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We investigate how firing notification procedures influence wage growth. Using a sample of 33 countries over the period 2006–2015, we show that administrative requirements in cases of dismissal have a positive and significant effect on wage growth. The result is robust even after controlling for the endogeneity of the firing notification restrictions, the involvement of third parties in the wage bargaining process, the minimum wage, the firms' training policy, and the composition of employment. These findings suggest that firing notification procedures foster the growth of wages by increasing the bargaining power of incumbent workers.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in selected South Asian economies, namely Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Furthermore, this study explores the complementarity between firms' capabilities and imported inputs in an augmented productivity framework.

A dataset comprising 7117 manufacturing firms of selected South Asian economies was taken from the World Bank for 2013 and 2014. The empirical analysis was based on stochastic frontier models, the ordinary least square method and instrumental variable estimation techniques.

The empirical results show that imported inputs have positive and significant effects on the firms' productivity in the selected countries. Moreover, the study findings demonstrate that firms' capabilities play a complementary role in expanding the firms' production frontier.

The study outcomes suggest that reducing tariffs on imported inputs will enhance the firms' productivity in the selected emerging economies. However, the study further finds that the potential gain of imported inputs is conditional on the firm's capabilities. It implies that firms operating in these countries can improve their performance by allocating more resources to capabilities, such as workers’ training, management and internal R&D effort.

The existing literature on the subject is sceptical about the positive impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in the case of developing countries. In this regard, the shortage of skilled labour and firms' capabilities are compelling rationales that need to be explored. Thus, the potential contribution of the study lies in explaining the moderating role of firm's capabilities operating in the selected emerging economies in the nexus of imported inputs and productivity.

This study aims to identify the dietary patterns of two groups of subjects (with and without COVID-19), and to assess the relationship of findings with the prognosis of COVID-19 and metabolic risk parameters.

This study included 100 individuals in the age range of 19–65 years. The medical history, and data on biochemical, hematological and inflammatory indicators were retrieved from the files. A questionnaire for the 24-h food record and the food intake frequency was administered in face-to-face interviews, and dietary patterns of subjects were assessed.

In individuals with COVID-19, the hip circumference, the waist-hip ratio and the body fat percentage were significantly higher (p < 0.05), and the muscle mass percentage was significantly lower (p < 0.05). Mediterranean diet adherence screener (MEDAS), dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) and healthy eating ındex-2015 (HEI-2015) scores were low in the two groups. A linear correlation of DASH scores was found with the muscle mass percentage (p = 0.046) and a significant inverse correlation of with the body fat percentage (p = 0.006). HEI-2015 scores were significantly and negatively correlated with body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference and neck circumference (p < 0.05). Every one-unit increase in MEDAS, DASH and HEI-2015 scores caused reductions in C-reactive protein levels at different magnitudes. Troponin-I was significantly and negatively correlated with fruit intake (p = 0.044), a component of a Mediterranean diet and with HEI-2015 total scores (p = 0.032).

The limitation of this study includes the small sample size and the lack of dietary interventions. Another limitation is the use of the food recall method for the assessment of dietary patterns. This way assessments were performed based on participants’ memory and statements.

Following a healthy diet pattern can help reduce the metabolic risks of COVİD-19 disease.

Despite these limitations, this study is valuable because, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study demonstrating the association of dietary patterns with disease prognosis and metabolic risks concerning COVID-19. This study suggests that dietary patterns during the COVID-19 process may be associated with several metabolic risks and inflammatory biomarkers.

This study aims to ground the assessment of the various costing perspectives associated with the dynamics of processed food supply chains (FSCs), for questing the avenues of profitability within a food processing enterprise.

This study underpins the development of the relation hierarchical model, binding the cluster of the key costing enactors, with the various incurred costs in the food supply chain performance system. The developed model is seeded by the inputs gathered from the case enterprises under consideration, which is further contemplated by extending the fundamentals of bipolar fuzzy sets with the methodology of ELECTRE-II.

Secured primacies owing to the mutual correspondence between the costing cluster reveal the impact of procurement cost in the dynamics of FSC. Furthermore, an inference is grounded relative to the other entities of total costs like investment, production, transportation, distribution and retailing by considering the perspective of a case enterprise. It yields that procurement costing procedurals need to be deliberated supremely, considering the vitality of the costing perspective associated with the other procedurals of the case enterprise.

The framework developed in the presented work clusters the various costing enactors along with the costings in processed FSCs, binding its holistic perspective rather than the discrete approach. The present research work provides an origin to explore the various miniatures more precisely succeeding to secure primacies for upscaling the profit-cost notions. As costing determines the avenues bundled with the production and consumption of various food commodities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which cultural differences and slogan meaning type affect the role of comprehension in attitude toward the ad (A_ad) and attitude toward the brand (A_brand) formation.

In an online experiment, a total of 256 adult participants from the USA (ranged in age from 19 to 26 years old) and 184 participants from France (ranged in age from 18 to 28) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (slogan: single meaning vs polysemous) in a between-subjects experimental design. After getting exposed to the ad, participants responded to questions related to their A_ad, A_brand, comprehension, uncertainty avoidance and demographics.

Results from this research demonstrate the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance and slogan type (single meaning vs polysemous) on the relationship between comprehension and A_ad. The authors show that for polysemous (and not single meaning) slogans, comprehension results in more favorable A_ad for low uncertainty avoidance individuals than for high uncertainty avoidance individuals. In addition, the authors demonstrate the mediating effect of A_ad in the relationship between comprehension and A_brand.

The authors used nationality as a proxy for culture. Future research should include other cultural dimensions in the development of conceptual models and analysis of data. Another limitation is that the authors used a college student sample for this research. A more representative sample should be used in future research to examine cultural differences in interpreting adverting messages. One other limitation concerns the measurement tool the authors used to measure objective versus subjective comprehension in this research. While the theoretical foundations of the two modes of comprehension are clear and robust, improved measurement tools can enhance the validity and reliability of future research. Finally, the authors suggest that future research examine the effect of such variables as figure-ground contrast, figure attractiveness, stimulus repetition, prototypicality, symmetry and semantic or visual priming that may impact the processing of brand slogans.

This study argues that the processing of brand slogans in advertising is impacted by culture. Individuals from different cultures perceive and comprehend brand slogans differently. This study contributes to the research stream that examines the influence of cultural dimensions on the effectiveness of advertising by focusing more precisely on the impact of uncertainty avoidance (one of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions). In the case of single meaning slogans, advertisers might diminish the use of objective comprehension advertising strategies to influence both individuals with high and low uncertainty avoidance. In the case of polysemous slogans, advertisers should consider that consumers with high uncertainty avoidance (vs low uncertainty avoidance) are impacted more by subjective comprehension (vs objective comprehension) when forming A_ad and A_brand.

This research contributes meaningfully to the marketing literature by examining previous work on ad slogan processing through subjective vs objective comprehension and extending the analysis by incorporating culture as an important factor.

This study examines the relationship between demand forecasting error and retail inventory management in an uncertain supplier yield context. Replenishment is segmented into off-season and peak-season, with the former characterized by longer lead times and higher supply uncertainty. In contrast, the latter incurs higher acquisition costs but ensures certain supply, with the retailer's purchase volume aligning with the acquired volume. Retailers can replenish in both phases, receiving goods before the sales season. This paper focuses on the impact of the retailer's demand forecasting bias on their sales period profits for both phases.

This study adopts a data-driven research approach by drawing inspiration from real data provided by a cooperating enterprise to address research problems. Mathematical modeling is employed to solve the problems, and the resulting optimal strategies are tested and validated in real-world scenarios. Furthermore, the applicability of the optimal strategies is enhanced by incorporating numerical simulations under other general distributions.

The study's findings reveal that a greater disparity between predicted and actual demand distributions can significantly reduce the profits that a retailer-supplier system can earn, with the optimal purchase volume also being affected. Moreover, the paper shows that the mean of the forecasting error has a more substantial impact on system revenue than the variance of the forecasting error. Specifically, the larger the absolute difference between the predicted and actual means, the lower the system revenue. As a result, managers should focus on improving the quality of demand forecasting, especially the accuracy of mean forecasting, when making replenishment decisions.

This study established a two-stage inventory optimization model that simultaneously considers random yield and demand forecast quality, and provides explicit expressions for optimal strategies under two specific demand distributions. Furthermore, the authors focused on how forecast error affects the optimal inventory strategy and obtained interesting properties of the optimal solution. In particular, the property that the optimal procurement quantity no longer changes with increasing forecast error under certain conditions is noteworthy, and has not been previously noted by scholars. Therefore, the study fills a gap in the literature.

This study established a two-stage inventory optimization model that simultaneously considers random yield and demand forecast quality, and provides explicit expressions for optimal strategies under two specific demand distributions. Furthermore, the authors focused on how forecast error affects the optimal inventory strategy and obtained interesting properties of the optimal solution. In particular, the property that the optimal procurement quantity no longer changes with increasing forecast error under certain conditions is noteworthy, and has not been previously noted by scholars. Therefore, the study fills a gap in the literature.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on trade flows in Asia Pacific countries and explores the causality between COVID-19-related shocks and trade.

The authors used two novel techniques, namely, two-stage instrumental-variables (2SIV) approach and Juodis, Karavias and Sarafids (JKS) causality test, to examine trade dynamics in the Asia Pacific region during the pandemic.

Using the monthly trade data of 17 Asia Pacific countries between January 2020 and December 2021, the results were threefold. Firstly, the empirical analysis showed that during the COVID-19 crisis, the flow of exports tended to persist idiosyncratically in comparison to the flow of imports. In particular, a specific finding was that the persistence level in exports was about 20%–25% higher than that in imports. Secondly, the authors found that the past values of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths contain information that helps to predict exports/imports over and above the information contained in the past values of exports/imports alone. Finally, the study established that the government response and stringency indexes have a Granger-causal relationship with exports and imports.

For the foreseeable future, these findings have significant policy ramifications. Firstly, if a COVID-19 crisis-like situation emerges in the future, it will be critical for countries to maintain their competitiveness throughout the crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, while also rebuilding trade relationships wherever possible. Secondly, because information about government responses and measures can also be used to predict future trade flows, prudent management of government responses and stringent measures will be necessary in a crisis like COVID-19 to achieve the optimum level of exports and imports. At the same time, the trading partners should give up the idea of trade protection and focus on finding a way to balance the conflicting needs of imports and exports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors, for the first time, used a 2SIV approach and JKS causality test to examine trade dynamics in the Asia Pacific region during the pandemic. In addition, the authors present the first comprehensive analysis of the evolving relationships between export and import flows and governmental policy responses under COVID-19. As a result, it contributes uniquely to both public and international economics.

For almost half a century, society has been aware of the existence of a glass ceiling, a term that describes the invisible barriers that hinder women’s access to power positions despite having equal or greater qualifications, skills and merits than their male counterparts. Nowadays, although there are signs of slow progress, women are still underrepresented in the upper echelons of large corporations and the risk of reversing the progress made in gender parity has increased because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper contributes to previous literature by analysing the impact that the uncertainty and cognitive effects associated with COVID-19 in 2020 had on the presence of women on the board of directors and whether this impact has been moderated by the regulatory and policy system on gender quotas in place at the time.

To test the authors' research hypotheses, the authors selected the major global companies worldwide with economic-financial and non-financial information available in the Thomson Reuters EIKON database over the 2015–2020 period. As a result, the authors' final sample is made up of 1,761 companies from 52 countries with different institutional settings that constitute an unbalanced data panel of 8,963 observations. The nature of the dependent variables requires the use of logistic regressions. The models incorporate the terms to control for any unobservable heterogeneity and the error term. Any endogeneity issues were addressed by considering the explanatory variables with a time lag.

The authors find that almost 30% of the companies downsized their boards in 2020. This decision resulted in more female than male directors being made redundant, causing a reversal in the fulfilment of gender quotas focussed on ensuring balanced boards with a female presence of 40% or more. This effect was enhanced in countries with hard-law regulation because the penalty for non-compliance with gender quotas had led to a significant increase in the size of these bodies in previous years through the inclusion of the required number of female directors. In contrast, the reduction in board size in soft-law countries does not differ from that in laissez-faire countries, lacking any moderating effect or impact on the number of female board members dismissed as a result of the pandemic.

This paper aims to contribute to current knowledge by analysing the impact that the countries' regulatory and normative systems on gender parity on boards of directors have had on the decisions made in relation to leadership positions, moderating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality at a global level.

Regarding human resource and labour relations management, academia focuses mainly on cities; however, rural areas are an integral part of China's economic structure. This study focuses on the movie projection industry in China's rural areas and explores how human resource practices (HRPs) are transformed and the labour process is reconstructed in digital transformation.

We adopt a case study of a rural movie projection company. The company's HRPs reconstructed the labour process of movie projection, and they have been promoted as national standards. Data were collected from in-depth interviews, files and observations.

Rural movie projection companies combine high-performance and paternalistic HRPs in the media industry's digital transformation. HRPs and digital technology jointly reconstruct the labour process. First, the HRPs direct labour process practices towards standardisation. Second, the digital supervision platform guides the control style from simple to technical, placing projectionists under pressure while increasing management efficiency. Third, rural movies made using digital technology have disenchanted rural residents. Accordingly, the conventional relationships between the “country and its citizens,” “individuals themselves,” and “models and individuals” have been removed, and a new relationship between “individuals themselves” is formed thanks to the novel HRPs.

This research plays a crucial role in exposing researchers to the labour process of rural movie projection, which is significant in China but often ignored by Western academia and advances the Chinese contextualisation of research on labour relations.