Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between accounting conservatism and pledging of shares by controlling shareholders of a firm to obtain a loan. The pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders of a firm results in alterations to the payoff and risk structure for these shareholders. Since accounting numbers have valuation implications, pledging of shares by a controlling shareholder has an impact on accounting policy choices made by the firm. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of controlling shareholder share pledging to obtain a loan on a specific accounting policy choice, namely, conservatism.

The paper uses a large data set from India comprising 14,786 firm years consisting of 1,570 firms belonging to 58 industries for a period of 11 years (2009–2019). The authors use ordinary least square regression with robust standard errors. The authors conduct robustness checks and the results are consistent across alternative statistical methodologies and alternative measures of the primary dependent and independent variables.

The primary results show that pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders results in higher conditional conservatism and lower unconditional conservatism. Further analysis reveals that the relationship is stronger when the controlling shareholder holds a majority ownership in the firm. Additionally, the results show that for business group affiliated firms, which are unique to developing countries, both the conditional and the unconditional conservatism are incrementally lower when the controlling shareholder pledges the shares. For family firms with a family member as CEO, the conditional conservatism is incrementally higher and the unconditional conservatism is incrementally lower. Finally, the authors show that the results hold when the pledge intensity variable is measured with a one-year lag and finally, the authors show that conditional conservatism is incrementally higher in the year of the increase in the pledge and the year after, but there is no such incremental impact on unconditional conservatism.

The research is limited to the listed firms in India. Since majority of the listed firms are controlled by families and the family firms around the world are heterogeneous the findings of the research may not be applicable to other countries.

The study has implications for policy-making and monitoring of the pledging by the controlling shareholders. It also helps the investors in making investment decisions with respect to family firms in India.

The study is unique as it focuses on the relationship between pledging of shares by the controlling shareholders and its impact on accounting conservatism. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research integrating these two aspects.

This study aims to explore the research internationalization process in Georgia, one of the post-Soviet countries. Specifically, it examines the individual-level reasons that motivate faculty at Georgian universities to engage in the process of research internationalization. It also unpacks scholars’ perspectives on the driving factors for selecting the key partners in international research.

Sixteen faculty members for this exploratory qualitative study were selected through stratified purposeful sampling from five higher educational institutions in Georgia. Participants were asked to discuss their participation in international research projects and underline the activities and events that motivated them to participate in international collaborative projects. The critical incident method was used to analyze our qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews.

The research revealed that faculty at Georgian universities are more oriented toward collaboration with their peers from European countries and the USA. This preference is influenced by such factors as higher quality of science, higher level of freedom and autonomy, personal contacts and networks, as well as language competencies. The data also helped to unpack Georgian scholars’ individual-level rationales that were conceptualized into three domains: human capital, financial capital and physical capital.

This study is an original work conducted in Georgia. It contributes to the development of the field of internationalization of research. The three-domain conceptual framework on the individual-level rationale for internationalization can be used in future research on post-Soviet countries and beyond.

This study aims to empirically examine the research related to work values published in the two major databases Scopus and Web of Science.

This paper opted for a bibliometric study using the R (Bibliometric R package). The bibliometric analysis was conducted on 498 papers after removing duplicates published between 1964 and 2022.

This study finds that the number of articles and citations is limited but growing. Journal of Applied Psychology was regarded as the most influential journal with maximum citations. Maximum citations and publications came from the USA. The study revealed that maximum collaborations were done between authors located in the USA and China.

The researcher used only two databases in the study, so papers included in other databases are left, which can affect the study results.

This research may be beneficial for both human resource practitioners and researchers because it identifies the research gaps and future research needs in the field of work values. Besides, this paper will help the researchers to understand the publishing trends in the subject area.

This research incorporates bibliometric analysis for a critical analysis of Work Value literature. This research contributes to the existing literature and assists fellow researchers in future studies.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The study aims to investigate the characteristics of the current situation of library programs and explore the possible reasons behind the low participation in Hong Kong. It focuses on the development of library programs in the era of digital technology, which can lead to discussion and reflections on the further development of library programs with innovative technology services.

This study applied a mixed-method research approach to investigate the current situation of library programming and the reasons for low participation in Hong Kong. The first part analyzes the characteristics of library programs offered by the Hong Kong Public Libraries (HKPL) through data collection from the HKPL website. The second part of this study investigated the reasons behind the low participation in library programs through quantitative research through an online survey.

The findings show that current library programs were dominated by reading activities and children's programs to a great extent, which both users and non-users are not very interested in. Further, most respondents expressed more interest in cultural and leisure events and hands-on activities (especially new technologies related) than traditional library programming. Many lapsed and non-users chose not to attend the library programs for boredom and uselessness. As a result, there is a need for HKPL to adjust its services to stay relevant to the needs and interests of local communities.

Scant studies explored the reasons behind non-users of public library programs, especially in Asia. This research contributes to the literature by analyzing and proposing the characteristics of the current situation of library programs and exploring the possible reasons behind the low participation in Hong Kong.

The crux of this paper is to unveil efficient features and practical tools that can predict credit default.

Annual data of non-financial listed companies were taken from 2000 to 2020, along with 71 financial ratios. The dataset was bifurcated into three panels with three default assumptions. Logistic regression (LR) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) binary classification algorithms were used to estimate credit default in this research.

The study’s findings revealed that features used in Model 3 (Case 3) were the efficient and best features comparatively. Results also showcased that KNN exposed higher accuracy than LR, which proves the supremacy of KNN on LR.

Using only two classifiers limits this research for a comprehensive comparison of results; this research was based on only financial data, which exhibits a sizeable room for including non-financial parameters in default estimation. Both limitations may be a direction for future research in this domain.

This study introduces efficient features and tools for credit default prediction using financial data, demonstrating KNN’s superior accuracy over LR and suggesting future research directions.

Despite the burgeoning interest in corporate universities (CUs), their pragmatic application and ongoing evolution present challenges. This study aims to analyze the South Korean CU landscape from a balanced perspective to draw implications for the sustainable development of CUs.

The study uses a case study method to systematically explore CUs in South Korea by reviewing the South Korean government reports on CUs. The cases of CUs are analyzed based on the holistic model of CUs, which functions as an analytical framework.

By analyzing four groups of CUs, namely, in-house colleges, corporation colleges, technical colleges and in-house college-type lifelong educational establishments, implemented in South Korea, this study draws implications for the sustainable development of CUs, using the holistic CU model.

By analyzing cases of CUs from a new perspective, this study contributes to expand knowledge on CUs and suggests implications for organizations aiming to establish and sustain their own CUs tailored to their specific needs. Furthermore, this paper delves into the support necessary for the successful implementation and sustainable development of CUs, spanning organizational/team, national and individual levels.

This study aims to develop a model based on the financial variables for better accuracy of financial distress prediction on the sample of private French, Spanish and Italian firms. Thus, firms in financial difficulties could timely request for troubled debt restructuring (TDR) to continue business.

This study used a sample of 312 distressed and 312 non-distressed firms. It includes 60 French, 21 Spanish and 231 Italian firms in both distressed and non-distressed groups. The data are extracted from the ORBIS database. First, the authors develop a new model by replacing a ratio in the original Z”-Score model specifically for financial distress prediction and estimate its coefficients based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Second, using the modified Z”-Score model, the authors develop a firm TDR probability index for distressed and non-distressed firms based on the logistic regression model.

The new model (modified Z”-Score), specifically for financial distress prediction, represents higher prediction accuracy. Moreover, the firm TDR probability index accurately depicts the probabilities trend for both groups of distressed and non-distressed firms.

The findings of this study are conclusive. However, the sample size is small. Therefore, further studies could extend the application of the prediction model developed in this study to all the EU countries.

This study has important practical implications. This study responds to the EU directive call by developing the financial distress prediction model to allow debtors to do timely debt restructuring and thus continue their businesses. Therefore, this study could be useful for practitioners and firm stakeholders, such as banks and other creditors, and investors.

This study significantly contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study develops a model for predicting financial distress based on the argument that corporate bankruptcy and financial distress are distinct events. However, the original Z”-Score model is intended for failure prediction. Moreover, the recent literature suggests modifying and extending the prediction models. Second, the new model is tested using a sample of firms from three countries that share similarities in their TDR laws.

In the highly competitive business landscape, manufacturing firms need to adopt an effective manufacturing strategy to attain a successful world-class manufacturing status. Over the past few decades, the lean manufacturing (LM) approach has gained recognition as one of the foremost strategies for enhancing performance. However, the implementation of LM poses significant challenges due to several barriers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the primary barriers to lean implementation within the apparel industry.

This paper used an exploratory study approach, using a three-part structured questionnaire to assess the level of agreement on different lean barriers. The measurement of these barriers was conducted using a five-point Likert scale. Empirical data were collected from 177 apparel companies located in Bangladesh.

The findings of the research highlight that the primary obstacles to implementing LI include a lack of understanding of the lean manufacturing system (LMS), the manufacturing process, the company culture and resistance from employees.

This paper could potentially limit the generalizability of this research, as it exclusively examines a single manufacturing sector – the apparel industry.

This paper will help practitioners in finding solutions to resolve discrepancies between current manufacturing practices and the LMS.

This paper fulfills an identified need to examine the extent of lean adoption within the apparel industry of Bangladesh.

With the development of science and technology, more creators are trying to use new crafts to represent the cultural trends of the social media era, which makes cultural heritage innovative and new genres emerge. This compels the academic community to examine craft from a new perspective. It is very helpful to understand the hidden representational structure of craft more deeply and improve the craft innovation system of cultural and creative products that we deconstruct the craft based on Complex Network and discover its intrinsic connections.

The research crawled and cleaned the craft information of the top 20% products on the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products online and then performed Complex Network modeling, constructed three craft representation networks among function, material and technique, quantified and analyzed the inner connections and network structure of the craft elements, and then analyzed the cultural inheritance and innovation embedded in the craft representation networks.

The three dichotomous craft representation networks constructed by combining function, material and technique: (1) the network density is low and none of them has small-world characteristics, indicating that the innovative heritage of the craft elements in the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products is at the stage of continuous exploration and development, and multiple coupling innovation is still insufficient; (2) all have scale-free characteristics and there is still a certain degree of community structure within each network, indicating that the coupling innovation of craft elements of the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products is seriously uneven, with some specific “grammatical combinations” and an Island Effect in the network structure; (3) the craft elements with high network centrality emphasize the characteristics of decorative culture and design for the masses, as well as the pursuit of production efficiency and economic benefits, which represent the aesthetic purport of contemporary Chinese society and the ideological trend of production and life.

The Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products should continue to develop and enrich the multi-coupling innovation of craft elements, clarify and continue their own brand unique craft genes, and make full use of the network important nodes role.