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In this study, we examine whether work from home (WFH) had an impact on firm productivity during the COVID-19 period.

We employ a panel fixed-effect model using 79,201 firm-quarter observations in a cross-country setting of 68 countries.

First, we find that firms that employed WFH contributed to real sector growth during the pandemic due to greater capital expenditure compared to otherwise. Second, we find that WFH amenable firms turned over assets better than less WFH amenable firms.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of WFH on firms’ investment and efficiency using a cross-country setting.

The increasing accumulation of synthetic plastic waste in oceans and landfills, along with the depletion of non-renewable fossil-based resources, has sparked environmental concerns and prompted the search for environmentally friendly alternatives. Biodegradable plastics derived from lignocellulosic materials are emerging as substitutes for synthetic plastics, offering significant potential to reduce landfill stress and minimise environmental impacts. This study highlights a sustainable and cost-effective solution by utilising agricultural residues and invasive plant materials as carbon substrates for the production of biopolymers, particularly polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), through microbiological processes. Locally sourced residual materials were preferred to reduce transportation costs and ensure accessibility. The selection of suitable residue streams was based on various criteria, including strength properties, cellulose content, low ash and lignin content, affordability, non-toxicity, biocompatibility, shelf-life, mechanical and physical properties, short maturation period, antibacterial properties and compatibility with global food security. Life cycle assessments confirm that PHB dramatically lowers CO₂ emissions compared to traditional plastics, while the growing use of lignocellulosic biomass in biopolymeric applications offers renewable and readily available resources. Governments worldwide are increasingly inclined to develop comprehensive bioeconomy policies and specialised bioplastics initiatives, driven by customer acceptability and the rising demand for environmentally friendly solutions. The implications of climate change, price volatility in fossil materials, and the imperative to reduce dependence on fossil resources further contribute to the desirability of biopolymers. The study involves fermentation, turbidity measurements, extraction and purification of PHB, and the manufacturing and testing of composite biopolymers using various physical, mechanical and chemical tests.

In recent years, both academics and institutions have acknowledged the crucial role multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play in addressing the sustainability challenges, as formalized by the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Nevertheless, because of their extensiveness and their design as country-level targets, SDGs have proven challenging to operationalize at a firm level. This problem opens new and relevant avenues for research in international business (IB). This chapter attempts to frame the topic of extended value chain sustainability in the IB literature. In particular, it addresses a specific topic, that is, how sustainability and resilience-building practices interact in global value chains (GVCs). To do so, the present study develops the case of STMicroelectronics (ST), one of the biggest semiconductor companies worldwide.

The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the impacts of institutional quality (IQ) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on bank risk-taking behavior, especially after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008.

After considering the outlier effect, missing figure and inconsistent data, the study’s final sample contains 24,364 firm-year observations of 4,367 banks. A total of 27 countries were considered as those data are available on the “EPU index” introduced by Baker et al. (2016) for 2011–2020. To estimate the core results, the dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) has been used to examine the effects of IQ and EPU on bank risk-taking behavior. Later, this study also validates the core results by using two-stage least squares (2SLS).

The authors found a positive relationship between EPU and banks' risk-taking behavior of banks', but imperatively, a significant and negative relationship exists between IQ and bank risk-taking behavior. This study also has a remarkable and distinct findings from Uddin et al. (2020) one of the vital indicators of IQ quality measurement “voice and accountability” (VACC) impacted negatively on bank risk-taking behavior. It indicates that when VACC is well established, banks tend to take the low risk under the prevailing EPU conditions and vice-versa. Moreover, the lagged dependent variable significantly impacted the bank's risk-taking negatively.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, very few studies endeavored to investigate the dominance or impact level of IQ and EPU on the area, i.e. bank risk-taking behavior which inspired us to contribute to the banking literature to address this issue in a broader aspect – the connection between EPU and bank risk-taking behavior, also a relationship between IQ and bank risk-taking behavior and finally linking them with bank risk-taking behavior.

This study explores the influence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) career experience on the investment behavior and risk tolerance of chief executive officers (CEOs). Specifically, this study focuses on CEOs' abilities to allocate financial assets and maintain solvency.

This study adopts a comprehensive approach to analyze financial assets and asset-to-liability ratios. Financial data and individual information of CEOs from listed companies are collected from 2020Q1 to 2021Q4, along with statistics on confirmed COVID-19 cases. Instrumental and alternative variables are used to examine the robustness and endogeneity of the research, ensuring a thorough analysis.

A significant positive correlation is revealed between CEOs' COVID-19 career experience and their capacity to effectively allocate financial assets. However, COVID-19 has a negative effect on firm performance in terms of solvency. These findings contribute to the empirical evidence linking the pandemic to company performance, representing part of the initial research in this area.

The study suggests that the implementation of potential policy implications, such as loose monetary policies and tax and fee reduction measures, may alleviate the tax burden on listed companies.

The present study assesses the commercial bank profit efficiency and its relationship to banking sector competition in a rapidly growing emerging economy, India from 2009 to 2019 using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA).

Lerner indices, conventional and efficiency-adjusted, quantify competition. Two SFA models are employed to calculate alternative profit efficiency (inefficiency) scores: the two-step time-decay approach proposed by Battese and Coelli (1992) and the recently developed single-step pairwise difference estimator (PDE) by Belotti and Ilardi (2018). In the first step of the BC92 framework, profit inefficiency is calculated, and in the second step, Tobit and Fractional Regression Model (FRM) are utilized to evaluate profit inefficiency correlates. PDE concurrently solves the frontier and inefficiency equations using the maximum likelihood process.

The results suggest that foreign banks are less profit efficient than domestic equivalents, supporting the “home-field advantage” hypothesis in India. Further, increasing competition drives bank managers to make riskier lending and investment choices, decreasing bank profit efficiency. However, this effect varies depending on bank ownership and size.

Literature on the competition bank efficiency link is conspicuously scant, with a focus on technical and cost efficiency. Less is known regarding the influence of competition on bank profit efficiency. The article is one of the first to examine commercial bank profit efficiency and its relationship to banking sector competition. Additionally, the study work represents one of the first applications of the FRM presented by Papke and Wooldridge (1996) and the PDE provided by Belotti and Ilardi (2018).

This paper aims to present the development of a holistic campus facility management (CFM) performance assessment framework that incorporates a fuzzy logic approach and integrates a comprehensive set of key factors for successful management of campus facilities. The devised framework aims to cater to the needs of campus facilities management firms and departments for the purpose of gauging and assessing their performance across different management domains. Through this approach, facility management organizations can detect potential areas of enhancement and adopt preemptive steps to evade issues, foster progress and ensure success.

After a comprehensive analysis of the literature, conducting in-depth interviews with industry experts and employing the Delphi technique in two rounds, a total of 45 indicators critical to CFM success were identified and subsequently sorted into seven distinct groups. Through an online questionnaire, 402 subject-matter experts proficiently assessed the significance of the critical success indicators and their groups. A fuzzy logic framework was developed to evaluate and quantify a firm's compliance with the critical success indicators and groups of indicators. The framework was subsequently weighted using computations of the relative importance index (RII) based on the responses received from the questionnaire participants. The initial section of the framework involved a comprehensive analysis of the firm's performance vis-à-vis the indicators, while the latter part sought to evaluate the impact of the indicators groups on the overall firm's performance.

The utilization of fuzzy logic has uncovered the significant effects each effective CFM key indicator on indicators groups, as well as the distinct effects of each CFM indicators group on the overall performance of CFM. The results reveal that financial management, communications management, sustainability and environment management and workforce management are the most impactful indicators groups on the CFM performance. This suggests that it is imperative for management to allocate increased attention to these specific areas.

This study contributes to the advancement of current knowledge by revealing vital indicators of effective CFM and utilizing them to construct a thorough fuzzy logic framework that can assist in evaluating the effectiveness of CFM firms worldwide. This has the potential to provide crucial assistance to facility management organizations, facility managers and policymakers in their quest for informed decision-making.

Amidst the backdrop of a wide array of structural developments that have revolutionized the competitive landscape of Indian commercial banking, this paper aims to empirically examine the role of two external monitoring mechanisms – competition and concentration on financial stability and further highlights the significance of bank-level heterogeneity in the nexus.

The study uses the Lerner index, defined through a translog specification, as a measure of market power. A system generalized method of moments technique accounts for the dynamic associations among the competition-concentration-stability nexus. The study further examines the moderating effect of ownership, size and capitalization on the nexus. The study also uses the Boone indicator and comments on the competition-bank stability relationship after controlling for bank governance.

The findings indicate that banks are less stable in a more competitive and higher concentrated environment. Exploring bank-level heterogeneity, first, the authors report that as competition increases, state-owned banks have greater incentives to undertake risky activities than private and foreign banks, which point to implicit sovereign guarantees that characterize the former. Second, the authors document an adverse influence of competition on the soundness of larger banks consistent with the “too-big-to-fail” assertion. Third, results corroborate the disciplinary role of regulatory capital and lend support to stricter capital norms under Basel III in a more competitive environment.

This paper is perhaps the first to capture competition and concentration in a single model; to reconcile conflicting evidence on competition-risk nexus; to shed light on the joint effect of competition and Basel accords for Indian banks.

The pandemic has brought to light the importance of quickly adopting new technologies and building resilient organisations. Also, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be addressed in large part through technological innovations. The development of smart systems which are linked with the Internet of Things (IoT) can create different opportunities to strategically face the barriers linked with the SDGs and make sure that there is an environmentally sustainable, equitable and healthy society. This study has utilised secondary and qualitative data and has adopted the interpretative and deductive approaches. It has given significance to several aspects of the SDGs and has linked them with digital technology such as accessibility to safe and clean portable water, production of sustainable food along with the generation of green energy and its utilisation. This study has evaluated the advantages of digitalisation so that it can catalyse the transition towards SDGs and improve the health of the citizens by giving digital accessibility specifically to the underserved community. The research has selected the most essential themes which are linked to the context of SDGs and has deeply evaluated a lot of information obtained from authentic secondary resources. At last, it provides a conclusion and recommendations where it has suggested several initiatives which could be made for enhancing the overall scenario and has also disguised the limitations that were identified while completing the study.

This paper aims to uncover an understanding of how the quality assurance measures used by the property management teams of Grade-B high-rise office blocks influence the satisfaction and retention of tenants and walk-in users.

This study used a case study design backed up by qualitative and quantitative research approaches on a sample size of 90 respondents, including tenants, landlords, property managers and walk-in building users. The data were collected predominantly through interview guides and transcribed, coded and illustrated by the aid of ATLAS.ti software. Data reporting was through tables, graphs and themed direct quotations and eventual discussion. The in-depth/structured interview sessions took between 40 min and 1 h, and the walk-along interviews ranged between 30 and 40 min. Content analysis through thematic coding, categorisation and analysis were used in handling qualitative data. Direct quotes from participant responses from interview transcripts were inserted in line with the themes. And participants allocated pseudo-names to guard their confidentiality.

The key themes that linked quality assurance measures of access systems and tenant retention included distribution of access systems, the retention trends, quality assurance measures followed and the tenant experiences regarding how complaints are handled.

It is important to understand how tenants and other users of high-rise buildings experience their performance and inclusiveness. In a place like Kampala city, such a phenomenon can be proven through tenants sustaining their tenures/use of the facilities. Yet, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, presently no empirical studies have explored such a connection.