Search results

This chapter analyzes how the industry environment determines corporate dividend decisions. First, common participants in the product market are competitors, suppliers, and customers. These micro-stakeholders create competitive pressures on firms and thus affect their current and future performance. Competitors influence dividend decisions through three mechanisms, namely predation threat, corporate governance, and imitation. Predation threat reduces firms' incentives to pay dividends when facing high rivalry. Competition helps firms improve corporate governance. However, strong corporate governance may increase or decrease dividend payments since dividend policy may be the outcome of strong corporate governance or the substitute for weak corporate governance, respectively. Besides, firms tend to imitate their industry peers in dividend policy. Second, as a financial policy, dividend policy is also affected by participants in the financial market like investors, creditors, and auditors. These financial stakeholders' behaviors are important to stock prices. Due to the agency problem, creditors have high incentives to restrict firm's dividend payments in order to protect their benefits. On the other hand, creditors are effective external monitors who help firms improve their corporate governance. Outside investors affect corporate dividend policy through their valuation. Firms pay more dividends if investors prefer dividends to capital gains. Auditors play the role of a third-party monitor, and thus, they help firms reduce managers' expropriation of shareholders and improve the quality of accounting information. Furthermore, we also investigate dividend policy of regulated industries in both financial sector (banking, insurance, and real estate) and utilities sector (energy, telecommunications, and transportation).

Introduction: Cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are essential for new-age firms to survive and succeed in the VUCA market environment. This study examines how automobile corporations have improved cost competitiveness, productivity, and product quality.

Purpose: This study examines the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance for the long-term survival of organisations in VUCA markets, looking at the practical efforts made by automobile corporations to enhance cost competitiveness, productivity, and quality.

Methodology: The study utilises a comprehensive analysis of the strategies and initiatives implemented by the selected automobile companies. It involves a review of relevant literature, case studies, financial data analysis, and interviews with key industry experts, providing a holistic understanding of the actions taken by these organisations to achieve their goals.

Findings: The study reveals that cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are critical factors for the long-term survival and success of organisations in the automotive industry. The analysed automobile companies have undertaken practical efforts to improve cost competitiveness, enhance productivity, and ensure high-quality products, enabling them to navigate the challenges and maintain a competitive edge.

Significance: The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance in the automotive industry. It highlights the need for organisations to constantly monitor both qualitative and quantitative profit to avoid complacency and ensure long-term efficiency. The study’s insights are relevant to businesses operating in other sectors, as they face similar challenges in the VUCA market environment.

This chapter of the book aims to achieve sustainability and productivity in light of the interaction between managers and engineers in a lean and agile supply chain management system in today’s organizations. The main innovation of this chapter is the use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model and fuzzy analysis network process (FANP) to create a suitable platform for the realization of this interaction between managers and engineers and to identify exactly which expert system is ideal for the main purpose. Indeed, this chapter introduces its readers to the application of strategic management tools such as the BSC accompanied by FANP in the elements of supply chain management where data analysis of lean and agile networks in supply chain management can create a competitive advantage in the organization.

This chapter analyzes how the internal environment determines corporate dividend decisions. First, dividend policy is influenced by strategic and financial issues. Corporate strategies are developed by top managers to achieve firms' missions, visions, and long-term goals while business strategies are designed by middle managers to maintain firms' competitive advantages. These strategies affect corporate dividend decisions through corporate performance and business operations. In addition, many financial characteristics are important determinants of dividend policy. Financial characteristics are classified into three groups, namely performance-related issues (e.g., firm profitability, free cash flow, and stock liquidity), leverage-related issues (e.g., debt ratio, asset tangibility, business risk, and firm size), and investment-related issues (e.g., investment opportunities and firm maturity). Firms with high profitability, free cash flow tends to pay more dividends. Stock liquidity may have a positive effect on dividend payments through lowering costs of equity; however, it may also have a negative effect through weakening the signaling motive. Moreover, firms with high debt ratio, low asset tangibility, high business risk, and small size face higher costs of external financing. Therefore, they have low incentives to pay dividends. When firms have more investment opportunities, they are more likely to restrict dividends and save cash for their investment projects and vice versa. Second, internal stakeholders may influence corporate dividend policy since their benefits are closely related to dividend decisions. Shareholders, directors, the chief executive officer, and employees have different characteristics, positions, and hold various proportions of shares. Therefore, they create pressures on dividend decisions to protect their wealth.

This chapter introduces dividend smoothing, presents theories to explain dividend smoothing behavior, and analyzes how different levels of business environment affect dividend smoothing. First, dividend smoothing describes a mechanism in which a firm is reluctant to reduce dividends and only increases dividends when its earnings increase permanently. In practice, dividend smoothing behavior is found in both developed and developing countries. Firms in developed countries are more likely to smooth dividends than those in developing countries. Second, although Miller and Modigliani (1961) posit that investors are indifferent between stable and unstable dividend payments in a perfect environment, market frictions in the real world make stable and unstable dividends have different effects on firm value. Three common frictions are information asymmetry, agency problem, and investors' demand for income smoothing. Due to information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders, firms tend to smooth their dividends to signal outside investors about their quality. In addition, dividend smoothing may be the substitute for weak corporate governance and/or the outcome of free cash absorption behavior. Besides, dividends are more convenient for investors' consumption; therefore, firms are more likely to smooth dividends in order to satisfy investors' demand for smooth income. Finally, as a special dividend decision, dividend smoothing is also affected by an internal micro (industry) and macro-environment. Dividend smoothing theories are the behind mechanisms to explain these effects.

One of the most marginalized communities in India is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community which commonly experiences discrimination. Many studies have countered that the LGBT community faces high discrimination in the banking and financing industry. As a result, this study concentrates on this marginalized community and its acceptance and continuation habit regarding mobile wallets. Consequently, this study has considered continuance intentions as a response to confirm the progress of the mobile-wallet industry. Also, this study tried to study the relationship between behavioral intention (BI) and continuous intention (CI) which is seriously lacks in the library of literature. The research operationalized the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework for the conceptual model and surveyed 100 self-proclaimed members of the LGBT community in India. The analysis has been done using the partial least structure (PLS). The findings demonstrate that variables like perceived trust (PT) directly influence the BI. On the other hand, variables like perceived ease of use (PEoU), social influence (SI), and satisfaction (S) doesn’t influence BI of the LGBT Community. The main outcome was a favorable association between BI and CI. It will help the stakeholders to understand how important this new market avenue is and how it can be explored. To ensure safe and secure transactions, a group think tank composed of important parties (financial institutions, mobile-wallet providers, the government, security specialists, etc.) should make recommendations. Mobile-wallet providers will attain benefit from this study’s understanding of user categories and ability to tailor their service offers as per the community.

This chapter analyzes the efficiency levels of a circular economy (CE) with an emphasis on transaction costs. It examines the governance aspect of CE activities in comparison to the predominant linear value creation. Extant CE research in business studies tends to be descriptive and lacks a theoretical foundation, particularly in understanding CE management. Transaction cost theory explains efficiency in economic organizing, lending itself to the study of arrangements that maximize resource efficiency at continued economic virtue. The conceptualization proposes that CE transaction costs are greater than those within the linear economy (LE), primarily due to the uncertainties about reciprocal dependencies, looping material complexities, exchanging novel information, and increased contracting efforts. Geographically bounded and institutionally homogeneous CE initiatives may curb these rising costs. By bringing efficiency concerns into CE analysis, the chapter demonstrates the applicability of transaction cost theory and highlights CE relevance to international business by pointing out spatial choice implications.