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In many societies, environmental problems have had some negative impacts on both social and economic features with issues like capital structure seriously affected. In this write-up, an attempt has been made to pinpoint the influence of the combined effects of integrated reporting and financial leverage on the value of a firm. In most emerging markets, investment is heavily dependent on foreign capital inflow which is mainly in the form of financial leverage. It is, therefore, necessary to know how this shapes the net worth of firms in which they are invested. Shareholders' fund is a major factor in determining the level of investment and economic stability of a nation and consequently improvements in sustainable development. Hence, the moderating role of financial leverage in the integrated reporting-shareholders’ funds relationship aims to warrant this research.

All listed firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as of 31st December 2021 were affected by this research. Filtering resulted in the use of 77 companies as a sample for the study covering a period of 12 years (2010–2021) with a total of 788 observations. Analyses of data were done through line graphs to show the trend and flow of disclosures between 2010 and 2021. Furthermore, linear regression was also applied to help determine the multiple effects of financial leverage and integrated reporting on shareholders' funds.

The outcomes showed that economic disclosure was 100% throughout the period of observation as opposed to environmental and social disclosures which, fluctuate throughout the period with an average of slightly over 55%. It was also discovered that a low but significant financial leverage moderated the interaction of integrated reporting on shareholders' funds.

Stakeholders and policymakers should, therefore, put in place rules, regulations, standards, structures and administrative networks to enable firms to comply with local rules, guidelines and upgraded standards of international worth on sustainability issues.

This research explores the problem of the effects of integrated reporting on investment capital as it affects developing economies. Results from this study could go a long way in narrowing the lack of interest in sustainability issues by prospective investors coupled with the low level of environmental and social reporting by firms in African economies that are mostly underdeveloped.

This study explores the moderated mediation effect, wherein collective mindfulness attenuates the hypothesised relationship between customer incivility, service sabotage and psychological well-being and is supported by the conservation of resources (COR) theory.

Multiwave and multisource data were collected from 315 frontline employees (FLEs) working in 32 Indian bank branches. Using HLM 7.00, the authors tested a multilevel model in which branch-level collective mindfulness moderated the association amongst individual-level customer incivility, psychological well-being and service sabotage.

A higher level of collective mindfulness had a profound cross-level effect on the association between customer incivility and service sabotage through psychological well-being.

Distinct from prior research that focussed on individuals' personal resources as a buffer against customer incivility, the authors' study identified branch-level collective mindfulness as a boundary condition that helps employees experiencing customer incivility decrease service sabotage. By uncovering a branch-level variable that reduces the negative impact of customer incivility on service sabotage, the authors' study offers valuable insights for banks to enhance customer service at their branches.

In this study, the authors develop a path model and investigate the effect of pandemic-oriented customer mistreatment on service sabotage through the lens of self-presentation theory. Moreover, the authors question the role of service climate as a moderator of the relationship between service sabotage and service performance.

Data were collected via a survey of 165 F&B frontline employees in restaurants in Iran. The hypotheses are examined using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling and ordinary least squares regression.

The findings reveal that POCM has a substantial and positive effect on service sabotage, and service climate mitigates the effect of service sabotage on service performance.

The study introduces and conceptually defines the term POCM. Furthermore, the authors apply the self-presentation theory as the overarching theory to explain underlying conditions in customer mistreatment and service sabotage. Moreover, although prior literature has described the saboteur–customer relationship as a one-line interaction, this study contributes to employee sabotage as a multi-linear transaction.

In this study, the authors identify new perspectives on the dark side of hospitality services in crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors argue that pandemic-induced changes are essential not simply because they change customers’ moods and lower their patience threshold, but they further provoke ostentatious behaviors in saboteur–customer relations. These findings shed new light on the literature and provide managerial implications for enhancing hospitality performance.

This study is designed to examine the dynamic interrelationships between four cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Cardano) and the Indian equity market. Additionally, the study seeks to investigate the potential safe haven, hedge and diversification uses of these digital currencies within the Indian equity market.

This study employs the wavelet approach to examine the time-varying volatility of the studied assets and the lead-lag relationship between stocks and cryptocurrencies. The authors execute the entire analysis using daily data from 1st October 2017 to 30th September 2023.

The result of the study shows that financial distress due to the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have a negative effect on the Indian equities and cryptocurrency markets, escalating their price volatility. Also, the connectedness between the returns of stock and digital currency exhibits a strong positive relationship during periods of financial distress. Additionally, cryptocurrencies serve as a tool of diversification or hedging in the Indian equities markets during normal financial circumstances, but they do not serve as a diversifier or safe haven during periods of financial turmoil.

This study contributes to understanding the relationship between the Indian equity market and four cryptocurrencies using wavelet techniques in the time and frequency domains, considering both normal and crisis times. This can offer valuable insights into the potential of cryptocurrencies inside the Indian equities markets, mainly with respect to varying financial conditions and investment horizons.

On the basis of social identity theory, the purpose of this study is to simultaneously examine how social-based identity (i.e. organizational identification and supervisor support) and personal-based identity (i.e. work-related characteristics and job embeddedness) influence employees’ service sabotage.

By using a sample of 685 employee–customer dyads, this study investigated whether the cross-level moderating roles of organizational identification and supervisor support can activate linkage between work-related characteristics and job embeddedness.

The results of this study indicated that job embeddedness mediates the multiple cross-level effects of organizational identification, supervisor support and work-related characteristics on service sabotage. Moreover, work-related characteristics influence job embeddedness more positively in higher than lower levels of organizational identification and supervisor support.

This study provides a valuable approach to effective management practices, helps to clarify identification at work and expands perceived external prestige for hospitality companies.

These findings support that identity in organizations can be recognized as one of the fundamental concepts that influence individual psychological traits, capabilities, bodily attributes, group classifications and organizational effectiveness.

This research aims to investigate the influence of building design on the thermal comfort of occupants of naturally ventilated hospital (NVH) wards to identify the aspects with the most significant influence on the thermal comfort of hospital buildings during the hot-dry season in the hot-humid tropics of Southeast Nigeria.

Field measurements, physical observations and a questionnaire survey of 60 occupants of the wards of the Joint Presbyterian Hospital, Uburu in Ebonyi State, Nigeria were undertaken. The data were analysed using Humphreys' neutral temperature formula, descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis.

The results revealed that the neutral temperature for the wards ranges from 26.2 °C to 29.9 °C, the thermal condition in the wards was not comfortable because it failed to meet the ASHRAE Standard 55 as only 65% of the occupants said the thermal condition was acceptable. The number and sizes of windows, building orientation, the presence of high-level windows and higher headroom significantly influenced the occupants' thermal comfort vote.

This research is valuable in estimating comfort temperature and identifying aspects that require attention in enhancing the capacity of NVH wards to effectively meet the thermal comfort needs of occupants in the hot-humid tropics of Southeast Nigeria and other regions that share similar climatic conditions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of this nature that provides valuable feedback for building design professionals on the performance of existing hospital buildings in meeting users' thermal comfort needs in the hot-dry season of the hot-humid tropics in Southeast Nigeria.

This paper analyzes the connectedness with network among the major cryptocurrencies, the G7 stock indexes and the gold price over the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic period, in 2020.

This study used a multivariate approach proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012 and 2014).

For a stock index portfolio, the results of static connectedness showed a higher independence between the stock markets during the COVID-19 crisis. It is worth noting that in general, cryptocurrencies are diversifiers for a stock index portfolio, which enable to reduce volatility especially in the crisis period. Dynamic connectedness results do not significantly differ from those of the static connectedness, the authors just mention that the Bitcoin Gold becomes a net receiver. The scope of connectedness was maintained after the shock for most of the cryptocurrencies, except for the Dash and the Bitcoin Gold, which joined a previous level. In fact, the Bitcoin has always been the biggest net transmitter of volatility connectedness or spillovers during the crisis period. Maker is the biggest net-receiver of volatility from the global system. As for gold, the authors notice that it has remained a net receiver with a significant increase in the network reception during the crisis period, which confirms its safe haven.

Overall, the authors conclude that connectedness is shown to be conditional on the extent of economic and financial uncertainties marked by the propagation of the coronavirus while the Bitcoin Gold and Litecoin are the least receivers, leading to the conclusion that they can be diversifiers.

本文分析於2020年2019冠狀病毒病肆虐期間、主要的加密貨幣、七國集團 (G7) 股價指數與黃金價格三者之間在網絡上的連通性。

分析使用迪博爾德和耶爾馬茲 (Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012, 2014)) 提出的多變量分析法。

就一個股票指數投資組合而言,靜態連結的結果顯示、在2019冠狀病毒病肆虐期間,股票市場之間有更高的獨立性。值得我們注意的是:一般來說,加密貨幣在股票指數投資組合起著多元化投資作用,這可減低不穩定性,尤其是在危機時期。動態連結的結果與靜態連結的結果沒有顯著的分別。我們剛提到、比特幣黃金已成為純接收者。除了處於先前水平的達世幣和比特幣黃金外,就大部分的加密貨幣而言,連通的範圍在衝擊後都得以維持。事實上,在這危機時期,比特幣一直是波動性連結或溢出的最大淨傳播者。掛單者 (Maker) 是從全球系統中出現的最大波動淨接收者。至於黃金,我們注意到在危機時期、它仍然是在網絡接收方面擁有顯著增長的淨接收者,這確認其為安全的避難所。

總的來說,我們的結論是:連通性被確認為取決於標誌著受廣泛傳播的冠狀病毒影響下的經濟和金融欠缺穩定的程度,而比特幣黃金和萊特幣則是最小的接收者,這帶出一個結論、就是:比特幣黃金和萊特幣、可以成為多元化投資項目。

The world order is experiencing unremitting changes. With this, the national governance of emerging economies is also becoming robust. Therefore, the current study examines the efficacy of national governance in the context of emerging economies by investigating its effects on the profitability of the microfinancing sector. Further, the study inspects if national governance mitigates the impact of credit risks to protect profitability.

The study considers panel data from 224 microfinancing institutions from five economies of world importance: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). The study uses dynamic panel data modeling, particularly the generalized method of moments, alongside multiple univariate and multivariate techniques.

The findings indicate that credit risks negatively impact profitability. In addition, the study documents a significant positive linkage between national governance and profitability. However, national governance fails to restrict the adverse effects of credit risks. National governance is found to be effective in reducing internal agency problems; the monitoring effects successfully limit the moral hazards due to managers' actions. Conversely, the national governance in these economies misses the mark in regulating the moral hazards due to borrowers' behavior.

The current study provides fresh perspectives on the efficacy of national governance in microfinancing in the setting of emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the prejudice and discrimination constructs through the lens of a transcendent knowledge concept.

The paper seeks to demonstrate that Spiritism or Spiritist Doctrine (SD) – regarded here as a source of transcendent knowledge – offers compelling arguments and provides suitable explanations (i.e. transcendent ontology) in relation to the issue of discrimination

Overall, this paper contributes to a better understanding of diversity and inclusive perspectives by examining the antecedents and consequences of discrimination through the insightful lens of SD tenets. In this sense, the findings suggest that the discriminators and prejudiced people may ironically pass through – as a result of the law of cause and effect – the same hard situations (i.e. ordeals or nightmares) – even though in their future lives – that they impose in their current victims to forcefully open their minds, support universal values, enhance their own feelings and spiritual intelligence.

Evidence presented here (although conceptually in nature) could be somewhat integrated into training sections of diversity management. At a minimum, it may encourage the shift of attitudes, revision of embedded values and reflections about the spiritual consequences to the perpetrators of discrimination against minorities.

Taken as a whole, the SD tenets prompt us to understand that the acts of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination engender suffering for their perpetrators, even in their future lives (i.e. reincarnations). Broadly speaking, the SD principles compel us to consider transcendent knowledge even in the context of organizational life.

Drawing from cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) and attribution ambiguity theory (AAT), this paper aims to examine how employees interact with queer customers within the hospitality service and the ways that queer representations regulate emotions when discriminated against by normative gender roles.

This study used a mixed method. Study 1 used firm-level secondary data to analyze hospitality firms’ efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the effects on firms’ profit margins and customer satisfaction. In Study 2, an experimental design was used to understand how employees’ assailing behavior toward queer customers interacts with employee feelings of guilt and impacts their sabotage and organizational citizenship behavior via self-serving bias. Study 3 further explored how queer customer victimization interacts with stress to influence their perceptions of organization DEI authenticity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) through resilience.

Hospitality firms’ DEI efforts were associated with varying outcomes, including higher profit margins but lower customer satisfaction, while guilt weakened the impact of employees’ assailing behavior on their outcomes and customer stress amplified the effect of assailing behavior on queer customers’ perceptions of DEI authenticity and CSR through resilience.

Hospitality organizations should take proactive measures to address self-serving bias among employees. Moreover, fostering an inclusive culture is crucial, with managers playing a pivotal role in facilitating discussions and creating an environment that values diversity, inclusivity and respect for all employees.

The study makes a remarkable contribution to hospitality literature by focusing on CDT and AAT in providing valuable implications for DEI advocators to be aware of the tensions between heteronormativity and queer representations in service encounters.