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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how revelations of corporate misconduct are associated with trade credit. Specifically, it investigates how this association varies in different regions, in different types of industries and in response to companies’ subsequent charitable donations.

The authors empirically tested various hypotheses using a sample of 2,725 Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2014 based on signaling theory. Fixed effect models underpinned the methods used.

The authors found that corporate misconduct has a significant negative impact on an irresponsible company’s trade credit received and granted, and the negative impact is heterogeneous for different regions and industries. There is no evidence that charitable donations mitigate the effect on the trade credit of irresponsible companies following revelations of corporate misconduct.

The results suggest that listed companies in China should obey national and local laws and regulations if they wish to avoid the risk of significant trade credit loss. If a company’s violation of these laws and regulations is disclosed, making charitable donations is not an effective strategy for safeguarding trade credit.

This study enriches understanding on the consequences of corporate misconduct and extends the literature on trade credit. It fills a research gap by identifying the impact of corporate misconduct on trade credit.

This study aims to gain a clearer understanding of digital channel design. The emergence of new technologies has revolutionised the way companies interact and engage with customers. The driver for this research was the suggestion that practitioners feel they do not possess the skills to understand and exploit new digital channel opportunities. To gain a clearer understanding of digital channel design, this paper addresses the research question: What digital channels do companies from a wide range of industries and sectors use?

A content analysis of 100 international companies was conducted with multiple data sources to form a typology of digital “touchpoints”. The appropriateness of a digital channel typology for this study was for developing rigorous and useful concepts for clarifying and refining the meaning of digital channels.

This study identifies what digital channels companies globally currently employ and explores the related needs across industries. A total of 34 digital touchpoints and 4 typologies of digital channels were identified across 16 industries. This research helps to identify the relationship between digital channels and enabling the connections with industry.

The findings contribute to the growing research area of digital channels. The typology of digital channels is a useful starting point for developing a systematic, theory-based study for enabling the development of broader, comprehensive theories of digital channels.

Typologies and touchpoints are outlined in relation to industry, company objectives and customer needs to allow businesses to seize opportunities and optimise performance through individual touchpoints. A digital channel model as a key outcome of this research guides practitioners on what touchpoint to implement through an interrelated understanding of industry, company and customer needs.

This is the first paper to explore a range of industries in relation to their use of digital channels using a unique content analysis. Contributions include clarifying and refining digital channel meaning; identifying and refining the hierarchical relations among digital channels (typologies); and establishing typology and industry relationship model.

Academic research in the area of sports marketing has concentrated on bi‐lateral relationships, such as that linking a sponsor with the recipient of support, or that between the audience and a particular sport. Yet the industry, made of many relationships, involves probably more than the mere sum of all these bi‐lateral links. This paper first relates the principles of relationship marketing to the sports industry and presents a graphical representation of its multiple players and the relationships that bind them. Then, based on qualitative information obtained from the Australian Cricket Board, it illustrates how this industry map can be used by any player in the industry in order to identify and prioritise those relationship links in order to develop successful marketing strategies. It is suggested that industry mapping linked with the relationship marketing focus, can be the anchor for quality service improvements in the sports industry.

This study aims to examine the effect of institutional ownership, audit committee and types of industry on environmental investment. Furthermore, this research investigates the consequences of environmental investments on firm financial performance.

The sample consisted of 145 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchanges and receiving PROPER awards issued by the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Indonesia in the year 2009-2015. The data were then analyzed using ordinal logistic regression and multiple regression.

The findings showed that environmental investment was significantly affected by types of industry. However, institutional ownership and audit committee did not influence environmental investment. Finally, the finding indicated that environmental investments positively affected firm financial performance.

This research only covered companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchanges and receiving PROPER awards. Thus, the findings cannot be generalized for all companies in Indonesia and other markets.

This study is the first effort intended to investigate the determinants and consequences of environmental investment which have been ignored by previous studies, especially in the Asian emerging markets. This study at least provides us with two main contributions. First, the findings on determinants of environmental investment can be used by governments in Asian countries, especially Indonesia as a reference in making policies concerning the obligations of companies to the environmental problems. Second, the finding on the relationship of environmental investment and financial performance can be used by companies as strategies to generate profits without destroying the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of financial performance (FP) in modelling the relationship between green innovation (GI) and firm value (FV), using ASEAN countries as sample with panel analysis.

A panel data was collected from 374 publicly traded companies in six ASEAN countries, and was analysed using feasible general least squares (FGLS) to control heteroscedasticity and serial correlation.

The findings suggest that financial performance, namely return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), has a significant value in mediating the relationship between GI and FV. This illustrates that investors in the ASEAN region's capital market are more interested in the economic motivation for companies implementing GI. Other findings also provide evidence that ROA and ROE have positive and significant effects on FV. This indicates that the profitability resulting from a firm's ability to continuously innovate has a positive impact on the creation of value by manufacturing companies in the ASEAN region.

The number of observations is still relatively limited, from manufacturing companies listed on stock exchanges in the ASEAN countries. The total number of samples used in this study was 374 companies with 22.30% of the total population.

This study combines the different types of secondary data to provide panel evidence on the mediating effect of financial performance using ROA and ROE in the relationship between green innovation and firm value, using ASEAN countries as the sample.

The ‘Game’ is really a multi-industry case that aims at developing participants' awareness of the links between firms' strategic choices and the financial structures the choices engender. Participants are provided with Balance Sheet percentages and common ratios for firms in 12 different industries and list of different businesses and asked to match the figures with the kind of business. The goal is for participants to understand how industries' operating models impose certain financial structures.

The case is run as a kind of mystery game but leads to rather sophisticated analysis of industry and business models. The case leads students to a better understanding of the essential concepts of a business strategy course: 1) external analysis by helping students ‘see’ the structures of different industries; 2) making clear the link between the competencies and capabilities needed by firms in their internal environment to successfully compete in their industries by matching the key success factors at work; 3) providing a tangible illustrations of the competencies that must be developed to successfully pilot business strategies like cost leadership and differentiation; and, 4) developing insight into integration and outsourcing strategies and their effects.

A detailed Teaching Note accompanies the case.

The purpose of this article is to propose a common framework for the empirical analysis of supply chain performance measurement systems used in different supply chain contexts.

This is a conceptual paper, which includes an extensive literature review and an illustrative case study. The content, context, process framework is applied to structure the body of knowledge and the case study.

Supply chain performance measurement is a context‐dependent process, tailored to specific supply chain requirements. To understand how a performance measurement system in a supply chain has developed and is used there is a need to capture its context, process and content.

The framework is illustrated by a single case study. Further empirical research is required to fully appreciate the breadth of application of this framework.

The proposed framework can help to develop performance measurement systems that are suitable for certain organisational and supply chain contexts in which a company operates, as well as to compare different systems used across different supply chains.

The paper demonstrates an approach for analysing existing supply chain performance measurement systems that can be applied across different supply chains and sectors. This will create an opportunity to use a consistent data collection process across a variety of supply chain situations and thus generate data for further theory development.

By supplying the skilled workers needed, occupational training plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of a healthy economy. Although planners are not accountable for ensuring a perfect fit between training offerings and employment opportunities, they should anticipate shortages and surpluses of skilled workers. Decision makers can then take corrective action to expand, improve, curtail, or discontinue existing training or add new offerings. In order to discern skilled worker shortages/surpluses, the labour market demand must be determined. Workforce projection and forecasting approaches and labour market signalling approaches are used to make these determinations. The strengths and weaknesses of each approach must be considered when selecting the ones to use. Discusses a number of viable approaches and lists their strengths and weaknesses in tables to facilitate comparisons. Also includes supplemental instruments as examples and to provide guidance in determining workforce requirements. An appendix defines the terminology used.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.