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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of bankruptcy reform in the year 2016 on the relation between leverage and firm performance for Indian firms, separately for business group and standalone firms.

Fixed effects panel regression is used to understand the role of bankruptcy reform on firm-level data to examine the relationship between leverage and firm performance after controlling for size, growth, age, liquidity and promoter shareholding. The authors also apply the generalized method of moments (GMM) to control for the endogeneity concerns.

The authors show that the introduction of the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC) positively moderates the relation between leverage and firm performance such that the extent of negative relation between leverage and firm performance is less in the post-IBC period. The positive impact of IBC on the relation between leverage and firm performance holds only for firms not affiliated to business groups and for firms with higher debt in their capital structure.

The study’s findings will help the regulators appreciate the effectiveness of bankruptcy reforms resulting from IBC implementation in terms of sound bankruptcy process and leading to safeguard the interests of minority shareholders.

The authors provide the only study to examine the role of bankruptcy law in moderating the relation between leverage and firm performance across a sample of business group and standalone firms.

In marketing, most research on intention–behavior consistency (IBC) is dedicated to improving the predictive ability of stated intentions for future behaviors, with relatively less exploration into the precursors of IBC, especially those linked to regular durable goods void of ethical consumption characteristics. This study aims to focus on the antecedents of IBC for such products, specifically examining category-level and product-level IBC in light of consumer knowledge.

The authors conducted a two-round survey to collect 3,560 Chinese consumers' vehicle purchase intentions and behaviors. The authors have also leveraged a large vehicle database (containing detailed vehicle attribute information) to measure consumer product knowledge (i.e. product judgment accuracy). A trivariate probit model was proposed to account for the potential selection bias arising from sample attrition while examining the effects of consumer knowledge on category- and product-level intention-behavior consistency.

Findings reveal that 47% of the participants displayed category-level IBC, and within this group, a further 39% exhibited product-level IBC. Notably, product knowledge, manifested as accurate product judgment, correlates negatively with category-level IBC but positively with product-level IBC. Intriguingly, the negative association between inaccurate judgment and product-level IBC is less pronounced for consumers overestimating the target product than for those underestimating it. Furthermore, consumers with direct experience are less prone to show category-level IBC, but are more inclined to display product-level IBC.

Vehicle marketers should prioritize consumers who show interest in their products but possess inaccurate knowledge, to retain whom companies can nurture their product knowledge. As for consumers with accurate knowledge, companies should try to expedite their purchase. Vehicle marketers also need to devise suitable advertising strategies to prevent consumers from undervaluing their products. For those overestimating competitors' products, companies can provide information to correct their overestimation and draw attention to possible confirmation biases. Vehicle marketers should encourage potential buyers who have shown interest in their product to participate in test-drive events, exhibitions, and other direct experience opportunities. Yet, for consumers still in the “whether-to-buy” decision-making phase, companies should not rush them into a test drive.

In the policy-making realm, governmental administrators can implement extensive consumer education programs, with a focus on the importance of product knowledge. This may involve providing consumers with accurate information and buying guides through various channels, which can help consumers make informed purchase decisions. Moreover, to foster healthy competition among vehicle companies, governmental administrators can establish regulations that require vehicle companies and other relevant industries to provide accurate and transparent product information, including performance, safety, and environmental aspects. Finally, in order to protect consumer rights, governmental administrators can also strengthen regulations to ensure fair treatment and safeguards for consumers throughout the purchasing process. This includes cracking down on false advertising and fraudulent practices, maintaining market order, and enhancing consumer confidence and purchase consistency.

This study is among the first attempts to examine the relationship between consumer knowledge and intention-behavior consistency, especially for regular durable products void of ethical consumption characteristics. Responding to the call of previous literature (e.g. Morwitz, 1997), the authors distinguish between and examine two forms of intention-behavior consistency simultaneously (using a sample selection model) and obtain more reliable conclusions. Moreover, the study's large-scale two-round survey had obtained individual-level purchase behavioral outcomes, which allowed the authors to measure each consumer's IBC at both category and product levels. More importantly, the authors show the opposite effects of consumer knowledge on the two forms of intention-behavior consistency.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how changes in creditors' rights affect the dividend policy behavior of corporate firms.

The authors use the implementation of the bankruptcy and insolvency code (IBC) in India in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment setup. Differential application of this law allows them to use the Difference in Differences approach to extract the marginal impact of change in creditors' rights on the dividend policy.

The authors show that firms responded to strengthening creditors' rights by decreasing their dividend payout. Further, the authors observe that this negative response is conditioned on firm leverage and the nature of the creditor, i.e. public or private. The firms with a greater leverage ratio and a greater proportion of private debt in the total debt in the pre-event period have shown greater response to the change in the law. Lastly, the authors show that stock markets positively respond to the observed decrease in dividends only when a corresponding decrease in the leverage accompanies such a decrease.

The authors contribute to the finance and law literature from several aspects. First, the authors extend this stream by bringing to light the dividend policy response of firms when they are subjected to a change in creditors' rights. Second, the authors also show how firm-level factors like financial policy and the nature of the creditor condition their response to IBC. Lastly, the authors also examine the market reaction to the dividend policy response of firms to the change in bankruptcy law.

International branch campuses (IBCs) are complex entities and while much has been written about their expansion and development, the literature is largely from an external perspective. There have been few longitudinal studies examining the development of an IBC over time. The purpose of this paper is to review the development of one IBC over an eight-year time period, to identify the key learning points for institutional managers of other IBCs or for institutions intending to establish an IBC.

This paper is a culmination of research, conducted during the eight years when the lead author worked at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC). The author was involved in practical management aspects as well as the research and analysis of IBC development. This paper represents a form of ethnographic research where the author conducted interviews, meetings and discussion groups, observed institutional policies, strategies and operations in action and was in an ideal position to identify and discuss their impacts on institutional performance.

This paper examines key management issues during the early, developing and evolving stages of an IBC and discusses key issues including communication, curriculum, identity and management. Key challenges, procedural issues, managerial responses and strategy will be presented to highlight foundational concerns for IBC development and areas and topics that must be given priority and support.

This paper considers the management of an IBC from the reflective standpoint of an author employed in a senior management position, during a period of significant growth of UNMC. The author provides insights and discussion involving practical experience.

This study aims to examine the influence of international business competence (IBC) on innovation performance of organizations activating in global markets. The study also explores whether ambidextrous organizational culture (AOC) acts as an antecedent of IBC and whether the environmental dynamism affects the IBC–innovation performance relationship.

The authors assessed the hypothesized relationships using data collected from a sample of companies operating in the Norwegian seafood industry. The direct, mediating and moderating effects were tested using partial least squares (PLS) with SmartPLS software application.

The empirical analysis revealed that AOC is positively associated with IBC, while IBC is a significant predictor of innovation performance. The findings also corroborated the proposed mediation effect of IBC, but refuted the moderating role of environmental dynamism.

This study contributes to the international business literature by suggesting that companies equipped with IBC can excel in innovative undertakings and that organizational culture can be effectively leveraged to develop such competences.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the employability of international branch campus (IBC) students and graduates in Malaysia, including their possession of transnational skills and knowledge, and the role of IBC educational characteristics in improving such employability.

A combination of employer interviews (n=21) and a survey of Malaysian students (n=246) enrolled at four IBCs are used in this study. Thematic and matrix analyses were applied to the interviews and multivariate analysis to the survey responses.

IBC graduates are well-equipped with the skills and attributes that employers find most important, in particular, soft skills and personal attributes. The development of these employability attributes is related to IBC educational characteristics and international exposure on campus – with important heterogeneity among IBCs and curricula. However, IBC education does not strongly improve the transnational human capital of Malaysian students and is only a partial substitute for education abroad in this respect.

This paper is one of the few studies that examine the employability of students that graduate from IBC universities, a type of education that has received only limited scholarly attention. It also broadens the scope of the debate on the relation between international experience and employability by examining whether receiving an IBC education in one’s home country can lead to the development of transnational human capital. Finally, it provides new insights on the returns to (higher) education by directly measuring students’ acquisition of skills and examining the role educational characteristics play in this.

The purpose of this study is to use the individual blade pitch control (IBC), reduce actively both the rotor hub vibratory loads and airframe vibration responses for the lift-offset compound helicopter at a high-speed flight condition.

The Sikorsky X2 technology demonstrator (X2TD) is used as the lift-offset compound helicopter. The X2TD lift-offset rotor is modelled and its rotor hub vibratory loads at a flight speed of 250 knots are predicted using a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code, CAMRAD II, and the airframe structural dynamics is represented with a finite element analysis code, MSC.NASTRAN. When the propulsive trim methodology is applied for rotor trim, the best input condition for IBC using multiple harmonic inputs is searched to reduce the rotor vibration, while the rotor aerodynamic performance (the rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio) is improved or maintained at least. Finally, the reduction in airframe vibration responses is investigated when the best input condition for IBC with multiple harmonics is applied to the lift-offset rotor.

When the IBC with the single harmonic input using the 2/rev actuation frequency, amplitude of 2° and control phase angle of 120° (2P/2°/120°) is considered for X2TD rotor, the rotor vibration is reduced by about 26.37% only and the rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio increases slightly by 0.98%. When X2TD rotor uses the IBC with multiple harmonic inputs (2P/2°/45° + 5P/1°/90°), the rotor hub vibratory loads and airframe vibration responses are reduced by 44.69% and from 0.48 to 79.10%, respectively, while rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio is improved by 0.77%, as compared to the baseline without IBC.

This study is the first study to use the 2/rev actuation for IBC to the four-bladed lift-offset coaxial rotor and to investigate to obtain simultaneously the rotor vibration reduction, rotor performance improvement and airframe vibration reduction, using IBC with multiple harmonic inputs.

The quality and market viability of international branch campuses (IBCs) depend upon their integration with university headquarters. Recent trends toward localizing branch-campus hiring have raised questions about the extent to which non-parent-campus lecturers will support global integration pursuits. This paper aims to examine IBC lecturers’ orientations towards global integration, exploring how they identify themselves and their campuses as part of their wider universities.

Employing constructivist grounded theory methodology, 37 lecturers and leaders at four Australian branch campuses in Southeast Asia were interviewed, engaging them in semi-structured discussions of their identities and experiences. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using NVivo in an iterative process of theory development.

Branch-campus lecturers interviewed generally construct their individual and campus identities as separate from their wider universities. Barriers to branch campuses’ global integration include low organizational identification of lecturers, challenges in their relationships with headquarters colleagues and perceptions of cross-campus disparities in resources and students. Branch campuses’ organizationally separate identities are enacted in practice, fueling a self-reinforcing “Othering Loop” that could undermine these campuses’ quality and viability.

This research is the first emic exploration of locally-hired branch-campus lecturers’ views toward global integration. These findings provide an important corrective to the existing literature on this topic, challenging assumptions that localizing branch-campus hiring is the primary risk to integration. Multiple points of potential managerial intervention were identified, highlighting opportunities for university leaders to address contextual barriers and improve international branch campuses’ global integration while continuing current trends toward localized hiring.

The research aims to assess the achievements and challenges of international branch campuses (IBCs) to date and to consider how IBC development may progress in the future.

The article presents a review of the scholarly and grey literatures on IBCs. The commentary and discussion is structured around the objectives, perspectives and experiences of three key stakeholder groups, namely the institutions that own IBCs, students and host countries.

Some IBCs have failed to achieve their student recruitment and financial targets, while others have been successful, often expanding and moving into new, larger, purpose-built campuses. In the last few years, several countries have announced their intention to become a transnational education hub, or at least to allow the establishment of IBCs. It may be reasonable to assume that when there is demand for a product, supply will eventually follow. IBCs will survive and prosper as long as they provide benefits to each of their main stakeholder groups (i.e. students, institutions and governments), and as long as the local demand for higher education places exceeds the total supply.

The article provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of IBC developments and research during the period 2000–2020. The findings and conclusions will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners.

This paper aims to find, which of the assets: gold, oil or bitcoin can be considered a safe-haven for investors in a crisis-driven Venezuela. The authors look also at the governmental change of approach towards the use and mining of cryptocurrencies being one of the assets and potential applications of bitcoin as (quasi) money.

The authors collected the daily data (a period from 01 May 2014 to 31 July 2018) on the development of the following magnitudes: Caracas Stock Exchange main index: Índice Bursátil de Capitalisación (IBC) index; gold price in US dollars, the oil price in US dollars and Bitcoin price in bolivar fuerte (VEF) (LocalBitcoins). The authors estimated a threshold VAR model between IBC and each of the possible safe-haven assets, where the trigger variable was the IBC; then the authors modelled the residuals from the TVAR model using MGARCH model with dynamic conditional correlation.

The results show that that gold is a better safe-haven than oil for Venezuelan investors, while bitcoin can be considered a weak safe haven. Still, bitcoin can perform (to a certain extent) money functions in a crisis-driven country.

Further research after the change of local currency from VEF into bolivar soberano might be looked at on the later stage.

The authors provide evidence on which of analysed asset is the best safe-haven for the investors acting in the time of the crisis. The evidence goes in line with other authors’ findings, thus, the results might bring implications for investors of more universal character. Additionally, the result might be helpful for governments and/or monetary authorities while projecting institutional frameworks and conducting monetary policy.

The unprecedented economic crisis in Venezuela was one of the factors that fuelled the mining and use of cryptocurrencies in the daily life of its citizens. Nowadays, the country is a leader in terms of the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Latin America. The results show a potential application of bitcoin as a store of value or even means of payments in Venezuelan (or in other countries affected by the crisis).

The paper builds on the original data set collected by the authors and brings evidence from the models the authors constructed to verify, which asset is the best option for investors in hard times of the crisis. The authors add to the existing literature on financial assets, cryptocurrencies and behaviour of investors under different economic conditions.