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Concerns on money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing increased, as ML accounted 2%–5% of the global GDP, with Switzerland, the USA, Canada, India and Russia having high laundering rates. Banks were fined over US$320bn in 2008, but money laundering still accounted for 3.6% of global GDP in 2009, thereby indicating the need for effective regimes. Therefore, this study aims to critically analyze the antimoney laundering (AML)/CFT regime of Somalia, identify loopholes in the regime, raise awareness and propose recommendations for regime improvement.

The qualitative research approach is used to compare Somalia’s AML/CFT regime with the corresponding regime of Malaysia through the black letter method combined with document analysis. Malaysia is selected as a benchmark for two reasons: firstly, it is an Islamic country like Somalia, and secondly, Malaysia has complied with integrity-related standards.

This study revealed that an impactful AML/CTF regime is reached by closing loopholes in the law, reevaluating and improving regulatory agencies and measures, facilitating formal financial services and collaborating with regional and international standard setters. According to the results, Somalia AML/CFT regime is counterproductive in criminalizing offenses; regulating digital currencies and mobile money, disclosures and nonfinancial business and provisions; and governing training requirements for regulatory agencies and financial institutions.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind in the study of Somalia’s regime building. Also, this study incorporates rich scholarly discourse on effective regime building.

Online food delivery has been prevalent in recent years worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and people's consumption behaviors have changed significantly. This study aims to investigate the consumption behavior of young adults using online food delivery platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the dominant factors influencing their decision to use online food delivery platforms.

Semi-structured interviews including 14 young adults aged 18–25 living in Hong Kong were conducted to collect data about their perspectives on online food delivery platforms in five areas. This research adopted the stimulus-organism-response model (S-O-R model) to analyze how the factors influence young adult users' loyalty and satisfaction with online food delivery platforms.

Thematic analyses revealed that young adults were attracted to online food delivery platforms for their numerous benefits. They had a high frequency of usage and significant spending. Usability, usefulness, satisfaction and loyalty influenced young adults' behaviors on online food delivery platforms. Participants were overall satisfied with their experiences, but platforms still had room for improvement.

Few prior studies investigated the factors affecting the consumer experience and behavioral intention of online food delivery for young adults in Asia. This study contributes to understanding young adults' experiences and problems with online food delivery platforms. It provides practical insights for system engineers and designers to improve the current services and for the governments to enhance the existing regulatory loopholes.

Counterfeit currency ranges from a low-quality colour scanner/printer notes to high-quality counterfeits produced by hostile powers. Detecting counterfeit money notes is a national priority due to its huge negative economic impact. However, no automatic mechanism exists for identifying the source of counterfeit notes, which is a more sophisticated and critical problem. This paper aims to evaluate the procedure or mechanism which are followed by banks for fake not reporting and the effectiveness of this mechanism.

For doing this research, primary data has been collected from bank staff (particularly front desk staff like cashier/teller). A very simple and short questionnaire has been prepared where the researcher just wants to explore that up to what extent bank staff is aware about the clauses of the counterfeit currency note (CCN).

The result shows that in approximately 38% of cases, bank staff return the fake notes to the customer without reporting, and approximately 57%–58% are unaware of the fake currency notes reporting to the nodal bank office and police.

Banks themselves have to take stringent actions to ensure that none of the CCNs circulate again in the economy if caught by bank officials. All the flaws in a system should be effectively monitored along with covering the loopholes in the system like lack of training, time-to-time sensitisation of front desk employees, providing protection to employees in case of any kind of threat from customer and reducing the burden of retaining the customer if a customer is at guilty.

This is the original work done by the researchers; in fact, the researchers were able to find only a couple of studies related to this kind of in-depth analysis in the literature. This study is done to provide feedback to the authorities on how the system is manipulated for organisational and self-interest.

This study aims to use institutional and upper echelons theories to comprehensively investigate the intricate interplay between TMT legal expertise and firms' adaptive strategies in legal contexts, notably within emerging economies. It explores how upper echelons experiences shape opportunistic compliance strategies, impacting value and risk perceptions. Drawing on upper echelons theory, the research probes how TMT legal expertise molds firms’ involvement in significant lawsuits, accounting for influential roles. It scrutinizes TMT’s impact on legal strategies, positing that managerial discretion emerges from environmental factors, organizational attributes and executive traits. The study underscores TMT’s internal incentives and external factors’ interplay, molding strategic legal engagement.

To validate this framework, statistical analysis is performed on data from 2,584 Chinese-listed firms. The data set spans 2010–2015, with 5,713 material lawsuits. Chosen due to reliable institutional-level incentives data from the China Market Index Database, years 2016–2019 are excluded for methodological disparities. Moreover, 2007–2009 is omitted to mitigate the potential financial crisis impact. This study’s 11,272 observations ensure robust empirical exploration, offering insights into the interplay of TMT legal expertise, institutional factors and firms’ legal strategies.

The study reveals that firms led by executives with legal expertise are more prone to engage in significant lawsuits, indicating strategic use of legal skills. TMT age moderates this, with older teams less likely to engage. TMT tenure’s effect remains unclear due to tenure-risk preference complexity. Institutional factors matter; less legally mature regions reduce managers’ legal risk intention. Results confirm hypotheses and highlight executive human capital’s impact on firms’ legal strategies.

This study acknowledges contributions while highlighting limitations, including the need for detailed distinctions in lawsuit roles and exploration of heterogeneous TMT power dynamics. Further research is proposed for nuanced power dynamics and comprehensive TMT legal background data. The study advances upper echelons theory by introducing TMT legal expertise as a factor influencing strategic lawsuit behavior. It challenges institutional theory by showing the adaptable legal context, beyond fixed constraints. Moderating factors – group risk attitude and external knowledge – deepen understanding of upper echelons’ impact. Enhanced data collection is encouraged to address limitations and refine findings.

This study’s implications extend to managerial practices. Firms should acknowledge the dynamic legal system, using TMT legal expertise for strategic legal challenges. Executives should pragmatically approach regulations. While legal professionals enhance compliance, caution is needed in selecting TMT members with legal expertise due to the risk of misusing it for unnecessary litigation, potentially misaligned with financial performance goals.

This study combines institutional and upper echelons theories to explore TMT legal expertise’s impact on firms’ adaptive strategies in emerging economies. It challenges the idea of a universally constraining legal environment and highlights how TMT legal expertise enhances firms’ management of complex legal risks. The research introduces TMT legal expertise as an influencing factor in strategic lawsuits, revealing nuanced relationships between legal contexts and strategic decisions. The findings enrich upper echelons theory, challenge conventional institutional views and identify moderating factors that deepen the understanding of upper echelons’ influence in legal landscapes.

Stockbrokers’ frauds in India frequently occur, causing investors significant financial loss. This study aims to unfold the various dubious practices adopted by stock brokers in the recent past to defraud investors and the necessary corrective regulations passed by the market regulator to prevent and detect fraud.

The authors conduct exploratory research using a collective model of literature review, case studies and regulatory changes.

The authors find tightening the system’s loopholes and strengthening the regulatory system using technology helps in the early detection and prevention of fraud. Media activism and investors’ awareness play a role in reducing incidences of fraud.

This study unfolds the practices followed by stock brokers to defraud investors, indicative of regulatory gaps and enforcement lapses. Regulators are evolving a robust system to curb these practices and make them on par with international standards. But, it has a long way to go.

Robust fraud detection and prevention mechanism is desirable to restore investors’ confidence in the stock market. Regulators should focus on investors’ protection and education and whistleblowers’ protection. Compared to the market regulators worldwide, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has less power to identify, detect and punish fraudulent brokers and needs to be empowered.

Besides the regulatory changes, strict enforcement and investor campaigns are required to increase public awareness and restore trust in the stock market to combat the recurrence of fraud.

This paper can be helpful to regulators, investors and financial intermediaries like stock brokers and aid in strengthening the reliability of capital markets and restoring investors’ confidence.

This research paper aimed to study the legal structure of top-performing health governance systems and compare them with the Indonesian health social security system to identify the main differences and provide recommendations for Indonesian and other developing countries’ health policymakers and administrators.

Using formative research with a conceptual approach and statute approach as method in this study. Data was gathered using the document study technique, which studies various documents, especially legal documents related to health law, linked to legal purpose theories. Moreover, the World Health Organization ranking was considered to choose the two countries (France and Singapore) with a high social health security system for comparative analysis. All data collected has been analyzed using a qualitative and theoretical basis. Content analysis was performed by analyzing the legal documents, and the regulatory framework of all three countries was deeply analyzed to draw conclusions and recommendations.

Indonesia has specific laws to implement a social security system in the health sector. However, the lack of the best medical facilities and infrastructure and weak implementation of existing laws were identified as major reasons behind the poor health security system compared to comparative countries. Also, as a developing nation Indonesian Government face budgetary pressures and huge population challenges to meet required standards. Thus, the financing approaches used by Singapore and France may help developing countries meet these challenges effectively. Therefore, there is a dire need to strengthen the social health security system all over the country with amendments to laws and ensure the implementation of prevailing laws and regulations.

Providing understanding related to the social security health system in Indonesia along with a detailed description of the sound social health security system in France and Singapore will further provide an avenue for the researchers to critically analyze this line of study to devise some valuable suggestions further and to draw loopholes in the system.

A comparative approach for legal studies in the health sector is rare. So, this research advanced the social security health system-related literature and legal studies on the health sector by using this comparative approach to develop policy insights and future research directions, which will further help the field to grow.

Circular supply chain management (CSCM) is considered a promising solution to attain sustainability in the current industrial system. Despite the exigency of this approach, its application in the food industry is a challenge because of the nature of the industry and CSCM being a novel approach. The purpose of this study is to develop an industry-based systematic analysis of CSCM by examining the challenges for its application, exploring the effects of recognised challenges on various food supply chain (FSC) stages and investigating the business processes as drivers.

Stakeholder theory guided the need to consider stakeholders’ views in this research and key stakeholders directly from the food circular supply chain were identified and interviewed (n = 36) following qualitative methods.

Overall, the study reveals that knowledge, perception towards environmental initiatives and economic viability are the major barriers to circular supply chain transition in the UK FSC.

This research provides a holistic perspective analysing the loopholes in different stages of the supply chain and investigating the way a particular circular supply chain stage is affected by recognised challenges through stakeholder theory, which will be a contribution to designing management-level strategies. Reconceptualising this practice would be beneficial in bringing three-tier (economic, environmental and social) benefits and will be supportive to engage stakeholders in the sustainability agenda.

The very criticism of public policy being rigid and generalized on one hand, and insouciant and noncustomizable on the other has to be addressed to cope up with the comingled economic, social and environmental challenges. Policies that fail the litmus test of changing and challenging conditions will run the risk of not achieving their purpose and obstructing the ability of citizens, communities and businesses. This paper draws the case of Bangladesh to explore the principles of adaptive policies in the surfacing of the recently adopted Digital Commerce Management Guide 2021 under the National Digital Commerce Policy, 2020.

This is a qualitative paper that is based on both primary and secondary data. While secondary data on the policy crafted a strong call for increased adaptiveness, primary data extracted from the interviews presented several lacking and loopholes from respondents’ firsthand experiences. Based on secondary content and primary data from consumers and business owners of the most-used social commerce platform (a form of digital commerce), Facebook commerce, hereto referred to as F-commerce, this paper discusses the possible characteristics of adaptive policy-making for more innovative, contextual, gender-inclusive, efficient and environmentally sustainable policies.

The paper points out some reform and adjustment scope for the recently introduced digital commerce policy to make it more adaptive to the present and upcoming policy context.

It must be mentioned that there is a dearth of research on digital commerce policy and the platform as a whole.

Hence, this paper offers a fresh perspective toward time befitting policy formulation in the digital commerce sector and set in motion the policy attention that this platform requires.

This study aims to determine experimentally factors affecting the satisfaction of retail stock investors with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by the Government of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Also, an effort has been made to gauge the level of satisfaction of retail equities investors with the laws and guidelines developed by the Indian Government and SEBI for their invested funds.

To accomplish the study’s goals, a well-structured questionnaire was created with the help of a literature review, and copies of it were filled by Punjabi retail equities investors with the aid of stockbrokers, i.e. intermediaries. Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali-area intermediaries were chosen using a random selection procedure. Xerox copies of the questionnaire were given to the intermediaries, who were then asked to collect responses from their clients. Some intermediaries requested the researcher to sit in their offices to collect responses from their clients. Only 373 questionnaires out of 1,000 questionnaires that were provided had been received back. Only 328 copies were correctly filled by the equity investors. To conduct the analysis, 328 copies, which were fully completed, were used as data. The appropriate approaches, such as descriptives, factor analysis and ordinal regression analysis, were used to study the data.

With the aid of factor analysis, four factors have been identified that influence investors’ satisfaction with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by government and SEBI regulations, including regulations addressing primary and secondary market dealings, rules for investor awareness and protection, rules to prevent company malpractices and laws for corporate governance and investor protection. The impact of these four components on investor satisfaction has been investigated using ordinal regression analysis. The pseudo-R-square statistics for the ordinal regression model demonstrated the model’s capacity for the explanation. The findings suggested that a significant amount of the overall satisfaction score about the various investor protection measures implemented by the government/SEBI has been explained by the regression model.

A study could be conducted to analyse the perspective of various stakeholders towards the disclosures made and norms followed by corporate houses. The current study may be expanded to cover the entire nation because it is only at the state level currently. It might be conceivable to examine how investments made in the retail capital market affect investors in rural areas. The influence of reforms on the functioning of stock markets could potentially be examined through another study. It could be possible to undertake a study on female investors’ knowledge about retail investment trends. The effect of digital stock trading could be examined in India. The effect of technological innovations on capital markets can be studied.

This research would be extremely useful to regulators in developing policies to protect retail equities investors. Investors are required to be safeguarded and protected to deal freely in the securities market, so they should be given more freedom in terms of investor protection measures. Stock exchanges should have the potential to bring about technological advancements in trading to protect investors from any kind of financial loss. Since the government has the power to create rules and regulations to strengthen investor protection. So, this research will be extremely useful to the government.

This work has societal ramifications. Because when adequate rules and regulations are in place to safeguard investors, they will be able to invest freely. Companies will use capital wisely and profitably. Companies should undertake tasks towards corporate social responsibility out of profits because corporate houses are part and parcel of society only.

Many investors may lack the necessary expertise to make sound financial judgments. They might not be aware of the entire risk-reward profile of various investment options. However, they must know various investor protection measures taken by the Government of India & Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to safeguard their interests. Investors must be well-informed on the precautions to take while dealing with market intermediaries, as well as in the stock market.

The objectives of this study are twofold. Firstly, this study aims to examine the challenges of green public procurement (GPP) involvement among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) government suppliers. Secondly, it investigates the differences in the perceived challenges between the small- and medium-sized groups of companies.

The study draws on the quantitative method. The questionnaire was distributed to SMEs that supply green goods or services to the government and which are listed in the MyHijau directory. Using convenience sampling, a total of 394 questionnaires were distributed and 126 usable questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 31.98%. A descriptive analysis of the mean score, standard deviation and mean score ranking was used to analyse the overall results. The t-test analysis was carried out to examine the differences between the small- and medium-sized groups of companies.

All five categories of the barriers, i.e. financial, legal, people, knowledge and organizational challenges, are perceived as the important challenges for SMEs’ involvement in GPP. Of the five categories, “having lack of knowledgeable staff on GPP” under the category of “people” challenge is ranked as the most major barrier. In relation to the differences between the two groups of enterprises (small- and medium-sized), medium enterprises are more affected by two items under the “organization” challenge, i.e. “The company has not targeted suppliers that promote environmentally-friendly products/services” and “The company has not established a clear objective on purchase of green products and services”, as compared to the small-sized enterprises through their GPP involvement.

By understanding the difficulties faced by SMEs in engaging with GPP, various practical measures can be formulated to support the SME businesses in mitigating the challenges faced for their involvement with GPP, which subsequently will lead to the country’s target to reach the sustainable development goals.

This study extends empirical evidence on barriers or challenges that may hinder the involvement in government green procurement, with a specific focus on SME government suppliers.