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In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, all business sectors have critical needs. They face multiple challenges to restructuring their operations to build a resilient, cost-effective and sustainable supply chain. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the practice and the research gaps related to supply chains.

This research paper is influenced by a literature review of the past decade. This review paper incorporates industry challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including future steps toward developing resilient supply chains in the new normal economy. The research provides a detailed framework for designing cost-effective survivable supply chains that withstand disruptions for the long term.

The proposed research focuses on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains and attempts to bridge pre and post COVID-19 research and practice gaps. Post-COVID-19 resilient supply chains need to be transformed into survivable supply chains. The survivability of the supply chain can be achieved by combining both supply chain resilience and supply chain viability measures. To the best of the authors’ belief, this is the first study that grounds a theory to provide interconnection of five critical supply chain concepts to manage supply chain risk. This study is uniquely positioned to develop a theoretical framework to design a cost-effective, resilient and sustainable supply chain by establishing the interconnection among these concepts in supply chains. This framework helps practitioners to implement the key strategies at the operational, tactical and strategic levels that enhance maturity in supply chains.

The research findings are based on secondary reports such as industry reports, cases, research papers and expert opinions. The authors tried to consult with many companies. However, they were reluctant to share the recovery plan information from COVID. Also, as COVID still exists in many places in Canada, the authors could not gather every intended information from the companies. However, the authors have successfully shared the outcomes of this research with a reputed retail company in Canada. They recognized the importance of survivability in supply chains. Going forward, business organizations need to design cost-effective, sustainable and survivable supply chains.

The study attempts to unify current research dealing with supply chain resilience. The study concludes with the limitations of the current research. It highlights the prospects of future research and bridges the supply chain practice gaps from the challenges faced by industries due to COVID-19. The study contributes to the literature by identifying gaps to bridge the supply chain practice and reiterating new research directions to develop a cost-effective, survivable and sustainable supply chain.

The single-supplier multi-retailer cold chain is a widely adopted type of supply chain in the real-world food industry. This paper aims to consider the problem of effectively designing and managing a single-supplier multi-retailer cold chain for fresh produce with deterministic demand to minimize the total cost, which includes cooling, loss of value and carbon emission costs.

The global stability index (GSI) method and the non-Arrhenius model are integrated to describe the behavior of food quality degradation. The power-of-two (PoT) policy is adopted in determining the coordinated replenishment policies for the suppliers and retailers, and an appropriate wholesale price structure that can achieve the coordination of the chain is presented.

The properties of the cold chain are uncovered, and an appropriate wholesale price scheme that achieves chain coordination with the optimal PoT decision is provided. In the numerical examples, different scenarios are investigated, and it is found that the cold chain parameters influence the optimal decisions in certain ways.

The PoT policy – an efficient policy to determine the replenishment strategy – has not been adopted in finding the solution of a single-supplier multi-retailer cold chain in the literature. Also, no study has compared the uncoordinated and coordinated cold chain. Moreover, in the existing literature, the wholesale price is usually a constant rather than having a coordinated scheme. This research aims to fill these research gaps.

This paper verifies whether popular Internet information from Internet forum and search engine exhibit useful content for forecasting the volatility in Chinese stock market.

First, the authors’ study commences with several HAR-RV-type models, then the study amplifies them respectively with the posting volume and search frequency to construct HAR-IF-type and HAR-BD-type models. Second, from in-sample and out-of-sample analysis, the authors empirically investigate the interpretive ability, forecasting performance (statistic and economic). Third, various robustness checks are utilized to reconfirm the authors’ findings, including alternative forecast window, alternative evaluation method and alternative stock market. Finally, the authors further discuss the forecasting performance in different forecast horizons (h = 5, 10 and 20) and asymmetric effect of information from Internet forum.

From in-sample perspective, the authors discover that posting volume exhibits better analytical ability for Chinese stock volatility than search frequency. Out-of-sample results indicate that forecasting models with posting volume could achieve a superior forecasting performance and increased economic value than competing models.

These findings can help investors and decision-makers obtain higher forecasting accuracy and economic gains.

This study enriches the existing research findings about the volatility forecasting of stock market from two dimensions. First, the authors thoroughly investigate whether the Internet information could enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the volatility forecasting concerning with the Chinese stock market. Second, the authors find a novel evidence that the information from Internet forum is more superior to search frequency in volatility forecasting of stock market. Third, they find that this study not only compares the predictability of the posting volume and search frequency simply, but it also divides the posting volume into “good” and “bad” segments to clarify its asymmetric effect respectively.

This study aims to verify whether posting volume and search frequency contain predictive content for estimating the volatility in Chinese stock market.

The forecasting model with posting volume can achieve a superior forecasting performance and increases economic value than competing models.

The results are robust in alternative forecast window, alternative evaluation method and alternative market index.

The posting volume still can help to forecast future volatility for mid- and long-term forecast horizons. Additionally, the role of posting volume in forecasting Chinese stock volatility is asymmetric.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of supply chains when events cause major disruption. Firms can better manage risks and significantly improve prospects of emerging stronger post-crisis through a more holistic approach that focuses on several key aspects which collectively have the scope to increase the overall resilience of the supply chain.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of audit committee independence, board ethnicity and family ownership on earnings management in Malaysia.

The effect of audit committee independence, board ethnicity and family ownership on corporate governance is investigated via 1,206 firm-year observations between the fiscal years of 2004 and 2009 of Bursa Malaysia listed firms. Panel data regression analysis is used to analyze the relationship.

The findings of this study fail to associate the role of audit committee independence as proposed under RMCCG (2007) in curtailing earnings management activities, thus supporting the findings on power distance scores that power granted to the top management may result in less effective independent directors. Nonetheless, in support of the alignment effect theory, family ownership is found to reduce earnings management activities. The findings show that corporate governance is more effective in developing country family firms due to their long history of family reputation and the importance of institutional culture factors.

This study focuses on board ethnicity, family ownership and its influence on earnings management.

This study offers insights into the importance of family institutional structures on corporate governance reforms in Malaysia as Malaysian family firms are mostly traditional firms that have built their reputation and strength in the industry for many generations.

This study aims to explore the steps carried out in the implementation of Islamic Quality Management System (QMS) MS 1900 in Malacca zakat institution.

A case study strategy was used to explore the process of MS 1900 implementation at Malacca Zakat Center (MZC). Semi-structured interview with Top Management Officers, Managers, Shar’iah Officer, Quality Systems Officers and Auditors was used as main data collection method, and it was triangulated with data collected from documents and observations. The data were analysed by employing thematic analysis method.

The study found that there are 12 steps involved in MS 1900 implementation at MZC, namely, identifying gaps, understanding MS 1900, outlined quality policies and objectives, team work establishment, management representative establishment, management commitment, documentations, determining the quality scope system, implementing the MS 1900, internal audit, evaluating QMS performance and surveillance audit. All steps were carried out effectively with the cooperation of management and employees at MZC.

The findings from this study can be employed by managers who intend to implement MS 1900 effectively in their organizations.

This study adds to the knowledge of the emergence of the first ever Islamic QMS MS 1900. It also contributes meticulous insights into the MS 1900 implementation particularly in the zakat centre.

This study aims to comprehensively examine the relationship between initial public offering (IPO) activities and macroeconomic factors in Sri Lanka.

This study uses principal component analysis (PCA) and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) techniques to examine the relationship between IPO activities and macroeconomic factors. Ten macroeconomic variables are transformed into principal components (factors) using PCA. Then, ARDL is applied to investigate the long- and short-term relationships between IPO activities and the transformed macroeconomic factors.

The empirical investigation identifies three principal factors from the ten macroeconomic variables, of which two factors have a significant long-run association with IPO activities: “return on investment (RTOI)” and “economic and market development (ECMD).” In the short run, “trade openness and banking sector development (TOBD)” and RTOI are significantly associated with IPO activities.

The study was based on 30 years of observations, which passed all diagnostic tests but may be insufficient for generalizing the findings. Future studies could use high-frequency data (monthly or quarterly) to increase the number of observations and repeat the method and analysis. Also, while the symmetrical ARDL method was used in this study, an asymmetrical ARDL method may provide more insightful results and interpretations.

The study highlights the importance of considering both long- and short-term associations when analyzing the impact of macroeconomic variables on IPO activities.

This study is the first to comprehensively examine the relationship between IPO activities and macroeconomic variables using PCA and the ARDL technique. The study provides insight into the macroeconomic factors that influence IPO activities in Sri Lanka and highlights the importance of considering long- and short-term associations.

This paper aims to provide an overview of research topics and publications produced by Islamic Finance scholars in Malaysia, focusing on six research domains (Shariah-based, Islamic Finance, Islamic Economics, Islamic Accounting, Islamic Management and Halal Management) in five public universities in Malaysia.

This study seeks to analyse the research gaps and recommend future research based on publications produced by Islamic Finance scholars from five public universities in Malaysia. Data on talents were collected from the MIFER report 2016 and each universities’ website, while research and publications of the talents were collected from Google Scholar and the Scopus database. The extracted data were analysed using bibliometric analysis in VOSviewer version 1.6.15.

The results show that the five selected universities talents have different research strengths according to six research domains highlighted in MIFER 2021 and Beyond Report. All five universities are found to contribute the least research in Halal Management domain. In view of the increasing prominence of this area of research in the national and international levels, these universities and other universities in Malaysia can generate more research in Halal Economy, Halal Management, and other related areas within this domain. The finding indicated that each university tends to have a strength according to the different domains, and 2019 is the most productive year for Islamic Finance publications. Analysis from productive scholars and co-citations shows that the authors collaborate within the same university to create a different topic for each research cluster.

The bibliometric analysis only captures the general keyword terms, which may be limited to the only generalised sub-research areas.

This bibliometric study, which is based on the expertise of researchers, complements meta-analysis, and qualitative structured literature reviews aid researchers or talents in developing future research directions such as Green economy, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Halal Management and others. In addition, this is a case study in nature and can serve to enhance understanding the landscape of Islamic finance education and as a reference for practices in institutions of higher learning from around the world.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a new research initiative comparing five top programme providers in the field of Islamic finance using a bibliometric approach to enhance talent development and capacity building. With the government’s efforts to further promote Malaysia as the Islamic Financial Hub, this study highlights the research gap in Islamic finance based on scholars’ publications from selected five Malaysian universities and potential topics for future research. This study focuses on the research domain for each university, the trend of publishing, the number of journals published by academics, productive scholars and citations by Malaysian universities, and examines if the publications align with current industry needs.

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on earnings management practice for a sample of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Islamic banks (IBs) using a new model of earnings management.

First, the authors estimate discretionary accruals based on loan loss provisions discretionary loan loss provision (DLLP) using the procedure derived from Jones’ (1991) original model. Second, the authors run a multivariate regression model to check the linkage between corporate governance characteristics and discretionary loan loss provision. Finally, the authors use an additional sensitivity check analysis to assess whether the results are robust to the estimation procedure and to other exogenous factors.

Using as sample of 26 IBs pertaining to the GCC region with a total of 223 firm-year observations and a nine-year period (2004-2012), the results are conclusive and show that first, IBs with large Shariah Board size manage less DLLP. Secondly, Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions membership positively impacts earnings management through DLLP in IBs. Third, there is a negative relationship between boards of director’s independence the extent to which IBs manage DLLP. Fourth, the existence of block holders positively affects earnings management by IBs. Fifth, there is a negative relationship between audit committee meetings and DLLP. Finally, institutional ownership and bank size have no effect on earnings management through DLLPs.

In this research, the authors do not take into account all governance factors that are supposed to impact earnings management in IBs. Future research should explore the impact of additional IBs governance structures including chief executive officer bonus, experience, gender and the extent to which IBs use real earnings management with Murabaha, Mudaraba and Musharaka transactions.

The paper is a very useful source of information that may provide relevant guidelines in helping the future development of corporate governance of IBs. In addition, the findings could prove to be useful for regulators because they are responsible for the acceptable level of corporate governance standards. Thus, they must consider strengthening governance mechanisms either through new legislation or stronger enforcement where earnings management is of such magnitude to that serious impedes information transparency and financial reporting quality of IBs.

This study associates the corporate governance characteristics with earnings management by IBs. The study contributes to the growing body of literature on earnings management and corporate governance in IBs. It should be useful to researchers, regulators, investors, analysts and creditors as well as other players in the capital markets, as it presents a new and important aspect that needs to be accounted for when assessing the quality of IBs’ accounting information in GCC countries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficiency and productivity performance of zakat funds managed by Directorates of Religious Affairs and Endowments (DRAE) in Algeria.

In this study, the authors employ data envelopment analysis and measure Malmquist Productivity Index for DRAE’s input and output data spanning from 2003 to 2013.

The authors find that total factor productivity has increased sharply for all zakat funds, mainly due to a technical rather than efficiency change. Further decomposition of the efficiency change into its pure technical and scale efficiency components suggests that the pure efficiency is a more important source of efficiency change than the scale efficiency component, meaning that zakat funds rely on technical aspects to gain efficiency.

The findings of this study are expected to contribute considerably to the existing knowledge on the operating performance of zakat funds in Algeria.