Search results

This paper explores how financial technology (FinTech) organisations address poverty-related challenges when providing digital financial services. Employing the conceptual foundation of the liability of poorness (i.e. literacy gaps, a scarcity mindset, intense non-business pressures and a lack of financial slack), this paper explores the innovative strategies that FinTechs use to address these liabilities and promote entrepreneurship.

The paper uses detailed case data collected from three FinTech organisations operating in one South Asian country.

FinTech organisations' innovative strategies reflect a combination of “high touch” (human) vs “low touch” (digital) solutions. All the organisations simplified internal systems or procedures to accommodate customers. The degree to which the three organisations adopted each of the identified strategies shows an emerging typology of FinTechs; that is, innovators with high digital interactions, a mix of digital-human interactions and high human interactions.

The paper develops a typology which categorises FinTech innovative strategies. The typology highlights strategies pro-poor FinTechs use and explains the types of entrepreneurial support innovative organisations provide for their customers. Both the typology and the innovative strategies contribute to enhanced financial inclusion and entrepreneurial promotion amongst the poor.

The originality of the paper comes from its focus on FinTechs' innovative pro-poor strategies. Existing studies typically address the technology-side of innovations. In contrast, this paper combines innovative strategies with the liability of poorness to identify issues associated with financial inclusion.

Introduction: In the context of Sri Lanka, this study compares how institutions and financial development (FD) affect economic growth (EG) and inclusive growth (IG).

Purpose: The well-structured administration and judicial system at the provincial level have been established against the socioeconomic vulnerabilities in the country for an extended period. Still, the country as a whole and provincial level is experiencing huge income and social inequality, though there are required provisions for enhancing the well-being of the people.

Methodology: The study consists of data from the nine provinces from 2013 to 2019. The analysis used the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model (D-SDM) to explore the spatial dependencies between the provinces. Two models were developed: the interaction of the financial service activities (FSA) and insurance, reinsurance, and pension (INPEN), representing the FD with the EG and IG with and without. The IG index was estimated by principal component analysis (PCA) using indicators of the four dimensions. The results indicated spatial dependency among FD’s interaction with EG when provincial tax (PROTAX) and provincial expenses (PROEXP) are the provincial institutions.

Findings: The IG model results showed the IG’s spatial dependency moderated by the FD and only the IG model between the provinces. PROEXP showed a significant positive spillover impact among provinces towards the IG.

Practical Implications: The finding inform economic policy making while identifying weaknesses in existing local governments. Attention must be given to how poverty can be reduced, enhancing the well-being of the people with the proper channelling of finance and government institutional mechanisms.

This study examines the role of technology as a driver of sustainable tourism perceptions among Generation Z.

The work considers the perspective of locals in Pakistan and uses a multi-method, multiphase embedded research design approach.

The research findings demonstrated that technology has a positive correlation with the environmental, socio-cultural and economic dimensions of sustainable tourism perception among Generation Z. Therefore, technology could be considered a dimension of sustainable tourism perception for locals, but perceptions differ significantly depending on the size of the city of the participant. The results of the experimental design phase that utilized picture stimuli demonstrated a linear relationship between technology and sustainability and enhanced their definition and implementation for developing countries.

This research diverges from most past research on these topics by focusing on Generation Z, for whom digital media and technology play a crucial role and for whom these technologies are positively correlated with sustainability and its overall perception. Implications for policies and practices for emerging country governments are provided.

Vietnam has repositioned itself from a war-torn country to a popular tourist destination. Although research on Vietnam tourism has grown in number, a macro analysis of national tourism governance and policies has largely been missing.

This synthesis paper offers a systemic analysis of Vietnam’s tourism accommodating intensified government intervention and dramatic market changes in recent decades. The authors offer a chronological analysis of tourism development along with the major political and economic turns of the country.

The patterns of tourism development reflect a compromise between centralization and decentralization of the governance system and a trade-off between economic and social objectives of development. Balancing these opposites, the internal strength of the domestic market and the resilience of communities and businesses become key assets for growth in circumstances where the socialist market economy continues to inform the current and future development of the industry.

Although the case of Vietnam is unique, the adaptive mechanism of the tourism industry highlighted in this paper offers a useful lesson for other developing countries. The research addresses tourism in the political economy in developing countries, which is valuable for researchers, policy analysts as well as practitioners in tourism.

The practical contribution of the study is derived from authors’ academic and industrial backgrounds. Findings from the study serve as a useful reference for those who embark on the study of tourism governance and policy-making in developing countries and problems associated with the economic transitional process. Those problems of the disparity between centralization and decentralization of the political system might not be only significant in Vietnam, but also prevail in developing countries. Thus, this study offers a point of departure for future empirical and comparative research on the kindship of tourism and political economy in a full scale.

The transitional economy as viewed through the tourism industry is prominently presented in the “evolutionary” approach to the transitional economy, which exhibits several unique features: the transition from a centrally planned (command) economy to a market economy and the manifestations of a socialist orientation in the modern economic management system (Vuong et al., 2019). While data from this study is mainly illustrative of the first point, the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, the second characteristic, the manifestation of a social orientation has only slightly been addressed and will need further elaboration in a future study. While Vietnam’s tourism positions itself in a socialist market-oriented economy might set a unique case, the study highlights the politics of tourism is shaped by the politico-economic system. The authors conclude that the adaptation of Vietnam tourism to a socialist market-orientated economy is better perceived as a social evolution achievement rather than a feature of capitalism.

The latest study on tourism governance (Bui et al., 2022) has outlined the evolution of the tourism administrative system and markets in the country; however, linkages of tourism to the broader political economic system have yet to be addressed. Addressing this gap, the authors carry out analysis of policies and governance from the insider’s viewpoint, when team members have been involved in numerous tourism planning and development projects, both on international and national scales. The practical experience along with thorough review of literature and statistical data contributes to shaping a fresh understanding of tourism in a transitional economy.

这篇综述对越南旅游业进行了系统分析, 包括近几十年来不断增强的政府干预以及巨大的市场变化。作者根据时间顺序分析了旅游业的发展以及该国的主要政治及经济的转变。此外, 政策文件的内容分析及旅游市场分析进一步说明了政治经济体系对旅游治理及政策的影响。

越南已将自己从一个饱受战争的国家重新定位成备受欢迎的旅游目的地。尽管对越南旅游业的研究不断增多, 但对国家旅游治理和政策的宏观分析却被之前的探究所忽略。此研究通过展示越南转型经济中的旅游治理模式连接了两个学科, 并且丰富了政治经济学和旅游学的文献。

旅游政策和市场分析反应了治理体系集权与分权之间的折中以及经济和社会发展目标之间的权衡。国内市场的内在优势以及社区及企业的韧性可以成为成长的关键资产来平衡这些对立面, 同时社会主义市场经济将继续影响产业的当前及未来的发展。因此我们的结论是, 越南旅游业适应社会主义市场经济应该被视为社会进化的成就, 而不是资本主义的特征。

考虑到一篇文章所能解决的问题有限, 作者无法就转型经济与中国进行比较研究。我们的研究为未来亚洲旅游与政治经济之间联系的实证和比较研究提供了一个出发点。

研究结果为发展中国家旅游治理和政策制定研究提供了有益的参考。

研究结果对于发展中国家旅游治理及政策制定研究具有重要参考意义。这项研究的成果对于发展中国家的旅游政策分析师, 特别是亚洲的研究人员来说很有价值。

当前的研究弥补了政治经济学中的一个研究不足, 即马克思主义学说及其与旅游业的对话。知识转移是本研究的一个亮点, 它源自对国家政治经济议程中的旅游治理的批判性分析。

Vietnam ha pasado de ser un país devastado por la guerra a convertirse en un popular destino turístico. Aunque la investigación sobre el turismo en Vietnam ha crecido en número, ha faltado en gran medida un macroanálisis de la gobernanza y las políticas turísticas nacionales. Nuestra investigación ha enriquecido la literatura tanto de la economía política como del turismo tendiendo un puente entre ambas disciplinas al presentar las pautas de la gobernanza del turismo en la economía de transición de Vietnam.

Este documento de síntesis ofrece un análisis sistemático del turismo de Vietnam que abarca la intensificación de la intervención gubernamental y los drásticos cambios del mercado en las últimas décadas. Los autores ofrecen un análisis cronológico del desarrollo del turismo junto con los principales giros políticos y económicos del país. Además, el análisis del contenido de los documentos políticos y el análisis del mercado turístico ilustran mejor las repercusiones de los sistemas político-económicos en la gobernanza y las políticas turísticas.

Las políticas turísticas y el análisis del mercado revelan un compromiso entre la centralización y la descentralización del sistema de gobernanza y un compromiso entre los objetivos económicos y sociales del desarrollo. Al equilibrar estos opuestos, la fuerza interna del mercado nacional y la resistencia de las comunidades y las empresas se convierten en activos clave para el crecimiento en unas circunstancias en las que la economía de mercado socialista sigue informando el desarrollo actual y futuro de la industria. Concluimos que la adaptación del turismo vietnamita a una economía socialista orientada al mercado se percibe mejor como un logro de la evolución social que como una característica del capitalismo.

Dentro del limitado abanico de cuestiones que podrían abordarse en un solo artículo, los autores no pueden establecer un estudio comparativo con China, en lo que respecta a la economía de transición. Nuestro estudio ofrece un punto de partida para futuras investigaciones empíricas y comparativas sobre la conexión entre turismo y economía política en Asia.

Las conclusiones del estudio sirven de referencia útil para quienes se embarcan en el estudio de la gobernanza y la formulación de políticas turísticas en los países en desarrollo.

Los resultados de la investigación son valiosos para los investigadores del sudeste asiático en particular y para los analistas de la política turística del mundo en desarrollo en general.

La presente investigación contribuye a un área poco investigada de la economía política, a saber, la doctrina marxista y su diálogo con el turismo. La transferencia de conocimientos es un aspecto destacado de esta investigación, que se ha derivado de un análisis crítico de la gobernanza del turismo en la agenda económica política nacional.

With the recognition that generating economic growth is not the same as sustaining it, the challenge to catch-up and growth literature is discerning between these processes. Recent research suggests that the decline in the frequency of “shrinking” episodes is more important for long-term development than higher growth rates. By using a framework centred around social capabilities, this study aims to investigate the effects of income inequality and poverty on economic shrinking frequency, as opposed to previous literature that has exclusively had a growth focus. The aim is to investigate how and why some societies might be more resilient to economic shrinking.

The research is a quantitative study, and the authors build a longitudinal data set including 23 developing countries throughout 42 years to test the paper’s purpose. This study uses country and period fixed-effects specifications as well as cross-sectional graphical representations to investigate the relationship between proxies of economic inclusivity and the frequency of shrinking episodes.

The authors demonstrate that while inclusive societies are more resilient to shrinking overall, it is changes in poverty levels, but not changes in income inequality, that appear to be correlated with economic shrinking frequency. Inequality, while still an important element to explain countries’ growth potential as an initial condition, does not seem to make the sample more resilient to shrinking. The authors conclude that the mechanisms in which poverty and inequality are correlated with the catch-up process must run through different channels. Ultimately, processes that explain growth may intersect but not always overlap with the ones that explain resilience to shrinking.

The need for inclusive growth in long-term development has been championed for decades, yet inclusion has seldom been explored from the shrinking perspective. Though poverty reduction is already an important mainstream political objective, this paper differentiates itself by providing an alternate viewpoint of why this is important. Income inequality could have more of an economic growth limiting effect, while poverty reduction could be required to build resilience to economic shrinking. Developing countries will need both growth and resilience to shrinking, to catch-up with higher-income economies, which policymakers might need to balance carefully.

This study aims to present the current state of published literature concerning halal tourism and hospitality studies.

This research discovered 314 Scopus documents from 2003 until 2023 regarding existing studies related to this field. The present study then used a bibliometric analysis of this data set. The present research analysed the documents' bibliographical data based on year, source title, country of origin, institution, authors, keywords and citations. Microsoft Excel, bibliometrix, Harzing's Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software applications were used to conduct a frequency analysis, evaluate the impact and map bibliometric networks regarding halal hospitality. This study has presented the evolution of publications in the research field by year, the top players in source titles, countries, institutions and authors. This paper also evaluated the intellectual structure of existing research concerning halal tourism and hospitality and presented the most influential documents in this field. There were 112.21 citations per year, 7.21 per paper and 3.14 authors per paper.

The findings revealed that the study trend concerning halal tourism and hospitality had attracted the attention of academics and developed into a significant field in 2016. Malaysia and Indonesia have been the major contributors to halal hospitality research, with the highest proportion of authors.

In general, this study also has limitations similar to other studies. The research data were derived solely from the Scopus database, which has the advantage of being the most comprehensive database indexing all scientific works, even though it does not easily cover all available sources.

The present research has differed from previous research in that it examined literature published in Scopus concerning research on halal hospitality from 2003 to 2022. It analysed bibliographic data by year, source title, country, institution, author, keywords and citations.

Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how different accountability practices might be observed in the annual reports of non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh. The study further aims to understand whether such accountability disclosures support NGO legitimacy in Bangladesh and if so, in what form.

To fulfil this objective, a content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of 24 selected leading NGOs operating in Bangladesh. The data were then analysed through the not-for-profit accountability framework of Dhanani and Connolly (2012). Theoretical constructs of legitimacy were further mobilised to corroborate the evidence.

It was found that NGOs operating in Bangladesh discharged all four types of accountability, i.e., strategic, fiduciary, financial and procedural (Dhanani and Connolly, 2012) through annual reports. The findings further suggested that carrying out these accountabilities supported the legitimation process of NGOs. Moreover, we found that NGOs took care of the needs of both primary and secondary stakeholders although they widely used self-laudatory positively charged words to disclose information about their accountabilities.

The study contributes to the limited accounting research on the public disclosures of NGOs and not-for-profit firms particularly in emerging economy settings. Also, we contribute to the limited research on the accountability-legitimacy link of NGOs evident in public disclosures like annual reports.

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.