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The relevance of finance for strategy is probably never greater than during a recession. We argue that the strategy literature has been virtually silent on the issue of recessions, and that this constitutes a regrettable sin of omission. Recessions are also periods when the commonly held view of financial markets in the strategy literature – efficient, and therefore strategically irrelevant – is particularly misplaced. A key route to rectify this omission is to focus on how recessions affect investment behavior, and thereby firms’ stocks of assets and capabilities which ultimately will affect competitive outcomes. In the present chapter, we aim to contribute by analyzing how two key aspects of recessions, demand reductions and reductions in credit availability, affect three different types of investments: physical capital, R&D and innovation, and human- and organizational capital. We synthesize and conceptualize insights from finance- and macroeconomics about how recessions affect different types of investments and find that recessions not only affect the level of investment, but also the composition of investments. Some of these effects are quite counterintuitive. For example, investments in R&D are both more and less sensitive to credit constraints than physical capital is, depending on available internal finance. Investments in human capital grow as demand falls, and both R&D and human capital investments show important nonlinearities with respect to changes in demand.

This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming, powder metallurgy and composite material processing are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on these subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE researchers/users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for 1994‐1996, where 1,370 references are listed. This bibliography is an updating of the paper written by Brannberg and Mackerle which has been published in Engineering Computations, Vol. 11 No. 5, 1994, pp. 413‐55.

In smart cities pervasive systems are deployed by enterprises and stakeholders in municipalities to provide digital services to citizens. But cities are faced with the challenge of achieving system pluggability, mainly service integration due to numerous actors and systems needed for smart urban transformation. Hence, there is need to employ a comprehensive and holistic approach to help achieve service integration of pervasive platforms. Therefore, this study presents an Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) to support smart urban transformation.

In this study the design science research methodology is adopted based on a multi-case studies of two organizations and data is collected using semi-structured interview from an organizations and municipality in Norway to validate how service integration can be achieved by the developed EAF to address pluggability challenges faced in urban environment.

Findings suggest that the presented EAF provides the structure to manage changes and maintain urban transformation and aims to align the business with the underlying information systems from the perspective of the stakeholders. Additionally, findings from the case studies modelled in ArchiMate language depict how service integration of different pervasive platforms provide digital services for smart urban transformation.

This research only employed semi-structured interviews to validate service integration of digital platforms, other identified dimensions of pluggability were not fully addressed in this study.

Findings from the case studies provides insights on how pervasive platforms can be integrated to achieve a pluggable digital service from different stakeholders and data sources in practice. The developed EAF presented in this study provide a model that supports collection and exchange of data from different data sources in smart urban environment to enable the provision and consumption of digital services.

The developed EAF aids system pluggability of actors and systems in providing digital service such as smart urban transformation that contributes to sustainable use of electric mobility in cities.

As cities increasingly deploy pervasive platforms to support urban innovation, researchers are seeking to explore how these platforms shape urban transformation. Presently, prior studies do not offer important insights into pervasive platform management from urban perspective. Against this backdrop, this study employs the information systems perspective of digital platforms literature roots in software development and physical product development to depict how the EAF can be employed to describe specific cases that integrate different pervasive platforms deployed by different stakeholders communicating to co-create collective digital services to citizens.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between working capital management and corporate performance with financial constraints.

This study uses large panel sample of Chinese listed firms over the period 2005–2015 using system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator that controls unobserved heterogeneity of individual firms well and GMM methodology is robust to address endogeneity issues.

Empirical evidence finds inverted U-shaped relationship between working capital and corporate performance and exhibits similar evidence for financially constrained firms. Evidence shows impact of high sales and discounts on early payments at low level of working capital and dominance of opportunity cost and cost of external finance at high level of working capital. The findings of the results show that optimal working capital level of financially constrained firms is relatively lower due to high cost of external capital and debt rationing. The results also indicate that on average NET is significantly lower for firms with Tobin’s Q>1 than firms with Tobin’s Q=1, and suggest that aggressive working capital management is significantly and positively associated with higher corporate values.

This paper is among few that complement the existing literature by providing evidence that inverted U-shaped relationship between working capital management and corporate performance also exists in the context of Chinese listed non-financial firms. Exclusively, the relationship of working capital and corporate performance with linkage of financial constraints is scant in the context of Chinese listed non-financial firms.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is usually adopted as an approach for managing enterprise complexities and aligning business and information technology (IT) capabilities. Although IT practitioners and researchers agree about the potential applicability and benefits of EA in smart cities, little is known about the factors that influence the acceptance and usefulness of EA in smart cities. Thus, EA acceptance and usage remains a central concern of urban research and practice. Similarly, there are fewer studies that explored EA adoption from the context of enterprises that provide digital services in cities grounded on empirical evidence. Therefore, this study assesses the acceptance and usefulness of EA in smart cities context by developing an EA adoption model drawing on the DeLone and McLean Information System (IS) success model.

Based on the identified factors survey questionnaire was designed and sent out to participants which includes IT professionals, senior managers and consultants from 18 organizations in Norway and Ireland involved in a smart city project (+CityxChange) (https://cityxchange.eu/). Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and structural equation modelling using partial least square was applied for data analysis.

The results suggest that service quality and system quality positively impact user satisfaction of EA and user's intention to use EA. More importantly, information quality does not influence user satisfaction of EA, and the user satisfaction of EA and user's intention to use EA significantly influences the net benefit of EA.

This study provides a complete understanding for academicians and IT practitioners regarding the factors and impacts on EA acceptance and use in smart cities. Finally, this study discusses the implications of this research and provides recommendations for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on trade receivables and trade payables by examining the determinants of net trade credit.

To do that, a sample of 67,047 firms in the UK with 443,190 firm year observations is used.

The results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity and industry effects. The evidence suggests that firms with more inventories, market share and are financially distressed invest less in trade credit. Moreover, higher operating cash flow, annual sales growth, export propensity, access to bank credit and larger firms lead to higher investment in trade credit.

Additionally, the paper broadens the scope of the literature by analysing the determinants of net trade credit around the financial crisis and industry competitiveness.

Smart city services are supported by information and communication technologies (ICT) referred to as digital technologies which increasingly promise huge opportunities for growth but are faced with system alignment and data integration issues when providing digital services. Therefore, this study aims to use enterprise architecture (EA) in digital transformation of cities by developing an architecture to address system alignment and data integration in digital transformation of cities.

Qualitative method is applied to evaluate the presented architecture based on electric-mobility (e-mobility) scenario, and data was collected using case study via interviews from a municipality in Norway to validate the applicability of EA for digital transformation of city services.

Findings from the interviews were represented in ArchiMate language to model the digital transformation of e-mobility in smart cities. Findings suggest that the architecture serves as a guide to recommend urban administrators of the potential of EA and digital transformation in addressing system alignment and data integration issues in smart cities.

Data used in this study is from a single case, hence there is a need to evaluate the application of EA for digital transformation of city services with data collected from multi-cases.

This study adopts enterprise architecture approach to support city transformation as it has been widely applied by institutions to align business and ICT components.

This study provides implication on how municipalities can use EA and digital transformations towards a sustainable smart city.

An architecture is presented that can be used as a guide to help urban developers and designers in deploying sustainable transport policies for smart cities. Additionally, EA is used to foster digitalization towards achieving system alignment and data integration in cities to support urban environment as they digitally transform services provided to citizens.

Existing studies that documented the effect of financial distress on trade credit provisions did not include measures financial constraint. It is possible that financial distress is tie to financial constraints, and both financial distress and financial constraints mutually reinforce each other in their effects on trade credit provision. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of financial constraint and financial distress on trade credit provisions in the UK FTSE 350 listed firms.

This study employs panel data in the estimation of the determinants of accounts payables and accounts receivables of the UK FTSE 350 firms from 2009 to 2017.

This study finds that financial distress has significant positive effect on accounts payables and a significant negative effect on accounts receivables. Financial constraints have significant negative effect on accounts payables and a significant positive effect on accounts receivables.

Trade creditor desiring to maintain an enduring product-market relationship grant more concessions to customer in financial distress. The amount of trade credit that sellers provide to financially constrained firm is an increasing function of the buyer's creditworthiness. The urgent cash needs of financially distressed firms lead them to sell trade receivables to factoring company leading to reduction in trade receivables. Firm facing external financing constraints increase trade credit to customers in anticipation of cash flow inflow to enhance liquidity.

This study shows that financial distress and financial constraints mutually reinforce each other in their effects on trade credit provisions, and firm's financing condition contributes to divergence in trade credit policies.

Purpose: In reality, financial decisions are made under conditions of asymmetric information that results in either favorable or adverse selection. As far as financial decisions affect growth of the firm, the latter must also be affected by either favorable or adverse selection. Therefore, the core objective of this chapter is to examine the determinants of each financial decision and the effects on growth of the firm under conditions of information asymmetry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter uses data for the non-financial firms listed in S&P 500. The data cover quarterly periods from 1989 to 2014. The statistical tests include linearity, fixed, and random effects and normality. The generalized method of moments estimation method is employed in order to examine the relative significance and contribution of each financial decision on growth of the firm, respectively. Standard and proposed proxies of information asymmetry are discussed.

Findings: The results conclude that there is a variation in the impact of financial variables on growth of the firm at high and low levels of information asymmetry especially regarding investment and financing decisions. A similar picture emerges in the cases of firm size and industry effects. In addition, corporate dividen d policy has a similar effect on firm growth across all asymmetric levels. These findings prove that information asymmetry plays a vital role in the relationship between corporate financial decisions and growth of the firm. Finally, the results contribute to the vast literature on the estimation of information asymmetry by demonstrating that the classical and standard proxies for information asymmetry are not consistent in terms of the ability to differentiate between favorable or adverse selection (which corresponds to low and high level of information asymmetry).

Originality/Value: This chapter contributes to the related literature in two ways. First, this chapter offers updated empirical evidence on the way that financing, investment, and dividends decisions are made under conditions of favorable and adverse selection. Other related studies deal with each decision separately. Second, the study offers new proxies for measuring information asymmetry in order to reach robust estimates of the effects of financial decisions on growth of the firm under conditions of agency problems.