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This study analyses the effects of firm efficiency on firm performance and how controlling shareholders moderate the link between the two variables.

This study employs data envelopment analysis to estimate firm efficiency and the panel regression method to assess the hypothesised relationships among 1,295 firm-year observations of publicly listed firms in Malaysia from 2015 to 2019.

The results indicate that firm efficiency (technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency) has mixed relationships with firm performance (return on assets, market-to-book ratio and operating cash flows), all of which are being moderated by controlling shareholdings.

This study highlights the importance of assessing firm efficiency as the key success factor for improving firm performance. Industrial managers should manage efficiently their resources or operating costs in achieving their corporate financial goals. Moreover, this study notes the presence of controlling shareholders, who can be either self-interested or company goal aligned.

This study suggests becoming efficient in transforming inputs into outputs is a prerequisite before investigating accrual-based and cash-based firm performance measures, and the presence of controlling shareholders matters in these regards.

This study aims to explore several challenges in the use of regulatory technologies (RegTech) in Islamic and conventional financial markets and share recommendations in this regard.

A qualitative research methodology was used to identify the existing challenges. Literature was reviewed and analyzed, and seven experts were interviewed or consulted online and their feedback examined. The judgment of the case B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd. was reviewed.

This study reveals a lack of relevant regulatory frameworks capable of meeting some of the evolving challenges, lack of awareness among market players and lack of expertise in RegTech. The list of additional challenges includes the issue of legacy technology, the weaknesses of human programmers and the need for a multifaceted solution for compliance requirements.

This study notes the novelty of RegTech in the financial world, especially in the Islamic financial market. Thus, there is a dearth of relevant literature. This study assists relevant conventional and Islamic financial market entities and authorities in determining the potential impact of RegTech on their respective businesses and the financial system.

This study proffers recommendations to assist in addressing the challenges facing its users and paving the way for innovative solutions that will facilitate and enhance the use of RegTech in financial markets. Regulators and other stakeholders of the financial industry will learn from the challenges identified and can review the recommendations for adoption. Apart from that, the decision of B2C2 Ltd v Quoine has practical implications for RegTech users, as the court in B2C2 Ltd v Quoine accessed the “knowledge” of the programmers of deterministic software at the time of the coding.

RegTech can offer cost-effective and efficient means to comply with regulations and ensure the accuracy of the information provided to regulators. This study provides a better understanding of the challenges associated with its use. The recommendations include enactment of a blueprint for a digitally enabled regulatory framework, creating awareness of RegTech via stakeholder roundtable discussions, development of human talent, formulating human governance standards and finding innovative ways to manage risks.

This paper aims to explore the potential utility of Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) in single-case and group-level outcome and process evaluations.

A study was conducted to evaluate mentalization-based therapy by using ISA and its linked framework software, Ipseus. Ten patients with borderline personality disorder and substance use disorder were involved in the study. ISA/Ipseus was administered prior to and at the completion of the treatment. Five-year follow-up data, comprising behavioural indicators, were also collected and compared to ISA/Ipseus results.

Improvements occurred in the evaluation of stressful, demanding and emotionally burdening situations. Evaluations on concerned others also improved, together with progress in self-reflection. Changes in the evaluation of recovery-related themes were less salient. On a case level, changes in the self-states and role models were consistent with the results of the five-year-follow up data. An initial crisis state seems suggestive of progress, while initial defensive positions with high positive self-regard, of stagnation.

ISA/Ipseus, integrating the benefits of qualitative and quantitative approaches in evaluation, is a potential method to explore the complexity of identity changes during therapy.

This investigation is designed to quantify and appraise the efficiency of resource distribution in the provision of public digital cultural services in China. By acknowledging and incorporating the realities of China's social development, the authors offer recommendations for enhancement derived from the study’s data analysis results. The research zeroes in on the dissection and analysis of the integral elements that structure the provision of public digital cultural services, and it concentrates on the associated data computation. The conclusions drawn herein are expected to serve as a significant point of reference for ongoing academic investigations and practical explorations in affiliated domains.

In this research, the authors utilize a hybrid methodology to meticulously evaluate the efficiency of the components that underpin the provision of public digital cultural services (PDCS) in China. The authors embark on deconstructing the various constituents within the PDCS supply framework, conducting in-depth analyses and providing cogent interpretations of each integral element. Subsequently, the authors deploy the well-regarded SBM super-efficiency model to ascertain the operational efficiency of these components. Ultimately, through a comprehensive interpretation of the measured data and the integration of extant societal development conditions, the authors put forth relevant recommendations.

The provision of PDCS in China as of 2021 had been characterized by overall good efficiency, significant regional disparity and a disconnect between inputs and outputs with weak correlations to economic and demographic data.

In this study, the authors provide an exhaustive deconstruction and interpretation of the public digital cultural services supply system, thereby proposing a framework for evaluating the efficiency of supply element allocation. Additionally, the authors have determined a set of distinct measurable indicators that are readily accessible for open collection. Notably, this analytical and evaluative framework designed for element analysis and measurement may also find application in efficiency evaluation research of the supply systems of other related cultural endeavors.

The sharing economy enables apartment owners to generate income from their assets. “Agoda Homes” is an online travel agent (OTA) that directly competes with Airbnb. A destination has to discover its competitiveness, but few studies have provided an overview of accommodation attributes in each destination, which are crucial to shaping its brand image. This paper aims to illustrate firm-generated content or attributes that apartment owners list about their properties on an OTA platform to comprehend factual information about apartments in each destination with various star ratings and user ratings and to formulate a research model for future studies.

Informational content and accommodation attributes for apartments are automatically collected using a Web scraping tool (the Data Miner). Descriptive statistics and text analysis (word cloud and word frequency) are used to analyze data.

Findings reveal the primary location, facilities, cleanliness and safety attributes for all apartments in each destination, along with star ratings and user ratings. A research framework for scholars is also suggested. Guidelines for stakeholders in the tourism industry are additionally furnished.

This work concentrates on apartments, which have received less attention in the tourism literature. The study gathers factual data from a website to mitigate respondent bias issues inherent in the traditional survey methods.

This study aims to investigate the consumer behavior toward telemedicine services in India during the COVID-19 pandemic onset. With lockdown restrictions and safety concerns in visiting brick-and-mortar clinics or hospitals during the pandemic, Telemedicine had emerged as a potent alternative for seeking redressal to health issues. Based on theory and focus interviews with the telemedicine users, the researchers proposed a model to understand the intent and actual usage of telemedicine in India.

The cross-sectional study undertaken used a questionnaire designed on a seven-point Likert scale and administered to respondents with the objective of identifying the determinants of intent and actual usage of telemedicine services. Simple random sampling was used to collect primary data. The data was cleaned and finally a sample of 405 responses complete in all respects was considered for analysis. The questionnaire comprised of 34 items and following the recommendation of Hair et al. (2016), which says the minimum sample size in structural equation modeling should be ten times the number of indicator variables, a sample size of 405 was deemed adequate.

The research paper finds that performance expectancy, attitude, credibility and self-efficacy positively impact the intention of consumers to use telemedicine services. As the effort expectancy or risk perception toward telemedicine increases the intent and actual usage of telemedicine decreases. The intention to use telemedicine emerged as a strong predictor of the actual usage of telemedicine. Intent to use telemedicine was explained 81.4% by its predictors of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, attitude, risk, credibility and self-efficacy, and actual usage was explained 79.9% by its predictors. This study also reports that telemedicine was found to be popular among chronic as well as episodic patients though the preference was skewed in favor of the episodic patients. One of the advantages of telemedicine is its availability round the clock, and the study found that 8 a. m. to 12 noon time slot as the most preferred slot for seeking telemedicine services.

Chang (2004) opined that telemedicine can fulfill the needs of all stakeholders: citizens, health-care consumers, medical doctors and health-care professionals, policymakers, and so on. Considering the promise telemedicine holds, this realm must be studied and leveraged to the full potential. The study found that patients were using telemedicine even for their day-to-day aliments. This indicates a growing popularity of telemedicine and as such an opportunity for telemedicine companies to leverage it. In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot give commercial advertisements for medicines, and the same can only be sold through a registered medical practitioner’s prescription. As such there is total dependency on the medical practitioner for the sale of medicines. Telemedicine companies offer services of home delivering medicines clubbed with medical consultation thus giving them forward integration in their business models. Using telemedicine the patients had control over the timings of the services offered, and as such the waiting time to get a consultation and subsequent treatment was reduced considerably. Best medical advice from across the globe is available to the patient at less cost. Medical practitioners also stand to benefit as they can treat a variety of cases, collaborate among the medical fraternity and give consultation safely in case of fatal contagious diseases.

This study points to a definite growing popularity of telemedicine services not only in episodic patients but also chronic patients. Telemedicine with its unique advantages holds the promise to grow exponentially in the future and is a compelling health-care segment to focus on for delivering health-care solution to the geographically distant consumers.

Most research on tax evasion focused on microeconomic variables revolving around perceptions and decisions of individual taxpayers. However, a new wave of research is now investigating the role of macroeconomic variables in inducing tax evasion. This study adds to the limited studies in this new direction of research. Previous studies found that inflation, low gross domestic product (GDP) growth and gross fixed capital formation causes recession, increases unemployment, raise interest rates, hurts both domestic and foreign direct investments. This study examined the relationship between these variables and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The study adopts a correlation research design with 2,300 data points collected from 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, tax to GDP ratio, gross fixed capital formation per GDP and the GDP annual growth report from each country for the period 2011–2020 was retrieved. Generalised least square regression technique was employed to analyse the data due to the presence of heteroskedasticity in the model and random effect was utilized based on the Hausman test. To avoid misspecification and biased result; therefore, all relevant test was conducted including the multicollinearity test.

The results indicate that GDP annual growth and gross fixed capital formation have a significant negative impact on estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings further indicate a negative but insignificant relationship between inflation and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that both GDP annual growth rate and gross fixed capital formation negatively influence estimated tax evasion and the policy implications in the African continent were discussed.

The new findings on the effects of GDP annual growth, growth fixed capital formation and inflation on estimated tax evasion provide novel knowledge that is currently lacking in the current literature, specifically Sub-Saharan African continent.

This paper aims to analyze the legal framework of land degradation in Asia and provide market shared liability as a new theory to solve a problem regarding the difficulty for judges to determine the percentage of compensation for corporations responsible for land degradation. This paper aims also presents a theory to solve the problem of the vacuum of legal responsibility theory, which can make corporations proportionally responsible in terms of causing land degradation.

This was done through legal research methods, mainly with systematical interpretation. The approach used in this paper is conceptual, statute and comparative approach.

By analyzing the related legal norms, it can be understood that in Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, there are regulations regarding land degradation. However, the regulations in these countries are not specific and tend to focus on nature conservation, which has an impact on handling land degradation. Therefore, it needs special regulation to deal with land degradation. One of the things that need to be regulated about land degradation is a market shared liability.

This research is limited to regulation in the Asia region. By analyzing the regulation, this paper will provide an analysis about the land degradation regulation mechanism in Asia and give an analysis about market shared liability as one of the solution to handling land degradation. Having the same ground rules will create synergies between countries in Asia to handle land degradation.

This paper is the first systematic legal research comparing regulations from three nations in Asia on land degradation and the first paper to provide market shared liability as a solution to handling land degradation.

In recent years, technology diffusion, globalization and the Internet revolution have accelerated the growth of online transactions and altered corporate operations systems. The emergence of computer technology and the Internet have changed the way businesses work. The purpose of this study is to find and identify any common patterns in the logistics and supply chain industries for job requirements using job posting content in Malaysia.

This study provides an exploratory assessment of the employability skill set required using online job posting advertisements. Online job posting advertising, also known as e-recruiting, is one field that has been significantly influenced by information technology. In addition, the current Covid-19 outbreak has created a new need for a long-term contactless talent acquisition process in the organization's operating systems.

Based on this study's findings, the top ten skills required by employers for logistics and supply chain positions are (1) supply chain analytics, (2) technological aptitude, (3) teamwork skills, (4) customer focus, (5) leadership skills, (6) interpersonal skills, (7) people skills, (8) creativity and resilience, (9) demand and supply forecasting ability, and (10) project management skills. Overall, the findings provide a road map for practitioners and academics interested in developing supply chain managers' necessary skills and competencies to manage current and future supply networks. It also allows companies to adjust their supply chain management hiring, training and retention methods.

Although the study was done in Malaysia, the supply chain skills and competencies stated in this study, as well as their categorization, can be applied in other developing countries.

The purpose of this article is to examine Cairo's master plans during the past 70 years, including the establishment of the New Administrative Capital City—which is based on two fundamental courses on the phenomenon of urbanisation—and other initiatives to address Cairo's Plans based on the thoughts of three planning schools—Chicago, Los Angeles and Liverpool. The aim is to determine if the right time to relocate Egypt's capital to a different place makes sense.

Cairo has experienced significant urban challenges throughout its millennial history due to the continually shifting socioeconomic and political changes. This research uses prospective and retrospective methods to examine how planning theories have historically influenced building Cairo’s urban fabric and provides insight into the city’s master plans from the July Revolution of 1952.

It is assumed that Cairo's socio-spatial transitions over time were caused by scattered expansion, leading to contemporary Cairo's socio-spatial evolution. The paper ends with some questions about the future of the city. Should planning policies change to cope with socioeconomic, spatial and political transitions?

The article's significance stems from the necessity of adaptable and considerate ideas that move Cairo's communities towards a better setting and provide a crucial route for enhancing their environments. Using digital technologies to implement new capital while creating platform urbanism may be accomplished even with constrained budgets and short course lengths.