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This paper aims to answer three questions: (1) Which countries invest more capital in green firms? (2) What kind of industries do venture capitals (VCs) invest in? (3) Do VCs invest more capital in green firms?

First, the authors provide summary statistics of the key variables for green and non-green firms. Then the authors use figures to plot the growth of green firms over time. Next, the authors use descriptive data to study VC-invested firms for the top 10 countries and industries for all firms, green firms and non-green firms. Finally, the authors compare the VC investors' characteristics and investment behavior between green and non-green firms.

This study documents that venture-backed investments in clean technologies have increased dramatically in the number of deals and in the total amount of dollar volume over time. This paper provides evidence that VC firms invest more in green firms in each deal than in non-green firms. The United States and European countries play an important role in funding clean technologies across countries, and this study’s results suggest that VC investors play a considerable role in shaping the development of green finance.

This paper makes the first attempt to investigate the role of VCs in clean technologies to support carbon neutrality, providing initial evidence on venture capitalists' investment efforts towards carbon neutrality. The paper also has practical implications for start-up firms that raise capital and venture capitalists who finance green start-ups.

The study aims to explore the relation between dividend policy of any company and its stock volatility.

Companies listed on six GCC stock markets are used in the analysis and the data ranges from 2006 to 2020. Fixed effect and random effect panel data analysis is used to explore the association between stock volatility and the dividend policies.

A significant negative relation is observed between dividend payout and stock volatility. Also, significant negative relation between stock volatility and equity is found, whereas insignificant positive relation is observed between asset growth and stock volatility.

The data of all listed companies on six GCC markets were not available.

The question of raising dividend or maintaining at the current level is of utmost importance for the managers of any company before making any investment decisions. Also, the investors look at the dividend announcements as a sort of signal about the future prospect of the company. A stable or fluctuating dividends may be preferred by the investors that ultimately changes the stock price of any company.

The relationship between dividend policy and the volatility of stock price is explored for emerging GCC markets which is the major significance of this paper which will have many social impacts on various stakeholders of any company including investors, regulators and employees, etc.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study for GCC markets is done to establish a relation between stock volatility and the dividend policies which is needed by the academicians to further explore the behavior of these markets.

We develop and test an innovative approach to teaching financial statement analysis (FSA) and assessing student learning outcomes based on making complex stock investment decisions compared to professional analysts. We train students to apply FSA and emphasize interdisciplinary factors and high integrative complexity. Our innovative FSA teaching approach, which we apply in an MBA financial reporting course, involves the instructor lecturing on FSA as a tool for integrative and complex decision making, students researching and applying FSA to public companies, and presenting the rationale for individual and group stock investment decisions. The instructor gives high-quality and timely feedback on the students’ application of FSA with a focus on investment judgments involving critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills. Our detailed efficacy analysis shows that our FSA teaching approach is effective. Students who perceive a public company to have credible management, effective competitive strategy, and an acceptable level of financial flexibility make comparable individual and group stock investment decisions as professional analysts.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, investors have more frequently invested into professional football clubs, thereby radically changing the industry landscape. This review's purpose is to analyze and synthesize the state of research to understand motives, roles and implications of football club investors, and to provide recommendations for further research.

The paper presents an integrative literature review by identifying relevant English articles based on the search terms investor, owner, investment, ownership, shareholder and stakeholder in combination with soccer or football. Around 2,431 articles were reviewed. A total of 129 relevant articles was analyzed and synthesized within eight subject areas.

Investors in professional club football is a young research stream with a clear European focus. Investor motives and roles are diverse and implications are multidimensional. Investors mostly aim for indirect returns rather than pure profit- or win-maximization.

Football clubs comprise an own investment class for which the identified, unique specifics must be considered to develop a financially successful investment model. Thorough academic research of investors' inherent characteristics, investor-club pairings and the pillars of long-term strategies for successful investor-club liaisons are avenues of future research. Furthermore, the results illustrate the need for research outside of Europe.

The paper is the first systematic, integrative review of existing literature in the domain of equity investments into professional club football. The findings genuinely show that, depending on the investor type and ownership structure, investors have a wide impact in professional club football.

The study aims to develop a model that supports the application of data science techniques for real estate professionals in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. The present 4IR era gave birth to big data sets and is beyond real estate professionals' analysis techniques. This has led to a situation where most real estate professionals rely on their intuition while neglecting a rigorous analysis for real estate investment appraisals. The heavy reliance on their intuition has been responsible for the under-performance of real estate investment, especially in Africa.

This study utilised a survey questionnaire to randomly source data from real estate professionals. The questionnaire was analysed using a combination of Statistical package for social science (SPSS) V24 and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) graphics V27 software. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to break down the variables (drivers) into meaningful dimensions helpful in developing the conceptual framework. The framework was validated using covariance-based structural equation modelling. The model was validated using fit indices like discriminant validity, standardised root mean square (SRMR), comparative fit index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), etc.

The model revealed that an inclusive educational system, decentralised real estate market and data management system are the major drivers for applying data science techniques to real estate professionals. Also, real estate professionals' application of the drivers will guarantee an effective data analysis of real estate investments.

Numerous studies have clamoured for adopting data science techniques for real estate professionals. There is a lack of studies on the drivers that will guarantee the successful adoption of data science techniques. A modern form of data analysis for real estate professionals was also proposed in the study.

This study aims to answer the question whether investment funds managers exhibit behavioural biases in their investment decisions. Furthermore, it investigates if fund managers, as a group of institutional investors, make decisions in response to central bank’s communication as well as other information in relation to various behavioural inclinations.

A comprehensive study was conducted based on a questionnaire, which is composed of three main parts exploring: (1) general information about the funds under the management of the surveyed group of fund managers, (2) factors that influence the investment process with an emphasis on the National Bank of Poland communication and (3) behavioural inclinations of the surveyed group. Cronbach’s alpha statistic was applied for measuring the reliability of the survey questionnaire and then chi-squared test was used to investigate the relationships between the answers provided in the survey.

The central bank’s communication matters for investors, but its impact on their decisions appears to be only moderate. Interest rates were found to be the most important announcements for investment fund managers. The stock market was the most popular market segment where the investments were made. The ultra-short time horizon played no, or only small, role in the surveyed fund managers’ decisions as most of them invested in a longer horizon covering 1 to 5 years. Moreover, most respondents declared that they considered in their decisions the information about market expectations published in the media. Finally, majority of the fund managers manifested limited rationality and were subject to behavioural biases, but the decisions and behavioural inclinations were independent and, in most cases, they did not influence each other.

The results reported in this study can be used in practice to better understand and to improve the fund managers’ decision-making processes.

Apart from the commonly tested behavioural biases in the group of institutional investors in the existing literature, such as loss aversion, disposition effect or overconfidence, this paper also focuses on the less intensively analysed behavioural inclinations, i.e. framing, illusion of the control, representativeness, sunk cost effect and fast thinking. The originality of this study further lies in the way the research was conducted through interviews with fund managers, who were found to be subject to behavioural biases, although those behavioural inclinations did not influence their investment decisions. This finding indicates that professionalism and collectivism in the group of institutional investors protect them from irrationality.

Competency frameworks can support public procurement capacity development and performance. However, literature on connecting professionalisation with national procurement contexts is limited. This paper aims to explain and conceptualise recent Romanian experience with developing bespoke competency frameworks at national level for public procurement that reflect the features of the Romanian public procurement system. The approach used could guide in broad-brush, mutatis mutandis, other (national) public procurement systems with comparable features, mainly those seeking a shift from a rather administrative function of public procurement towards a strategic function.

This case study reflects on the methodology used for analysing the Romanian public procurement environment in EU context to develop bespoke professionalisation instruments, and on ways to integrate competency management approaches in Romanian public procurement culture. That methodological mix has been mainly qualitative and constructionist, within an applied research approach. It combined desk research with empirical research and included legal research in this context.

A principled, methodological and pragmatic approach tailored to the procurement environment in question is essential for developing competency frameworks capable to resonate to and address the specific practical needs of that procurement system.

Competency frameworks can uphold societal objectives through public procurement.

Using valuable insights into the development of the Romanian public procurement competency frameworks, the paper provides a conceptual framework for instilling competency management approaches to public procurement professional development where the latter is governed by a rather distinct, public administration, paradigm. This conceptual framework can guide other public procurement systems and stimulate further research.

The construction industry has struggled to deliver schemes on time to budget and right-first-time (RFT). There have been many studies into nonconformance and rework through quantitative research over the years to understand why the industry continues to see similar issues of failure. Some scholars have reported rework figures as high as 12.6% of total contract value, highlighting major concerns of the sustainability of construction projects. Separately, however, there have been few studies that explore and detail the views of industry professions who are caught in the middle of quality issues, to understand their perceptions of where the industry is failing. As such, this paper interrogates qualitative data (open-ended questions) on the topic of nonconformance and rework in construction to understand what industry professionals believe are the causes and suggested improvement areas.

A qualitative approach is adopted for this research. An industry survey consisting of seven open-ended questions is presented to two professional working groups within a Tier 1 contractor, and outputs are analysed using statistic software (NVivo 12) to identify prominent themes for discussion. Inductive analysis is undertaken to gain further insight into responses to yield recurrent areas for continuous improvement.

Qualitative analysis of the survey reveals a persistent prioritisation of cost and programme over quality management in construction project. Furthermore, feedback from construction professionals present a number of improvement areas that must be addressed to improve quality. These include increased training and competency investment, overhauling quality behaviours, providing greater quality leadership direction and reshaping the way clients govern schemes.

There are limitations to this paper that require noting. Firstly, the survey was conducted within one principal contractor with varying levels of knowledge across multiple sectors. Secondly, the case study was from one major highways scheme; therefore, the generalisability of the findings is limited. It is suggested that a similar exercise is undertaken in other sectors to uncover similar improvement avenues.

The implications of this study calls for quality to be re-evaluated at project, company, sector and government levels to overhaul how quality is delivered. Furthermore, the paper identifies critical learning outcomes for the construction sector to take forward, including the need to reassess projects to ensure they are appropriately equip with competent personnel under a vetted, progressive training programme, share collaborative behaviours that value quality delivery on an equal standing to safety, programme and cost and tackle the inappropriate resource dilemmas projects finding themselves in through clear tendering and accurate planning. In addition, before making erratic decisions, projects must assess the risk profiling of proceed without approved design details and include the client in the decision-making process. Moreover, the findings call for a greater collaborative environment between the construction team and quality management department, rather than being seen as obstructive (i.e. compliance based policing). All of these must be driven by leadership to overhaul the way quality is managed on schemes. The findings demonstrate the importance and impact from open-ended survey response data studies to enhance quantitative outcomes and help provide strengthened proposals of improvement.

This paper addresses the highly sensitive area of quality failure outcomes and interrogates them via an industry survey within a major UK contractor for feedback. Unique insights are gained into how industry professionals perceive quality in construction. From previous research, this has been largely missing and offers a valuable addition in understanding the “quality status quo” from those delivering schemes.

Financial professionals are increasingly important in the Indian financial system. Our study examines the association between the Big Five personality traits and Indian financial professionals' behavioral biases when making investment decisions.

After testing our questionnaire's reliability and validity, we used it to obtain the sample responses. We used multiple regression analysis and other statistical tools to identify the relationships between the Big Five personality traits and behavioral biases.

Our findings reveal a high level of extraversion and conscientiousness, a moderate level of agreeableness and openness and a low neuroticism level among financial professionals. The results show a significant association between neuroticism, extraversion, openness and all behavioral biases except anchoring bias. The neuroticism trait has a statistically significant relationship with all behavioral biases examined, whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness traits lack a significant association with behavioral biases. The openness trait is associated with many emotional biases and cognitive heuristics, while the extraversion trait has a significantly positive relationship with availability bias.

Future researchers could analyze primary (survey) and secondary investor data from brokerage houses. Using a larger sample could provide more generalizable findings. Researchers could also consider other aspects of investment decision-making using various asset classes. Understanding financial professionals' personality traits and behavioral biases could help them develop strategies to suit client needs.

This study provides the first comprehensive examination of the association between personality traits and behavioral biases of Indian financial professionals.

This study aims to establish the factors affecting the financial investment decision-making of an investor, with specific reference to investors’ emotions and how various events such as festivals, the pandemic and sports matches affect their investors’ investment decision-making. The authors further intend to understand the role of these investor emotions in creating stock market anomalies.

Twenty-nine semistructured exploratory interviews with fund managers from the top 10 asset management companies in India, who deal with individual investors regularly, were taken. The interviews were conducted to identify and describe the underlying ideas and sentiments that influence an individual’s investment behavior.

Although risk and return are the primary motivators of investment decisions, fund managers’ daily interactions with individual investors are affected by unpredictability and technical ambiguity, and investing is an inherently emotionally arousing process, according to the findings of the in-depth interviews.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies in Indian market to report the views of financial professionals about the emotional aspect of investors in making an investment decision. With most of the research conducted using quantitative methods, the current study brings in the perspective of financial professionals using primary data.