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This study aims to investigate the influence of banking consolidations on bank stability in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2003–2019, following a series of bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the region and whether regulation-induced bank M&As affect banking sector stability.

The fixed effect panel regression model is used to understand the influence of regulation-induced and voluntary bank mergers and acquisitions on banking stability in SSA. The study also controlled for bank-specific factors, market concentration and macroeconomic variables that affect banking stability. The study used three measures of bank stability: the Z-score, risk-adjusted return on assets and risk-adjusted bank capital.

The study results reveal that voluntary bank M&As, market concentration, net interest margin, bank capital, bank deposits and income diversification influence banking sector stability positively. However, the findings show that regulation-induced bank mergers and acquisitions impact banking stability negatively. Where bank M&As were a result of banking regulatory reforms, called regulation-induced mergers and acquisitions (RIM&As), banking stability suffered, but voluntary bank M&As improved banking stability. Again, the study supports the concentration–stability argument rather than the competition–stability hypothesis. Therefore, more concentrated banking markets in SSA countries have more stable banks and fewer risks of system-wide bank failures. Other factors influencing banking stability in SSA are return on equity, bank efficiency (cost-to-income), bank size and deposits-to-assets ratio. However, their relationship is negative with the stability of the banking sector.

The findings imply that the regulatory authorities should encourage voluntary bank M&As and not regulation-induced bank M&As to improve the stability of the banking systems in SSA.

The study provides new evidence on the effects of regulation-induced bank M&As on the stability of banks.

Free banking theory, as developed in Adam Smith’s 1776 treatise, “The Wealth of Nations” is a useful tool in determining the extent to which the “invisible hand of the market” should prevail in regulatory policy. The purpose of this study is to provide a timely review of the literature, evaluating the theory’s relevance to regulation of financial technology generally and cryptocurrencies (cryptos) specifically.

The methodology is qualitative, applying free banking theory as developed in the literature to technology-defined environments. Recent legislative developments in the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the UK, European Union and the USA, are drawn upon.

Participants in volatile cryptocurrency markets should bear the consequences of inadvisable investments in accordance with free banking theory. The decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies and the exchanges on which these are traded militate against coordinated oversight by central banks, supporting a qualified free banking approach. Differences regarding statutory definitions of cryptos as units of exchange, tokens or investment securities and the propensity of these to transition between categories across the business cycle render attempts at concerted classification at the international level problematic. Prevention of criminality through extension of Suspicious Activity Reporting to exchanges and intermediaries should be the principal objective of policymakers, rather than definitions of evolving products that risk stifling technological innovation.

The study proposes that instead of a traditional regulatory approach to cryptos, which emphasises holders’ safety and compensation, a free banking approach combined with a focus on criminality would be a more effective and pragmatic way forward.

Financial technologies or FinTech have replaced traditional financial services. Large investments have been made in FinTechs but there is a gap between service providers and consumers. Due to the high diversity and speed of changes, people still do not understand the new financial system and resist it. The success of the transition requires providing an opportunity for citizens' participation which is expressed with the term, financial citizenship. This study aims to focus on the citizenship dimension of FinTech transition and wants to analyze the influence of citizens in transition with a focus on financial technologies.

This study analyzed financial citizenship in FinTech transition by using a qualitative research method and grounded theory. The data were collected through open interviews with 26 FinTech players in Iran. Then the three-step process of open, axial and selective coding was performed and the main categories and relationships between them were identified.

Surveys have shown that educating and informing citizens provides the conditions for engagement and the formation of financial citizenship. Depending on citizens' level of awareness, they can play a role in the FinTech transition as customers, feedback providers or demanders. Of course, the disruption level of financial technological innovation affects the level of citizens' engagement. Finally, the conceptual model of financial citizenship provided and the effect of citizen participation on the FinTech transition has been analyzed.

This study is based on the belief that it is the citizens’ right to have a role in matters that directly affect their well-being. This role is not only the role of the customer and the user but goes beyond and becomes a role where citizens as players would be able to influence the technological transition like other interested players (policymakers and service providers). This research integrates the transition literature and financial citizenship; and analyzes the FinTech transition according to the position of citizens against FinTech developments.

The purpose of this study is to explore the roles that sociocultural systems such as traditions, religious practices, and rituals play in upholding gender imbalance in Fiji.

This qualitative study relies on results from semi-structured interviews with auditors, educationalists, academics, partners from leading accounting/audit firms, company directors and high-ranked government officers. Thematic analysis was conducted both manually and using MAXQDA software, and the themes that emerged from both analyses are complementary. A few more complementary analyses were also conducted such as Word Cloud.

The results support the claim that the religious traditions and rituals are strongly linked to gender-inequitable beliefs and suggest sociocultural factors impose on women experiencing self-effacing emotions and passive acceptance of lower status, contributing to the persistence of gender inequality. It also emphasizes the need to challenge certain sociocultural practices to promote greater gender equality, which is the theme emerged from thematic analysis. Additionally, this paper proposes four distinct types of attitudes in this regard as self-effacing feminist, self-effacing traditional, self-effacing modesty and talented driven.

Respondents' openness authenticity may be limited by factors like selection bias, small sample size and other potential constraints in this study.

The findings might influence stakeholders to advocate for policy changes to promote women's representation in leadership positions. The results give voice to various segments of society who are advocating greater gender diversity on board representation in Fiji. The themes immerged and theories developed would make a substantial contribution to the existing literature.

The findings highlight the importance of addressing gender inequality in leadership positions to promote inclusive and sustainable growth.

This study sheds light on the less-explored domain of internal barriers to gender equality within Fiji. It adds a novel dimension to the understanding of how cultural norms intersect with individual perceptions to shape gender inequality.

This study investigates the impact of financial development, measured by the ratio of broad money to gross domestic products, on de jure central bank (CB) independence (CBI) in 17 countries in the Asia–Pacific region from 1995 to 2014.

This study uses the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach, which is suitable since the CBI equation suffers from contemporaneous correlation, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity.

The FGLS results suggest a positive association between CBI and financial market development (FMD). This relationship is confirmed when estimating different indicators of de jure CBI and adopting the panel-corrected standard error estimate. However, the statistical significance of FMD is not supported when the ratio of domestic credit to the private sector to GDP is measured.

It is significant to have a developed financial system to foster a better CBI. Moreover, it is important to measure the influence of financial market players on the operations of a CB.

The financial market in the Asia–Pacific has improved over the years. Hence, the results show the determinants of CBI in the Asia–Pacific, especially the role of FMD.

Drawing on affective events theory, the purpose of this paper was to investigate direct and indirect relationships between perceived organizational politics and workplace cyberbullying (WCB) perpetration mediated through anger, as well as to examine the moderating role of gender in these relationships.

The sample comprised 534 white-collar employees who were employed in a variety of service industries, including banking, higher education, telecommunications, health care and insurance in Islamabad, Pakistan. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique in Amos.

Results demonstrated that perceived organizational politics has a direct positive effect on WCB perpetration. Moreover, results indicated that perceived organizational politics evokes anger among employees that, in turn, triggers WCB perpetration. Results of a multigroup analysis revealed that the positive effect of perceived organizational politics on WCB perpetration was not significantly different between men and women. However, the positive relationship between perceived organizational politics and anger was significantly stronger for men than for women. Likewise, this study found a significantly stronger relationship for men than for women between anger and WCB perpetration. Anger partially mediated the relationship between perceived organizational politics and WCB perpetration only among men.

This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that perceived organizational politics triggers WCB perpetration directly and indirectly through its impact on anger. Moreover, this study identified gender differences in the experience and expression of anger in response to perceived organizational politics.

This article analyses the effect of bank concentration on women's political empowerment in 80 developing countries over the period 2004–2020.

Banking concentration (BC) is measured by the assets held by the three largest commercial banks as a percentage of total commercial bank assets in a country. We use several indices to measure political empowerment, namely: the political empowerment index, composed of three indices (i.e. the women's civil liberties index, the women's participation in civil society index and the women's political participation index). The empirical evidence is based on the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Fixed Effects (FE) techniques.

The following findings are established. Banking concentration reduces women's political empowerment. Furthermore, information sharing offices (i.e. public credit registries and private credit bureaus) mitigate the negative effect of bank concentration on women’s political empowerment. Information sharing thresholds that are needed to completely dampen the negative effect of bank concentration on women’s political empowerment are provided. Policy implications are discussed, notably: (1) that governments in developing countries increase competition by easing barriers to entry for potential banks, to facilitate the transition from confiscatory concentration to distributive concentration favorable to all stakeholders; and (2) information sharing offices should be consolidated beyond the established thresholds in order to completely crowd-out the unfavorable effect of bank concentration of women’s political empowerment.

The paper provides new empirical evidence that helps to advance the debate on the effects of banking concentration and information sharing in the banking sector on women's political empowerment in developing countries.

This study aims to investigate whether socially responsible businesses with corporate social expenditure are less prone to engaging in tax avoidance. The study also examines whether political connections moderate the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance.

The study uses ordinary least squares to analyse the panel data of all 30 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange covering 2012 to 2020. The study uses a set of alternative variables to check the robustness of the findings.

Confirming the corporate culture theory, the study findings indicate that the higher the firms’ CSR expenditure, the lower the tax avoidance. Contrarily, the moderating effect of political connection weakens the role of CSR in tax avoidance, implying that political relation makes the firms socially irresponsible. Besides, the findings document that firms with strong political connections are more likely to be tax aggressive by weakening the role of CSR. The findings imply that firms with weaker political connections are more socially responsible than firms with strong political ties.

The study provides the bank management and regulatory bodies valuable insights to take necessary actions so that they can easily monitor whether the banks follow their instructions regarding CSR and tax payments. As the politicians make the firm socially irresponsible, the regulatory bodies and bank management should not keep them or their relatives on the board.

The study contributes to the CSR and tax avoidance literature considering the moderating role of political connections in Bangladesh banking sector.

The study aims to attain insights into the role of destructive leadership and perceived organizational politics as catalysts for employee disengagement through the perspective of social identity theory. The research further considers employees’ defensive cognitions for a comprehensive understanding of these interrelated phenomena in the workplace.

In order to ascertain the pertinence and contextual relevance of the proposed framework, literary review was complemented by a survey-based study encompassing 114 full-time employees purposively selected from the six systemically important banks of Pakistan.

The findings accentuate the significance of destructive leadership in inducing withdrawal behaviours among employees directly and indirectly through continuance commitment. The results also underline perceptions of politics as a significant work environment impediment amplifying employees’ propensity to undergo psychological withdrawal.

The study contributes to strategic human resource management literature by offering an identity-based explanation for employees’ disengagement, considering Pakistan’s power-distant and collectivist orientation. The research further introduces an empirical novelty by postulating a total effect moderation model.

Perception of organizational politics is one of the key factors of the organization's performance. Based on the principles of Game Theory, this study aims to examine the impact of management's and employee's politics within an organization on the psychological and organizational stress levels of workers, followed by their task and contextual performance.

Following the non-probability convenience sampling technique, the data was collected from the managerial and non-managerial staff of public, private and semi-government services organizations in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Abbottabad and Karachi cities in Pakistan.

The structural analyses indicate that organizational politics is a major cause of stress among workers and has a significant positive impact on the psychological and organizational stress of workers. Moreover, both organizational politics and job stress hinder workers' performance.

The findings of the current research provide valuable insights into the management of firms about the destructive role of politics with a special focus on psychological and organizational stress, followed by job and contextual performance, particularly in the context of Pakistan. It also proposes strategies to counter this issue, improving worker's performance. Furthermore, the findings also suggest whether management or employees are more involved in organizational politics.