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This study investigates (1) whether democratization drives sovereign credit ratings (SCR) changes (the “democratic advantage”) or whether SCR changes affect democratization, (2) whether the degree of democratization in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries affects the associations and (3) whether the associations are significantly affected by resource dependence.

This study investigates the effects of SCR changes on democracy in 22 SSA countries over the period of 2000–2020 VEC Granger causality/block exogeneity Wald tests, and impulse responses and variance decomposition analyses with Cholesky ordering and Monte Carlo standard errors in a panel VECM framework.

The full sample impulse responses find that a SCR shock has a long-run detrimental effect on the democracy and political rights but only a short-run positive impact on civil liberties. Among the sub-samples, it is found that the extent of natural resource dependence does not affect the magnitude of SCR shocks on democratization mentioned above but it is found that a SCR shock affects long-run democracy in SSA countries that are relatively more democratic but is more likely to drive democratic deepening in less democratic SSA countries. The full sample variance decompositions further finds that the variance of SCR to a political rights shock outweighs the effects of all the macroeconomic factors, whereas in more diversified SSA countries, the variances of SCR are much greater for democracy and political rights shocks, which suggests that democratization and political rights in diversified SSA economies are severely affected by SCR changes. In the case of the high and low democracy sub-samples, it is found that the variance of SCR in the relatively higher democracy sub-sample is greater than in the low democracy sub-sample.

These results have three implications for democratization in SSA. First, the effect of a SCR change is not a democratically agnostic and impacts political rights to a greater extent than civil liberties. Second, SCR changes have the potential to spark a negative cycle in SSA countries whereby a downgrade leads to a deterioration in socio-political stability coupled with increased financial economic constraints that in turn drive further downgrades and macroeconomic hardship. Finally, SCR changes are potentially detrimental for democracy in more democratic SSA countries but democratically supportive in less democratic SSA countries. Thus, SSA countries that are relatively politically sophisticated are more exposed to the effects of SCR changes, whereas less politically sophisticated SSA countries can proactively shape their SCRs by undertaking political reforms.

This study is the first to examine the associations between SCR and democracy in SSA. This is critical literature for the Africa’s scholarly work given that the debate on unfair rating actions and claims of subjective rating methods is ongoing.

This study aims to investigate the effect of income and asset diversification on earnings management using discretionary loan loss provisions (LLP) in banks, and the role of risk level in mediating this effect.

A sample of banks operating in Middle East and North Africa countries was used to test the mediation model of Baron and Kenny (1986) with different measures of diversification and risk.

The results show that bank income and asset diversification have unique and combined effects on earnings management. The results also support the idea that a risk-mediating effect contributes to explaining this relationship among banks. Specifically, bank diversification strategies positively affect LLP-based earnings management by increasing bank risk. This result is relevant for conventional banks. However, only a direct and positive effect of diversification strategies on LLP-based earnings management can be observed in Islamic banks, and the indirect effect is not supported.

This study extends previous research by examining the unique and combined effects of income and asset diversification strategies on earnings management in the banking sector. Specifically, it provides new evidence that diversification strategies increase LLP-based earnings management, both directly and indirectly, through bank risk.

This research investigates the impact of strategic research and development (R&D) (one led by a firm’s innovation orientation) on stock market performance during the economic disruption caused by the 2016 demonetization of high-value currency notes in India. It shows how firms’ strategic focus on innovation and integrated R&D initiatives can help mitigate shareholders’ losses and protect market value during negative macroeconomic shocks.

We analyzed financial and administrative data from firms listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 500 index and used the Fama French market model with appropriate instruments accounting for possible endogeneity to identify the impact. To ensure the reliability of our findings, we conducted robustness checks with alternate event windows, estimation methods, and variable measurements.

Strategic R&D plays a crucial role in building resilience against macroeconomic shocks. It effectively mitigated shareholders’ losses in the immediate aftermath of the shock, with an elasticity of abnormal returns of 7.65% on day zero, 13.1% during the first five days and 10.5% after the first fortnight. We also find that firms that are business-to-business (B2B), as well as those that are older and less leveraged, are better able to combat such a shock.

The study looked at one shock, namely demonetization. Future research is needed to demonstrate the generalizability of results during other macroeconomic shocks, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on relatively near-term impacts, leaving the long-term value-creation effects of strategic R&D unexplored.

Innovation orientation acts as a structural enabler, allowing firms to make strategic R&D investments that mitigate losses during macroeconomic shocks. It explains that managers should avoid myopically managing R&D investments and align them with the firm’s innovation focus to enhance value creation.

While the currency demonetization was widely considered to be detrimental for firms as an unannounced negative monetary shock, our research shows that firms with high levels of strategic R&D were successfully able to counteract such a shock.

This is the first study to examine the short-term loss mitigation impact of firms’ focus on innovation and strategic R&D. It emphasizes the role of innovation-focused strategies during economic crises.

Chinese firms are winning market share from foreign multinational enterprises in domestic markets. The international business literature suggests that this is happening because these firms are developing non-traditional firm-specific advantages (FSAs). Strategic factor market (SFM) theory provides a good basis for explaining how this is happening. However, it is underdeveloped in terms of analysing unique resources and unique access to those resources by Chinese firms in their domestic markets. This paper aims to develop a framework to understand how Chinese firms have developed non-traditional FSAs.

The case study method is adopted to explore how Chinese firms develop non-traditional FSAs. Specifically, the authors compare paired case studies of a Chinese firm and a foreign multinational in each of two industries.

The authors find that Chinese firms have developed non-traditional FSAs because of more relevant experience, better adapted strategies and privileged relationships. This has enabled Chinese firms to develop non-traditional FSAs.

The authors propose a framework that conceptualises non-traditional FSA development in Chinese firms as a product of superior access to unique and valuable resources in their domestic SFMs.