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The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of commitment in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in its various forms (CSR philanthropy/ altruism, CSR integration and CSR innovation) on the financial performance as measured by certain ratios.

Thus, on the basis of a theoretically constructed questionnaire administered to 82 responsibles (general managers, human resources managers and CSR responsibles) operating in four business areas, the authors have developed the extent of the overall CSR commitment and the extent of commitment by CSR action type.

The examination of the impact of the CSR commitment on the financial performance has partially approved the social impact assumption. Indeed, only the positive effect of CSR philanthropy is demonstrated. Otherwise, for integrated and innovative actions, the low involvement in these actions in relation to philanthropic ones could explain the lack of significant association. But this result is also important, as it marks the lack of any negative effects. Even if they do not result in a better financial performance, these commitments do not bring harm to the firm. As for the strategic approach predominance on the altruistic approach, this hypothesis is checked only in the case of firms operating in the chemical sector.

The main limitation of the study is the limited size of the total sample and the sample by industry, so the authors expect a larger sample might be able to provide more meaningful results.

Then, the study suggests the importance of implementing real CSR strategies for firms that often find doubt and ambiguity when they decide to undertake social actions. However, these results do not mean that companies must refrain from driving altruistic or philanthropic activities but are encouraged to seek a social performance that suits a certain level of integration and innovation.

The most important of all the above is that the negative impact of social actions is not verified in any way, allowing to state that the social actions do not exert a negative effect on the financial performance. So, participation in social problems do not bring harm to the firm.

The originality of this work comes from: the measure of CSR commitment, and the use of a classification typology of CSR actions in terms of their interaction with the core of the firm’s business as developed by Halme (2009). In fact, based on a theoretically constructed questionnaire, the authors have developed two measures of responsible commitment (level of commitment and intensity of commitment) of some industrial Tunisian firms.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare bank efficiency between the two Maghreb countries, Tunisia and Morocco, over the period 2005–2014.

The authors follow the stochastic frontier analysis, where the preferred cost model is determined via various hypothesis tests based on the maximum likelihood estimation. Then, the first and the second derivates of the cost function are employed to determine scale elasticities, scale inefficiencies and technological progress.

Specification tests indicate that the Fourier Flexible form provides better fit to the data set. Further, the estimated model shows that Tunisian and Moroccan banks’ efficiency is positively affected by banking service quality, but negatively influenced by both bank capitalization and GDP growth. Overall, Moroccan banks are found to be the most efficient despite the decrease of efficiency levels in both countries. Additionally, foreign banks have a higher scale inefficiency and, therefore, a lower cost efficiency. Equally, the technical progress raises banking costs in both countries, providing a decrease in efficiency scores.

The findings of this study provide novel insights to Tunisian and Moroccan policy makers on the relevance of the smaller banks’ consolidation to improve bank efficiency by achieving unrealized economies of scale. Also, more reforms should be implemented in Tunisia to reduce non-performing loans.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first which offers a comparison between Tunisian and Moroccan banks to clarify the sources of inefficiency and to make strategic decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore preparers’ and users’ perception of intellectual capital (IC) usefulness and to examine the significant differences in the usefulness perceptions of IC information and its categories according to sex, age, function, educational level, specialty and professional experience of respondents.

This exploratory study drew on a questionnaire survey sent to five groups of preparers and users who were asked to provide their usefulness perception about information on IC and its categories.

This paper found that the five preparers and users groups perceive information on IC as well as its three categories as useful for their decision-making purposes. In addition, it concluded that the usefulness perception of IC information does not differ by sex, age, function, educational level and specialty of the respondents, but it differs according to the professional experience.

To the extent that users perceive IC information as useful, managers are encouraged to disclose more information about this hidden capital in order to improve their transparency. As there are no generally accepted IC reporting guidelines and in order to fill informational gaps between companies and their stakeholders, accounting standards bodies could regulate the IC information disclosure by developing relevant communication standards in accordance with stakeholders’ expectations. They may identify information items that should be considered as a priority by making them mandatory for disclosure purposes, and other items voluntary.

The paper can be regarded as the first exploratory study to investigate the IC information usefulness from the perspectives of five preparers and users groups in Tunisia, as an example of a developing economy in Africa.

The paper investigates the dynamic relationship between oil prices, the USA dollar exchange rate and the Saudi stock market index.

The authors perform a novel dynamic simulated the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) on weekly data from 2010 to 2021.

The authors' work reveals three main results: First, a cointegration relationship exists between oil prices and the Saudi stock market index. Second, the Saudi stock market is strongly affected by fluctuations in oil prices in both the short and long run. Third, the exchange rate of the USA dollar has a slight influence on the movements of the Saudi stock market. The simulations show that the Saudi stock market index has a long-run upward trend after an oil price shock, while the dollar index rises moderately after a similar shock. Moreover, the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a significant decline in the Saudi stock market index, particularly the substantial drop in oil prices.

These findings encourage domestic and foreign investors to benefit from an upward trend in oil prices, especially after the opening of the Saudi market to foreign investment. On the other hand, it raises questions about the Saudi economy's dependence on oil as the sole vehicle for output growth. It highlights the urgent need for diversification and productivity growth in the non-oil sector and other renewable natural resources to increase Saudi competitiveness.

The novelty of the research lies in the following. First, the authors apply one of the latest developments in time-series modeling techniques. This dynamic ARDL simulation model provides a worthwhile alternative way to explore dynamic correlations in the short and long run and assess the choc effects. Secondly, the study would enable us to track the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on the Saudi stock market.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on whether the deviations from the cointegrating relationship possess long memory and the fractional cointegration analyses may capture a wider range of mean-reversion behaviour than standard cointegration analyses.

This paper uses a fractional cointegration technique to test the purchasing power parity (PPP).

The authors found that PPP held, but very weakly, in the long run between the Argentine, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Thailand and Venezuela and US exchange rate during our floating exchange rate period but that the deviations from it did not follow a stationary process. Nevertheless, it is also found that the deviations from PPP exists and can be characterized by a fractionally integrated process in nine out of 13 countries studied.

The findings are consistent with the consensus of the empirical literature, reviewed earlier in this paper, on PPP between Argentine, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Thailand and Venezuela and the USA.

This paper aims to synthesize, analyze and categorize the empirical literature on country-specific factors that affect foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Identifying gaps and methodological challenges in the reviewed articles, recommendations are made to guide future research.

Applying the systematic review methodology, content analysis is conducted of 42 relevant empirical studies that explore country-specific FDI determinants in the MENA region during the period 1998–2018.

This review study identifies four main research gaps in the extant literature: a lack of consensus on a common definition of the MENA region and a weak understanding of the specificities of its investment environment; a limited set of FDI theories used and a lack of other theoretical perspectives; a recurrent focus on the direct relationship between host country–specific determinants and FDI, thus ignoring the moderating and mediating effects of some variables; and the absence of certain country-specific factors pertaining to the MENA countries.

This study contributes to the international business field by enhancing our understanding of the FDI determinants in emerging and developing markets, especially the MENA countries. It develops a typology of FDI country-specific factors in the MENA region based on four main categories: macroeconomic and financial, institutional and regulatory, natural resource endowment and socio-cultural. Paths for future research are suggested.

Following the Arab Spring turmoil, Middle East and North African (MENA) countries’ overall instability has significantly increased which resulted in the decrease of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the research on determinants of FDI inflows to the MENA region by examining the relationship between state fragility and FDI.

A panel data analysis was conducted to study the impact of Fragile States Index (FSI) and its components, namely economic, social and political/military state fragility, on FDI inflows to seven MENA countries situated in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region over the period 2006-2016.

The results show that the increase of political state fragility deters FDI inflows to SEMED countries. By contrast, their economic and social state fragilities are insignificant for FDI. This could be explained by the fact that investors are usually attracted by government stability and a strong investment profile.

Given the fact that previous research has not yet validated FSI as a new FDI determinant, the results should be interpreted with some caution. It may also be worth examining the impact of FSI on FDI by industry sector in future studies.

The results reveal that FSI could help MNEs investing in the MENA region assess and better manage the economic, social and political/military risks they face.

This study introduces a new FDI determinant and stresses the importance of state fragility in attracting FDI.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of board gender diversity on earnings management level and strategy.

This study is conducted in the French context where firms are pressured since 2010 to appoint more women on boards. More specifically, this research is based on a sample of 85 companies listed in the SBF120 over 2010-2014. A number of econometric techniques are used including generalized least squares to test the panel regressions.

The results suggest that women on boards are effective in their monitoring role. Indeed, the findings show a significant negative effect of board women presence on earnings management practices level. However, there is no empirical evidence that board gender diversity affects the earnings management strategy. Moreover, the results reveal that some control variables influence significantly the earnings management level and strategy.

The findings support the efforts made by French political bodies to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, and might inspire political actors of other countries to take initiatives to regulate the promotion of women’s appointment on boards of directors.

This paper contributes to the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice. Indeed, the findings highlight the beneficial effects of women participation in power and decision-making positions.

This research contributes to the debate around gender diversity on boards. Most prior studies that have analyzed the relationship between gender diversity and earnings management were conducted in a voluntary context of appointing women on boards. This paper extends prior research by addressing this issue differently and in a regulated context: where the government set mandatory quotas for female board representation.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether board gender diversity and other board characteristics affect earnings management practices of top public companies in Kazakhstan.

The study analyzes data of top public companies for the period 2010-2016. Data on corporate governance were manually collected from annual reports and investment memorandums, and financial data were collected from audited financial statements.

The empirical results show that companies with greater board gender diversity are more effective in constraining earnings management. The findings also indicate that companies with larger boards adopt a more restrained approach to earnings management practices, thus supporting the theoretical framework of the study. However, the results provide weak evidence of the association between board independence and earnings quality.

This study is the first to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and earnings management in emerging markets such as Kazakhstan that offers managerial and policy implications.