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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the financing behavior of Romanian listed firms with regard to their tendency to exhibit herding behavior, more specifically to follow the mean capital structure of the sector they belong to.

A panel data model was employed to examine the herding financing behavior of Romanian listed firms over the period 2007–2014. The dependent variable of the model is firms’ debt ratio (DR) and the independent variables are: the first lag of the mean DR in each sector of the analysis, firm-specific characteristics and the average characteristics of the firms from the sector they belong to.

The results of the study indicate that Romanian listed firms have a herding behavior and try to reach the mean DR of the sector they belong to, moving away from the optimal capital structure that maximizes firms’ value. In addition, the results of the model estimation suggest that Romanian firms’ capital structure depends on both firms’ characteristics (i.e. profitability, firm size and asset tangibility) and the average characteristics of the firms from the same sector they belong to (i.e. average profitability and average size).

Acting with the herd determines firms to move away from the optimal capital structure and to miss in this way the maximization of the firm value. Consequently, it is in managers’ best interest to avoid herding behavior and try to act rationally when they decide firms’ financing sources.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study in the literature that finds support for the herding financing behavior in an Eastern European country.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the corporate capital structure stability of listed firms in China during the period 1990–2013.

The study uses panel data from a sample of 716 firms that have been listed in China for at least 15 years. A fixed-effects panel data regression model with time effects is used in the estimation.

The findings show that size, profitability and investment opportunities have a significant influence on capital structure, whereas the tangibility of assets is not found to be significant. Few industries show significance in explaining differences and variation in leverage ratios.

It is recommended by this study that corporate managers of listed firms in China should consider leverage ratios variation while choosing the capital structure.

This study can be helpful in assisting companies to make financing decisions and setting up strategies relevant in their growth and profitability. The study will also have a significant assistance to bring to light corporate issues to policy makers, especially in the areas of both equity and debt financing, particularly the bond market. To the society, this study will show the nature of Chinese-listed companies, and it can assist individual investors in making decisions regarding companies in which they hold investments and in making meaningful comparisons with other companies. The paper also aims at contributing to the existing literature on the empirical study on capital structure.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000) – which is considered the most important ethical certification standard – and firm performance, building on agency and contingency theories.

The authors analyse secondary longitudinal balance sheet data of listed firms employing a rigorous event-study approach and compare SA8000-certified companies to different control groups based on three matching criteria, i.e., industry, size, and pre-certification performance. The authors then study the moderating effects of the cultural features, the country’s development level, and the labour intensity on the causal relationship through multiple regression methods.

The authors find that SA8000 certification positively affects labour productivity and sales performance but has no effect on profitability. Furthermore, the study supports that the relationship between SA8000 and profitability is moderated by two cultural features of the home country of the firms (i.e. power distance and uncertainty avoidance).

This is the first study, which empirically tests the effects of the ethical certification SA8000 on firm performance using a cross-country sample. In addition, the authors contribute to the wider debate on the effects of corporate social responsibility practices on firm performance.

This study aims to examine the impact of intangible investment on non-financial performance. This study also examines the moderating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on this relationship.

This study extracted data from annual reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2012 to 2020. This study used the generalized method of moment for testing research.

This study finds that intangible investment positively affects non-financial performance and the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened this positive effect.

A small sample size is one of the limitations of this study. Furthermore, because of the lack of data in Egypt, the analysis does not include other measures of intangible investment. Finally, the sectoral analysis does not include all sectors because of the lack of observations in some sectors.

This study offers practical and social implications. It would help policymakers, regulators and shareholders to realize the importance of the intangible investment and also shed light on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also offers managerial implications. It motivates managers to invest more in intangible investment as an important resource to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, enhance the internal operating performance and improve learning and growth, which result in creating sustainable competitive advantage.

This study provides new empirical evidence on the impact of intangible investment on different dimensions of non-financial performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper offers the first empirical evidence on the moderating role of the COVID-19 pandemic in the relationship between intangible investment and non-financial performance.

This paper aims to empirically investigate the moderating role of corporate governance (CG) in the capital structure-performance relationship.

The analysis is based on top Business Today-500 companies and covers a time span of 10 years. The fixed effect panel regression model is used to examine the impact of CG mechanisms on the relationship between capital structure and firm performance.

The core findings of the study indicate significant positive moderating role of board independence, board size and family ownership on the relationship between leverage and performance.

The results enable the managers of Indian firms to comprehend the significance of CG framework while taking financing decisions. The findings encourage managers to raise debt funds in those firms that adhere to good governance norms.

Unlike extant studies that emphasize on the moderating impact of single CG variable in leverage-performance relationship, the current work comprehensively examines the role of many CG factors that moderate the relationship between capital structure and firm performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first of its kind with respect to India.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between leverage and firm’s performance in Malaysia by framing the relationship under the tradeoff theory and agency cost theory.

Based on insights drawn from the existing literature, we opted for fixed effects and system two-steps GMM models to establish the hypothesized relationship between leverage and performance. We analyzed 528 nonfinancial firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia Stock exchange for the period of 12 years (2005–2016).

The outcomes show that the leverage ratio improves the firm performance, consistent with leverage serving as an effective strategy in constraining managers from building their personal empire, revealing a proportionately greater benefit for Malaysian firms than the cost to debt financing. The authors also find that a positive relationship between leverage and firm performance switch to the negative when the level of leverage reaches beyond the optimal level. Consequently, switching from positive to negative indicates that debt has a twofold (nonlinear) impact on firm performance.

Our research provides several implications to potential stakeholders. For investors, firms having lower leverage ratios could achieve superior performance, thus investing in corporations pursuing higher performance. Managers should therefore strive for achieving higher performance to meet the needs of investors and shareholders. From the researcher’s perspective, our research suggests the need to go away from the searching linear association between leverage and firm performance and the relevance of nonlinear correlation. Moreover, our research can help managers to understand how their lender relates to their debt to assets ratios. Thus, they can design an optimal level of leverage that not only improves the firm’s performance but also reduce the associated costs.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the initial attempt in the context of Malaysia that documents evidence indicating that the lower leverage is likely to create value for shareholders while a higher debt ratio reduces firm profitability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal effect of intellectual capital (IC) performance on financial performance at Thai listed banks.

Data are collected from 16 listed banks in Thailand for the period 1997–2016. This paper uses the value-added intellectual coefficient methodology suggested by Pulic (1998, 2004) to measure IC. This study employs a fixed-effects and random-effects model and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator to investigate the causal effect of IC on financial performance.

The results show that bank profitability is driven mainly by capital employed efficiency to make a profit. However, human capital efficiency marginally reduces bank profitability in the current period but has positive effects on future profitability.

First, this study does not cover data on foreign banks, which reduces the generalizability of the results. Second, financial statements can be manipulated through accounting adjustments. Lastly, subsequent research should control for more bank characteristics, such as bank ownership, the non-performing loan ratio and R&D expenditure.

To achieve higher future profitability, banks should not only manage their physical and financial capital effectively but also improve employee efficiency.

This paper contributes to the literature on IC in the banking sector in emerging countries. Moreover, this paper is the first to employ the GMM method in the banking context to address possible endogeneity problems.

This paper aims to examine the effect of dividend policy on firm value for financial sector in an emerging country. Furthermore, it examines the moderating effect of IFRS adoption and the abolishment of mandatory dividend payment policy with considering the Lintner model of dividend smoothing.

Data were collected from 111 firms listed on Borsa Istanbul in the financial sector in Turkey over 1995–2017. Using an explanatory research design, this study performs various multivariate regression techniques to investigate the proposed relationships.

The outcomes demonstrate a positive and significant association between dividend policy and firm value. In addition, the relationship has strengthened after IFRS adoption, indicating that accounting information such as dividend-based ratios prepared under IFRS is more value relevant. The empirical outcomes supported the Lintner model, which is persistent with the signalling hypothesis. Moreover, the findings state that the abolishment of mandatory dividend payment in 2009 strengthened the association between dividend policy and firm value for financial institutions in Turkey.

These results provide an insight to the investors and managers that the effect of IFRS adoption and other policy changes could be greater on the association between dividend policy and firm value. The study empirically tests Lintner model of dividend smoothing for financial firms in an emerging economy.

This study contributes to the literature through providing vital insights on the relationship between dividend policy and firm value and empirically revisiting the Lintner model for financial sector in a developing economy, specifically Turkey. Furthermore, it addresses the influence of IFRS implementation on the association between dividend policy and firm value. These findings are robust to alternative sampling methods and to controlling for other factors which influence firm value.

The purpose of this study is to deconstruct the term “tribalism” for its application to foster context and industry-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication system in Nigeria.

This research used both the qualitative and quantitative research methods of data collection; it is an in-depth survey with multiple data collection settings.

(1) There is a pattern of CSR communication across the three industries sampled. (2) CSR across three industrial sectors is much about “donation” and “gift”. (3) CSR functions are now in a stand-alone corporate communication department. (4) CSR communication lacks the participatory mechanism to really involve the host communities' concerns. (5) Across the four organizations, CSR communication is often as financial or annual reports. (6) There is a general feeling and understanding that CSR and corporate communication in corporate organizations in n Nigeria require a more participatory mechanism. (7) CSR policy in Nigeria is till much of legal enforcement and efforts to have a national CSR commission has gone beyond legislation process.

This research was only able to collect data from four selected organizations representing just three industrial sectors (freight-forward, banking/finance and insurance) in Nigeria. There was no external funding to capture more organizations.

The first implication of the findings of this study is that, for the practice of CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria, the system is much a top-down and non-participatory. This means host communities and other stakeholders do not have considerable participation in the organization's CSR and communication process. The companies in this study select or budget for CSR interventions they consider valuable to communities in most cases. This pattern of CSR operation cuts across the four selected organizations in this study. Thus, it could be argued that this pattern is an industrial/national phenomenon because all the respondents indicated that their organizations operate CSR based on what other related companies do in Nigeria. Second, the fact that CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria are regulatory influenced means many organizations may try to evade CSR activities by not budgeting for it.

Meanwhile, in this study, deconstructing the evolutionary perspective which sees tribe as a primitive form of organization and relation characterized by the absence of a centralized collaborative system, it is argued that tribalism can catalyze systemic participation and oneness. In line with this perspective, tribal corporate organizations in Nigeria would model an alliance for CSR and communication system on proximity of operational context, that is, Nigeria. Being part of a tribe, corporate organizations as against the public ones will represent an identity reference for social corporate communication in Nigeria.

Despite the theoretical problematic issues raised by the notion of tribe, it is deconstructed in this study to define modes of social organization, and it reflects native perceptions of a changing collective identity. Thus, it is also argued in this study, that there will be an increase in works on tribalism in organization communication and CSR in Nigeria as emerging business and global market will continue to shape the operation environment.