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This study aims to measure impact of several firm-specific factors on alternative measures of leverage. The authors also aim to study impact of the subprime crisis on such associations.

The authors utilized an unbalanced panel data of 973 firm-year observations on 47 UK listed non-financial firms for the years 1990–2019. Book-based and market-based long-term and total leverage measures have been used as explained variables. The explanatory variables are profitability, size, two measures of growth, asset tangibility, non-debt tax shields, firm age and product uniqueness. Fixed effect and random effect models with clustered robust standard errors have been utilized for data analysis. To find the effect of subprime crisis, original dataset was split to create pre-crisis and post-crisis datasets.

The authors find that profitability significantly reduces leverage while firms having more tangible assets use significantly more debt in capital structure. Firm size and non-debt tax shield have statistically insignificant positive impact on leverage. Having more unique products reduces use of external debt, albeit insignificantly. Growth, when measured as market-to-book ratio, has inconsistent impact, whereas capital expenditure insignificantly reduces leverage. Age is found to be an insignificant predictor of leverage. After the subprime crisis, firms started relying more on internal fund instead of external debt, more particularly short-term debt. Having more collateral is gradually becoming more important for availing external debt.

Data limitations restrict generalization of the findings.

This is one of the pioneering attempts to show how subprime crisis altered the theoretical domain of capital structure research in the UK.

Working remotely in a COVID-19-induced lockdown has been challenging for both organisations and their employees; studies report that job demands changed, and teleworkers experienced increased burnout. This paper explores the negative employee outcomes that this work arrangement brings along and offers possible solutions to counter such negative outcomes since they could be detrimental to the much-touted future of work.

The study adopted a time-lagged longitudinal design and collected two-waved data from 403 quaternary sector employees. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling and model-21 in PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Findings affirm that employees experienced increased job demands during this crisis. Employees reported an increase in turnover intention because of burnout caused by increased job demands. However, increased task interdependence alone did not have any effect on turnover intention. The perceived organisational task support (POTS) was found to forestall the negative effect of job demands on burnout, and employee resilience (ER) buffered the burnout and turnover intention relationship.

Providing remote work task support and boosting resilience among employees will help in doing away with the negative effects of teleworking. However, managers shall prioritise reducing job demands for teleworkers.

The linkage between work factors and turnover intention is well established. Drawing on the event system theory and using the COVID-19 context, the present study added to the existing knowledge by studying the role of job demands (workload pressure and task interdependence) on turnover intention through the mediation of burnout. The study goes beyond the existing literature by accounting for POTS as a first-level moderator between job demands and burnout relationship, and ER as a second-level moderator between burnout and turnover intention relationship.

This paper aims to analyze the effect of family control and influence dimension of the socioemotional wealth (SEW) on capital structure of large listed firms in the North African region.

The study uses panel data of the top 98 largest listed firms in the North African capital markets over the period from 2018 to 2022. The analysis is conducted employing random effects models.

Findings suggest that large listed firms in North African region rely on more use of equity rather than debt financing. Further, results show that family control and influence dimension of the SEW, has no significant impact on the capital structure of North African large listed firms. This implies that the financing behavior of large firms listed in the North African countries is driven by financial and rationale factors rather than non-economic considerations. Indeed, findings support assumptions of the pecking order theory.

This transnational study provides new insights into relevancy of socioemotional theory in explaining capital structure decisions within large family businesses in emerging markets. Findings have the potential to enhance analysts', investors' and practitioners' understanding of financing decisions by large listed firms in this region. This, in turn, can aid in conceiving adapted financing solutions.

Pierre Nelis joined a small group of artists working for a creative entrepreneur who had invented software to produce movies. He brought a great deal of marketing expertise to a team of technology creators, and it was this that ultimately allowed the firm to sell its software to movie industry leaders throughout the world. The firm – Softimage – was bought by Microsoft, which hired Pierre Nelis to oversee the integration process, and later to develop new communications products. Nelis has an outstanding ability to identify the elements needed by a firm to become more effective, and this led him to set up a one-of-a-kind external facilitation programme that went on to become a model for many business growth support organizations throughout the world, but especially in North America and Europe.

The proliferation of surveillance-enhancing laws, policies and technologies across African countries deepens the risk of privacy rights breaches, as well as the risks of adverse profiling and social sorting. There is a heightened need for dedicated advocacy and activism to consistently demand accountability and transparency from African states, governments and their allies regarding surveillance. The purpose of this paper is to understand the issue frames that accompany anti-surveillance and privacy advocacy in Ghana and the related implications.

Using a qualitative and interpretivist approach, the author focuses on three different surveillance-oriented incidents/programs in Ghana and analyzes the frames underpinning the related advocacy and narratives of various non-state actors.

Privacy and anti-surveillance advocacy in Ghana tends to be less framed in the context of privacy rights and is more driven by concerns about corruption and value for money. Such pecuniary emphasis is rational per issue salience calculations as it elevates principles of economic probity, transparency and accountability and pursues a high public shock value and resonance.

Economics-centered critiques of surveillance could be counterproductive as they create a low bar for surveillance promoters and sustains a culture of permissible statist intrusions into citizens’ lives once economic virtues are satisfied.

While anti-surveillance and privacy advocacy is budding across African countries, little is known about its nature, frames and modus compared to such advocacy in European and North American settings. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is likely the first paper or one of the first dedicated fully to anti-surveillance and advocacy in Africa.

The purpose of this article is to provide information about interactions between pink-pigmented facultative methylotroph (PPFM) organisms and plants, their molecular mechanisms of methylotrophic metabolism, application of PPFMs in agriculture, biotechnology and bioremediation and also to explore lacuna in PPFMs research and direction for future research.

Research findings on PPFM organisms as potent plant growth promoting organisms are discussed in the light of reports published by various workers. Unexplored field of PPFM research are detected and their application as a new group of biofertilizer that also help host plants to overcome draught stress in poorly irrigated crop field is suggested.

PPFMs are used as plant growth promoters for improved crop yield, seed germination capacity, resistance against pathogens and tolerance against drought stress. Anti-oxidant and UV resistant properties of PPFM pigments protect the host plants from strong sunshine. PPFMs have excellent draught ameliorating capacity.

To meet the ever increasing world population, more and more barren, less irrigated land has to be utilized for agriculture and horticulture purpose and use of PPFM group of organisms due to their draught ameliorating properties in addition to their plant growth promoting characters will be extremely useful. PPFMs are also promising candidates for the production of various industrially and medicinally important enzymes and other value-added products. Wider application of this ecofriendly group of bacteria will reduce crop production cost thus improving economy of the farmers and will be a greener alternative of hazardous chemical fertilizers and fungicides.

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