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This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate diversification and growth opportunities on the performance of real estate investment trusts (REIT) in Malaysia and Singapore before and during the pandemic.

The sample consists of 33 public-listed REITs across Singapore and Malaysia. A dynamic panel system generalized method of moments (DPS-GMM) estimation is used to account for unobservable factors and a relatively short sample period (2009–2022).

Results indicate that the impact of diversification is contingent on the market where the REIT is based and other institutional factors. The estimates also show that diversified REITs are better able to weather period of economic uncertainty.

We provided a definitive answer as to why corporate diversification leads to conflicting outcomes – market and institutional factors, strategic intent and the overall economic environment. We also show that the impact of typical firm controls (i.e. free cash, size) can differ. Future firm-level work should thus study similar phenomenon more contextually and carefully consider these varying effects.

The literature is divided on the impact of diversification on firm performance. By using a two-country sample, we show conclusive evidence that this contradictory outcome is due to market and institutional factors. We also show evidence that strategic intent is an important factor that influences the outcomes of diversification, regardless of market. We also infer that excess cash aids the resilience of the firm, contrary to the negative perception of excess cash during normal times. Firm size, in contrast, does not contribute to firm performance during a crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of job insecurity on employee silence by developing a moderated mediation model. The model focuses on the mediating role of ego depletion underpinning the relationship between job insecurity on employee silence and the moderating role of perceived coworker support and career growth opportunity in influencing the mediation.

This study conducts a questionnaire from 309 employees of six Chinese financial enterprises in two waves, with a one-month interval between the two waves. Moreover, this study uses bootstrapping and confirmatory factor analysis to verify the hypothesis.

Job insecurity has a significant positive impact on employee silence, and ego depletion partly mediated the relationship between job insecurity and employee silence. Perceived coworker support and career growth opportunity negatively moderated the relationship between job insecurity and ego depletion and also moderated the indirect effect of job insecurity on employee silence through ego depletion.

The study provides evidence for the positive effects of job insecurity on ego depletion, which, in turn, is significantly associated with employee silence. It highlights the important role of perceived coworker support and career growth opportunities in reducing employee negative perceptions and behaviors.

This empirical study provides preliminary evidence of the mediating role of ego depletion in the positive relationship between job insecurity and employee silence. The moderated mediation model also extends the existing finding by adding substantive moderators (perceived coworker support and career growth opportunity) to explain how the effect of job insecurity on employees’ behaviors unfolds.

Executive decisions regarding capital financing are an important management aspect, especially during financing constraints and growth opportunities. The current study examines the impact of managerial skills of a company on capital financing decisions. Furthermore, it analyzed this nexus in financing constraints and growth opportunity situations.

The authors use the GMM (generalized method of moments) estimation approach on a dataset of 20,651 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2019.

The authors’ findings are compatible with management signaling and reputation enhancement theories, since they show that managerial skill is connected with more substantial debt financing. Managers with high management skills are likely to have more debt financing as they can foresee the economic future of their companies and tactfully convey private information, lowering information inequality and enhancing their reputation. Furthermore, the authors also show that firms with restricted financial resources and growth opportunities make this relationship stronger. Capital structure and managerial skill findings are unaffected by alternative specifications, omitted factors, industry group bias and endogeneity.

This study sheds fresh light on the essential manager personality trait of managing ability and how it influences complicated corporate decision-making, particularly in the tough environment due to financing constraints and competitive growth. The authors argue that high-ability managers are compelled to use debt financing not only to lessen information asymmetry but also to guarantee that the market finds their superior ability. This work contributes significantly to the managerial ability literature and the capital structure literature supporting signaling theory.

This study aims to examine the effect of political connection on operational efficiencies in the case of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and to discover the channel through which political ties affect a firm's decision-making process.

Following the scope of the study, panel fixed effect has been adopted to explore the impact of political connection on a firm's operational efficiencies. The data were collected every two years from 2005 to 2015 from SMEs in Vietnam under the collaboration of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs (ILSSA) and the Development Economics Research Group (DERG) of the University of Copenhagen (Denmark).

The results suggest that political connection has a significantly negative effect on both investment efficiencies and employee productivity. Significantly, the impact of political connections on employment decisions is more significant than it is on investment decisions. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that high-growth firms experience the interference of political connection in the decision-making process less often than their low-growth peers.

This paper provides some empirical evidence of the negative impact of political connections on a firm's operational efficiencies. It analyzes the channels through which political connection influences a firm's operational efficiencies. Providing empirical evidence demonstrates a dimension to capture the negative side of the political link to small and medium enterprises in developing economies.

Facing the challenges posed by the pandemic of COVID-19, this paper aims to contribute to the resilience of businesses through the development of a real options approach (ROA) that provides alternatives and opportunities for a decision process under situations when future events and outcomes are unknown and not capable of being known from current information.

This paper involves a stochastic modelling process in generating a set of absolute option values, using available data and scenarios from the COVID-19 pandemic event. The modelling and simulations using ROA suggest how strategic portfolios resolve the growing problem during the endemic to all but in the most isolated societies.

This study finds the emergent correlation between circuit breakers and lockdowns, which have brought about a “distorted gravity” effect (inverse growth of global businesses and trades). However, “time-to-build” real options (i.e. deferral, expand, switch and compound exchange) start to function in the adaptive-transformative capabilities for growth opportunities of both government and corporate sectors. Significantly, some sectors grow faster than others while the compound exchange remains primarily challenging. Clearly, the government and corporate sectors are entangled, inevitably, the decoherence allows for the former to change uncertainty in the latter; therefore, government sector options change option values in the corporate sector.

The ROA by empirically focusing on both government and corporate sectors demonstrates under conditions of uncertainty how options in decision-making generate opportunities that hitherto have not been recognised and exercised upon by research in the immediate context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, the ROA provides an insightful concatenation (capability–behaviour approach) that drives resilience.

The objective of this chapter is to identify the key characteristics of Global Services businesses that will thrive and achieve success in the future. These factors are integrated into three main pillars, which we refer to as the Triple-Win. The first and most obvious pillar is technology as a tool. The second pillar is the design and sustainability of the business model, without which the previous factor would be merely a cost and not an investment. And last but not the least, there is the purpose which gives meaning to the proposal, focusing on the human being and their environment. The DIDPAGA business model sits at the intersection of these three elements.

India started economic reforms at a rapid pace to catch up the world economy by following the services-led-growth model during the post-liberalisation period. Over the years, the growing unemployment rate posits a re-look into the dynamics of growth model for wider work force participation. In this backdrop, the paper aims to examine the dynamics of structural changes in employment pattern in view of economic growth led by services-led growth model in India.

The study employs a non-linear autoregressive model (NARDL) to examine the effect of the growth rates in three broad economic sectors namely agriculture and allied, services and industry on work force participation representing the employment opportunities in India.

The results highlight that the rapid expansion of the service sector has not occurred with enough employment opportunities by the same rate. By contrast, the growth in the industrial sector significantly creates employment opportunities in the short and long run. These results support the industry led growth model over the services for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in the country.

The study relies on combined labour force participation rates rather than gender-specific rates. Further, the regulatory, working conditions and economic incentives may affect the gender-specific engagement of the labour force in three broad sectors.

The results offer important insight into changing patterns in employment with policy lessons. A wider workforce force participation calls for expansion of manufacturing activities through pro-industry programmes.

The study makes pioneer efforts to examine the dynamics of labour force participation with respect to the growth of three broad economic sectors of the Indian economy. The results provide new insights with policy implications for the changing employment pattern and policy response.

The financial policies of the modern world corporations and their investment decisions are generally considered as interrelated because the agency problems, associated with the debt level and its maturity structure, give rise to incentives for overinvestment or underinvestment. The present study empirically investigates the linkage between debt maturity structure and firm investment in a financially constrained environment, using Pakistan as a case study, to determine how the institutional environment in which firms operate affect these decisions and their linkage.

The empirical analysis is carried in a panel data setting using panel regression models as the baseline methods. Moreover, generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimators are used, coupled with the instrumental variables approach, for robustness and improving the efficiency and consistency of estimates.

Results suggest that firms rely more on short financing in Pakistan. Thus, given the capital structure which is characterized by higher proportion of short-term financing, the higher level of leverage is less likely to cause underinvestment problem. However, the underinvestment problem do persists in the firms that have higher portion of long-term debt. These findings imply that the debt-overhang problem may persist even in the financially constrained environments where attractive investment opportunities are limited, and long-term financing is difficult to acquire.

This study contributes to the literature by revealing how corporate investment and financing decisions and their linkage is influenced by the institutional environment of the less developed countries which is characterized by underdeveloped financial markets, inefficient legal system and weak investor protection system.