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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the information-seeking behaviour of Malaysian Town Planners (MTPs) in fulfilling their specific work task, which is to prepare the Development Proposal Report (DPR) that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes. The researcher investigated MTPs’ involvement in the DPR preparation, types of information sought from five town planning reference instruments, the uses of five town planning reference instruments and additional information sources and the problem faced when seeking for and using of the information from five town planning reference instruments for the DPR preparation.

This study was based on quantitative research using the postal survey method. Data were collected from 60 MTPs using questionnaires, with a response rate of 81.7 per cent.

The study showed that limited professional knowledge is the main factor influencing information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in the DPR preparation. The study revealed that MTPs seek information which are mainly related to the incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning, detailed information on existing conditions for all planning sectors especially for planning sectors that influence flood risks, detailed information on how development controls that influence the risks of flooding should be considered and detailed information on site planning aspects that influence flood risks from five town planning reference instruments. The MTPs gave various answers for the seven factors influencing their choice of use for each town planning reference instruments. Familiarity and prior success and trustworthiness factors got the most absolutely very important answers; followed by the quality factor with the most important answers; the timeliness factor with the most moderately important answers; accessibility factor with the most somewhat important answers; the cost factor with the most not so important answers; and the packaging factor with the most not important at all answers. The MTPs used additional sources such as the local planning authority, other agencies, colleagues, internet, clients, books, journals, seminar or conference papers and magazines to get useful information for the DPR preparation besides the five town planning reference instruments. The study found that the top three problems encountered by the MTPs during their information seeking for and using of information were the related information on incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning in all five town planning reference instruments were not sufficient, not in detail and not complete.

Only 60 MTPs, whose DPRs for lowland development areas with planning permission from the Selayang Municipal Council, Selangor, Malaysia, from the year 2012 to 2014 were chosen as samples in this study. Besides that, only site planning aspects in five town planning reference instruments were taken into account in this study.

This paper provides useful understanding of the information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in fulfilling one of their professional tasks, which is preparing the DPR that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes.

Being the first study on information-seeking behaviour of MTPs, it contributes to the very limited research literature on the topic for this profession in the world generally and Malaysia specifically.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop and test theory on how commitment human resource (HR) practices affect hospital professionals’ job satisfaction that motivates them to generate desirable patient care and subsequently improve doctor-patient relationships (DPR) and second, to examine how commitment HR practices influence hospital managers and clinicians in different ways.

Using a cross-sectional survey, the authors collected data from 508 clinicians and hospital managers from 33 tertiary public hospitals in China. Structural equation model was employed to test the relationships of the variables in the study.

Commitment HR practices positively affect the job satisfaction of the healthcare professionals surveyed and a positive relationship is perceived between job satisfaction and DPR. Overall, the model shows a reversal on the strongest path linking job satisfaction and DPR whereby managers’ main association operates through extrinsic job satisfaction while for clinicians it occurs through intrinsic satisfaction only.

DPR might be improved by applying commitment HR practices to increase healthcare professional’s intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. In addition, while recognizing the importance of compensation and benefits to address the underpayment issue of Chinese healthcare professionals, empowerment and autonomy in work, and the use of subjects’ expertise and skills may serve as stronger motivators for clinicians rather than hard economic incentives in achieving DPR improvements.

This study contributes to the small but growing body of research on human resource management (HRM) in the healthcare sector with new evidence supporting the link between commitment HR practice and work attitudes, as well as work attitudes and patient care from the perspective of clinicians and hospital managers. This study represents an initial attempt to examine the associations among commitment HR practices, job satisfaction and DPR in the Chinese healthcare sector. The findings provide evidence to support the value of commitment HR practices in Chinese hospital context, and demonstrate the importance of effective HRM in improving both hospital managers and clinicians’ work attitudes.

This paper aims to make an attempt to identify the determinants of dividend policy by analyzing 125 real estate companies, which are selected on the basis of consistent dividend distribution throughout the study period. Most of these companies either listed with Bombay Stock Exchange or National Stock Exchange.

This paper applies three alternative methods to verify and validate the results obtained from each other method, namely, fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least square and generalized method of moments (GMM). Data collected of the selected companies’ post-recession period i.e. 2009-2017. The selected companies have age either 5 years old or more when data are retrieved from the above-mentioned sources. Due to much volatility in the recession period in the real estate firms at the global level, no data have been taken of the firms before March 2009. Moreover, for arriving at good analysis and an adequate number of observations for the study more recent data have been taken.

Empirical findings of this research paper depict that firm previous dividend, firm risk and liquidity are strong predictors of future dividend payout ratios (DPRs). The results indicate that firm risk as measured through price-earnings ratio (PE ratio) has a positive association with a DPR of selected real estate firms. Lagged DPR used in the GMM test as an exogenous variable is showing positive significant association with DPR. Firm’s growth is found significant in FMOLS and GMM techniques. On the other firm’s size is found significant according to cointegration techniques.

The present study shall be useful to different stakeholders of real estate companies. Various significant determinants as identified can be used by management for designing optimum dividend policy and providing maximum benefits to existing shareholders. Similarly existing and prospective shareholders may predict the future payment of dividend and accordingly they may take investment decisions in these firms, as the future fund’s requirement of a firm depends upon dividend payment and retention ratio.

As per the authors’ knowledge, there is no single study carried in the post-recession period to predict determinants of dividend policy of real estate sector using three alternatives of methods to verify and validate the results obtained from each other method. The study is carried out after exploring determinant from a diverse range of period of studies (oldest one to latest one).

The paper's purpose is to consider the challenges, a public sector organization faces combining both transparency and “intelligent” forms of accountability (cf. Roberts, 2009).

The authors conducted a case study of StatePol, a police service in an Australian state.

The data analysis revealed three themes. First, prior to 2013, transparency forms of accountability dominated, emphasizing crime statistics with the effect of reinforcing internal partitions and inhibiting collective action. Second, post-2013, a greater emphasis was placed on “intelligent” accountability with conversations around process and collective accountability at the operational level. Crime statistics were used less for operational-level accountability and more for attention-directing. Third, changing the emphasis from transparency to its combined use with “intelligent” accountability required strong leadership, clearly communicated strategy and middle-level managers with appropriate skills.

The authors identify a number of important factors in combining transparency and “intelligent” forms of accountability. The authors note the difficulties that fragmentation between forms of accountability and the somewhat amorphous nature of the accountability concept itself can cause. In doing so, the authors provide empirical evidence of the challenges changing from an emphasis on transparency, to combined use with an “intelligent” form of accountability.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which corporate board attributes influence dividend payout policies.

A total number of 2,842 firm’s year-observations of Malaysian non-financial firms representing from various industries. The firms were scrutinized over a period of 14 financial years covering from 2005 to 2018. The data was in a panel form given the cross-sectional and time-series nature. The fixed effect is used as the main technique for analysis. The OLS and random effects techniques are used for robustness for this study.

The results revealed that the proportion of board independence, board tenure, board size and CEO duality have a positive and statistically mixed effect on dividend pay-out. However, the corporate board diversity and board member age had a negative association with dividend payouts. Overall, the results suggest that firms with well-organized corporate board attribute affect positively on dividend pay-out policy.

This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of internal governance mechanisms by presenting evidence of the substitution hypothesis in an emerging economy in which firms operate within a unique regulatory framework and board composition.

This research attempts to examine bank dividend policy in Indonesia by applying the life cycle theory of dividends.

This research used secondary data gotten from two sources: banks’ annual financial statements from 2005 to 2019 and the number of observation samples was 510 from 42 banks. Random Effects Logit Model (RELM) is used to detect the influence of independent variables on Propensity to Pay Dividends (PPD) and Random Effects Tobit Model (RETM) is used to test the influence of independent variables on Dividend Payout Ratio (DPR).

The RELM results show that Retained Earnings to Total Equity (RE/TE), Retained Earnings to Total Asset (RE/TA) and bank age have a positive impact on the propensity to pay dividends (PPD) while bank growth (GRW) has a negative impact. The RETM results reveal that RE/TE, ROA and bank size have a positive impact on the dividend payout ratio (DPR) while GRW has a negative impact. This analysis also discovers that the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and Non-performing Loans (NPL) is one important factor considered by banks in Indonesia in determining their dividend policy.

This study contributes to enriching literature in finance, especially in the life cycle theory of dividends. Also, it can be a guide to consider by investors before deciding to put their shares in banks in Indonesia.

Research on bank-specific life cycle theory is very difficult to find, especially in the Indonesian context, so this research can enrich the body of knowledge on dividend decisions.

This chapter explores the major drivers of capital structure, which is measured by using two alternative measures (total debt/equity and total debt/total assets), for Romanian firms. By employing panel-data models for a sample of non-financial companies publicly traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, this research examines how capital structure of the Romanian firms are affected by CEO age and several firm-specific characteristics including free cash flow, return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), effective tax rate, dividend payout ratio, cash ratio, current ratio, and quick ratio, where firm-level controls (total assets and firm age) are adopted. Using fixed effects estimation on panel data, we find: (1) ROIC, dividend payout ratio and liquidity ratios all negatively affect capital structure; (2) whereas ROA provides evidence of its mixed role on capital structure. Robustness checks using the generalized method of moments reinforce the negative impact of dividend payout ratio and the mixed influence of ROA, and document the varied effects of liquidity measures on capital structure.

We examine how the organizational identity of established firms affects their strategic outcomes during the emergence phase of a new market. Drawing on cognitive theories of analogical learning, we build theory about how the established identities of producers influence the fluency with which consumers make sense of novel products, and hence affect valuations. We illustrate this theory through an empirical study of consumer evaluations of de alio entrants during the emergence of the digital camera industry.

This study aims to examine how and when digital platform capabilities drive technological innovation from a strategic information perspective, regarding information flow and information quality as mediators and business intelligence analytics as a moderator.

This study engaged corporate executives in surveys and obtained 182 firm data and then tested the hypotheses using linear regression models and the robustness using the structural equation model.

Digital platform capabilities drive corporate technological innovation through access to strategic information, i.e. strategic information mediates between digital platform capabilities and technological innovation. Business intelligence analytics increases the influence of strategic information on technological innovation.

This study underlines the importance for companies to construct digital platform capabilities to access strategic information to achieve technological innovation and the role of business intelligence analytics in processing strategic information.

This study finds a new perspective, strategic information, to explain the mechanisms by which digital platform capabilities drive firms’ technological innovation. In addition, the robustness of the resource-based view in understanding digital platform capabilities is stressed.