Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of financial performance measures on the social norms and values of an Islamic microfinance institution (IMFI), and the actions taken by the organisational members to maintain these values in their organisation.

A qualitative case study of an NGO-based IMFI in Malaysia was undertaken, with interviews conducted with officers and managers at various organisational levels of the IMFI. Insights gained from institutional work and institutional logic were used to theorise the findings.

The IMFI used mainly financial measures to manage its performance, which were interlinked with the commercialisation approach in the industry, and the top management’s focus on the financial sustainability of the organisation. The lack of social goals and the use of reward-based financial measures did not weaken the solidified social values at the operational level, due to the independence of the operational units, the compartmentalisation of profit-making activities and the institutional work of the operational managers. The operational managers acted as carriers of this social logic. Religious values formed the pillar of the permanence of social values in the IMFI.

This study provides insights into the internal practices of IMFIs, and the role of religious values in the permanence of social logic in the context of an NGO-based IMFI. The lack of measurable social goals, as well as their rewards, does not compromise the focus on poverty alleviation and community development in view of the intrinsic rewards and accountability of the operational managers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implementation of microfinance programs in three Malaysian development finance institutions (DFIs). Its main concerns revolve around how these DFIs measure and manage their social performance and how they reconcile their competing social and commercial objectives which are driven by particular logics.

This paper analyzes the ways in which the DFIs selected for this study measure and manage their social performance. The data were acquired from two sessions of focus group interviews, a series of semi-structured interviews, and extensive reviews of documentaries. The institutional logics perspective is used to explore the interplay between social and commercial logics in shaping the view and use of social performance measures in the three studied DFIs.

Although these DFIs have consistently offered formal microfinance programs to designated target groups, their ultimate focus has been on measuring financial as opposed to social performance. Hence, performance appraisal is mainly aligned with the breadth of outreach, rather than its depth. Nevertheless, there appear to be conflicts between the need to accommodate both breadth and depth, due to the competing demands of the two objectives. The rivalry between these two competing demands, which represents the interplay between social and commercial logics, is resolved through reconciliation, that is, by making one objective compatible with the other.

This paper examines the ways in which the DFIs in the study measure and manage their social performance, a topic that is, currently, not widely explored. This study contributes to advancing the knowledge on the link between institutional logics and organizational practices, particularly in understanding the extent to which the Malaysian DFIs assign importance to social performance when designing and offering microfinance programs.

The financial industry offers a unique setting to study innovations. Financial innovations have fueled the growth of economies, markets and societies. The financial industry has successfully become the breeding ground for innovative services, processes, business models and technologies. This study seeks to provide a holistic view of the literature on financial innovations, synthesize the research findings and offer future directions for research in light of three market developments that are disrupting the industry and opening up a new era for the financial services industry. Disruptions from within and outside the industry offer new generations of radically innovative services. Moreover, new generations of consumers differ from previous generations in their needs and wants and look for innovative ways to handle their financial needs. Finally, significant developments related to financial innovations have emerged in Asia and developing countries.

This study systematically reviews the academic research literature on financial innovations in two phases. The first phase provides a quantitative review of 546 journal articles published between 1990 and 2018. In the second phase, the study synthesizes the extant research on financial innovations and maps them in five research areas: firms' introduction and adoption of FIs, financial innovation development, the outcomes of financial innovations, regulations and intellectual property, and consumers.

The analysis found that disciplines differ with regard to the employed research methodologies, the units of analysis, sources of data and the innovations they examined. A positive trend in the number of published articles during this period is observed. However, studies have primarily focused on the USA and Europe and less so on other parts of the world. The literature synthesis further identifies research gaps in the available research that highlight future research opportunities in light of the three market disruptions. The financial services industry is on the brink of a new era due to disruptions from within and outside the industry and the entrance of new generations of consumers. Moreover, the financial industry has successfully become the breeding ground for innovative services, processes and business models. Therefore, financial innovations offer promising opportunities for bridging the gap between research on product and service innovations.

The work provides a holistic and systematic overview of extant research on financial innovations and highlights future research opportunities in light of the three disruptive market developments. It helps researchers take advantage of the opportunities in studying financial innovations while maintaining industry relevance.

The study is the first to review and synthesize the academic research literature on financial innovations across marketing, finance and innovation disciplines. In addition, the study highlights three primary disruptive forces in the financial industry and identifies future research directions in light of these disruptive forces.

Entrepreneurial activity is a phenomenon that increases the economic growth of countries and improves their social welfare. The economic development levels of countries have significant effects on these entrepreneurial activities. This research examines which institutional and macroeconomic variables explain early-stage entrepreneurship activities in developed and developing economies.

The authors conducted panel data analysis on the data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) surveys covering the years 2009–2018.

First, the authors' results reveal that cognitive, normative and regulatory institutions and macroeconomic factors affect early-stage entrepreneurial activity in developed and developing countries differently. Second, the authors' findings indicate that cognitive, normative and regulatory institutions affect early-stage entrepreneurship more positively in developed than developing countries. Finally, the authors' results report that macroeconomic factors are more effective in early-stage entrepreneurial activity in developing countries than in developed countries.

This study provides a better understanding of the components that help explain the differences in entrepreneurship between developed and developing countries regarding institutions and macroeconomic factors. In this way, it contributes to developing entrepreneurship literature with the theoretical achievements of combining institutional theory and macroeconomic indicators with entrepreneurship literature.

Financial inclusion washing has not been considered to be a crime although it should be. This paper aims to present a discussion about financial inclusion washing. It was argued that financial inclusion washing is the deliberate or unintentional use of exaggerated claims or misleading claims to describe an entity’s commitment to increase the level of financial inclusion.

This paper used the conceptual discourse analysis methodology.

This paper showed that many entities are at risk of practicing financial inclusion washing such as international development organizations, aid organizations, government agencies, central banks, financial institutions, financial inclusion support groups and associations, among others. This paper also highlighted the manifestations, motivations and consequences of financial inclusion washing. This paper also identified ways through which entities can avoid financial inclusion washing.

The literature has not examined how exaggerated claims about financial inclusion efforts mislead people.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically assess the legal position of the Islamic doctrine of wa'd (or pledge) in relation to 'aqd (within the sphere of Islamic finance), and compare it with the conventional viewpoint, while discussing the several modes/means/usages in terms of applied Shariah.

The paper utilizes a doctrinal approach to focus on the theoretical aspect of the concept while attempting to suggest practical adaptation and structuring, enabling smoother and more efficient use. The status quo was dependent on the wa'd being an operational instrument in today's world and further development in terms of bridging the understanding was the approach.

Before invoking the legal validity of wa'd in a court, it is important to view the practice of wa'd to be a dominant ideology utilized in Islamic finance. The first advocate who called for the practice of the binding promise in commutative financial contracts was probably Sheikh Mustafa Al‐Zarqa who adopted the position that if it was admissible, for the unilateral promise (wa'd) to be binding in donations, then, in his view, it was even more justifiable for the wa'd to be binding in commutative contracts. According to the preponderant opinion among Maliki scholars, a unilateral promise is as binding as a contract if the reason was mentioned in it or the contract was initiated based on the promise, a view shared by scholars such as Imam Bukhari. The other point of view, according to contemporary jurists such as Al‐Syntiqi and Dr Muhamed Sulaiman opine that a unilateral promise would not create any liability upon the promisor and it also does not confer any right to the promisee, although from religion point of view, it is recommended to fulfill it.

Fully understanding the modus operandi of a wa'd in key as today, wa'd has established itself within the domain of several transactions under Islamic banking and finance, such as replicating conventional short selling, structuring FOREX markets option and even operating in a double wa'd structure.

The paper would prove useful and informative on the theoratical aspect of the concept especially to students starting out in Islamic finance. For those already well versed or immersed in the field, the paper would certainly provide ideas and exploratory suggestions into the development of the concept in terms of enhancement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of emerging market firms (EMFs) and provide direction for future research on the topic.

The authors specifically review the recent literature between the years 2000 and 2019 on CE with the keywords “corporate entrepreneurship,” “emerging economies” and “emerging countries” published in the Australian Business Deans Council list journals. The authors review the existing literature about CE in emerging markets, summarize current achievements and present an agenda for future research.

Based on the review, the authors categorized the macro and micro contexts of CE and summarized the current articles on CE in emerging markets within each macro and micro context. The authors conclude that despite the abundance of research on CE that investigates the three prongs of CE in terms of innovation, strategic renewal and new venturing in developed market contexts, there is a scarcity of literature that focuses on CE in emerging markets from a holistic perspective.

While there is an abundance of literature review on CE in general in terms of the drivers of the construct, the contexts contributing to it and the outcomes, the reviews are lacking about CE specifically within the context of emerging markets. Emerging markets vary from developed markets institutionally, economically, culturally, socially and technologically. However, the questions of how these differences impact the CE activities, as it relates to innovation, venturing and strategic renewal in EMFs, and how these differences provide incentives or hinder the activities that contribute to CE remain mostly unanswered. This paper reviewed the research on CE and emerging market contexts from 2000 to present. It targets to provide a better understanding of the current achievement on this topic and what to be done in the future.

Non-performing assets (NPAs) have been a cause of concern for the banking sector across the world and have invited a lot research interest, especially for emerging economies. In India, the NPAs grew many folds and reached alarming levels in 2013. The available mechanisms, such as Corporate Debt Restructuring Scheme, were not adequate to address this issue. The Central Reserve Bank of India with the Government of India introduced various guidelines, schemes and regulations like framework for revitalizing distressed assets to tackle NPAs during the period 2013-2017. Taking the case of India, the purpose of this paper is to examine policy initiatives and analyse the impact of regulatory shocks on the equity market returns and the systematic risk of individual banking stocks using an extended version of the market model.

In this study, the authors design the experiment to explore the reaction of banking stocks to the various regulatory measures and also measure the change in systematic risk for these stocks as a result of the regulatory changes. Following the approach suggested by Soraokina and Thornton (2015), the authors use the extended market model to test the reaction of banking company stocks to the regulatory measures.

The study finds that banking stocks did not earn significant abnormal returns on the announcement of these measures. However, the systematic risk of the banking index reduced significantly on the introduction of regulatory measures, and this risk reduction has been primarily in the stocks of private sector banks.

This paper provides insights on the equity market's short-term reaction to the reform initiatives introduced by the government. The scope of the paper is with respect to one emerging economy, India, which underwent a series of regulatory reforms to tackle the banking NPA problem.

The paper fills an important research gap where the impact of schemes and regulations is captured for an emerging economy like India. It tries to bring forth the importance of these reforms and how an investor perceives the same. This paper tests for changes in systematic risk as measured by market beta as well as measures cumulative abnormal returns associated with important events in the process of regulatory reforms happening in India from 2013 to 2017.

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of environmental factors on entrepreneurship at the Spanish regional level, using institutional economics as the theoretical framework for the research. Additionally, this work aims to emphasize how environmental conditions have different effects according to the gender of entrepreneurs.

Regional panel data (19 Spanish regions and the 2006‐2009 period) from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), specifically from the Spanish National Expert Survey (NES) for environmental conditions and the GEM Adult Population Survey (APS) for entrepreneurial activity were analysed within a fixed effects model with panel corrected standard errors.

The main findings of the study indicate that both informal (cultural and social norms, perception of opportunities to start‐up and entrepreneur social image) and formal factors (intellectual property rights) influence entrepreneurship, but the informal are more determinant than the formal. Concerning the gender issues, informal and formal institutions are also determinant, but female entrepreneurship is significantly associated with the women's support to start‐up, whereas primary and higher education are associated only with male entrepreneurial activity.

The results of the research should be interpreted carefully, because the availability of data constrained the analysis to a time period that is not reflective of the economic cycle; on the contrary, the data correspond to a period of recession, and thus the results cannot be generalized. Also, the study could extend the analysed period and compare the obtained results with international data, considering the global number of participant countries in the GEM Project.

The study provides a methodology to analyse the environmental factors for new firm creation at a regional level, combining GEM data and institutional economics.

This paper aims to explore the roles different ownership structures, the joint effect of related and unrelated diversification strategies, and previous performance levels have on the restructuring strategies of such firms.

Annual reports of publicly traded firms in the two Chinese stock exchanges are used to collect data. Multiple regression and ANOVA analysis are used to examine the impact of ownership structure types, match between diversification strategies, and previous performance on the change of business scopes of the sample business groups.

Compared to other ownership types, government owned business groups tend to increase their business scope during asset restructuring, while private business groups tend to decrease their scopes through divestitures and spinoffs. Poor previous performance is also found to be negatively related to change in business scopes. The “match” between related and unrelated diversification strategies of the business groups leads to increase in business scopes, while “mismatch” between these two strategies tends to lead to decrease in business scopes.

This study provides some recommendations to managers and public policy makers in emerging economies. There is a need to monitor the changing institutional environment a firm operates in. It is up to the managers of business groups to determine the degree of market imperfections they are facing and the need to compensate with internal market mechanism and social exchange mechanism within the group structure. As China opens its door further to private ownership and foreign ownership, the pressure to increase efficiency and effectiveness along with the continuous improvement of the institutional environment will require that managers adopt strategies that can enhance the competitiveness of the firms, whether it is through further diversification or scope reduction.

This research deepens our understanding of restructuring strategies of Chinese business groups, by linking factors such as ownership structure, diversification strategies, and past performance to scope changes in these groups. It can broaden our understanding of corporate restructuring in transitional economies, such as China and India.