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This paper empirically investigates the relationship between financial availability and crime by measuring it across five dimensions: banking, securities, insurance, private lending and digital inclusive finance.

The study utilizes 2011–2017 data from prefecture-level cities as a representative sample. Moreover, these findings remain robust after addressing endogeneity through the use of the historical distance between cities and the railroad network as an instrumental variable.

The findings demonstrate a significant negative relationship between financial accessibility and crime rates. Heterogeneity exists in the inhibitory effect of different types of financial accessibility on crime, with banking finance exhibiting a stronger inhibitory effect compared to private lending. Areas affected by natural disasters and infectious diseases exhibit a stronger inhibitory effect of financial accessibility on crime rates, particularly in areas with severe shocks of natural disasters and epidemics. This effect is attributed to the low financing threshold and easy access to private lending, which plays a more effective role than bank finance when people face extreme risks.

There should be stricter regulations imposed on private lending markets and the introduction of more rational legislation aimed at guiding a healthy development within these markets; such measures serve as effective and complementary means for individuals from all walks of life to access credit financing.

The regulation of financial resources by the government should always prioritize ensuring the accessibility of financial policies to cater to the needs of the majority population.

This study is for the first time in an emerging economy context, the causal relationship between financial accessibility and crime. To provide a more comprehensive measure of financial accessibility in a region, this paper proposes a five-dimensional methodology.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether financial resource allocation decisions for corporate social responsibility (CSR) depends on slack resources and free cash flow.

The study's sample consists of 202 company-year observations from 51 financial institutions over the period 2015–2019. The authors collected CSR data from CSR review reports published by the Central Bank (Bangladesh Bank). The financial and governance data are collected from corporate annual reports and year-end review reports published by the Dhaka Stock Exchange. This study uses both the random-effect and generalized estimating equation models to test the hypotheses.

The authors establish two key findings consistent with the predictions of slack resource theory and free cash flow theory. First, the authors find a significant and positive relationship between slack resources and CSR expenditure. This result also supports the traditional thinking about corporate giving – that doing well enables doing good. Second, the author show that increases in free cash flow are associated with increases in CSR expenditure. This indicates the presence of agency problems between managers and shareholders regarding CSR expenditure.

This study is the first to show the positive impacts of slack resources and free cash flow on CSR expenditure in an emerging economy characterized by both capital constraints and high salience of CSR expenditure. The study has important implications for regulators, advocacy groups, shareholders and analysts in emerging economies that share similar contextual characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in voluntary carbon disclosure between developing and developed countries and the role of resource availability in explaining these differences.

The authors used a sample consisting of 2,045 large firms from 15 countries and representing divergent industries that released Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) company reports in 2009. Profitability, leverage and growth were used as proxies for the degree of resource availability and the firm's participation in the CDP was used as a proxy for carbon disclosure propensity.

Consistent with the authors' predictions, the empirical results show that the carbon disclosure propensity is correlated in the right direction with resource availability proxies; this relationship is stronger in developing nations, suggesting that the shortage of resources is one reason for the lack of commitment to carbon mitigation and disclosure in these countries. The results are robust when disclosure motivation proxies are controlled for. In addition, it is shown that firms tend to disclose carbon information if their shares are owned by CDP signatories, because it allows them to be viewed as more powerful stakeholders. This finding, which enhances the validity of stakeholder theory, previously has not been documented in the literature.

The findings are relevant to the world's largest organisations, as determined by their market capitalisation. Thus, caution should be exercised to generalise the paper's inferences to small or medium‐sized organisations.

The evidence suggests that resource shortages may constrain a firm management's carbon decisions. As the regulatory environment becomes more stringent, firms, particularly those in developing countries need to take a more proactive strategy to tackle global warming challenges and balance the need to achieve financial goals and prevent carbon pollution with their limited resources.

Although prior studies typically considered external pressures that motivated voluntary environmental disclosure, the paper's results offer extra insight and suggest that resource restriction provides a complementary explanation – largely ignored in the existing literature – for variation in the carbon‐disclosure propensity of firms.

The paper aims to address how firms make strategic adjustment to the changing resource availability in different monetary policy conditions and how the stickiness of cost influences the strategic adjustment, and to dig out the major internal and industrial factors that influence the relationship between strategic change and monetary policy conditions.

The mechanism of how monetary policy affects strategic change is expounded by resource-based view and transaction cost theory. The balanced panel data of 422 companies of manufacturing industry listed in Chinese A share market before the end of 2003 from 2004-2013 are selected as sample to test the theoretic hypotheses.

It was found that looser monetary policy results in greater strategic change than the tighter one for the high adjustment cost. External capital dependence and industrial competition intensity strengthen the positive correlation between monetary policy condition and strategic change. Private firms are more susceptible to money supply condition change compared with state-owned enterprises. Companies tend to expand investment on fixed asset but to shrink investment on R & D and trademark in looser money supply condition.

Companies make bigger strategic adjustment in looser monetary policy condition for the greater availability of financial resources and lower market risk, but smaller adjustment in the tight one. However, owing to the sunk cost and the high adjustment cost, companies are not suggested to make aggressive strategic adjustment in the loose monetary conditions so as to avoid overcapacity and financial risk in tight monetary policy condition. For the policy-maker, as loose monetary policy cannot stimulate innovation but boost expansion on capacity, it is better to strengthen the resources configuration mechanism of monetary policy when making monetary policy.

This paper fulfils a theoretic gap to study the mechanism of how monetary policy influence corporate strategic resource reconfiguration via affecting the resource base of a company by combining resource-based view and transaction cost theory.

This research aims to examine the influence of developmental human resources (HR) practices on management innovation. Drawing on social exchange theory, this paper analyzes the mediating role of responsibility for change and the moderating role of resource availability.

The authors conducted a scenario experiment using a sample of 329 part-time MBA students from various Chinese companies in Southwest China, using analysis of variance and regression to examine the hypotheses.

The results find a positive relationship between developmental HR practices and management innovation and responsibility for change mediates this relationship. Moreover, it examines the moderating role of resource availability. Resource availability positively moderates the correlation between responsibility for change and management innovation and moderates the mediation effect of responsibility for change on the correlation between developmental HR practices and management innovation.

Organizations should enhance the actual use of developmental HR practices to ensure the provision of appropriate training and development opportunities for all levels of employees in a fair and equal environment. It is better to take up an individual approach when offering these practices. Organizations should provide enough resources for employees, such as financial, spatial and temporal, and ensure the fair distribution of these resources. Organizations should cultivate the responsibility for change of middle-senior managers who can serve as role models for subordinates.

This study broadens the research on developmental HR practices, confirming that it has a positive impact on management innovation. It also provides more insight into the “black box” of developmental HR practices affecting management innovation, namely, the mediating effect of responsibility for change. This study shows that resources are critical to understanding how developmental HR practices can contribute to management innovation through responsibility for change. Using social exchange theory, the research deduces the conditional indirect effect of the model and uses a scenario experiment method to conclude causality.

This paper aims to investigate possible interdependencies affecting short-term profitability between internal and process business aspects which can play a critical role in sustainability operationalisation.

The authors adopted the panel data approach to perform a partial least square structural modelling equation analysis on a sample of 391 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) non-financial-listed companies, considering a timeframe of five years.

Corporate sustainability is a result of interplays between managerial commitment, strategy, slack resources’ exploitation, innovation, the sustainable management of internal production and procurement processes that managers can catalyse to foster short-term firms’ profitability.

The study is focused on internal process business determinants of sustainability, and the analysis is limited to a short-term timeframe and on non-financial OECD-listed companies.

Managers searching for trade-offs between financial and non-financial performances should enhance their commitment towards sustainability by defining appropriate strategies suitable to employ mainly slack resources derived from core business activities enabling innovation processes, which, in turn, are able to foster sustainability of internal production and procurement processes.

The execution of sustainability is a complex process that needs to be investigated using a holistic approach net of endogeneity biases to better appreciate those interrelationships within multiple drivers determining the firm sustainable growth.

Extant studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) have mainly focused on established corporations; the context of new ventures remains largely unexplored. This study aims to address this gap by exploring the patterns of socially responsible activities in new ventures.

This study uses the perspective of stakeholders to differentiate external CSR activities (efforts directed toward external stakeholders) from internal CSR activities (efforts directed toward employees) and performs empirical tests using a sample of 3,650 Chinese private firms.

This study empirically shows that new ventures are more involved in external CSR activities and less involved in internal CSR activities than mature firms. New ventures prioritize their limited resources to fulfill the expectations of external stakeholders rather than those of internal stakeholders. External stakeholders are considered primary stakeholders because of their potential to satisfy critical organizational needs at the start-up stage. However, new ventures tend to cut the spending on employee benefits, ignoring the potential effect of this investment on their long-term growth. After testing the moderating effect of financial resource availability, we find that new ventures with high financial resource availability are inclined to implement external CSR strategy rather than internal CSR strategy.

This study focuses on new ventures and reveals the influence of organizational life cycle on CSR decisions. The findings may be limited to the context of China or emerging markets. Thus, further research is needed to compare the patterns of CSR activities in new ventures under different institutional environments.

This study indicates that new ventures are inclined to implement external CSR strategy rather than internal CSR strategy. This choice may be rational in the short term, but insufficient investment in employee benefits may affect the long-term growth of these firms. Therefore, they must also focus on their internal CSR activities.

This study is one of the few studies to investigate the patterns of socially responsible activities in new ventures in a transition economy. The findings in this study can help reconcile the seemingly contradictory views on whether new ventures are socially responsible and contribute to our understanding about CSR strategy in these firms.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of causation decision-making and effectual decision-making logic in challenging economic situations within agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana.

The authors collect and derive composite variables from effectuation, causation, financial capital availability (FCA) and crisis performance data through a randomized system based on literature precedents. This study analyzes the data using descriptive analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and ordinary least squared regression through STATA 15.

The authors find that effectual managers are indeed better off during crisis conditions. Also, there is a significant moderation relationship between the effectuation, FCA and crisis performance.

From strategic management and entrepreneurial process standpoint, the effectuation theory thrives within uncertain business environments. This notwithstanding, literature has often focused on hypothetical, uncertain business environments. The authors present plausible evidence of effectual business behavior from a real crisis, from small agriculture firms’ perspectives and an emerging economy context.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the resources that a firm owns and has full control (firm-level resources) and resources that a firm access through direct connection with other firms (network-level resources) will impact firm innovation when effectively deployed by the firm. While previous research examined these factors separately, the author takes a holistic view and looks into their effects on innovation simultaneously. The author also introduces the moderating effects, i.e. the variables that can enhance firm innovation through their interaction with internal and external resources.

The author tested the role of financial resources and slack resources in the form of cash slack and human slack at the firm level, and network size, network tie strength, and network diversity at the network level on the firm innovation. Using generalized negative binomial model with Huber-White procedure, the author analyzed 306 firms from the biotechnology industry over a span of 17 years.

The analysis suggests that cash slack impact innovation negatively. However, this link is moderated by firm size such that for large firms cash slack affects innovation positively. Network-level resources all positively impact innovation and have more economic impact on firm innovation than firm-level resources. Furthermore, although human slack negatively affects innovation, its interaction with network size enhances innovation.

The research makes important contributions to both strategic management and innovation literatures especially when, the author considers the role of firm-level slack in driving firm innovation. Previous research reported conflicting findings about the availability of slack resources and firm performance. The results showed that the relationship between slack resources and firm innovation is negative and significant, both for available slack and human slack. This finding parallels with previous research which reported that constraints such as lack of slack resources can actually facilitate innovation. The author also contributes to the literature by introducing boundary conditions which can enhance firm innovation through their interaction with firm-level internal and network-level external resources. In this respect, to the author’s knowledge, this is among the first studies to combine the slack literature focusing on firm-level resources with the literature on network-level resources.