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This study aims to investigate whether country governance, regulated industry and firm-level characteristics, namely, ownership structure and firm size, are associated with the likelihood of firms having a politically connected board (PCB). This study also examines whether country governance and concentrated ownership moderates the association between institutional ownership and PCB.

This study uses cross-country analysis using 20 countries and hand-collected PCB data from 574 firms and 1,701 firm-year. This study performs logit regression analyses to examine hypotheses.

The results document that countries’ accountability, industry type and institutional ownership are associated with the likelihood of firms having a PCB. This study also finds that country governance, especially accountability, moderates the relationship between institutional ownership and PCBs. The results thus indicate the importance of country governance, especially accountability, in determining institutional investors’ political strategies.

This study provides several implications. First, firms tend to elect PCBs as a non-financial strategy because it arguably delivers additional resources and improves their performance, especially in countries with lower accountability and regulated industries. Meanwhile, investors and management must also hire PCBs cautiously because PCBs are closely related to agency issues. Agency issues reflect on the finding that institutional investors tend to avoid PCBs. However, the relationship between institutional investors and PCBs is closely related to the country-level context, especially accountability. This study also advises policymakers that country governance, especially accountability, is crucial in regulating the relationship between business and politics.

This study uses a relatively large number of new PCB and institutional ownership data collected manually from 20 countries. This study also examines several variables of country governance, such as accountability to PCB decisions that have not been tested before. This study examines the relationship between institutional ownership and PCB ownership decisions that were not examined before and uses a cross-country sample. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first one that examines the role of state governance, especially accountability for the relationship between institutional ownership and PCBs.

This paper aims to conduct a meta-analysis regarding the association between political connections and the cost of debt and tests for the moderating effect of the level of creditor protection on this relationship.

Keywords used to collect relevant empirical papers include “political connections, political ties, and political connectedness” from the one side, and “cost of loan finance, and cost of debt” from the other side. The search yields 24 published empirical papers from 2005 to 2022.

Findings show that there is a significant negative association between political connections and the cost of debt; this relationship is more pronounced only for countries characterized by a strong level of creditor protection. This moderating effect is further confirmed using meta-regression.

Findings are relevant for policymakers and managers in settings where relationship-based capitalism represents a prevailing feature as they highlight the important legal and institutional characteristics when considering the impact of political connections on the cost of debt. The paper also discusses some limitations inherent to this stream of research and proposes future research perspectives.

In the past few years, research focusing on misinformation, referred to broadly as fake news, has experienced revived attention. Past studies have focused on explaining the ways in which people correct it online and on social media. However, fewer studies have dealt with the ways in which people are able to identify fake news (i.e. fake news literacy). This study contributes to the latter by theoretically connect people’s general social media use, political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy with individuals’ fake news literacy levels.

A diverse and representative two-wave panel survey in the United States was conducted (June 2019 for Wave 1, October 2019 for Wave 2). We performed cross-sectional, lagged and autoregressive regression analyses to examined how social media us, people’s political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy are related to their fake news literacy.

Results suggest that the more people used social media, were politically knowledgeable and considered they were able to find the truth in politics (i.e. epistemic political efficacy), the more likely they were to discern whether the news is fake. Implications of helping media outlets and policy makers be better positioned to provide the public with corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against fake news are discussed.

The measurement instrument employed in the study relies on subjects’ self-assessment, as opposed to unobtrusive trace (big) digital data, which may not completely capture the nuances of people’s social media news behaviors.

This study sheds light on how the way people understand politics and gain confidence in finding political truth may be key elements when confronting and discerning fake news. With the help of these results, journalists, media outlets and policymakers may be better positioned to provide citizens with efficient, preemptive and corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against misinformation.

Recent literature highlights the importance of literacy education to contest fake news, but little is known about what specific mechanisms would contribute to foster and reinvigorate people’s fake news literacy. This study helps address this gap.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0140

This paper aims to specifically analyze the interrelationships of employee political skill and personal reputation with both workplace and non-workplace outcomes. The study further focuses on performance and career development as workplace outcomes and entrepreneurial intentions as a non-workplace outcome, while analyzing employee political skill and personal reputation.

The study uses a survey method, where multi-source data were collected in a time-lagged fashion from the employees working in the textile sector in an under-researched emerging economy setting of Pakistan.

The findings establish that political skill is a significant predictor of employee job performance, career development and entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the mediating role of personal reputation was confirmed for the proposed relationships. Hence, the findings highlight the contributory role of personal reputation in the enhancement of workplace and non-workplace outcomes, such as entrepreneurial intentions linked to political skill.

Despite some limitations, this paper offers theoretical implications both for political skill and indirect reciprocity literature. A vital theoretical contribution is extended by studying the mediating role of personal reputation in the main relationships analyzed in this paper. The scope of indirect reciprocity is expanded by identifying personal reputation as a vital mechanism for indirect reciprocity.

Organizations should focus on developing political skill amongst their employees, as these skills are salient for amassing a favorable reputation, that eventually leads to performance, career growth and development of entrepreneurial intentions. Organizations should put in place careful selection and coaching and mentoring programs that equip employees with such skills that eventually lead toward the alignment of employees’ personal goals and organizational goals. Employees, then, could focus on priming both organizational and personal goals.

This paper is one of the pioneering studies that specifically link employee political skill with job performance, career development and entrepreneurial intentions, especially in the relatively volatile and under-researched context of Pakistan. Another novelty of this research is the investigation of personal reputation as a psychological mechanism underlying the primary relationships proposed in this research.

The objective is to develop an empirical model estimating the relationship and interaction amongst the factors affecting and enhancing green finance (GF) in developing economies like India.

Around nine growth-accelerating enablers of green financing were found through literature and unstructured interviews and analysed using the total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) method. The hierarchical link between each factor is established using TISM, and further to evaluate the driver-dependent relationship the Matriced’ Impacts Croises Appliquee Aaun Classement (MICMAC) approach is utilised.

The findings demonstrate an interrelationship between growth-accelerating factors, where the political environment and information and communication technology (ICT), have minimal dependency but a strong driving force. Political environment and ICT are found as strategic-level factors lying at the bottom of the model driving towards the dependent variables. The government should focus on enacting effective policies such as the green credit guarantee scheme and carbon credit and establishing a regulatory framework to enhance green financing.

This study examines the literature to generalise the findings and focus on the primary motivators for developing green financing. To increase green financial activity, practitioners must concentrate on aspects with significant driving forces. Furthermore, it makes organisations more profitable, efficient and competitive and promotes long-term growth.

The study is the first in the literature which identifies the growth-accelerating factors of green financing using the TISM and MICMAC-based hierarchical models.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the effects of politically-connected boards (PCBs) on over-(under-)investment in labor. We also examine the impacts of the supervisory board (SB)’s optimal tenure on the association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

We constructed the proxy for PCBs using a dummy variable set to 1 (one) if a firm has politically-connected boards and zero (0) otherwise. For the robustness check, we used the number of politically-connected members on the boards as the proxy for PCBs.

We find that the presence of PCBs reduces over-investment in labor. Consistent with our prediction, we found no significant association between PCBs and under-investment in labor. We also find that the SB with optimal tenure strengthens the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor. In our channel analysis, we find that the presence of PCB mitigates over-investment in labor through a higher dividend payout ratio.

Due to the unavailability of data in firms’ annual reports regarding the number of poorly-skilled and highly skilled employees, we were not able to examine the effect of low-skilled and high-skilled employees on over-investment in labor. Also, we were not able to examine over-(under-)investment in labor by drawing a distinction between general (generalist) and firm-specific human capital (specialist) as suggested by Sevcenko, Wu, and Kacperczyk (2022). Generally, it is more difficult for managers to hire highly-skilled employees, specialists in particular, thereby driving the choice of either over- or under-investing in the labor forces. In addition, in the firms’ annual reports, there is no information regarding temporary employees. Therefore, if and when such data become available, this would provide another avenue for future research.

Our study offers several practical implications and insights to stakeholders (e.g. insiders or management, shareholders, investors, analysts and creditors) in the following ways. First, our study highlights significant differences between capital investment and labor investment. For instance, labor investment is considered an expense rather than an asset (Wyatt, 2008) because, although such investment is human capital and is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet (Boon et al., 2017). In addition, labor investment is characterized by: its flexibility which enables firms to make frequent adjustments (Hamermesh, 1995; Dixit & Pindyck, 2012; Aksin et al., 2015), its non-homogeneity since every employee is unique (Luo et al., 2020), its direct impact on morale and productivity of a firm (Azadegan et al., 2013; Mishina et al., 2004; Tatikonda et al., 2013), and its financial outlay which affects the ongoing cash flows of a firm (Sualihu et al., 2021; Khedmati et al., 2020; Merz & Yashiv, 2007). Second, our findings reveal that the presence of PCBs could help to reduce over-investment in labor. However, if managers of a firm choose to under-invest in labor in order to obtain better profit in the short-term through cost saving, they should be aware of the potential consequences of facing a financial loss when a new business opportunity suddenly arises which requires a larger labor force. Third, our findings help stakeholders to re-focus on the labor investment. This is crucial due to the fact that labor investment is often neglected by those stakeholders because the expenditure of labor investment is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet as an asset. Instead, it is written off as an expense in the firm’s income statement. Fourth, our findings also provide insightful information to stakeholders, suggesting that an SB with optimal tenure is more committed to a firm, and this factor plays an important role in strengthening the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

First, our findings provide a valuable understanding of the effects of PCBs on over-(under-)investment in labor. Stakeholders could use information disclosed in the financial statements of a publicly-listed firm to determine the extent of the firm’s investment in labor and PCBs, and compare this information with similar firms in the same industry sector. Second, our findings give a better understanding of the association between investment in labor and political connections , which are human and social capital that could determine the long-term survival and success of a firm. Third, for shareholders, the appointment of board members with political connections is an important strategic decision to build political capital, which is likely to have a long-term impact on the financial performance of a firm; therefore, it requires thoughtful consultation with firm insiders.

Our findings highlight the role of PCBs in reducing over-investment in labor. These findings are significant because both investment in labor and political connections as human and social capital can play an important role in determining the long-term survival and success of a firm.

This paper aims to provide scholars with a deep understanding of the field through the identification of strengths and weaknesses in the literature and support decision-makers in the development of new practices in local risk management based on scientific data. The specific question in this review asks: what are the drivers and barriers to local risk management?

This paper provides an overview of the scientific literature produce over the past 20 years of the divers and barriers to local risk management. This paper presents a scoping review of peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2019 inclusively in the fields of public policy and public administration.

This paper makes three main observations regarding the state of the literature. First, this paper finds that scholars mainly focus on single risk and certain regions of the world. Second, there is multiple approached used by the literature to study risk management at the local level. Third, little attention is given to the political context in which local risk management takes place.

This paper is a complete literature review of more than 500 peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals regarding risk prevention policies over the past two decades. This paper analyzed the main findings of the current literature to provide a general view of the scholarship and improve the collective understanding of risk management at the local level by providing future research avenues.

This paper aims to examine the alternative financing available for sustainable infrastructure development in Nigeria’s sub-nations. Specifically, the study question is: what financial vehicles do sub-nations seek most, and what are the underlying reasons for their preferences?

The study used a two-round Delphi method, using a questionnaire to gather data from high-ranking government officials in states that have localised sustainable development projects in Nigeria.

Results show that fundamental to sub-national sustainable infrastructure projects are federal allocations, pension funds, private equity, bonds and concessionary grants. Sub-nationals prefer these options, especially the emphasis on private equity, and the concessional funding through catalytic or blended finance because of their relatively lower or below-market interest rates.

The practical significance of this study is that the state’s policymakers can now identify appropriate strategies that enhance the shift towards these sustainable financing options, which will serve as a key catalyst in their 2030 and beyond vision to accelerate their state's infrastructure climate complaint. Equally, investors possessing funds with such attributes will gain an understanding of a prospective market within Nigeria’s sub-nation.

This study aims to improve the development of sustainable infrastructure in Nigeria’s sub-nations, which would have a beneficial effect on society by mitigating the effects of climate change.

The recommendations of this study can contribute to the development of innovative financial models for sub-national infrastructure development, thereby reducing reliance on revenue generated from fossil fuels.

The deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) in higher education institutions is beneficial and critical for attaining sustainable campus goals. However, various barriers hamper the adoption of the technology, and unless these challenges are identified, formulating tailor made solutions to boost deployment will be challenging. Thus, this study aimed to identify the barriers to the deployment of PV in the public university sector in South Africa.

A critical review of the literature was conducted to identify the factors that negatively impact PV deployment. By screening the barriers identified from the literature using a conceptual framework, the barriers that were considered relevant to deployment within a university context were selected. Thereafter, the selected barriers and additional barriers recommended by panellists were verified through a three-round Delphi survey. The factors were either accepted or rejected as barriers in the sector based on the factors' mean score and interquartile range values.

The study observed that 12 barriers hamper PV deployment in the public university sector. The findings indicated that the top five barriers were the lack of incentives, lack of green building targets, lack of financial resources, high initial cost, and lack of clear policy direction. However, the study found that deployment was not hindered because there was resistance to change or uncertainty of recouping investment costs. The deployment was also not hindered because there was a lack of demand from electricity end-users or a lack of suitable installation space.

Given the lack of empirical studies on the subject in the region, the present study contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying the significant barriers that impede PV deployment in the public university sector. Furthermore, insight is provided on measures that relevant stakeholders can take to motivate and support universities to deploy the technology further.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to examine the effects of servant leadership and despotic leadership on employees’ happiness at work (HAW) through job crafting.

To test the hypothesized relationships, the data were collected from 309 Pakistani employees. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The findings showed that servant leadership is an optimal leadership style for creating employees’ HAW. In addition, job crafting was found to mediate the effects of servant leadership on employees’ broad-based positive attitudinal outcome (HAW). Moreover, results showed that despotic leadership negatively influences employees’ HAW through job crafting.

This study is novel as it investigates how newer forms of positive (servant) and negative (despotic) leadership styles influence employees’ multidimensional attitudinal outcome (HAW) via job crafting. By doing so, this research extends the nomological network of servant leadership, despotic leadership, job crafting and HAW.