Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major determinants of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in the economies along the “Belt & Road” Initiative (BRI afterward). China works on to advance the agenda of the BRI both at home and abroad. The BRI is set up to promote connectivity in five key areas: policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, financial cooperation and people-to-people contacts.

The existing literature is inconclusive with regards to the motives, patterns and determinants of the Chinese OFDI. The authors are, therefore, motivated to undertake this study to shed some new light on the influencing factors of the Chinese OFDI. The authors have made a unique data set that consists of China and its 64 partnering countries of the BRI over a time period of 12 years spanning from 2004 to 2015. This time period is chosen on the chief consideration of data availability. The authors have a balanced panel, and applied the gravity model in line with the theoretical arguments and econometric developments.

The paper assumes that China’s OFDI along the BRI was a function of gross domestic product (GDP), income per capita, distance and WTO. The findings showed that GDP, per capita income and distance were the key determinants of the OFDI. China’s entry into the WTO did not strongly affect the OFDI. China maintained a tradition of historical relationships along the BRI economies. After all, China is relocating its investment resources in line with the consideration of its partnering countries’ economic size, cross-border distance and per capita income.

This study is the first of its kinds to analyze the determinants of OFDI by means of gravity model. The authors have covered all the countries along the BRI. Hence, this paper aims to make a substantial contribution to the literature, both from a scientific and a policy perspective.

In this paper, the authors derive time-varying relative export competitiveness (REC) of the Cambodian rice sector from 1995 to 2018 and examine the key determinants of the REC.

Three different REC indexes are calculated in this paper. The authors also developed the relative symmetric export competitiveness (RSEC) index for calculation of comparative advantage. The short-run regression (SRR) model was applied for capturing the determinants of the REC.

The study results reveal that Cambodia's rice exports became relatively competitive over time. The key findings suggest the Cambodian REC was strengthened as a result of a successful implementation of rice policy and rectangular strategy. The benefits gained from EBA and BRI were found to be the factors contributed to the REC. The higher per capita income had a positive effect on the REC, while higher domestic prices reduced the REC in some phases of the sectoral development.

Further research is needed in two directions. First, the future studies might focus on other agro-products of Cambodia. Second, the development of the crop-specific factor endowment (CFE) model to consider the effect of endowment factors on the REC could be preferred in light of the data availability.

The research enriches the literature on the agricultural trade and provides a basis for further studies. This work makes a few contributions. First, it is the first study on the REC analysis for the Cambodian rice sector. Second, the latest 24-year data sets were covered. Third, a wide range of comparisons of REC among the world's top rice exporters was provided following implications of the various economic policies and foreign policy strategies, such as RS, EBA and BRI.

This paper aims to derive the time-varying relative export competitiveness (REC) of the Nigerian cocoa sector against Nigeria’s share of world agricultural exports (REC_WA) and world merchandise exports (REC_WM) from 1995 to 2018. By concentrating on different factors such as demand and supply capacity, price factors and exchange rate, the authors examine the determinants of REC.

The authors calculated three different REC indexes. The authors also developed the relative symmetric export competitiveness index for comparative advantage calculation and avoiding the possible bias. The determinants of REC for Nigerian cocoa were captured using the short-run regression (SRR) model.

The study showed that Nigeria’s cocoa exports are still competitive despite experiencing some declining stages. Based on the SRR model, higher per capita income had a positive effect on the REC, while higher domestic prices significantly reduced the REC of cocoa. Further, the African Growth Opportunity Act agreement adversely affected the REC of cocoa.

This study provides a foundation for future research and enhances the literature on agricultural trade. This research makes a few contributions both from a scientific and a policy perspective. First, it is the first study on the REC analysis for the Nigerian cocoa industry. Second, a wide range of comparisons of REC among the world’s largest cocoa exporters was provided following implications of the various economic policies and local policy strategies. Third, the latest 24-year data sets were covered.

The global financial crisis of 2008 has put greater doubt on the bank risk-management effectiveness around the world. As a part of the response to such doubt, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region is formulating some feasible approaches to manage bank risk. In this regard, an understanding of the role of the region’s culture and economic freedom will provide immense input into this risk management approach. This study examines the impact of national culture and economic freedom on bank risk-taking behavior.

Data on bank risk measures, culture and economic freedom are obtained from the FitchConnect, World Bank database, Hofstede’s insights and Heritage Foundation. Generalized least squares and two step-system generalized method of moments are then used to examine the risk-taking behavior of the region.

Banks of the GCC region operating in the low power distance, high collectivism, masculine and low uncertainty avoidance cultures are susceptible to assuming more operational and insolvency risks. Furthermore, banks’ overall risk-taking inclination is positively increased once the region has considerable business and monetary freedom.

The governments and bank regulatory bodies may benefit from the study findings by developing the best economic freedom index and national culture that enriches risk management practices and curves excessive risk-taking inclination.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to address the interplay among culture, economic freedom and bank risk to ensure constructive risk-taking behavior for the GCC banking industry.

The gravity theory of trade explains the potential for trade between nations, but its application to trade in halal food has been questioned by previous studies. This study aims to investigate this issue and the role of trading partners’ economic strength and their distance from one another to identify Malaysia’s potential to export food to key halal markets.

The gravity theory of trade was used to examine Malaysia’s top 10 food exports to key halal markets from 2000–2017. The gravity panels were estimated using the Hausman-Taylor modelling technique to control for endogeneity within the model.

The application of the gravity theory of trade to a halal market context provides mixed results. Although the high economic strength (gross domestic product) of the trading partners enhances halal trade, the distance between the partners does not affect the volume of halal food exports. Moreover, the study identifies Malaysia’s potential to export only a few food commodities to key halal markets.

This study challenges the applicability of the gravity theory of trade to the halal food market. The study extends the model with additional controls for behavioural aspects and applies it to commodity-specific segregated trade in halal food. The findings underscore the need to extend the theory beyond its current focus when explaining trade opportunities in halal markets.

Under the sunlight of social commerce, few concepts have blossomed like value co-creation. But when blurred strategies are implemented, the opportunity to wilt a brand is high. To avoid the miscues and the controversies, an ascendant step is to engage consumers with social commerce sites. The purpose of this paper is to propose three antecedents to engage consumers with social commerce sites, namely, social support, social commerce value and social commerce information sharing, and the effect of brand engagement on the intention of brand co-creation.

This study used survey data from 234 Iranians with experience using social commerce sites. Variance-based structural equation modeling using the partial least squares path modeling approach was adopted to analyze the structural model.

The authors found that social support, social commerce value and social commerce information sharing positively foster brand engagement. The study also revealed that brand engagement is a significant predictor of brand co-creation intention.

The study is the first study that considers and explains brand engagement from social support theory, social commerce value theory and social commerce information exchange. Also, the study shows how consumers can be an integral part of a brand. Unlike other studies which were done in industrialized countries, this study was employed in Iran.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the theory of planned behavior (TPB) can be used to explain financial salespeople ' s ethical selling intentions and behaviour in developing countries. Understanding salespeople ' s ethical intentions and behaviour is important as consumers in developing countries are more at risk of ethical abuse arising from higher information asymmetry, their lower levels of financial literacy and less effective services regulation relating to ethical sales practices. Developing countries also have fewer governmental social support mechanisms, making the purchase of insurance more important for protecting consumers ' financial well-being.

The paper examines 205 Bangladeshi financial salespeople ' s ethical selling intentions and behaviour using the TPB. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the constructs and overall model.

The findings identify that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behaviour control (PBC) affect ethical selling intentions which, in turn, predict salespeople ' s ethical sales behaviour. However, PBC does not directly relate to ethical sales behaviour.

Understanding of the determinants of financial salespeople ' s ethical selling intentions and behaviour is important for firms in developing countries and identifies that they need to develop effective management systems and foster organisational cultures that engender ethical behaviour. This is important in developing countries where ethical abuses and lapses will result in harm to consumers who have limited financial resources.

The results identify that the TPB applies to the selling of financial services in developing countries and, thus, broadens the applications and contexts of the TPB model. It also provides some managerial guidance as to how potential ethical breaches might be limited.

The use of digital channels to promote products and services is experimenting with an unprecedented boom in promotion and communication marketing campaigns; airports such as Los Angeles (IATA: LAX) in the United States, Orlando International (IATA: MCO) in the United States, Schiphol Amsterdam (IATA: AMS) in the Netherlands or Changi airport (IATA: SIN) in Singapore are pioneers and recognised experts in marketing communication and technical aspects of promotion campaigns. The brand image of airports is a great opportunity to universalise loyalty marketing and price promotion for airport business portfolios. For this reason, in this chapter, we speak about neuromarketing science, which is a marketing discipline that uses medical techniques to understand how our central nervous system reacts to marketing stimuli. This is helping companies and airports get more consumer insights through digital channels.

The purpose of this paper is to employ lessons learned from the industrial accidents in Skikda refinery during the period from 2005 to 2016 as input data for the numerical simulation of risk consequences to identify the exposed areas to the various effects of industrial accidents.

In order to assess how the lessons learned can contribute to modeling the accidents effects in the refining activities, this paper presents a combined statistical/dynamic approach that combines two main tools, namely, lessons learned from petroleum refining in Algeria and Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres software.

The results showed that fire is the most frequent accident at Skikda refinery that is mainly caused by equipment failures with a frequent involvement of crude oil and LNG. The NO₂ toxic effects are unacceptable. This means that in the case of a similar accident, the entire population will be exposed to an intolerable concentration of NO₂. Therefore, people must be relocated to a safer place. The results indicate that the concentration threshold can be met beyond the distance of 1 km.

Due to the economic importance of Skikda refinery and the absence of data related to the accidents in the refineries of Algiers, Arzew and Hassi Messaoud, this study is limited to the statistical analysis of accidents related to Skikda refinery.

This approach makes the risk assessment more practical and effective for the appropriate utilization of safety barriers and for the whole decision-making process.

This work presents a review paper of accidents that occurred in the oil-refining sector in Algeria, whose objective is learning lessons from past accidents history, by identifying their immediate causes and effects on personnel, equipment and environment in order to propose prevention measures. The novelty of this work is highlighted by the fact that this statistical analysis of oil and gas refining accident is realized for the first time in Algeria. This is due to the difficulty of obtaining data on accidents in the Algerian refining sector; for this reason, the authors have limited the study to the Skikda refinery.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between trade diversion risk and new Halal market exploration.

This paper analyzes the Halal trade flows for Malaysia’s top 11 halal food/food-related commodities from 1967 to 2018 by relying on co-integration and auto-regression techniques.

This paper determines that the greater the country’s current comparative advantage in an exported good, the higher the risk of export diversion between the Halal and conventional markets. The diversion risk, however, disappears with a lower current comparative advantage.

To take advantage of the fast-emerging Halal market, a country should expand export of commodities with relatively low current comparative advantage but high demand in the target market, along with supportive trade policies to build competitiveness in the long term.

This study fills the gap in the literature by investigating if the theory of comparative advantage can predict the market diversification risk that may arise from the expansion of exports to the Halal market occurring alongside existing exports to the conventional market.