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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social movements engendered by the Arab Spring crisis on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and corporate governance attributes, particularly board composition, considering the importance of governance after the Arab Spring event.

Content analysis was used to examine the extent and nature of CSRD in annual reports of Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange covering the period 2009–2016. A dynamic regression model using panel data is then undertaken for a sample of 114 listed companies over the period to analyse the potential impact of board composition on the level of CSRD.

The results reveal that there was a significant increase in the level of CSRD post-the Arab Spring crisis; and that governance appears to be a key driver. Specifically, board age, directors educated in business and/or accounting-related fields and foreign members are found to have a significant positive relationship with CSRD.

Looking at the Arab region pre- and after the Arab Spring helps to complete the global picture of how company governance can lead to improved CSR performance. Specifically, this region has been behind in developing rules and codes that include CSR. The results show that having a diverse board, with directors with expertise specific to the context, increases the effectiveness of stakeholder management through CSRD. The results, therefore, offer valuable insights for companies, policymakers and for the development of regulations.

The study explored various dimensions of overconfidence bias (OB) among retail investors in Indian financial markets. Further, these dimensions were validated through formative assessments for OB.

The study applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to 764 respondents to explore dimensions of OB. These were validated with formative assessments on 489 respondents by the partial least square path modeling (PLS-PM) approach in SmartPLS 4.0 software.

The major findings of EFA explored four dimensions for OB, i.e. accuracy, perceived control, positive illusions and past investment success. The formative assessments revealed that positive illusions followed by past investment success among retail investors played an instrumental role in orchestrating the OBs that affect investment decisions in financial markets.

The formative index of OB has several practical implications for registered financial and investment advisors, bank advisors, business media companies and portfolio managers, besides individual investors in the domain of behavioral finance.

This research provides a novel approach to provide a formative index of OB with four dimensions. This formative index can acts as an overview for upcoming researchers to investigate the OB of retail individual investors.

1. Overconfidence bias is an important predictor of retail investors' behavior

2. Formative dimensions of the overconfidence bias index.

3. Accuracy, perceived control, positive illusions and past investment success are important dimensions of overconfidence bias.

4. Modern portfolio theory and illusion of control theory support this study.

Overconfidence bias is an important predictor of retail investors' behavior

Formative dimensions of the overconfidence bias index.

Accuracy, perceived control, positive illusions and past investment success are important dimensions of overconfidence bias.

Modern portfolio theory and illusion of control theory support this study.

This study aims to provide insights into different aspects of the extant literature on the effects of dividend announcements. Along with other outputs of a bibliometric study, this study provides deeper insights into the concentration of the extant literature and suggest future research agendas.

This study uses the bibliometric, network and content analysis of the dividend announcement literature indexed in Scopus. This study presents the temporal analysis, the network of authors, countries, author citations and the co-occurrence of author keywords. This study provides the concentration of the extant literature in three clusters and unearth some key future research areas. This study uses the latent Dirichlet allocation method for robustness.

A total of 54 documents examining the US sample have received 1,804 citations. Interestingly, the first article on emerging markets was published in 2002, when at least 34 articles on developed markets had already been published from 1982 to 2001. The content analysis of top-cited literature unveils diverse insights into dividend announcements’ effects on financial markets. Contagion effects negatively impact non-announcing banks, particularly larger ones. Dividend maintenance affects stock market momentum, influencing loser returns. While current dividend/earnings news may not predict future company performance, information content dominates bond market reactions to post-dividend announcements. Concomitantly, while financially constrained firms exhibit short-term gains but worse long-term performance following dividend increases, larger stock dividends send stronger market signals in China.

This study significantly contributes to the bibliometric and content analysis literature by analyzing the sample documents based on the sample examined. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous bibliometric study in this domain has been conducted to explore the markets (developed and emerging) to which the samples examined belong and the quality of publications from developed and emerging markets.

This paper investigates the moderating-mediation roles of synchronous and asynchronous learning, as well as virtual self-efficacy between digital learning space experience and continuous use among learners in Ghanaian institutions of higher learning.

A convenience sampling technique was used in the selection of 604 students who answered questions on digital learning space experience, synchronous and asynchronous learning, virtual self-efficacy and learner continuous use within the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study employed regression analysis to measure the hypothesized paths.

The findings show that asynchronous learning partially mediates between digital learning space experience and learner continuous use, but the mediating effect of synchronous learning between digital learning space experience and learner continuous use was not significant. Further, virtual self-efficacy significantly moderates the mediated relationship between asynchronous learning and learner continuous use, but the moderated mediated role of synchronous learning was not established in the study.

Generalization of the study findings is limited due to the sampling scope, which was restricted to students of IHL in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

In this research, the academic scope of digital transformation was expanded from both digital structure elements and psychological perspectives within the domain of higher education literature.

This study aims to investigate whether firms involved in a major corruption scandal, with broad ramifications across several emerging and advanced markets, design the content of their corporate codes of conduct to either improve corporate ethical standards and practices or merely manipulate the impression of stakeholders.

This study adopts an impression management perspective. It uses content analysis techniques to examine the codes of conduct adopted by seven Brazilian engineering and construction multinationals accused of corruption. The analysis covered five major themes: (1) forms of corruption, (2) values or principles, (3) interested parties, (4) procedures and routines and (5) punitive action.

The study provides detailed evidence that the codes of conduct adopted by these firms are mere artifices that aimed at meeting legal requirements but do not target the relevant corporate audience involved in grand corruption. At best, such a code may impede petty and bureaucratic corruption.

This research contributes to improving the understanding of how Latin American multinationals adopted codes of conduct after a major scandal and how they failed—at least to some extent—to design codes complying with established corporate governance principles. It shows that management manipulated the impression of stakeholders by selectively adopting or omitting certain terms, examining or concealing various issues and addressing mainly petty crimes rather than grand corruption. It also identifies areas where Western ethical values conflict with established practices and cultural norms in Latin America.

The purpose of this study is to explore the human resource development (HRD) implications of perceived higher education (HEd) leadership effectiveness on academics’ quality of worklife (QWL) in the context of COVID-19. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this study explains the mediating role of resource adequacy (RA); then this study investigates the moderating role of COVID-19-related risk perception (CRP) on the relationship between university leadership (UL) and both academics’ turnover intention (TI) and academics’ QWL.

This study used a quantitative research exploiting the pandemic experiences and perceptions survey, PEPS, to collect data from 300 academic staff in private and public HEd institutions in Lebanon. The analyses include the test of the mediating effect of RA as well as the moderated mediation effect of CRP through regressions, PROCESS and bootstrapping.

The findings suggest that by enhancing RA, effective UL positively influences the QWL and mitigate the TI in Lebanese HEd. Furthermore, this study found that CRP weakens the direct relationship of UL on RA and the indirect effect of UL on the QWL and TI via RA such that the relationships are weakened when COVID-19 risk perception was high rather than low.

The results imply that HEd HRD professionals could think of effective human resource interventions of how to maintain good working environment where academics are facilitated to acquire high level of resources which lead to improving their QWL and mitigating the negative outcome (TIs).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has been made to investigate the moderated mediation model of the “pandemic experience and leadership perceptions” (PEPS) in the HEd sector in Lebanon, addressing academics’ experiences in business schools. This study is unique because it was conducted during the utmost pandemic outbreak (mid academic year 2021) collecting data in real time. This research contributes to the HRD literature by showing empirical evidence of the relationships in the context of Lebanese HEd institutions.

This paper aims at understanding the causes of low adoption of hybrid rice technology. The paper also assesses the impact of adoption of hybrids and modern varieties on crop yield, vis-à-vis the old or traditional varieties.

Using unit-level data from a large-scale survey of farm households (19,877 paddy cultivators), the authors applied multi-nomial regression method to understand the factors for adoption of hybrid rice and instrumental variable method of regression to estimate its impact.

The findings demonstrate that in India, hybrid rice is often grown on relatively poor soils, resulting in greater irrigation costs and for other inputs, such as fertilizers. Further, farmers' poor access to information on the traits of hybrid rice and the associated agronomic practices, as well as poor access to financial resources, hampers efforts to scale up its adoption. More importantly, the findings reveal that the relative yield advantage of hybrids over open-pollinated modern varieties is not large enough to incentivize the rapid adoption of hybrid rice technology.

Given the higher cost of hybrids than the inbred varieties, enhancing paddy cultivators' access to financial resources can accelerate the adoption of hybrid rice in India.

The study is based on unit level data from a large-scale, nationally representative survey of farm households, comprising a sample of 19,877 paddy cultivators, spread across states in India.

This study aims to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic disruptive event on delivery of the built environment degree apprentice programme in higher education in the UK and identify the key strategies to minimise the effect.

A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse data from a sample set of built environment degree apprenticeship stakeholders. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 key stakeholders to collate emerging themes on their perceptions of the impacts of the pandemic and strategies to adopted to minimise it.

The investigation reveals that the core impacts of Covid-19 on the apprentices training programme are lack of access to the site, furlough, limited access to off the job training, limited interaction with tutors and peers, too much time on the screen, limited pastoral care and lack of contact with a mentor. The census from the research participants is that despite the development and gain with the various virtual platform used during pandemic physical meetings with their mentor remain pivotal to the built environment apprentices learning and training.

The results provide relevant stakeholders and actors supporting degree apprentices training programmes (training providers and employers, among others) with the information needed to improve the delivery of built environment degree apprenticeship training programmes during a disruptive event Covid-19. The study identifies various strategies to minimise the impact of disruptive events on the apprentices training, including technology, regular meeting with mentors online, and personal and pastoral care.

The study is the first to document the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on degree apprenticeship programs in the built environment. This study provides an in-depth understanding of how these programs have been affected and offers potential solutions to reduce or mitigate potential damage. The research will inform future policy decisions related to degree apprenticeship programs in the built environment.

Since there is lack of studies in determine factors that affecting enjoyment sentiment when using online learning system, this study aims to explore the antecedents of perceived online learning enjoyment by using extended technology acceptance model (TAM) and its effect on behavioral intentions (BIN) among higher education institutions students.

The research framework was empirically evaluated using a cross-sectional research design and the data was collected from 715 undergraduate students from public higher education institutions in Malaysia using an online survey method. A structural equation modeling using partial least square method was used to examine the hypothesized model.

The results of partial least squares structural equation modeling indicated that the main predictive variables of TAM along with the extended variables were significantly influence the perceived online learning enjoyment. Meanwhile, the analysis also identified that perceived online learning enjoyment can significantly generate positive BIN for using online learning platforms as well as it also plays as a significant mediator role.

This study has significant implications for higher education institutions that wish to develop online learning environment for their students by providing answers to higher education institutions on how to successfully use the learning management system to assist students' learning performance from the aspect of online learning enjoyment sentiment.

This study is remarkable because it is the first attempt to explore the effect of these five predictors on students' learning enjoyment toward online learning platforms and subsequently on BIN to use this learning platforms, especially in the context of Malaysian higher education system. It is also unique in the way to extend the use of TAM predictive variables with others variables to produce more informative results about the study. Hence, this study also has a new contribution in the literature in the domain of digital learning.

This study aims to investigate the contextual challenges of emergency Web-enabled teaching from instructors’ point of view and their future preference for online education.

A total of 165 instructors from various public and private universities and university colleges in Malaysia participated in this online survey. Data were analyzed using multiple regression.

The significant challenges for future preference for online education in terms of their relative importance were supporting learners, effectiveness, disadvantages and advantages of emergency Web-enabled teaching.

This study discusses theoretical, practical and public policy implications for the future of teaching in higher education due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.