they have decided to contribute. The chapter proposes further research areas for different authors.

Pro-poor tourism (PPT) can be a strategy for sustainable tourism realization. The strategy puts local people as the subject of tourism development processes from planning, executing, controlling, and also evaluating. It means local people, including poor people, are empowered to increase their income because their daily activities are connected to the tourism sector. Tourism development in Pemuteran Village can be recorded as a good example of successful PPT implementation in Bali Province, Indonesia. In the 1990s, a Balinese socio-entrepreneur came to the north Bali Islands, introducing the tourism business as a new source of family income for poor people. To change poor people's perception that tourism can provide a positive impact on the village, it faced a difficult challenge. Therefore, the socio-entrepreneur approached poor people with such a special touch that he modified drama gong (a traditional art performance in Bali) and Hindu ritual ceremonies in the temple as development communication channels. This is a good strategy to encourage poor people's participation in tourism development so that Pemuteran Village is known as a popular tourist destination in Bali. Tourism activities provide better income to local people because residents of Pemuteran Villa can get jobs or manage businesses in the tourism sector. Therefore, this research discusses the transformation process of Pemuteran Village from a poor village to a favorite maritime tourism destination. In fact, both of this process and progress had been inspired and supported by the Balinese socio-entrepreneur in order to lead poor people shifting their mindset and behavior to engage in tourism development.

Purpose: To investigate best practices pertaining to tourism resilience and develop a tourism resilience framework for post-COVID-19 Bangladesh from the tourism destination management perspective.

Methodology: A qualitative research approach involving an integrative literature review was used in this research. Thirty-two scholarly works were considered in a thematic data analysis conducted to inform the development of a framework for post-COVID-19 Bangladesh.

Findings: Tourism resilience will be imperative, particularly in the areas of ecology, society, economy, and engineering, on institutional and individual levels. The proposed framework includes government, organization, social, and individual level resilience as the specific measures for Bangladesh. The particular nature of COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh, resulting in a relatively low death toll amidst a high-density population, works as a supportive ground in favor of resilience in the post-COVID-19 reality.

Practical Implications: The integrated framework is a theoretical contribution to post-COVID-19 tourism resilience literature on Bangladesh. It will operate as a policy guideline for key stakeholders when implementing initiatives to revive the tourism sector in the changed reality of Bangladesh after the pandemic.

Originality: The framework presented in this paper is the first attempt of its kind and can facilitate effective economic rebuilding in the changed postpandemic reality. The framework can be generalized to apply to other developing countries as well.

Paper Type: Theoretical framework development.

Entrepreneurship has an important role in the economic development of a country. One element that represents the entrepreneurship quality is its orientation. The orientation of entrepreneurship includes several dimensions which are needed for achievement, an internal locus of control, self-reliance, extroversion, being proactive, risk-taking, and innovation. These dimensions are believed to be able to improve the company’s performance. The purpose of this study is to find out how the entrepreneurship orientation influences the firm performance. This study aims to discover which dimensions of entrepreneurship orientation are the most influential toward the firm performance. The samples were comprised 40 entrepreneurs. The primary data were collected from the respondents by distributing questionnaires to the entrepreneurs of food firms in Salatiga, Indonesia. A multiple regression analysis method was applied in this study. The results show that among the dimensions in entrepreneurship orientation, only the risk-taking and innovative dimensions influence the company’s performance. Innovativeness has a higher effect on firm performance.