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Adopting digital transformation is changing the methods through which companies' function, generating novel possibilities and difficulties that force firms to adjust to remain competitive in the digital era. It is critical for firms to embrace this change and utilize technology to develop a more flexible, proactive and effective approach as digital transformation continues to advance at an accelerating pace. Vietnam has been placed at the forefront of these changes in attracting investments and becoming a hub of international trade. As a result, Vietnamese firms have been implementing restructuring and adopting digital transformation to remain competitive with the flow of foreign investment. This paper aims to examine the effects of digital transformation on corporate restructuring in Vietnam. The authors then investigate the moderating role of corporate governance in the digital transformation – corporate restructuring nexus.

The authors employ content analysis to extract information from the annual reports of 747 Vietnamese listed companies, where the authors focus on specific phrases, such as “digitalization”, “big data”, “cloud computing”, “blockchain” and “information technology” over a period of 11 years, from 2011 to 2021. The frequency count of these keywords is calculated to represent the level of digital transformation for the Vietnamese listed firms. A final sample of 118 Vietnamese listed firms with sufficient data is selected for the analysis using the generalized method of moments (GMM) approach.

The results indicate that digital transformation and corporate governance negatively impact corporate restructuring when their effect on corporate restructuring is examined independently. However, corporate governance strengthens the effect of digital transformation on corporate restructuring.

This paper is one of the first to investigate the moderating role of corporate governance on the effect of digital transformation on corporate restructuring in Vietnam. The findings inspire listed firms in Vietnam to implement digital transformation during their corporate restructuring to enhance performance.

This study aims to investigate the effect of credit relaxation policy during the COVID-19 pandemic and its efficacy as a countercyclical policy on bank risk and stability.

Using a sample of 39 listed Indonesian banks, the authors investigate the effect of credit relaxation policy on banks’ risk and stability. Data were retrieved from Eikon DataStream from monthly financial statements from June 2019 to December 2020. The authors use panel data analysis with a fixed-effect estimator to estimate the model.

The authors find that the credit relaxation policy affects banks’ stability. The authors also find no significant relationship between the policy and bank risk measured by non-performing loans. The authors also find that the policy mainly affects small banks and both state-owned and private banks.

This research has some policy implications that issuing prompt regulations to respond to urgent situations is needed and is very important to face crisis conditions and reduce the negative impact of such crises.

This study investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on corporate sustainability [environmental, social and governance (ESG)] performance and aims to explore whether uncertainty-induced sustainability performance is influenced by the firm's life cycle (LC).

The study uses data from European non-financial firms listed during the period from 2002 to 2022 to extend the nascent literature regarding EPU and sustainability performance while applying a dynamic panel data regression analysis (Generalized Method of Moments - GMM System) on 11,462 firm-year observations of 1,869 European firms.

The authors find overwhelming evidence that policy uncertainty affects the sustainability performance of European firms. The firms restrict their environmental and governance-related activities and address immediate issues to survive during periods of high EPU. Conversely, the firms increase their social engagements to decrease uncertainty-induced information asymmetry. The authors' results show that the intensity and type of sustainability performance are also influenced by the firm's LC. The results imply that board gender diversity (BGD) increases while power concentration with the chief executive officer (CEO) decreases sustainability performance.

These findings have important implications for policymakers, potential investors, firm management and other stakeholders given the firms' access to resources and preferences to encounter uncertainty vary across different LC stages.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the role of the firm's LC in the relationship between policy uncertainty and sustainability performance in the European context.

This study aims to develop a model based on the financial variables for better accuracy of financial distress prediction on the sample of private French, Spanish and Italian firms. Thus, firms in financial difficulties could timely request for troubled debt restructuring (TDR) to continue business.

This study used a sample of 312 distressed and 312 non-distressed firms. It includes 60 French, 21 Spanish and 231 Italian firms in both distressed and non-distressed groups. The data are extracted from the ORBIS database. First, the authors develop a new model by replacing a ratio in the original Z”-Score model specifically for financial distress prediction and estimate its coefficients based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Second, using the modified Z”-Score model, the authors develop a firm TDR probability index for distressed and non-distressed firms based on the logistic regression model.

The new model (modified Z”-Score), specifically for financial distress prediction, represents higher prediction accuracy. Moreover, the firm TDR probability index accurately depicts the probabilities trend for both groups of distressed and non-distressed firms.

The findings of this study are conclusive. However, the sample size is small. Therefore, further studies could extend the application of the prediction model developed in this study to all the EU countries.

This study has important practical implications. This study responds to the EU directive call by developing the financial distress prediction model to allow debtors to do timely debt restructuring and thus continue their businesses. Therefore, this study could be useful for practitioners and firm stakeholders, such as banks and other creditors, and investors.

This study significantly contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study develops a model for predicting financial distress based on the argument that corporate bankruptcy and financial distress are distinct events. However, the original Z”-Score model is intended for failure prediction. Moreover, the recent literature suggests modifying and extending the prediction models. Second, the new model is tested using a sample of firms from three countries that share similarities in their TDR laws.

The study examines the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

The study employs Dickinson's (2011) cash flow patterns to classify firm years under various life-cycle stages. Cash flow classification is employed to measure a firm's classification shifting (CS) practices. The study includes Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange during 2012–2020, an ordinary least squares regression model, a fixed-effect model and a panel corrected with standard error regression method.

Firms face different opportunities and challenges at different stages of the firm's life cycle and therefore adopt cash flow CS. The results show that firms adopt cash flow CS during introduction, growth and decline stage of life cycle either to boost or to reduce operating cash flows.

This study is one of its kind to study the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially distressed firms: the first belonging to the family of organizational restructuring (massive layoffs) and the second to the family of financial restructuring (debt increases).

The authors investigate experimentally the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the decision to restructure leveraged buyout (LBO) firms in financial distress by using either massive layoffs or debt increases.

By investigating the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the restructuring decision of an LBO firm in financial distress, the research reveals that, on average, cognitively loaded managers prefer massive layoffs over increased debt levels. The massive layoffs seemingly provide a relatively easier way to avoid conflict with influential, residual claimants. In contrast, social value–oriented managers actively avoid massive layoffs and prefer to increase debt.

These results imply that the performance mechanisms emphasized to improve agency relations, for example, in LBOs, have their own limitations during periods of financial distress. This study shows that one of these limits is related to cognitive distortions and personality traits.

In this research, the originality lies in understanding how managers’ internal factors affect their restructuring decision-making, in the case of LBO firms in financial distress.

In this paper, the authors will examine Welch's legacy and aftermaths, both for GE and more broadly within management practice and academic thought. As a complex character, indeed a person of many contradictions, the authors try to avoid polemics in this, instead focusing on his accomplishments and the unanswered questions about his impact.

This paper is a historical case using secondary and published materials to assess the case of Jack Welch's leadership of General Electric over the period 1981–2001.

Welch's proponents suggest he emphasized controlling corporate destiny, being open to new ideas, pursuing quality and low cost, having confidence, a vision founded on reality, a global focus and possessing energy and enthusiasm. However, his short-termist perspective undermined the long-term success of the company and his “win at any cost” mantra predisposed some employees to cutting ethical or environmental corners. As the market capitalization gains evaporated that had been used to justify the “end justifies the means” rationale, little is left of his legacy.

The paper discusses the implications of the GE case for issues associated with corporate governance, financialization and human resource management.

This is a timely reconsideration of the Jack Welch legacy two years after his death. In avoiding polemics and seeking a considered assessment of his positive and negative outcomes, the paper is an important addition to the research on Welch and American management thought.

Emergency health and humanitarian nonprofits work under volatile circumstances that strain nonprofits' financial resources. This study investigates the impact of revenue composition on the financial health of these nonprofits and the impact of financial health on the likelihood of financial distress.

A sample of 11,335 emergency nonprofits from 2003 to 2020 was obtained through form 990 data and studied through a difference generalized method of moments (GMM) approach for the impact of revenue composition on financial health. The impact of financial health on financial distress was studied through panel logistics regression.

Revenue diversification adversely affects the financial health of nonprofit emergency health and humanitarian organizations contrary to the implications of modern portfolio theory. The financial health of nonprofit emergency health and humanitarian organizations is persistent through the significant positive effect of lags in most cases.

The emergency health subsector of nonprofits was studied separately due to the unique nature of the sectors' operations and operating environment. The impact of revenue composition was investigated on key dimensions of financial health. Omitted variable bias, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity were handled through difference GMM.

Ergonomics usually reciprocate the study about people fitness toward working environment. In addition, financial distress refers a condition of organizations incompetency in generating sufficient revenues or incomes, which thereby refrain them to pay their financial obligations. This study aims to evaluate two independent organizational fields named as ergonomics in first phase and financial distress in manufacturing organization behavior in the second phase. The study presented a resiliency framework for operations and strategic management in the third phase based on various facts received from the distress organizations.

A questionnaire survey based on plant-visit is presented. The study embedded two segments to explicate its novelty. In the first segment, the plant-visit case study is presented and in the second segment, an exploratory data related to financial distress is presented. The study tried to communicate observations related to multiple decision-making fields in single umbrella, where multiple concepts like ergonomics and financial distress of organizations as well as employees are presented. DEMATEL-ANP integrated approach is used to represent the critical financial distress dimensions of employees and their ranking.

The study provided insights toward connecting two independent fields named as ergonomics and financial distress in single umbrella. The study can benefit practitioners in designing policies and procedures in their planning model to effectively achieve organizational goals. The study presented 14 financial distress drivers of employees and advocated the aggregation of ergonomics and financial distress toward developing a holistic framework for attaining organization goals for sustainability.

The study presented a comprehensive understanding about multiple organization decision-making fields toward developing a holistic approach from different aspects for attaining organizational sustainability. The study can be fruitful in stimulating cross-pollination of ideas between researchers and provides a good understandability of ergonomics and financial distress in single roof.

The Agenda 2030 have drawn a lot of interest in academic studies. This necessitates accounting research on nonfinancial reporting and sustainable development goals (SDG) disclosure in an under-investigated context. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of nonfinancial reporting practices to SDG disclosure by 120 companies from 12 African nations for the years 2016 to 2020.

The study uses a content analysis to gauge how much information are disclosed on SDG by the selected firms. The authors carried out content analysis using the global reporting initiative frameworks to determine the level of SDG disclosure across the companies by examining the selected nonfinancial reports.

Sustainability reports account for 50% of such SDG disclosure making it the highest. This is followed by corporate social responsibility report which accounts for 23%, while environmental reports account for 20% and Chairman’s statement accounts for 7%. The result is expected since corporate sustainability report has been the major channel for disclosing activities relating to social and governance issues in recent times.

The results of this study demand that corporate entities in Africa take responsibility for their actions and exert significant effort to achieve the SDG. While the government has the main responsibility, corporate entities must support the SDG to be realized.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few studies that examines nonfinancial reporting practices with a focus on SDG disclosure. In addition, this study offers novel insight into how accounting research contributes to nonfinancial reporting practices and SDG disclosure.