Search results

The authors revisit the inquiry into the primacy of shareholders vis-à-vis stakeholders that has been debated since 19th Century. The authors consider B-business firms as the closest groups of firms that have considerable similarities to stakeholders' firms. The authors model the impact of being certified as stakeholders (B-business) firms in a worldwide environment.

Employing daily returns data of B-corporations in a global setting during 2010–2021, the authors quantify and compare the firms' performance in the pre- and post-certified periods, measure the effect of their environmental social governance (ESG) scores on their performance and gauge the entire results on a standardized approach that yields easy interpretation.

Subject to some caveats arising from limited coverage and the lack of data on proper control variables, the findings, based on the statistical significance of the estimated coefficients, do not indicate any changes in B-corporations' performance in their post-certification dates. Notwithstanding that, market factor appears to be the driving force consistently.

Prior studies on B-corporations are overwhelmingly qualitative. The current study is the first study that evaluate performance of B-corporations' returns at firm level with daily data.

We examine how the net share purchases of top executives of acquiring firms, specifically the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Chief Operating Officer (COO), can impact shareholder perceptions of a merger and acquisition (M&A) around the announcement time.

Regression tests using the post-announcement cumulative returns as the dependent variables, and CEO and COO net purchases as independent test controlling for the net purchases of all other insiders, COO and CEO ownership, exercised options, unexercised exercisable options, merger type, pre-announcement firm size, past performance, industry growth, industry instability, year and industry fixed effects. The regression tests are used for various sub-samples (i.e. non-contemporaneous events, duality, operational complexity, economic conditions).

We find that overall shareholders value the COO's net purchases before the announcement but not those of the CEOs. If the COO is also the CEO, then executive buy-ins appear to have a negative reaction from the shareholders. When the firm has many business segments or when the announcement is made in an economic recession, the COO's net purchases do not have a positive influence on the shareholders.

We are the first to provide evidence that investors pay attention to the COO around M&A announcements. In the age of celebrity CEOs, who can instantaneously change the stock price with one press release, having another executive that can shape the opinion of investors can diversify the agency risk.

To survive in increasingly competitive markets, customer focused organizations are challenged to create and sustain long term loyal and supportive customers. To ensure long term service quality, organizations need to have quality focused internal structures and processes in place to support those on the front line who make or break the organization’s reputation with their customers. This paper introduces nine scientifically developed measures of internal structures and processes that are associated with service quality. These measures are applicable to organizations in a variety of industries in both the public and private sectors and can serve to benchmark “best in class” practices. They were developed from ratings obtained from 8,924 employees from over 100 organizations. When organizations provide supportive structures and processes for their front line employees, these employees are better able to provide top quality products and services to their external customers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation between the price return of leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Monero, Stellar, Peercoin and Dash, and stock return of technology companies' indices that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services, including alternative finance, democratized banking, future payments and digital communities.

This study employs a Bayesian asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) (BADCC-MGARCH) model with skewness and heavy tails on daily sample ranging from August 11, 2015, to February 10, 2020, to investigate the dynamic correlation between price return of several cryptocurrencies and stock return of the technology companies' indices that mainly operate on the blockchain platform. Data are collected from multiple sources. For parameter estimation and model comparison, the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is employed. Besides, based on the expected Akaike information criterion (EAIC), Bayesian information criterion (BIC), deviance information criterion (DIC) and weighted Deviance Information Criterion (wDIC), the skewed-multivariate Generalized Error Distribution (mvGED) is selected as an optimal distribution for errors. Finally, some other tests are carried out to check the robustness of the results.

The study results indicate that blockchain-based technology companies' indices' return and price return of cryptocurrencies are positively correlated for most of the sampling period. Besides, the return price of newly invented and more advanced cryptocurrencies with unique characteristics, including Monero, Ripple, Dash, Stellar and Peercoin, positively correlates with the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies for more than 93% of sampling days. The results are also robust to various sensitivity analyses.

The positive correlation between the price return of cryptocurrencies and the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies can be due to the investors' sentiments toward blockchain technology as both cryptocurrencies and these companies are based on blockchain technology. It could also be due to the applicability of cryptocurrencies for these companies, as the price return of more advanced and capable cryptocurrencies with unique features has a positive correlation with the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies for more days compared to the other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum, that may be regarded more as speculative assets.

The study results may show the positive role of cryptocurrencies in improving and developing technology companies that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services and vice versa, suggesting that managers and regulators should pay more attention to the usefulness of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. This study also has important risk management and diversification implications for investors and companies investing in cryptocurrencies and these companies' stock. Besides, blockchain-based technology companies can add cryptocurrencies to their portfolio as hedgers or diversifiers based on their strategy.

This is the first study analyzing the connection between leading cryptocurrencies and technology companies that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services by employing the Bayesian ssymmetric DCC-MGARCH model. The results also have important implications for investors, companies, regulators and researchers for future studies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the leadership effectiveness of hospital managers in Iran.

Top managers (15), middle managers (10) and operational managers (5) of public, private or social security hospitals in Tehran participated in a qualitative study using semi-structured in-depth interviews. Data were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed via MAXQDA 10 software.

The findings were categorized into two main themes of internal and external factors with eight sub-themes. The most important internal factors that had an influence on the leadership of the hospital managers were intra-organizational relations, manager’s personality traits, knowledge, attitude and skills of the manager. The most important external factors included extra-organizational relations, macro-level health policies, access to special financial resources, and social, economic and political factors.

The results call for a need to understand and analyze the socioeconomic factors influencing managers’ leadership while adopting appropriate strategies.

The results of the current study can help design training programs for hospital managers, and suggest criteria for appointing hospital managers across the country and this can enhance the effectiveness of their leadership. Health sector policymakers and decision makers should reform the programs that target training and empowerment of hospital managers so that the right people with the right competencies will hold such positions.

The results of this study showed that leadership effectiveness is also influenced by social and external factors. On the other hand, the effectiveness of management leadership can play a significant role in the quality of care provided to the community, patient satisfaction and in hospital social performance through the appropriate management of all hospital resources. Such factors should also be considered in training and appointing hospital managers.

Although there are several studies on hospital managers’ leadership worldwide, this study is the first to investigate the leadership effectiveness of hospital managers in Iran.

This study aims to investigate the possibilities of cryptocurrencies as hedges and diversifiers in the Indian stock market before and during financial crisis due to the pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war.

Researchers have used daily data on cryptocurrencies and Indian stock prices from March 10, 2015 to August 26, 2022. The researchers have used the dynamic conditional correlations (DCC)-GARCH model to determine the volatility spillover and dynamic correlation between stocks and digital currencies. Further, researchers have explored hedge ratio, portfolio weight and hedging effectiveness using the estimates of the DCC-GARCH model.

The findings indicate a negative conditional correlation between equities and cryptocurrencies before the crisis and a positive conditional correlation except for Tether during the crisis. Which implies that cryptocurrencies serve as a hedging asset in the stock market before a crisis but are not more than a diversifier during the crisis, except for Tether. Notably, Tether serves as a safe haven during times of crisis. Finally, the study suggests that Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin and Ripple are the most effective diversifiers for Indian stocks during the crisis.

This study makes several contributions to the existing literature. First, it compares the hedge and diversification roles of cryptocurrencies in the Indian stock market before and during crisis. Second, the study findings provide insights on risk hedging and can serve as a guide for investors. Third, it may help rational investors avoid underestimating risk while constructing portfolios, particularly in times of financial turmoil.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which Chinese equity investors can benefit from diversifying their portfolio into Shariah-compliant (Islamic) indices. It examines three Islamic stock indices (FTSE Shariah China price index, MSCI China Islamic IMI price index and the DJ Islamic Greater China price index) and ten sectoral indices in Shanghai Stock Exchange as a sample.

The multivariate GARCH dynamic conditional correlations (MGARCH-DCC) is deployed to estimate the time-varying linkages of returns of the selected indices, covering approximately eight years daily data starting from 28 August 2009 to 29 September 2017.

In general, in terms of volatility, the results indicate that all Islamic Indices are less volatile than the conventional indices. From the correlation analysis, the results imply that Chinese conventional equity investors would benefit from Islamic stock indices, especially when they include DJ Islamic Greater China in their portfolio.

The findings of this paper may have several significant implications for the Chinese equity investors and fund managers for better understanding about co-movements of the Chinese conventional sectoral indices with the Shariah-compliant stock indices with the purpose of gaining higher risk-adjusted returns through portfolio diversification.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the extent to which the Malaysia-based equity investors can benefit from diversifying their portfolio into the conventional and Islamic Southeast Asian region and the world’s top ten largest equity indices (China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, the UK, the USA, Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland).

The multivariate GARCH-dynamic conditional correlation is deployed to estimate the time-varying linkages of the selected conventional and Islamic Asian and international stock index returns with the Malaysian stock index returns, covering approximately eight years daily starting from 29 June 2007 to 30 June 2016.

In general, in terms of volatility, the results indicate that both Asian and international Islamic stock indices are more or less volatile than its conventional counterparts. From the correlation analysis, we can see that both the conventional and Islamic MSCI indices of Japan provide more diversification benefits compared to Southeast Asian region, China, Hong Kong and India. Meanwhile, in terms of international portfolio diversification, the results tend to suggest that both the conventional and Islamic MSCI indices of the USA provide more diversification benefits compared to the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland.

The findings of this paper may have several significant implications for the Malaysia-based equity investors and fund managers who seek for the understanding of return correlations between the Malaysian stock index and the world’s largest stock market indices in order to gain higher risk-adjusted returns through portfolio diversification. With regard to policy implications, the findings on market shocks and the extent of the interdependence of the Malaysian market with cross-border markets may provide some useful insights in formulating effective macroeconomic stabilization policies in the efforts of preventing contagion effect from deteriorating the domestic economy.