Search results

This bibliometric analysis underscores the increasing importance of corporate sustainability in the post-COVID-19 era. Despite existing confusion and a dearth of studies on measuring corporate sustainability, the study identifies a significant methodological gap and endeavors to address it by proposing a comprehensive measure. The primary goal is to bridge this gap by conducting a bibliometric analysis on the scale of corporate sustainability, examining 126 documents spanning from 2001 to 2022. The study employs an expert opinion survey to identify and finalize dimensions and sub-dimensions of corporate sustainability, followed by a literature mapping process to formulate questionnaire items. A pilot survey is then conducted to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire. The study proposes utilizing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) index construction methodology to establish the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI). The key findings reveal that corporate sustainability comprises economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Environmental sustainability encompasses aspects such as air, water, land, biodiversity, ocean preservation, waste prevention, and environmental management. Social sustainability involves the satisfaction of various stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, customers, community, government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and suppliers. Economic sustainability is characterized by long-term profits, cost efficiency, trade-offs, sustainable investments, and spin-offs. Rooted in stakeholder theory, the proposed scale holds theoretical significance for researchers and is pertinent to policymakers striving to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Additionally, it serves as a crucial tool for practitioners and companies to assess their level of corporate sustainability.

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of oil prices, political instability and changes in stability on the bank diversification of the two types of banking systems in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries.

The study uses bank diversification, stability measurement of probability of default and Zscore by adopting the generalised method of moment for the data between 2007 and 2021. The authors estimate short- and long-run dynamic panel analysis and a robustness test.

The findings reveal that Islamic banks are slightly lower in diversification and stability than conventional peers in the region. Diversification increases with a positive increase in GDP growth, law and order, political stability, bank size, asset quality, oil price, return on equity, profitability and change in banking asset-based stability. The authors found consistency in the two stability measurements in both short- and long-run situations.

Despite the change in banking stability and economic growth and oil prices improved diversification, banks in the region are not diversifying during the crisis period and political instability. Therefore, policymakers should improve mechanisms to monitor the crisis and political unrest to avoid the systemic risk that adversely affects the system through macro-financial linkages in the region.

This study uses change dual stability measurements and oil prices to predict MENA region bank diversification. The authors extended the banking literature by estimating the relationship between crisis periods, political and banking stability, oil prices and other institutional indicators of banking diversification. This study uncovers the effect of the global crisis period on banking diversification and the impact of banking stability changes and validates the models through robustness tests.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal competition or cooperation decision between technology service platforms and governments in the context of fierce competition within urban agglomerations.

Based on the cooperation and competition game model, this study builds a two-level model for government and technology service platforms considering three cases: perfect competition, platform cooperation and government-led cooperation.

By analyzing the optimal strategies of the government and a platform in three cases, the research shows that choosing appropriate cooperation in a competitive situation is beneficial to both the government and the platform. Government-led cooperation is conducive to increasing social welfare. From the perspective of the platforms, if they actively seek cooperation, they can obtain higher subsidies and profits. The more intense the competition is, the higher the profits and social welfare generated from the platforms' active cooperation.

The contribution of this study relates to the development of technology service platforms in urban agglomerations. As local governments and platforms continuously undertake decision-making processes, this study constructs quantitative models to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of competition and cooperation. It is worth noting that relying on government subsidies to maintain the sustainable development of technology service platforms is not a long-term solution. Government subsidies play a vital role in the initial development of technology service platforms. The analysis results are in line with Guo et al. (2016), Jung and Feng (2020) and Li (2021) conclusions. Furthermore, long-term government subsidies will make platforms dependent on these subsidies. These are the contributions to the scientific literature.

Instead of focusing on vertical relationships, this study emphasizes the horizontal cooperation and competition relationship between platforms and local governments in an urban agglomeration. Thus, the vertical effects of government subsidies on platforms can be investigated. Another innovation is the social welfare policy goal, which is an important index for the development of urban agglomerations.