Search results

Gender equality and women empowerment which are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals have attracted researchers and policymakers worldwide. Various programmes and interventions aiming at empowerment have been designed and implemented by both national and international agencies. One of the flagship programmes of NABARD introduced in the year 1992, the self-help group (SHG)–bank linkage model is also known for its impact on the availability of credit and empowerment of women. Later, the SGSY scheme was restructured into the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in the year 2013. Initially, SHGs focussed on savings and credit linkage, but now the emphasis has been changed to generate livelihoods and economically empowering women on a sustainable basis through training women to establish micro-enterprises. In this facet, the journey of microfinance in empowering women is systematically analyzed. The state of Haryana has consistently outperformed other states in terms of economic and agricultural growth but it ranks poorly in terms of its key human development indicators. Despite high productivity and low poverty, the state faces challenges related to the health and nutrition of children. Literature provides evidence that the health and nutrition status of children and women is closely linked to women empowerment. Using secondary sources of data, we conclude that micro-finance can be a useful tool for empowering women provided the roadblocks are identified and the requisite support is provided to women entrepreneurs.

Operational performance is critical for the banking sector for both managers and other stakeholders as it strongly affects the overall performance of the banking system. Traditional performance measures such as ratio analysis encountered certain shortcomings. At this juncture, data envelopment analysis (DEA) approaches are increasingly applied in bank efficiency studies. However, basic DEA models ignored the interactions between consecutive terms and focused primarily on measuring performance independently for each study period. All this is required to develop an operational performance model that can enable the long-term decision model.

An attempt has been made to develop a dynamic DEA within a non-radial category to measure interconnection activities considering non-performing loans as an undesirable link. This study uses the Indian banking dataset from 2015 to 2019. The study's research design directs three directions: ‘comparison of the dynamic DEA with the traditional static DEA model, areas of inefficiencies that are investigated for each factor using the factor efficiency index and the robustness results highlighting the performance difference between bank categories.'

Comparing with static DEA results, the study confirms that the dynamic model best measures long-term operational performance due to the linkage between consecutive terms. The efficiency analysis concludes that the input factor that requires the most improvement is ‘fixed assets' and ‘deposits'. The output factor that needs the most progress is ‘non-interest income'. The robustness of the developed model is proven by ownership categories present within the Indian banking system. At a significance level of 10%, the result of both the separate and dynamic model for privately owned banks is significantly better than that of publicly owned banks.

This paper proposes an operational efficiency model for Indian banks in line with undesirable output. The mean factor efficiency analysis related to non-radial DEA modelling enhances managerial flexibilities in determining improvement initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether banks’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives increase or decrease banks’ efficiency.

The sample used includes all listed banks in Saudi Arabia over the years 2016–2021. The authors performed different methods, including data envelopment analysis (DEA), ordinary least squares (OLS) and quantile regressions.

The OLS regression results show a negative linkage between ESG and banks’ efficiency. Further, the quantile regression analysis indicates that the ESG effect on banks' efficiency is negative across different quantiles. However, the DEA method shows that the DEA-generated scores for Banks’ efficiency are higher for ESG-adjusted scores in comparison to efficiency scores without incorporating ESG. Further, the comparison of the DEA-generated efficiency scores, over the sample period, of adjusted ESG banks still suffers from decreasing in their efficiency over the years. Concerning existing theory, the results are consistent with the stakeholders and the resource-based theories postulating that banks' ESG practices are ethical commitments and enable firms to gain competitive advantage and increase their reputation among stakeholders.

The findings of this study offer important implications for regulators and bankers. Policymakers and bank regulators should make collective efforts to encourage financial institutions to adopt green finance initiatives to create an efficient financial system capable of counteracting risks from the external environment and stimulating economic growth. Banks’ managers should be aware that ESG initiatives serve society and the environment and offer a positive influence on banks’ efficiency.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the influence of ESG activities on banks' efficiency using DEA for banks in Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this research explores the level of Islamic financial literacy of customers in the context of Islamic banking. Second, this study examines the determinants of customer adoption of Islamic banking in Turkey.

This study gathered sample data from 409 participants determined using the purposive sampling method. In the study, first, the reflective measurement model is used to examine the reliability, validity and multicollinearity problems of the variables. Then, AMOS structural equation model (SEM) is used to reveal the relationship between Islamic financial literacy and Islamic banking services. Additionally, this study performed both descriptive and inferential analysis to understand customer literacy about Islamic banking and their adoption behavior of Islamic banking.

The results obtained from descriptive assessment indicate that Turkish customers of Islamic banking possess sufficient literacy about Islamic banking. Moreover, the results from SEM indicate that the adoption of Islamic banking by customers is significantly predicted by the role of Sharia Board management, Islamic banking and purpose of financial institution, religious factor and legitimacy of Islamic financial system.

This study focuses only on the level of knowledge and perceptions of customers who have accounts in Islamic banks or financial institutions in Turkey. It does not focus on the level of knowledge and perception of Muslims who do not have accounts in Islamic banks and financial institutions.

Previous studies on Islamic banking are mostly studies that investigate customers’ perceptions of the Islamic banking system and why individuals prefer Islamic banks. In particular, studies examining the relationship between individuals’ Islamic financial literacy level and Islamic banking preferences are limited. This study is considered to be an original study as it investigates the relationship between the Islamic financial literacy level of individuals and their adoption of Islamic banking services in Turkey.

This study aims to investigate the effects of board cultural diversity (BCD) and board gender diversity (BGD) of the board of directors on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the European banking sector using resource-based view (RBV) theory. In addition, this study analyses the linkages between BCD and BGD and knowledge sharing on the board of directors to improve ESG performance.

This study selected a sample of European-listed banks covering the period 2021. ESG and diversity variables were collected from Refinitiv Eikon and analysed using the ordinary least squares model. This study was conducted in the European context regulated by Directive 95/2014/EU, which requires sustainability disclosure. The original population was represented by 250 banks; after missing data were excluded, the final sample comprised 96 European-listed banks.

The findings highlight the positive linkages between BGD, BCD and ESG scores in the European banking sector. In addition, the findings highlight that diversity contributes to knowledge sharing by improving ESG performance in a regulated sector. Nonetheless, the combined effect of BGD and BCD negatively impacts ESG performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to measure and analyse a regulated sector, such as banking, and the relationship between cultural and gender diversity for sharing knowledge under the RBV theory lens in the ESG framework.

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of oil prices, political instability and changes in stability on the bank diversification of the two types of banking systems in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries.

The study uses bank diversification, stability measurement of probability of default and Zscore by adopting the generalised method of moment for the data between 2007 and 2021. The authors estimate short- and long-run dynamic panel analysis and a robustness test.

The findings reveal that Islamic banks are slightly lower in diversification and stability than conventional peers in the region. Diversification increases with a positive increase in GDP growth, law and order, political stability, bank size, asset quality, oil price, return on equity, profitability and change in banking asset-based stability. The authors found consistency in the two stability measurements in both short- and long-run situations.

Despite the change in banking stability and economic growth and oil prices improved diversification, banks in the region are not diversifying during the crisis period and political instability. Therefore, policymakers should improve mechanisms to monitor the crisis and political unrest to avoid the systemic risk that adversely affects the system through macro-financial linkages in the region.

This study uses change dual stability measurements and oil prices to predict MENA region bank diversification. The authors extended the banking literature by estimating the relationship between crisis periods, political and banking stability, oil prices and other institutional indicators of banking diversification. This study uncovers the effect of the global crisis period on banking diversification and the impact of banking stability changes and validates the models through robustness tests.

This study aims to propose and examine a research model where work engagement mediates the impacts of high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) on bank employees' turnover intentions. Specifically, the paper assesses: (a) the effects of empowerment, information sharing, rewards and training on work engagement and turnover intention, (b) work engagement as a mediator of the effects of these HIWPs on turnover intention (c) and functional competence as a moderator of the effects of these HIWPs on work engagement.

An online survey was employed to gather data from 343 employees working in commercial banks in Bangladesh. The authors applied partial least squares structural equation modeling to assess the aforesaid linkages.

Empowerment and information sharing increase bank employees' work engagement, while training and rewards reduce their proclivity to leave. Work engagement partly mediates the relationships of empowerment and information sharing to turnover intention. Functional competence moderates the relationship between three HIWPs (empowerment, information sharing and rewards) on work engagement.

The paper examines the association between HIWPs and turnover intention, which has been subjected to little empirical inquiry among bank employees during a crisis (e.g. Covid-19 pandemic). The paper provides new insights into the underlying mechanism linking HIWPs and turnover intention and highlights the moderating effect of functional competence. Additionally, the study offers new knowledge on the impact of the pandemic on bank employees' HIWPs. Finally, this paper used data gathered from bank employees in Bangladesh, which is an underrepresented Asian country in the extant service research.

A banking system is essential for financial stability, especially economic growth and development. The authors investigate the dynamic linkage of key banking system stability measures, namely, liquidity, capital, profitability, and credit risk. To this end, the authors employ Panel Vector Autoregressive (VAR) to a panel data set of country-level banking system indicators from seven developing countries; from March 2010 to December 2020 (308 country quarter observations). A nation is selected on the basis of similar characteristics large and bank-based economy with the considerably same stage of economic development. The authors find a remarkable resilient feature of the banking system in which both liquidity risk and credit risk appears significant only in the short run (within three quarters). Shocks from both risk sources dissipate quickly, suggesting an internal mechanism is at work. This study provides evidence of how a good performance of financial safety net should be.