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Users' voluntary forwarding behavior opens a new avenue for companies to promote their brands and products on social networking sites (SNS). However, research on voluntary information disseminators is limited. This paper aims to bring an in-depth understanding of voluntary disseminators by answering the following questions: (1) What is the underlying mechanism by which some users are more enthusiastic to voluntarily forward content of interest? (2) How to identify them? We propose a theoretical model based on the Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM) and examine three types of factors that moderate the effect of preference matching on individual forwarding behavior, including personal characteristics, tweet characteristics and sender–receiver relationships.

Via Twitter API, we randomly crawled 1967 Twitter users' data to validate the conceptual framework. Each user’s original tweets and retweeted tweets, profile data such as the number of followers and followees and verification status were obtained. The final corpus contains 163,554 data points composed of 1,634 valid twitterers' retweeting behavior. Tweets produced by these core users' followees were also crawled. These data points constitute an unbalanced panel data and we employ different models — fixed-effects, random-effects and pooled logit models — to test the moderation effects. The robustness test shows consistency among these different models.

Preference matching significantly affects users' forwarding behavior, implying that SNS users are more likely to share contents that align with their preferences. In addition, we find that popular users with lots of followers, heavy SNS users who author tweets or forward other-sourced tweets more frequently and users who tend to produce longer original contents are more enthusiastic to disseminate contents of interest. Furthermore, interaction strength has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between preference matching and individuals' forwarding decisions, suggesting that users are more likely to disseminate content of interest when it comes from strong ties. However, the moderating effect of perceived affinity is significantly negative, indicating that an online community of individuals with many common friends is not an ideal place to engage individuals in sharing information.

This work brings about a deep understanding of users' voluntary forwarding behavior of content of interest. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine (1) the underlying mechanism by which some users are more likely to voluntarily forward content of interest; and (2) how to identify these potential voluntary disseminators. By extending the ELM, we examine the moderating effect of tweet characteristics, sender–receiver relationships as well as personal characteristics. Our research findings provide practical guidelines for enterprises and government institutions to choose voluntary endorsers when trying to engage individuals in information dissemination on SNS.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the direction of the causal relationship between dividend policy (DP) and earnings management (EM).

This research utilizes the panel data analysis to investigate the causal relationship between EM and DP. It provides empirical insights based on a sample of 280 French nonfinancial companies listed on the CAC All-Tradable index during the period of 2008–2015. The study initiates with a Granger causality examination on the unbalanced panel data and employs a dynamic panel approach with the generalized method of moments (GMM). It further estimates the empirical models simultaneously using the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method and the iterative triple least squares (iterative 3SLS) method.

The estimation of our various empirical models confirms the presence of a bidirectional causal relationship between DP and EM.

Our study highlights the prevalence of EM in the French context, particularly within DP. It underscores the need for regulatory bodies, the Ministry of Finance, external auditors and stock exchange organizers to prioritize governance mechanisms for improving the quality of financial information disclosed by companies.

This research is, to the best of our knowledge, the first is to extensively investigate the reciprocal causal relationship between DP and EM in France. Previous studies have not placed a significant emphasis on exploring this bidirectional link between these two variables.

This study aims to identify the various economic and non-economic determinants of renewable energy consumption (REC) in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Due to the adverse effect of carbon emission on the environment, every country is trying for a transition from fossil fuel towards renewable energy. Renewable energy plays a crucial role in reducing carbon emission and combating climate change. Understanding the determinants that influence REC helps to promote this transition.

The study is based on an unbalanced panel data over the period 2002–2019 for all five BRICS nations. The panel corrected standard error (PCSE) method has been adopted to examine the determinants of REC.

Industrialization, population growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) are found to be significant economic determinants of REC while patent on environmental technologies, political instability and industrial design are significant non-economic determinants of REC in the BRICS nations.

The findings imply that to increase REC in BRICS nations, policymakers should incentivize industries for investments in renewable energy, attract FDI aligned with environmental regulations, raise population awareness through training, enforce industrial design standards, establish fair technology transfer frameworks to overcome patent barriers and create stable, long-term renewable energy policies with risk mitigation instruments to address political instability.

The study captures the effect of patents on environmental technologies and industrial design on the consumption of renewable energy. Thus, the novelty lies in investigating unexplored variables in the previous literature likely to affect REC.

In light of the key role attributed to the board of directors as a monitoring tool to constrain earnings management practices, this study aims to examine the effect of some board attributes on accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) context, whose institutional, economic and legal environment is markedly different from that of most organization for economic cooperation and development countries.

The authors selected a sample of 161 nonfinancial companies from nine MENA countries between 2014 and 2021 (corresponding to an unbalanced data panel of 486 observations). The authors used the generalized least squares regression test to examine the relationship between board attributes and earnings management.

The authors found that three board attributes (size, independence and gender diversity) have no effect on both types of earnings management practices, while CEO duality has no effect on accrual-based earnings management but has a significant and negative effect on real earnings management. Overall, the results suggest that most board attributes do not play a crucial role in reducing earnings management.

The results provide valuable insights into the universal role of corporate governance mechanisms and raise questions about the role of the board of directors in improving reporting quality in the MENA context.

Regulators should adapt corporate governance mechanisms to the characteristics of the institutional context in which they are inserted.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effect of various board characteristics on both types of earnings management practices in the MENA context. It also provides the first empirical evidence of the relationship between board gender diversity and earnings management in the MENA region.

Literature has pointed that conventional financial development theories have inconclusive role on motivating new businesses. New ventures often consider the conventional system that passes through risk and provides fixed-interest lending as a burden. Comparatively, Islamic finance contributes using participative and equitable substitute for startups and has a potential in promoting new businesses. This study aims to investigate the holistic financial development index quadratic effect on entrepreneurship and include the moderating role of Islamic financing at national level.

Islamic banks of 21 nations constitute the unbalanced panel data. Financial development and entrepreneurship indices were developed using factor analysis and panel median regression to estimate the nonlinear financial market development effects and Islamic financing moderation model.

The results indicated that low financial market development is entrepreneurship deterring because of interest burden effect, which could be eased with a proportional increase in the Islamic financing, which is participative. The moderating effect has led to the categorization of the sample countries into entrepreneurship promoting and entrepreneurship discouraging with respect to the current incidence of financial market development and Islamic financing, which can help policymakers in understanding the entrepreneurship promoting combination of financial development and Islamic financing.

Central banks and Shari’ah advisory councils can adopt Islamic financing transition in the national financial inclusion policy for new business facilitation.

This study is instrumental in exploring the assessment of introducing Islamic financing while developing the financial sector on multidimensional entrepreneurship.

We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific aspects of board structure and processes. We deploy insights from the behavioral governance perspective to develop arguments about how family businesses may choose board elements based on their degree of control over the firm (absolute control or less), and its effect on firm performance.

We use an unbalanced data panel of 404 firm-year observations. The data was obtained from the annual financial and corporate governance reports of 62 Colombian stock-issuing firms for the period 2008–2014 – due to change in regulation, data could not be added beyond 2014. Panel data technique with random effects was used.

The results show that board structure is positively associated with financial performance, however, this relationship is negative in businesses where family has absolute control. We also found that there is a negative association between board processes and performance, but positive association in family-controlled businesses.

Our research contributes to research streams on effects of family control in firm choices and on the interactive effect of governance choices and institutional context and more generally how actors interact (rather than react) with their institutional context.

The study seeks to evaluate the effect of capital adequacy and competition on the liquidity creation of Kenyan commercial banks.

Unbalanced panel data from 36 Kenyan commercial banks with licenses from 2001 to 2020 is used in the study. The generalized method of moments (GMM), a two-step system, is employed in the investigation. To increase the robustness and prevent erroneous findings, serial correlation tests and instrumental validity analyses are used. The methodology developed by Berger and Bouwman (2009) is used to estimate the commercial banks' levels of liquidity creation.

The study supports the financial fragility-crowding out hypothesis by finding a significant negative effect of capital adequacy on the liquidity creation of commercial banks. The research also identifies a significant inverse relationship between competition and liquidity creation, depicting competition's value-destroying effect.

A trade-off exists between capital adequacy and liquidity creation, which must be carefully evaluated as changes in capital requirements are considered. The value-destroying effect of competition on liquidity creation presents a case for policy geared toward consolidating banks' operations through possible mergers and acquisitions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to empirically offer evidence concurrently on the effect of competition and capital adequacy on the liquidity creation of commercial banks in a developing economy such as Kenya. Additionally, the authors employ a novel measure of competition at the firm level.

This study aims to see the moderating effect of board diversity on the relationship between ownership structure and real earnings management.

This study uses unbalanced panel data of 75 listed energy firms (346 firm-year observations) from three South Asian emerging economies (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) from 2015 to 2019. The two-step system GMM estimation is used for data analysis. This study also uses fixed effect regression to obtain robust findings.

The findings show that firms with a greater ownership concentration and managerial ownership significantly reduce real earnings management. In contrast, the data refute the idea that institutional and foreign ownership affect real earnings management. We also find that board diversity interacts significantly with ownership concentration and managerial ownership, meaning that board diversity moderates the negative link of the primary relationship that reduces real earnings management. On the other hand, board diversity has no interaction with institutional and foreign ownership, implying no moderating effect exists on the primary relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is unique research investigating how different ownership structures affect real earnings management in the emerging nations’ energy sector, which the earlier studies overlook. More specifically, this research focuses on how board diversity moderates the relationships between ownership structure and real earnings management, which could be helpful for future investors.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how the negative effect of litigation risk on firm performance could be controlled through the channel of voluntary disclosure and under the condition of institutional ownership.

To get the objectives, the study analyzed an unbalanced panel of 918 non-financial listed Chinese firms from 2010 to 18. To capture any expected unobserved heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation in the unbalanced sample, the authors have applied fixed effect regression with robust standard errors clustered at the firms' levels as suggested by Newey and West (1987).

The research provides that the good disclosure practices and presence of institutional ownership in corporations raise the trust of the investors by making the corporate operation clear in the eyes of the stakeholders. This increases the corporate credibility and as consequence corporations are protected against litigation risk. Thus, in the light of the information asymmetry and signaling theories, voluntary disclosure practices, and financial institutions' ownership, bridges the information gap and transmit a positive signal in the market regarding the better financial performance of the corporations.

These findings are helpful for the corporate managers for effective strategic decisions, regulatory authorities for policy formulation, and individual investors for developing a diversified investment portfolio.

By applying the mediation and moderation effects, the research enhances the understanding of the underlying causes of the association between a firm's litigation risk and its performance. The current research contributes to the literature, that agency issues which create litigation risk could be settled internally with voluntary disclosure practices and externally with institutional ownership.

This study aims to examine the influence of ownership structure and board characteristics on the performance of Indonesian Islamic rural banks (IRB) using the system generalized method of moment model.

This research uses Indonesian IRB unbalanced annual panel data from 2016 to 2022. IRB performance is measured by return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and nonperforming financing (NPF). The ownership structure is represented by controlling shareholders, ownership of the board of directors (BD) and ownership of the board of commissioners (BC). Meanwhile, board characteristics are represented by the size of the BC, the proportion of female board directors and female president directors.

The results show that the ownership structure and board characteristics play an important role in improving the IRB’s performance. Technically, the results show that the size of the BC and the ownership of the BD increase all IRB performance measures. Female president directors and controlling shareholders improve IRB’s performance as measured by ROA and ROE. Women’s boards of directors improve IRB performance as measured by NPF. Meanwhile, the ownership of the BC does not show its effect on all IRB performance measures.

This study fills a literature gap on the influence of ownership structure and board characteristics on IRB Indonesia’s performance. In addition, it adds understanding and insight for Islamic bank regulators, management and IRB depositors in Indonesia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to provide an empirical survey on the influence of controlling shareholders and board characteristics on IRB performance, particularly in Indonesia.