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The purpose of this study is to extend the Fraud Diamond Theory to celebrity Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and investigate their post-Initial Public Offering (IPO) stock market performance.

After obtaining a sample of celebrity SPACs from the Spacresearch.com database, fraud risk characteristics were obtained from Lexis Nexus searches. Buy and hold abnormal returns were calculated for celebrity SPACs versus a small-cap equity benchmark for time intervals after IPO, and multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between fraud risk features and post-IPO returns.

Celebrity SPACs exhibit Fraud Diamond characteristics and significantly underperform a small-cap stock portfolio on a risk-adjusted basis after IPO.

This study only examines celebrity SPACs that conducted IPOs on the NYSE and NASDAQ/AMEX and does not include those that are traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB).

Celebrity endorsement of SPAC vehicles attracts investors who may not be properly informed regarding the risk characteristics of SPACs. Accordingly, investors should be warned that celebrity SPACs underperform a small-cap equity portfolio and exhibit significant elements of fraud risk.

The use of celebrity endorsement as a marketing device to attract investment in SPACs has regulatory implications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the fraud risk characteristics and post-IPO performance of celebrity SPACs.

To address the absence of Lean in transportation logistics in the digital era, this study aims to investigate the application of Lean transportation (LT) tools to reduce waste and facilitate the digital transformation of dedicated road transportation in the offshore industry.

The study adopts action research with a multimethod approach, including a scoping review, focus groups (FG) and participant observation. The research is conducted within the offshore supply chain of a major oil and gas company.

Implementing LT’s continuous improvement tools, particularly value stream mapping (VSM), reduces offshore transportation waste and provides empirical evidence about the intersection of Lean and digital technologies. Applying techniques drawn from organisational learning theory (OLT), stakeholders involved in VSM mapping and FGs engage in problem-solving and develop action plans, driving digital transformation. Waste reduction in loading and unloading stages leads to control actions, automation and process improvements, significantly reducing downtime. This results in an annual monetary gain of US$1.3m. The study also identifies waste related to human effort and underutilised digital resources.

This study contributes to theory and practice by using action research and LT techniques in a real intervention case. From the lens of OLT, it highlights the potential of LT tools for digital transformation and demonstrates the convergence of waste reduction through Lean and Industry 4.0 technologies in the offshore supply chain. Practical outputs, including a benchmarking questionnaire and a plan-do-check-act cycle, are provided for other companies in the same industry segment.

The blue and green firms are notable contributors to sustainable development. Similar to other businesses in circular economies, blue and green firms also face financing constraints. This paper aims to assess whether blue and green lending help in optimizing the interest rate spreads and the likelihood of default.

This analysis is based on an unbalanced panel of banks from 20 eurozone countries for eleven years between 2012 and 2022. The key indicators of banking include interest rate spread and a market-based probability of default. The paper assesses how these indicators are influenced by exposure to green and blue firms after controlling for several exogenous factors.

The results show a positive relationship between green and blue lending and spread, while there is a negative link with the probability of default. This confirms that the blue and green exposure positively supports the credit portfolio both in terms of profitability and risk management.

The banking system is among the key contributors to corporate finance and to enable continuous access to sustainable finance, the banking firms must be incentivized. While many studies analyze the impact of green lending, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the very few that extend this analysis to blue economy firms.

This paper aims to address two fundamental questions: (1) How has Bahrain's industrial policy evolved during the 21st century? and (2) what factors contribute to this evolution?

Utilizing secondary data, this paper identifies key decision-makers responsible for economic policy in Bahrain and delineates the evolution of Bahrain's industrial policy throughout the 21st century. Subsequently, it employs a series of interviews with elite civil servants engaged in the formulation and implementation of Bahrain's economic policies to understand the reasons behind the observed changes.

Since assuming the role of Crown Prince in 1999, Sh. Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa has been the key economic decision-maker in Bahrain. During the 21st century, Bahrain has shifted away from decisions closely aligned with the Washington Consensus towards those more in line with classical industrial policy. Interviews reveal that the private sector's underperformance in job creation, coupled with fiscal pressures, has driven this departure from the Washington Consensus. Moreover, the early successes of the interventionist Saudi Vision 2030 and Bahrain's own success in technocratically managing the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated this transition.

Insights into the determinants of Bahrain's industrial policy can guide policymakers in refining future strategies. Recognizing the positive role of intellectual developments in academic economics literature becomes crucial for informed decision-making.

This paper fills a gap in the existing literature by providing answers to its research questions, particularly considering the significant changes witnessed in Bahrain's industrial policy post-pandemic.

In international business (IB), the discussion of COVID-19-related global value chain (GVC) models driving resilience has taken momentum since May 2020. The purpose of this study is to uncover insights that the pandemic provided as a unique research opportunity, holistically, revealing the significant role of non-lead firms in GVC outcomes and resilience. This allows to extend theory as the authors critically identify impact criteria and assess interdependence and valence, thus progressing the traditional (pre-pandemic) IB view of GVC governance and orchestration.

This study opts for an integrative review to help create a much-needed extension of IB theory by means of a critical perspective on GVC theory. The authors examine the extant body of IB literature as the relevant stock of collective IB knowledge prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, uncovering contributions – with a focus on the role of non-lead firms in orchestration and resilience – that allows to clarify what was not evident pre-pandemic. With this, the authors move the theory from its efficiency focus to a better recognition of the interdependencies of power and profit outcomes stemming from asymmetries of interrelationships. By design, the authors focus on the unique research period of the pandemic and orchestration complexities along the development of configurational arguments beyond simple correlations (Fiss, 2011), revealing key dependencies as key themes. The authors highlight further research avenues following Snyder (2019) that are called upon to strengthen that understanding and that helps extend theory.

This research provides a critical perspective on the application of the traditional IB views for GVC governance (designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time), which has shifted during the pandemic to accommodate for adaptation and adjustment to resilience and just in case considerations. The holistic review reveals not only the key country- and multinational enterprise (MNE)-dependencies with residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case. Also, the authors advance the understanding of the (un)balance of the traditional GVC – focused on just-in-case rather than just-in-time through a lead and non-lead GVC participation and power lens yet rarely observed. The authors find that governance should not be construed as “management” such that it resolves into decisions undertaken in lead firms for execution in subordinate GVC participants. Autonomy allows to subsidiary units by MNE lead firms and/or exercised by (mainly, innovative) non-subsidiary GVC participant firms, is uncovered as a key driver in this. Greater delegation capacity appears to help provide resilience to loss in profit, with a recognition that there may be a dynamic trade-off between power and profit. In addition, the authors are able to identify correlations with innovation, demand elasticity, digital uptake, investment and other, that the authors trust will set the scene for additional research deepening and extending the findings.

Integrative literature reviews include a problem formulation (i.e. that is limited to published topics around an emerging theme) and are hence very focused in nature and approach. This applies to this paper. Data analysis in this method is not typically using statistical methods in contrast to meta-analyses. Also, the authors limit the sample to a relatively short time period with 33 publications analysed, purposefully focusing on the most prompt and “acute” insights into GVCs during the pandemic.

The traditional GVC governance model is designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time. The authors reveal dependencies that are instrumental to better understand lead and non-lead interaction and relative autonomy, with a focus on residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case that, if in the sought equilibrium and agile, can allow alignment with context and this resilience. This paper specifically provides practical insights and visualization that highlights stages/“ripple” effects and their impact and the questions to ask as stakeholders look for GVC resilience. This includes, int.al., firms and their role as strategic agents, prompting participants through the learnings from exogenous shock to realign their strategies, redistributed manufacturing of production across subsidiary and non-subsidiary non-lead firms, greater competition and hence power for suppliers leveraging resilience and innovation, greater understanding of localization and regionalization of production of essential supplies, interaction with governments, and of investment impacts abroad especially to secure GVC participation.

The insights provided through this extension of theory with its literature review reveal the importance of aligning IB research into GVCs to factors that became visible through alternative or unusual settings, as they have the power to reveal the limitations of traditional views. In this case, a mainly efficiency-led, just-in-time focused GVC governance model is reviewed through the literature that emanated during the pandemic, with a critical perspective, which helped uncover and underline the complexities and evolution of GVC governance, providing fundamental support to solutioning the continuing global supply chain challenges that started as a result of the pandemic and are yet again accelerated by the Ukraine and Middle Eastern wars and its impact with, int.al., concerns over possible severe global food, labour/migration and resources crises. IB holds a social responsibility to help identify critical challenges from the disciplinary perspective and help advance resilience for social benefit.

This paper supports the original IB theory development by extending GVC theory into the lead – non-lead dynamics that may, under certain conditions, provide a “Resilience wall” for GVCs. The value created through insights stemming from a unique period of time for GVC is significant. It allows us thus also to pave the way to an emerging and critical research adaption looking into equilibrium, nuancing demand elasticity, better understanding trade and investment impacts along GVCs and more. By examining views on the sources of pandemic risks in a possibly unique setting, the authors offer added value from extant IB research insights by combining them, revealing the importance for GVCs to investigate not only key dependencies between the exogenous shock, i.e. context, and the impacts assessed through this literature but to further use their inherent value to create a framework for further conceptualization and extension of the traditional IB view on GVC governance. This work illustrates the urgency and importance for IB to take a timely and possibly more critical approach to the investigation of governance models that have, to date, shown some significant limitations.