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This paper aims to use Q methodology to investigate Millennial perceptions toward private label or national brand apparel.

Q methodology was chosen to identify factors, which correspond to patterns of perceptions prevalent among Millennials. Participants were supplied with 14 statements that they sorted into two Q sorts – One representing perceptions of private label and the other representing perceptions of national brands. The Q sorts were completed through Qualtrics and participants answered open-ended questions on the placement of each statement within each Q sort.

Two factors emerged on private labels, highlighting patterns in price consciousness and uniqueness (acknowledged as patterns surrounding the desire for particular apparel characteristics). Three factors arose for national brand apparel, emphasizing the need for national brands to provide consumers with product security, quality and uniqueness (as identified through the unpreferred qualities national brands typically exhibit).

This study illustrates the various viewpoints retailers must consider when marketing apparel to a specific target demographic. In addition, a single perception (uniqueness) was found to connect motivations, which led to the development of a model for future inquiry.

Despite complete Q sorts and qualitative statements, participants' unfamiliarity with Q methodology and the sorting action of statements could be considered a limitation. The use of MTurk is also considered a limitation owing to the anonymity and possible deception of the workforce.

Private label brand personality growth has many retailers expanding their brand portfolios. Based on the findings of this study, specific opportunities are highlighted for the expansion and marketing of private labels and brand labels based on specific perceptions of a broad Millennial cohort.

Demand for private investment in infrastructure, notably in the power sector remains high, and this is anticipated to expand with the passage of time. Very little research currently exists on the power sector and specifically the private sector influencing factors (PSIFs) for entering into public–private partnerships (PPPs). The purpose of this study is to explore influencing factors for private sector participation in PPP power projects in Ghana.

Using purposive and snowball sampling techniques, questionnaires were used to gather responses from experts in the PPP power sector domain in a two-round Delphi survey. Reliability analysis was conducted using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and level of agreement tested using Kendall’s concordance. Mean score ranking, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square test were the main analysis conducted on the influencing factors.

The most significant PSIFs were: obtaining of investment support; improvement in private sector’s international image; synergy with public sector; sharing of risks; and gaining of profits. From ANOVA results, all the influencing factors had no significant different perception between the number of years in PPP practice and the motivations for the private sector entering into PPP power projects. Using Chi-square, the association between the variables indicated they were statistically significant.

The findings in this study are significant for multinational power generation firms that seek to enter the Ghanaian energy sector to help fill the generation gap and deficit.

The output of this research contributes to the checklist of influencing factors for private sector participation in PPP power projects and enhances the development of PPP practice.

To understand how organizations, public or private, must increase their productivity perception (PP), independently of the sector. This article aims to analyze PP in the digital transformation (DT) process to determine how it is affected by technostress (TS) and work engagement (WE), two concepts that seem to be forces opposing PP.

The authors use data from a questionnaire addressed to personnel in two organizations (public and private). The analysis applies partial least squares technique to the 505 valid responses obtained from these organizations. This analysis is based not on representativeness but on uniqueness.

The results suggest a positive, significant relationship between DT and PP. This article integrates DT and its effects on aspects of people's health, PP and WE. The model thus includes interactions of technology with human elements. In both business and administrative environments, PP is key to optimizing resources and survival of organizations.

DT processes are different and complex because every organization is different. The authors recommend expanding this study to other sectors in both spheres, public and private. Aligning the objectives of the institutions for aid with DT is also quite complicated.

This study contributes to improving participating organizations. It also provides government institutions with a clear foundation from which to encourage actions that promote the health and WE of their workforce without reducing productivity. In addition, this study adds novelty to the research line.

The authors have deepened this line of research by developing fuller knowledge of the relationships among novel and necessary variables in organizations. The authors provide complementary, different and inspiring value in addressing this line of research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of consumers’ moral preferences between moral and economic benefits and consumers’ moral and rational behaviour intentions based on moral decision-making models of previous studies.

Respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire measuring moral and economic benefits, consumers’ moral preferences and moral and rational behaviour intention after reading a stimulus describing imaginary fashion brand A’s unethical activities.

Moral and economic benefits directly and significantly affect moral and rational behaviour intention. Homo economicus evoked by an economic benefit had a negative effect on moral behaviour intention.

This study focused only on a moral benefit and an economic benefit as factors evoking consumers’ moral preferences. This study was also conducted only in a Korean context and considered a specific industry. In future research, the results of this study should be extended to design the “possibility of punishment” to encourage moral behaviour by discouraging the effect of homo economicus. The results have implications for companies such as social enterprises and charities that want to promote consumers’ moral behaviour.

This study provides evidence on why ethical consumers do not always make ethical decisions by confirming that homo economicus has a significant influence on not only rational behaviour intention but also moral behaviour intention.

Collaborative projects require overlapping skills and capabilities to facilitate knowledge transfer. However, not all kinds of learning are virtuous and some may lead to leakage of commercially valuable knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to explain and restrain leakage of organizational competitive knowledge in collaborative projects.

A total of 398 survey questionnaires are collected from project-based firms in Pakistan. We gathered data from horizontal and vertical collaborations. Analysis is conducted with transaction cost economics lens through Process Macro 3.0.

Findings suggest that partner’s learning intent (PLI) and distrust positively affect knowledge leakage, whereas human resource management (HRM) practices have negative effect on knowledge leakage. Furthermore, HRM practices negatively moderate the relationship between PLI and knowledge leakage and distrust positively mediates it.

This study integrates HRM with knowledge management to restrain knowledge leakage and contributes to knowledge management and strategic management. This study examines knowledge leakage in the presence of passive opportunism.

This study explains how passive opportunism translates into opportunistic behavior. Besides, effectiveness of HRM practices are least surveyed to restrain passive and active opportunisms.

Despite the widespread prevalence of share pledging by Indian promoters, this area remains out of the researchers’ purview. This study aims to bridge this research gap by delineating the impact of promoter share pledging on future stock price crash risk and financial performance in India.

A sample of 257 companies listed on the Standard and Poor’s Bombay Stock Exchange 500 (S&P BSE 500) Index has been analysed using panel (fixed-effects) data regression methodology over 2011–2020. Further, alternative proxies for crash risk and financial performance are adopted to ensure that the study’s initial findings are robust. Finally, the instrumental variable with the two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) method has also been employed to alleviate endogeneity concerns.

The results suggest a significantly positive relationship between promoter share pledging and future stock price crash risk in India. Conversely, this association is significantly negative for future financial performance. Moreover, the results hold, even after including alternative proxies of stock price crash risk and financial performance and addressing endogeneity concerns.

Owing to the sizeable equity shareholdings of the promoters, share pledging has remained a lucrative source of finance in India. Despite the popularity, the findings of this study question the relevance of share pledging by Indian promoters considering its impact on aggravating future stock price crash risk and deteriorating future financial performance.

This study aims to investigate the influence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) on the relationship between internal cash flow and external financing in an emerging market, Saudi Arabia. It also examines the role of asset tangibility and financial crisis in establishing this relationship.

The sample was taken from non-financial sector companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange between 2002 and 2019. The data were analyzed using panel data regression analysis, including ordinary least squares and fixed effects model. The author addresses potential endogeneity through the generalized method of moments.

This study found that both EPU and GPR reduce the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow. This implies that firms depend more on internally generated funds during periods of increased EPU and GPR. Besides, this study found that the influence of EPU and GPR on the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow is more (less) negative for more tangible firms (during the financial crisis period). This result implies that Saudi firms boasting a higher level of tangibility are more flexible when it comes to seeking external financing. However, the presence of uncertainty during the crisis period makes the external financing costly, and therefore, firms will be less likely to raise funds from external sources.

This study has important implications for managers, policymakers and regulators. First, the paper findings provide insights for corporate decision-makers in helping them to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during uncertain times. Second, the findings help managers to understand the role of asset tangibility in raising external funding when firms face financial constraints due to uncertainty. Third, this study also helps corporates to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during the crisis period because EPU and GPR increase the cost of external finance. Finally, the results provide guidelines for policymakers and regulators to make appropriate policy measures to increase the easy availability of external finance during periods of increased EPU and GPR.

This paper is the first to shed light on the impact of internal funds on external financing while paying close attention to the role of EPU and GPR.

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.