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Can industrial marketers afford to choose unethical strategies? To answer this question, this study aims to use game theory to analyze whether an industrial marketer choosing and implementing an unethical strategy is successful in maximizing her market share across her strategies.

The competition between two industrial marketers is modeled as a strategic game for the market share of a product that is identical in all attributes except the production process. Each industrial marketer’s objective is to choose to implement either the ethical or the unethical production process to maximize her market share.

The study finds that both industrial marketers choosing to implement ethical strategies is the unique Nash equilibrium of the game. That is, an industrial marketer choosing to implement an unethical strategy in the production process will be unsuccessful in maximizing her market share when both the industrial marketers are rational.

The study contributes to the literature on industrial marketing ethics, particularly that on product ethics, by showing that industrial marketers gain market share if they choose ethical strategies.

The study has implications for industrial marketing executives, as organizational consumers are increasingly aware of the strategies of industrial marketers. Failure to implement ethical strategies will cause industrial marketers to forgo their best possible market shares.

This study’s novelty lies in using a game theoretic approach to demonstrate the positive implications of ethical strategies for industrial marketers.

The theory of double jeopardy (DJ) is shown to hold across broad ranging geographies and physical product categories. However, there is very little research appertaining to the subject within an online environment. In particular, studies that investigate the presence of DJ and the contrasting view point to DJ, namely, that of negative double jeopardy (NDJ), are lacking. This study aims to contribute to this identified research gap and examines the presence of DJ and NDJ within a product category, utilising data from Twitter.

A total of 354,676 tweets are scraped from Twitter and their sentiment analysed and allocated into positive, negative and no-opinion clusters using fuzzy c-means clustering. The sentiment is then compared to the market share of brands within the beer product category to establish whether a DJ or NDJ effect is present.

Data reveal an NDJ effect with regards to original tweets (i.e. tweets which have not been retweeted). That is, when analysing tweets relating to brands within a defined beer category, the authors find that larger brands suffer by having an increased negativity amongst the larger proportion of tweets associated with them.

The clustering approach to analyse sentiment in Twitter data brings a new direction to analysis of such sentiment. Future consideration of different numbers of clusters may further the insights this form of analysis can bring to the DJ/NDJ phenomenon. Managerial implications discuss the uncovered practitioner’s paradox of NDJ and strategies for dealing with DJ and NDJ effects.

This study is the first to explore the presence of DJ and NDJ through the utilisation of sentiment analysis-derived data and fuzzy clustering. DJ and NDJ are under-explored constructs in the online environment. Typically, past research examines DJ and NDJ in separate and detached fashions. Thus, the study is of theoretical value because it outlines boundaries to the DJ and NDJ conditions. Second, this research is the first study to analyse the sentiment of consumer-authored tweets to explore DJ and NDJ effects. Finally, the current study offers valuable insight into the DJ and NDJ effects for practicing marketing managers.

This paper examines market structure and efficiency of price transmittals in the two national stock exchanges of India: The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. Price movements in a large number of important stocks in both markets are considered. The framework used is the Johansen‐Juselius multivariate cointegration technique. It is discovered that price movements within each market are cointegrated. Short‐run ECM analysis shows that no stock in any market is exogenous, thus indicating that there is considerable feedback in short‐run price movements from each stock. Some short‐run price movements are stabilizing. The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange appear to be reasonably efficient markets.

Synergy indicators and social network analysis (SNA), as practical tools, provide the possibility of explaining the pattern of scientific collaboration and visualization of network relations. Recognition of scientific capacities is the basis of synergy. The present study aims to measure and discover the synergistic networks of COVID-19’s top papers at the level of co-authorship, countries, journals, bibliographic couples and titles.

The synergy indicator, co-authorship co-citation network analysis methods were applied. The research population comprises COVID-19’s top papers indexed in Essential Science Indicator and Web of Science Core Collection 2020 and 2021. Excel 2016, UCINET 6.528.0.0 2017, NetDraw, Ravar Matrix, VOSviewer version 1.6.14 and Python 3.9.5 were applied to analyze the data and visualize the networks.

The findings indicate that considering the three possible possibilities for authors, countries and journals, more redundancy and information are created and potential for further cooperation is observed. The synergy of scientific collaboration has revealed that “Wang, Y,” “USA” and “Science of the Total Environment” have the most effective capabilities and results. “Guan (2020b)” and “Zhou (2020)” are bibliographic couplings that have received the most citations. The keywords “CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19)” were the most frequent in article titles.

In a circumstance that the world is suffering from a COVID-19 pandemic and all scientists are conducting various researches to discover vaccines, medicines and new treatment methods, scientometric studies, and analysis of social networks of COVID-19 publications to be able to specify the synergy rate and the scientific collaboration networks, are not only innovative and original but also of great importance and priority; SNA tools along with the synergy indicator is capable of visualizing the complicated and multifaceted pattern of scientific collaboration in COVID-19. As a result, analyses can help identify existing capacities and define a new space for using COVID-19 researchers’ capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to provide new insights into the low-leverage phenomenon by analyzing the dynamics of firms’ financing policies. The authors explore three theoretical explanations of firms’ motivations to switch among different levels of debt aversion: financial constraints, financial flexibility and financial distress.

The authors apply a multilevel mixed-effects model to a panel data sample of 9,005 US listed firms during 1987-2014. To use a multinomial ordered logit model, the authors break down the low-leverage firms into several levels of debt aversion.

The empirical analysis provides four main findings. First, there is a dynamic behavior regarding leverage policy: after five years, 39.4 per cent of initial zero debt firms remain all-equity firms, 14.2 per cent are leveraged firms and approximately 19.7 per cent still adopt a low-leverage policy. Second, greater asset volatility increases the expected likelihood that firms will be debt averse. Third, when firms grow bigger and older, they show a greater likelihood of moving toward a higher leverage level. Fourth, results derived from the investment variables of research and development, acquisitions, and capital expenditure provide strong evidence in favor of the financial flexibility hypothesis.

These findings suggest that conservative debt policy is integrated with corporate investment decisions.

This paper contributes to extant literature by emphasizing the dynamic process associated with a low-leverage policy, unlike prior studies that focus on the determinants and characteristics of low-leverage firms. It also applies an econometric methodology that is new to the field: multilevel models.

Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

This paper aims to examine the effect of Shariah Advisory Panel (SAP) on both the level of agency cost and fund performance against conventional corporate governance, within corporate and Shariah governance settings, between Shariah and conventional mutual fund (CMF), in an emerging economy of Malaysia during the period 2008-2015.

Panel data regression is appropriately used within corporate governance research because of empirical issues of unobserved heterogeneity effects to avoid spurious evidence. The secondary data of 172 CMFs and 80 Shariah mutual funds are gathered hand-collected from annual reports and master prospectuses for the purpose of analysis between the period 2008 and 2015, generating 2,016 fund-year observations.

SAP is found to have a positive effect on agency costs. Consequently, it leads to empirical evidence that substantiates a negative and marginally significant association with fund performance when designated by accounting measure. Thus, the Shariah monitoring proxy is not a good mechanism for controlling agency costs inconsistent with performance maximizing (agency cost minimizing) outcomes.

The unique data set of mutual funds used in this research may restrict the generalization of the findings unless mentioned and explained specifically the data characteristics. The single proxy for Shariah monitoring could be better off by having a list of different measures.

The paper highlights and suggests a consistent improvement in regulation that could be performed by policymakers pertaining to the non-trivial additional cost of implying Shariah governance.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the SAP effects from the view of a more complex monitoring structure in consequence of having an additional layer of governance, devoting on the trade-off between benefit and cost to shareholders.

Marketing thought originating from the era of the barter system, gradually evolved into production and sales orientations, with greater emphasis on the process, quality, and selling of products. Thereafter, customer satisfaction as an essential component of the strategic decision process occupies a significant position among various marketing activities. This paper aims to address the inadequate research inputs on determining the time‐specific evolutionary relevance of marketing thought divulging into the essential components of each marketing concept, especially those with customer satisfaction as a dimension in the measurement construct.

A detailed, conceptually integrated analysis of various marketing philosophies is offered to facilitate business executives in examining the philosophy followed by their companies and how to move vertically in pursuance of improved business performance.

In comparison to the Indian market, which is fast becoming an attraction for the developed nations as an investment hub, it is the observed and experienced that public sector corporations are still at the production orientation stage, whereas private companies are predominantly using the sales‐oriented approach. The present status of customer orientation, market orientation and relationship marketing culture in India, is quite distinct from the status in the West as indicated by literature published in the developed countries. Banking, insurance, tourism, and hospitals still need to ensure minimum customer‐oriented services, which are not performed impressively in India.

Being a conceptual and country specific paper, the paper lacks wider generalization of its findings. Moreover, at many instances personal judgment of the authors might have resulted into biased interpretation.

Indian companies, with a few exceptions, lack an adequate orientation to pursue continuous market research in order to sense new developments, which are taking place due to the implementation of advanced information technology leading to greater exposure to customers. It can, thus, be synthesized that with respect to marketing practices in Indian settings, the existing large gap between the theory and implementation is drawing much attention from those concerned with the socio‐economic consequences associated with future business goals.

This paper can help managers in evaluating their business orientation level, but how to improve it further or update them as per ongoing changes in marketing thought and practice, has to be investigated and examined on continuous basis. Hence, empirical testing and validation of the constructs originating from the study have to be pursued, so as to analyze both the nature and the extent of the business orientation of a particular firm.

This paper aims to examine the impact of audit committee (AC) adoption on the financial value of financial institutions in the UK and also to examine the impact of the establishment of an AC on firm value during the pre/post-global financial crisis era.

The paper embarks on a theoretical and empirical literature review on AC adoption and its impact on a firm’s financial value. The paper uses data from 63 financial institutions and covers a 12-year period.

The empirical results indicate that the adoption of an AC by financial institutions has a positive and statistically significant impact on firm value. The results from the pre-crisis period also indicate that the adoption of an AC makes a positive and significant contribution to firm value. However, there is no impact on firm value during the post-crisis period. The results suggest that the entire UK economy experienced an economic downturn after the financial crisis (2009-2011), and financial firms were no exception.

This study helps to fill research gaps on the relationships between ACs and firm value as they exist in UK financial institutions. These findings are important for policymakers and regulators.

This research will encourage firms to establish ACs.

This new finding about the importance of firms having an AC in place is important for policymakers and regulators.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to conduct an empirical study of the effect of AC adoption on UK financial institutions and firm value. Second, no single study has been conducted on the effects of AC adoption and its impact on either the pre- or post-financial crisis periods. This is the first paper to provide such empirical evidence.