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The paper tests if and to what extent lean management system adoption generates abnormal profitability, and how it accrues over time. Configurational approaches to lean management systems and “S-curve” effects in lean implementation are used to ground the paper's hypotheses and interpret its findings.

Using the emerging view of lean as enterprise-wide management systems, this quasi-experimental study uses a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the abnormal profitability (ROIC) attributable to lean management system adoption. The paper leverages a unique data set of lean adopters nested in a panel data set (19 years) of 2,088 industrial firms matched by industry and firm size. It applies a variety of regression methods (two-way fixed effect panel estimator, propensity score matching, instrumental variable two-stage-least squares) to estimate the size of the abnormal profitability attributable to lean management systems, addressing endogeneity issues related to non-random sampling, omitted variable bias and reverse causation. It also analyzes the cross-firm variability of such abnormal profitability and how it accrues over time.

For the average non-adopter in the sample (44.3 million euro revenues), lean adoption generates abnormal ROIC ranging from 1.4% to 3.9%. These results come into effect approximately three years after starting lean adoption and peak after eight years. While the average abnormal profitability attributable to lean adoption is sizable, it varies significantly across firms and over time. This significant variation is compatible with firms' diverse ability to understand the complex inner workings of lean systems, and to design and implement them so that they improve profitability.

The conceptualization of lean as enterprise-wide management system can be further refined to more effectively categorize the components of lean systems and investigate the nature of their relationships. Lean system adoption measurement can be fine-tuned to better capture cross-firm and longitudinal heterogeneity. Future work can explore other dependent variables of interest to different stakeholders including shareholders' value, employment and environmental and social sustainability.

The financial benefits of adopting lean can be reaped to the extent to which managers embrace lean as a philosophy and implement it pervasively in the organization. A firm can use the study's estimates as a basis for making calculations about the returns of investment in lean adoption. The paper also shows that “getting the lean system right” makes a significant difference in terms of abnormal profitability, which is twice as large for the best lean adopters..

Compared with the promises of many lean proponents and supporters, the paper provides a more realistic view of what to expect from lean adoption in terms of profitability. Adopting lean as a comprehensive, enterprise-wide management system is not a universal panacea, but a complex endeavor, characterized by multiple complex decisions that require considerable capabilities, coordinated efforts and consistency of action.

Differently from extant research, this study does not study the correlation between the adoption of lean operation practices and financial performance but focuses on the abnormal profitability generated by the adoption of lean as a pervasive, enterprise-wide management system. Its research design allows to identify the differential profitability attributable to lean adoption and documents that it accrues non-linearly.

Focusing on the Agri-Food and Beverage sector, the paper investigates the direct effect of worldwide mandatory non-financial disclosure on several financial dimensions as well as its moderating effects on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors performed fixed-effect regressions on a sample of 180 global listed companies, considering a period of eight years. The authors also tested the moderating effects of non-financial disclosure regulation on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors found a positive direct impact of mandatory non-financial disclosure on Operating Return on Asset, Return on Equity and Return on Sales. The analysis also highlighted the negative moderating effects of non-financial reporting regulation on the relationship between sustainability issues and financial performance. As for the Cost of Debt, the authors found mixed results.

This study considers a short-term perspective focusing on a limited sample composed of companies playing a key role in the global agri-food system.

The paper identifies which financial performance dimensions are positively or negatively affected by mandatory non-financial disclosure. Accordingly, managers can rearrange corporate activities to deal with further reporting normative requirements concurrently preserving financial performances and fostering corporate sustainability.

This study recommends fostering mandatory non-financial disclosure to increase corporate transparency fostering the sustainability transition of the Agri-Food and Beverage industry.

The paper highlights global mandatory non-financial disclosure effects on financial performance considering a sector that is cross-cutting impactful on plural sustainability issues.

With the goal of helping consumers bounce back from the financial challenges they faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many firms developed and announced consumer-targeted resiliency programs (e.g. Walgreens waived delivery fees, Associated Bank allowed deferred mortgage payments). However, there is a paucity of research examining the unique features of these programs, and whether firms' investors (the first external stakeholder group to provide them with feedback regarding their strategies) were receptive to these programs during a period of time in which firms themselves were suffering financially. Drawing on resilience theory and stakeholder theory, the present research incorporates an event study of consumer-targeted resiliency program announcements to understand their financial implications for firms, and to learn whether firms witnessed different financial effects as a result of firm- and program-specific factors.

This study referred to business news publications and newswire services to collect a comprehensive list of consumer-targeted resiliency programs announced by publicly traded U.S. firms during the pandemic. The resulting dataset consisted of 145 announcements made during the period of February–June 2020. An event study was conducted in order to precisely measure the main effect of consumer-targeted resiliency programs on firm value, as manifested through abnormal stock returns. Finally, a moderation analysis (regression) was conducted to uncover whether firm characteristics or specific features of firms' consumer-targeted resiliency programs lead certain firms to witness stronger financial effects than others.

The main effect of consumer-targeted resiliency programs on firm value was found to be positive – a 1.9% increase on average. The moderation analysis finds that non-financial firms were rewarded more positively than financial firms (e.g. banks and credit card companies). In addition, financial aid (i.e. allowing customers to defer their payments to a firm for its products/services, versus a reduction in the price of a product/service or offering it for free or giving cash back to customers) and temporal characteristics (i.e. an offer being framed as limited-time, vs being indefinite or for the foreseeable future) are not found to have a moderating effect.

This theory-driven empirical study uncovers practical implications for managers of firms interested in whether investing in corporate social responsibility during times of crisis is a wise allocation of resources. Any form of financial aid for consumers, regardless of temporal limitations, is received positively by investors.

Prior work expresses concern about young people's rising debt and lack of financial preparedness. This study focuses on how financial socialization and psychological characteristics affect the personal financial management behavior (PFMB) of young professionals in India. The authors examine both the direct effect of these factors and the indirect effects through financial literacy and aforementioned psychological characteristics as mediators.

The authors develop a conceptual framework based on the extant literature and empirically test its hypotheses employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

Attitude towards money, financial self-efficacy, financial risk tolerance, financial socialization through parental direct teaching and peers, and media are all positively associated with young professionals' PFMB, whereas external locus of control and procrastination are negatively associated with their PFMB. Almost all psychological characteristics partially mediate the association between financial socialization and PFMB. Finally, financial literacy plays a partially mediating role in the association between procrastination and PFMB as well as between financial socialization and PFMB.

This study helps regulators and policymakers understand PFMB among young professionals. Interventions should build on the positive role of financial socialization, cultivating a good attitude towards money and financial self-efficacy, and reducing reliance on an external locus of control and procrastination. This study also helps policymakers and financial educators develop societally beneficial personal finance programs.

This research investigates social, psychological and cognitive characteristics in a comprehensive framework to further the authors’ understanding of the topic of PFMB.

The purpose of this research paper is to study attitudinal responses to the tone of a voluntary disclosure. It is known that tone can affect market response. Existing literature assumes that investors' attitudes mediate these effects, but these attitudinal mediators have not been directly measured. The authors are especially interested in cases where a firm is reporting poor financial results. The purpose is to trace the mechanism and conditions under which tone affects the credibility of a voluntary disclosure.

The authors conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects study that manipulates financial performance (good/bad) and tone (positive/negative). The attitudinal dependent variable is the credibility of the management discussion, with persuasive intent as a mediator of the effects of tone on credibility.

In the case of bad financial results, a positive tone has a negative effect on credibility as the authors predict. This effect is fully mediated by perceived “persuasive intent”. In the case of good financial performance, credibility is higher when management adopts a positive tone, even though there, too, subjects perceive the persuasive intent.

The research paper establishes a bridge between the communications and finance literature on the effect of tone in voluntary disclosures. The empirical findings provide initial evidence and new detail regarding an attitudinal response (credibility) that the finance literature often assumes is responsible for mediating market responses to voluntary disclosures. One unexpected finding with interesting implications is that positive tone increases credibility in the case of good news. The implication is that a firm may indulge in taking a victory lap to celebrate good news, without harming the credibility of their corporate communications. Additional research is warranted that combines theory and methods from communications and finance, to further elaborate the attitudinal mechanisms behind the market effects of tone in voluntary disclosures.

At the most general level, the original contribution is the creation of a theoretical and methodological bridge between the communications and finance literature, regarding the effect of tone in voluntary disclosures. This research proposes an integrated theoretical framework, in which the concept of incentives shapes the relationships between the firm's financial situation, a disclosure's tone and its credibility. Methodologically, the authors employ an experimental method, which is more typical in the communications literature, to illuminate the attitudinal effects of tone that are frequently mentioned and assumed in the finance literature.

The desire for a sustainable environment has led to the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and increase renewable energy usage. Empirical evidence generally shows that financial development has a significant effect on these two variables. However, little is known about how the financial strength of financial institutions influences them in the fight against climate change. This study aims to assess the effect of the financial strength of listed financial institutions on renewable energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in Ghana.

Regression analyses were used to estimate the effect of asset quality, credit management, return on equity/asset and firm size on renewable energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions for data covering from 2009 to 2018.

The results revealed that return on equity reduces renewable energy consumption and increases carbon dioxide emissions. It is also found that credit risk management and asset quality positively influence renewable energy consumption but reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Ghana.

Policymakers need to identify profitable but less polluting ventures and draw the attention of financial institutions in the country. This may cause banks and other lending-giving institutions to desist from giving credits to support environmentally harmful ventures.

The paper assessed the effect that the financial strength of financial institutions has on renewable energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

This article aims to systematically review the literature published in recognized journals focused on cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their effect on investment management activities and market efficiency. It also includes some of the research work on the origins and foundations of behavioral finance, and how this has grown substantially to become an established and particular subject of study in its own right. The study also aims to provide future direction to the researchers working in this field.

For doing research synthesis, a systematic literature review (SLR) approach was applied considering research studies published within the time period, i.e. 1970–2021. This study attempted to accomplish a critical review of 176 studies out of 256 studies identified, which were published in reputable journals to synthesize the existing literature in the behavioral finance domain-related explicitly to cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their effect on investment management activities and market efficiency as well as on the origins and foundations of behavioral finance.

This review reveals that investors often use cognitive heuristics to reduce the risk of losses in uncertain situations, but that leads to errors in judgment; as a result, investors make irrational decisions, which may cause the market to overreact or underreact – in both situations, the market becomes inefficient. Overall, the literature demonstrates that there is currently no consensus on the usefulness of cognitive heuristics in the context of investment management activities and market efficiency. Therefore, a lack of consensus about this topic suggests that further studies may bring relevant contributions to the literature. Based on the gaps analysis, three major categories of gaps, namely theoretical and methodological gaps, and contextual gaps, are found, where research is needed.

The skillful understanding and knowledge of the cognitive heuristic-driven biases will help the investors, financial institutions and policymakers to overcome the adverse effect of these behavioral biases in the stock market. This article provides a detailed explanation of cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their influence on investment management activities and market efficiency, which could be very useful for finance practitioners, such as an investor who plays at the stock exchange, a portfolio manager, a financial strategist/advisor in an investment firm, a financial planner, an investment banker, a trader/broker at the stock exchange or a financial analyst. But most importantly, the term also includes all those persons who manage corporate entities and are responsible for making their financial management strategies.

Currently, no recent study exists, which reviews and evaluates the empirical research on cognitive heuristic-driven biases displayed by investors. The current study is original in discussing the role of cognitive heuristic-driven biases in investment management activities and market efficiency as well as the history and foundations of behavioral finance by means of research synthesis. This paper is useful to researchers, academicians, policymakers and those working in the area of behavioral finance in understanding the role that cognitive heuristic plays in investment management activities and market efficiency.

Literature has pointed that conventional financial development theories have inconclusive role on motivating new businesses. New ventures often consider the conventional system that passes through risk and provides fixed-interest lending as a burden. Comparatively, Islamic finance contributes using participative and equitable substitute for startups and has a potential in promoting new businesses. This study aims to investigate the holistic financial development index quadratic effect on entrepreneurship and include the moderating role of Islamic financing at national level.

Islamic banks of 21 nations constitute the unbalanced panel data. Financial development and entrepreneurship indices were developed using factor analysis and panel median regression to estimate the nonlinear financial market development effects and Islamic financing moderation model.

The results indicated that low financial market development is entrepreneurship deterring because of interest burden effect, which could be eased with a proportional increase in the Islamic financing, which is participative. The moderating effect has led to the categorization of the sample countries into entrepreneurship promoting and entrepreneurship discouraging with respect to the current incidence of financial market development and Islamic financing, which can help policymakers in understanding the entrepreneurship promoting combination of financial development and Islamic financing.

Central banks and Shari’ah advisory councils can adopt Islamic financing transition in the national financial inclusion policy for new business facilitation.

This study is instrumental in exploring the assessment of introducing Islamic financing while developing the financial sector on multidimensional entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this study is to probe into the influence mechanism of financial opening onto industrial restructuring from the prism of financial development and examine the role of the credit market, capital market and currency market in transmitting the impact of financial opening onto industrial restructuring in both developed countries and developing countries.

In the theoretical model, the indicator of financial opening was introduced in Cobb–Douglas production function formula. Using constant elasticity of substitution utility function, based on Engel’s law, the optimal industrial structure in the economy was concluded. For the empirical analysis, data was collected from 36 developed countries and 34 developing countries during the period 2000 to 2019. Multiple mediator models with bootstrap techniques were used to identify the linkage between financial opening, financial development and industrial restructuring.

First, there is a U-shaped relationship between financial opening and industrial restructuring. Second, financial development plays a mediating role in transmitting the effects of financial opening onto industrial restructuring mainly through the credit market at the global level. Third, developed countries are in a trend of “reindustrialization,” while developing countries show a trend of “premature deindustrialization.” Moreover, for developed countries, the capital market leads to reindustrialization, while the credit market and currency market contribute to deindustrialization. For developing countries, the capital market and credit market lead to deindustrialization, while the currency market contributes to industrialization.

Unlike most previous researches, this paper focuses on examining three-variable relationship between financial opening, financial development and domestic industrial restructuring. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, monetary policy shifts of developed economies have led to an increase in cross-border capital flows, which will lead to the increasing risks for international financial markets and the reallocation of the global value chain. It is of great significance to clarify the linkage between these three variables in the face of a volatile international financial environment.

Might the impact of the financial stress on exchange markets be asymmetric and exposed to regime changes? Departing from the existing literature, highlighting that the domestic and foreign financial stress in terms of money market have substantial effects on exchange market, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of the bond yield spreads of three emerging countries (Mexico, Russia, and South Korea) on their exchange market pressure indices using monthly observations for the period 2010:01–2019:12. Additionally, the paper analyses the impact of bond yield spread of the US on the exchange market pressure indices of the three mentioned emerging countries. The authors hypothesized whether the negative and positive changes in the bond yield spreads have varying effects on exchange market pressure indices.

To address the research question, we measure the bond yield spread of the selected countries by using the interest rate spread between 10-year and 3-month treasury bills. At the same time, the exchange market pressure index is proxied by the index introduced by Desai et al. (2017). We base the empirical analysis on nonlinear vector autoregression (VAR) models and an asymmetric quantile-based approach.

The results of the impulse response functions indicate that increases/decreases in the bond yield spreads of Mexico, Russia and South Korea raise/lower their exchange market pressure, and the effects of shocks in the bond yield spreads of the US also lead to depreciation/appreciation pressures in the local currencies of the emerging countries. The quantile connectedness analysis, which allows for the role of regimes, reveals that the weights of the domestic and foreign bond yield spread in explaining variations of exchange market pressure indices are higher when exchange market pressure indices are not in a normal regime, indicating the role of extreme development conditions in the exchange market. The quantile regression model underlines that an increase in the domestic bond yield spread leads to a rise in its exchange market pressure index during all exchange market pressure periods in Mexico, and the relevant effects are valid during periods of high exchange market pressure in Russia. Our results also show that Russia differs from Mexico and South Korea in terms of the factors influencing the demand for domestic currency, and we have demonstrated the role of domestic macroeconomic and financial conditions in surpassing the effects of US financial stress. More specifically, the impacts of the domestic and foreign financial stress vary across regimes and are asymmetric.

This study enriches the literature on factors affecting the exchange market pressure of emerging countries. The results have significant economic implications for policymakers, indicating that the exchange market pressure index may trigger a financial crisis and economic recession.