Search results

This paper aims to adopt a resource-based view (RBV) to investigate the link between marketing (MRKT)–supply chain management (SCM) alignment, supply chain resilience (SCR) and firm performance. It aims to cover two gaps in the SCM literature: the missing links between MRKT–SCM alignment and the performance of a firm, mediated by the SCR, and the role of absorptive capacity (AC) in shaping such links.

After the identification of a key capability in SCM, i.e. firms’ ability to align their’ MRKT–SCM processes and the role of AC, the relationships with performance are empirically tested in a sample of 133 firms in the fast-moving consumer goods industry in Saudi Arabia. The data was analyzed using SPSS 27 through hierarchal multiple regression and the PROCESS macro.

First, MRKT–SCM alignment capabilities provide a significant direct effect on SCR, and in turn, SCR also had a significant indirect effect on firm performance. Second, there is a significant mediating effect of SCR on the MRKT –SCM alignment and firm performance relationship. Third, a novel finding shows a statistically significant interaction effect and the interaction pattern supported that absorptive capacity would substitute the positive effect of SCR on firm performance, which implies that in the absence of SCR, AC can substitute the role of SCR. Finally, the results suggest a significant moderation and mediation effect for the overall model.

The investigation is based on a self-reported cross-sectional analysis, and it is specific to a single economy. Nonetheless, it suggests a number of interesting implications. Achieving excellence in SCR requires the development of a distinct set of capabilities because the management of core supply chain activities and the alignment of MRKT with the supply chain are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary. Contrary to common expectations, an alignment of MRKT–SCM processes leads to improved interfunctional coordination.

In the postCOVID-19 world firms should develop and integrate their AC to capitalize on their MRKT–SCM alignment to pursue better performance. Investment in AC is required to develop, maintain and use it. It can play an important role against uncertainties in the long run.

This paper is unique in that it employs the RBV – to unpack the mechanisms through which MRKT–SCM activities contribute to SCR, and firm performance. It represents a first response to the call for research into the use of such theoretical frameworks which has recently been made in the SCM literature because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper also offers the first empirical test of how the MRKT–SCM interacts with existing capabilities to create SCR, providing clear guidance on how to exploit its often undervalued potential.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by extending the empirical work on the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure by analyzing the mediating role of cost of capital in the non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

The sample for this study includes non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (formerly Karachi Stock Exchange) for the period of 2004–2016. Based on 1800 firm-year observations, three approaches of panel data analysis are applied for the step-wise analysis of the underlying study. Firstly, Pooled OLS is applied. Secondly, fixed and random effect panel regression followed by the Hausman test to check the unobservable individual heterogeneity of the data. Hausman test indicates that the fixed-effects model is the most appropriate model for the sample panel data.

The study's findings are that board size, board composition, CEO/Chair duality, institutional ownership and managerial ownership have statistically significant direct effect on the firm's financing decisions. However, CEO/Chair duality, institutional ownership and managerial ownership have significant indirect effect on firm's capital structure decisions. The interesting finding of the paper is on the evidence of mediating role of cost of capital in the nexus of corporate governance and capital structure. Moreover, some conventional determinants of capital structure, including the firm's size, asset structure of the firm, profitability, business risk and growth, are found as determinants of capital structure decisions of the firms.

There are a few limitations to our study which could be addressed by upcoming research. We did not include all the four mechanisms of corporate governance including board structure, audit structure, compensation structure and ownership structure. However, we used only five important attributes including board size, board composition and CEO/Chair duality form board structure, managerial ownership and institutional ownership form ownership structure of corporate governance as our explanatory variables to examine their impact on the capital structure choices of the firms. Future studies may fill this research gap by involving some other attributes of corporate governance and analyzing their effectiveness and impact on value relevant capital structure decisions. Further, due to limited time and resources, we only tested the mediating role of cost of capital, hence, future researchers can analyze the mediating and moderating roles of different variables which may influence the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure choices of the firms.

The study has many valuable guidelines and practical implications for the financial managers of the corporations. Our results will facilitate the policymakers in setting their corporate governance policies and practices and making the value relevant capital structure decisions in compliance with the implications of corporate governance mechanism. In addition, our study provides the empirical evidence in accordance with the argument that good governance practices, particularly the voluntary disclosures by the firm may reduce the information asymmetry which, ultimately, reduces the agency cost and the cost of capital for the firm. However, while deciding the financial policy of the corporations, managers can use our findings in order to assess the effectiveness of corporate governance practices employed by the firm in achieving the optimal capital structure at which the weighted average cost of capital is at its minimum level.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the mediating role of the cost of capital in the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure decisions of the firms. This paper provides empirical evidence that corporate governance indirectly affects capital structure decisions through the mediating role of cost of capital.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative effects of three facets or connectors argued to be vital for learners in successful e-learning outcomes in developing economies.

Data were collected through a survey involving 130 learners. A stratified sampling technique was employed. Regression analyses making use of linear, multiple and PROCESS macro in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used to analyze data.

Technological self-efficacy and social presence are the most important facets needed by participants for effective learning in higher education institutions in developing countries. Learning tools meant to enhance teaching and learning and also contribute to learner satisfaction.

The findings of the study provide insights to academic administrators to pay close attention to the three connectors in order to ensure quality learning. The findings guide higher learning institutions to adequately and selectively pay attention to the three connections. Deliberate efforts focusing on students' situations, opinions and concerns are vital for learner satisfaction in developing economies.

This study represents a first attempt to examine the effect of the “right connections” for effective learning in developing economies, using a quantitative approach. The findings bring into attention the role of assessing learner inputs and virtual environment in boosting the effectiveness of e-learning. The findings also result in a model that should lead to increased learner satisfaction through the implementation of right connections. The study “disputes” the relevance of a universal e-learning system.

This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial support programs and entrepreneurial intention, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial support programs in the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention, among students with physical disabilities in Nigerian tertiary institutions.

This study used a closed-ended questionnaire survey, composed of previously validated scales, to sample 209 students with physical disabilities at tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Hierarchal regression was performed to assess the relationships between the variables and test the hypotheses.

Both entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial support programs were found to be significantly positively related to entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial support programs also moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention.

This research paper identifies that developing entrepreneurial passion and providing accessible and inclusive entrepreneurial support programs are valuable in supporting and facilitating a passage into entrepreneurship for those with disabilities.

This research paper addresses calls for further understanding of how those with disabilities can be supported into entrepreneurship, by identifying supporting factors. The research paper provides further understanding of the entrepreneurial passion and intention nexus by exploring the relationship within those with a physical disability, where significant barriers exist and within a developing country context where entrepreneurship might be a necessity rather than driven by passion.

The multitasking phenomenon has been prevailing in the technology-driven information environment. People are engaged in multitasking to process information and deal with personal and professional information tasks. This study aims to explore the external predictors of multitasking information behavior (MIB) of library and information science (LIS) professionals from Pakistan.

This is a quantitative study based on a questionnaire survey, and data was collected through Google Form; the link was shared via e-mail and WhatsApp to get maximum responses. The sampling includes the LIS professionals working in Higher Education Commission-recognized universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan. A total of 126 responses were received from 41 universities of KPK.

Pearson correlation and regression were applied by using SPSS for data analysis. The findings revealed that time pressure (TP) is a good predictor of multitasking because when professionals got tasks with deadlines, they try to perform multiple activities at a time. Therefore, TP is a predictor of human MIB. This study also revealed that the work environment is a less significant predictor of MIB, and the use of multiple information resources is a weak predictor of MIB. It is noted that individual covariates were not predictors of the multitasking information. However, TP was the most significant predictor among all the contextual and individual factors predicting MIB.

This research line is significant because MIB is a new dimension of human information behavior among LIS professionals. The findings are beneficial for LIS professionals to increase their work productivity and performance by rationalizing the significant predictors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such study is available that highlighted the MIB among LIS professionals. Therefore, this study will highlight external factors’ effects on LIS professionals’ MIB. This study will contribute to the literature on libraries and information management as this study describes the LIS professionals’ behavior.

The focus on corporate governance has increased after the financial collapses of several banks worldwide, such as Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank in the USA, and the failure of the Lebanese banking sector. This study examines the impact of audit committee (AC) characteristics on financial performance and investigates the moderating effect of ownership concentration (OC) on the associations between AC characteristics and profitability.

The current research is carried out based on 211 Lebanese banks’ annual reports, focusing on the period from 2012 to 2021. The ordinal least squares (OLS) and the hierarchical multiple regression analysis were adopted to test the study’s hypotheses.

The outcomes reveal that AC size, AC frequency of meetings, and banks’ size (control variable) positively affect financial performance; however, OC does not moderate the associations between the AC characteristics and banks’ profitability.

According to the researcher’s knowledge, no prior study has investigated the moderating effect of OC on these associations. Moreover, the current study contributes to the literature that documented mixed and inconsistent results regarding the direct associations between AC characteristics and financial performance.

The study aims to look at the link between horizontal violence (HV) and organizational culture aspects. Bullying and hostility including intergroup conflict are referred to as HV. HV is a significant issue that is encountered in various professions. The different cultural typologies of group, developmental, hierarchical and rational culture have been addressed in this study. Additionally, it is identified that the prevalence of HV in organizations with different cultural dimensions.

Using a non-probability multistage sampling strategy, a quantitative method was used and questionnaires were circulated to collect data from the information technology sector. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis.

The findings demonstrated that HV has a positive and substantial association with the group and developmental culture, whereas HV has a negative link with hierarchical and rational culture.

These results provide a valuable tool for human resource managers and policymakers in promoting a healthy work environment and employee interpersonal collaboration, which will improve the organization’s overall performance.

This study is a novel work exploring the HV among employees in technological firms, and also combining the concepts of HV and organizational culture and also assists future researchers in many folds.

This study aims to examine the factors that influence the relationship between sustainability and financial performance (FP) of the European listed companies.

This study analyzed data from 795 companies in 21 European countries by applying linear mixed-effects multilevel regressions, a two steps system generalized method of moments and quantile regression models to uncover the links between sustainability and FP.

The past four decades have witnessed abundant research to determine the relationship between corporate sustainability and FP. Thus, conducting further research in 2023 could be seen as “reinventing the wheel.” Yet, earlier research considered firms as isolated entities with sustainability and FP being dependent only on that firm’s actions. By contrast, with the help of network governance theory, this study shows that a firm’s sustainability and FP depend on an interplay among interorganizational actors, such as institutional qualities, macroeconomic factors and an embrace of sustainability. Here, large firms play an essential role. Three significant findings are drawn. First, sustainability performance has a significant impact on FP in the European context. Second, the institutional quality (IQ) of the rule of law and control of corruption plays a crucial role in enhancing sustainability and FP, and finally the interaction of IQ and economic growth helps to increase companies’ market value (Tobin’s Q). The consistent and empirically robust findings offer key lessons to policymakers and practitioners on the interplay among multiple actors in corporate sustainability and FP.

A synergetic multifaced relationship between governmental institutions and corporations is inevitable for ensuring sustainable development. The degree of intimacy in the relationship, of course, will be determined by the macroeconomic environment.

In this research, this study theoretically and empirically identified that corporate sustainability and FP are not solely dependent on corporate operation. Rather, it is transformed, modified and shaped through an interaction of multiple actors’ trajectories in the macro business environment.

In the uncertain business environment, the supply chains are under pressure to balance routine operations and prepare for adverse events. Consequently, this research investigates how artificial intelligence is used to enable resilience among supply chains.

This study first analyzed the relationship among different characteristics of AI-enabled supply chain and how these elements take it towards resilience by collecting the responses from 27 supply chain professionals. Furthermore, to validate the results, an empirical analysis is conducted where the responses from 231 supply chain professionals are collected.

Findings indicate that the disruption impact of an event depends on the degree of transparency kept and provided to all supply chain partners. This is further validated through empirical study, where the impact of transparency facilitates the mass customization of the procurement strategy to Last Mile Delivery to reduce the impact of disruption. Hence, AI facilitates resilience in the supply chain.

This study adds to the domain of supply chain and information systems management by identifying the driving and dependent elements that AI facilitates and further validating the findings and structure of the elements through empirical analysis. The research also provides meaningful implications for theory and practice.

This research paper aims to contribute to the field of innovation performance benchmarking by identifying appropriate benchmarking groups and exploring learning opportunities and integration directions.

The study employs a multi-dimensional innovation-driven clustering methodology to analyze data from the 2019 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII). Hierarchical and K-means Cluster Analysis techniques are applied using various sets of distance matrices to uncover and analyze distinct innovation patterns.

This study classifies 129 countries into four clusters: Specials, Advanced, Intermediates and Primitives. Each cluster exhibits strengths and weaknesses in terms of innovation performance. Specials excel in the areas of institutions and knowledge commercialization, while the Advanced cluster demonstrates strengths in education and ICT-related services but shows weakness in patent commercialization. Intermediates show strengths in venture-capital and labour productivity but display weaknesses in R&D expenditure and the higher education quality. Primitives exhibit strength in creative activities but suffer from weaknesses in digital skills, education and training. Additionally, the study has identified 35 indicators that have negligible variance contributions across countries.

The study contributes to finding the relevant countries’ grouping for the enhancement of communication, integration and learning. To this end, this study highlights the innovation structural differences among countries and provides tailored innovation policies.