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During the COVID-19 pandemic, transitory unemployment insurance (UI) policies substantially increased unemployment benefits (UBs) and the number of eligible groups in Russia. The procedure for registering as unemployed was moved to an online platform. The present paper aims to distinguish the effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions on unemployment from that of the transitory unemployment insurance policies.

Using 553,627 approved claims for unemployment benefits from the Russian Public Employment Service (PES) administrative records (June 2019–December 2020), monthly data on the number of individuals registered as unemployed are aggregated in a pseudo panel. A double-difference approach is employed to identify the effects of the social interaction intensity and teleworkability (TW) of the latest occupation on unemployment. The first is associated with a direct effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions and the latter with the simplified application procedure.

The face-to-face (F2F) intensity of the latest occupation did not lead to any increase in the number of unemployed persons as could be expected in response to anti-COVID-19 restrictions. Job TW had two opposite effects on unemployment: it decreased individuals' risk of job loss and increased their likelihood of claiming unemployment benefits. Surprisingly, however, in line with the typical response of the Russian labour market to downturns, the latter dominated. The largest response was found among men and individuals with primary education.

This study is the first to attempt to distinguish the effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions from that of the transitory UI policies on unemployment in Russia.

As China shifts from a “human capital demographic dividend” to a “demographic dividend” as a source of economic growth, this paper examines the influence of social security system improvement on enterprises efforts to attract talent and enhance innovation ability.

This study uses a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2019 to analyse the influences of social security contributions on enterprise innovation, and the mediating effect of human capital accumulation. The OLS, DID test, placebo test, 2SLS are used to test the research questions.

The authors find a significant positive correlation between social security contributions and enterprise innovation because social security contributions improve the accumulation of human capital, helping enterprises to attract talent, which in turn has a positive impact on corporate innovation. The positive correlation between social security contributions and enterprise innovation is more significant in private enterprises, STAR Market and GEM listed companies and labour-intensive enterprises.

These findings provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant policies and the current reform of social security collection in China. The findings also have practical significance for the sustainable development of China's economy given its ageing population.

This study provides a new perspective, that is, from the perspective of human capital accumulation, to discuss the impact of social security contributions on enterprise innovation, and enriches the relevant literature on the economic consequences of social security contributions and the influencing factors of corporate innovation.

Little attention has been given to the effects of returnee entrepreneurs on external and internal corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study aims to investigate whether returnee entrepreneurs engage in more external or internal CSR and to further explore the contingency effects of foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement.

This study uses 11,967 startups in China to examine the relationship between returnee entrepreneurs and external and internal CSR. The authors use an ordinary least square regression and propensity scoring matching approach to analyze the data.

The empirical results show that returnee entrepreneurs are more likely to undertake external CSR but less likely to undertake internal CSR. Foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement have opposite moderating effects on these relationships.

This study has important implications for returnee entrepreneurs’ strategic choice between external and internal CSR and also provides theoretical support for policymakers to make effective and enforceable CSR policies.

This study discusses how returnee entrepreneurs implement external or internal CSR in China, answering the call to distinguish between external and internal CSR. Drawing on a legitimacy perspective, the authors find interesting and seemingly counterintuitive effects of returnees on external and internal CSR, which also necessitates distinguishing between these two types of CSR. In addition, the authors find different moderating roles of foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement.

Although there are many efforts within organisations to improve the financial performance of business processes, the results of studies on the impact of internal factors on the financial performance of business processes in an organisation are inconsistent, even contradictory. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the extent and trends of the impact of factors inside companies on the financial performance of business processes and discover lessons learned to improve the financial performance of business processes.

This analysis was done through a quantitative study of listed companies in Vietnam. Pooled OLS regression, REM, FEM and robust regression were performed on 566 companies.

The results provide four main findings. First, firm size and operational efficiency strongly correlate with financial performance. Second, financial leverage has a negative, significant connection with financial performance. Third, net working capital has a positive and meaningful relationship with EPS and a negative association with ROE. Fourth, liquidity does not have any significant association with financial performance.

This study only restricts the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes without mentioning the external factors. Furthermore, this study is limited to one emerging country and has not been compared with companies in different countries.

The findings of this study may help inform users inside and outside the organisation to understand the factors that affect the financial performance of business processes. As a result, information users will focus more on aspects that can improve their financial performance to make informed decisions.

This study has many differences compared to previous studies. First, it focuses on the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes in non-financial listed companies in Vietnam, which has an emerging economy. First, it focuses on the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes in non-financial listed companies in Vietnam, which has an emerging economy. Second, this study analyses data in companies' financial statements for the ten years from 2012 to 2021, when the Vietnamese economy, in particular, and the world economy experienced many fluctuations due to the impact of the post-financial crisis 2007–2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Third, this study provides empirical evidence to support RBV, RDT theories and the trade-off theory of capital structure.

This research considers the question of whether unemployment insurance benefit and labour-market activation measures induce the likelihood of re-employment and whether this effect differs for natives and immigrants.

Statistical processing was carried out on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions cross-sectional data for Finland for the period 2004 to 2016. Propensity score matching analysis was undertaken to investigate whether a treatment effect (unemployment insurance benefit) was a predictor of success in increasing re-employment rates, when controlling for participation in labour-market policy measures, subsidized employment and personal background characteristics.

We find that the probability of re-employment for recipients of unemployment benefits is half that of non-recipients of benefits. Due to the influence of subsidized employment, subsequent employment income decreases for recipients of unemployment benefits and especially for immigrants. Finally, we find that due to the influence of subsidized employment, time spent as a full-time employee decreases for recipients of unemployment benefits and especially for immigrants.

Although our results indicate that benefit determination has a marked impact on re-employment probabilities, unobserved variables turn to play a significant role in selection of labour-market activation measures. In this respect, we find the treatment assignment to activation policy measures depends on influence of unobserved variables and this effect is more important for the re-employment rates of natives than it is for immigrants.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2019-0668.

Despite numerous studies, our understanding of the determinants of disability insurance (DI) claim rates in the USA is clouded. When the unemployment (UE) rate soars during an economic downturn such as the spread of COVID-19, assuming a linear positive relationship between the two variables, as the prior literature has suggested, forewarns a large spike in DI claim rates. Yet, if the model is misspecified, it can lead to misinformed decisions such as reducing DI awards during an economic downturn when such awards are needed the most. This study aims to improve the accuracy of the DI claims' prediction.

This study suggests that the relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rate is nonlinear and examines this hypothesis using a panel dataset of 866 state-year observations from 2002–2018.

The results provided compelling evidence in support of the proposed quadratic relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rate and revealed that compared to a quadratic model, the linear model overestimated the DI claim rate by approximately 18 percent or 172,000 claims per year.

Given that DI awards represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in present value terms, the impact of increase in DI claims on the Social Security Disability Fund during an economic downturn might not be as high as some model might forecast.

To our knowledge, no other studies have examined a quadratic relationship between the UE rate and the DI claim rate. This study is especially relevant during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its aftermath. In April 2020, the UE rate spiked to nearly 15 percent nationwide, with Nevada and Michigan at 28 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively. The nonlinear model used in this study suggests that, as the UE increases, DI claims increase, albeit at a decreasing rate. On the contrary, a linear relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rates implies that the increase in the DI claim rate would be constant regardless of the UE rate. This misspecification can result in misinformed decisions, such as the reduction of DI awards because of the overestimation of claims during economic downturns. This can lead to lower award rates during economic turmoil when this assistance is most needed.

Following the COVID-19 outbreak, there are concerns whether economies are becoming farther from equality and competency. While this matters to every economy, it is more crucial for developing ones who already suffer from income inequalities and lack of competency. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

This study uses an administrative data from the Iran's Social Security Organization (ISSO) that provides insurance to workers entitled to the Labor Law of Iran. The data contain more than 7,000,000 workers. The authors assess heterogeneous impact of the first wave of the pandemic by firms' size and average payment.

The authors’ estimation results indicate that, following the initiation of the pandemic, the workers whose corresponding firms are smaller, overall, are more prone to the pandemic and are more likely to submit a request for unemployment benefits. However, the relation is neither homogeneous across sectors nor linear among micro-sized firms. Few sectors indicate a positive relationship between size and likelihood of request submission, including cultural activity, shoemaking and clothing sectors. Besides the size, the authors investigate whether pay grades could explain the probability of becoming unemployed after the pandemic. Results show that workers whose corresponding firms pay less are more likely to submit a request. This is robust within different sectors.

The ISSO dataset is not a panel, so the authors cannot employ methods of causal inferences. The authors’ results should be seen as correlation; however, due to exogeneity and sharpness of the pandemic the result infers to some degree of causality. The data does not cover the informal sector, so the estimates are at lower boundary.

Administrative data on unemployment benefits during COVID-19 show that the pandemic interferes with competition by forcing low-paid workers and small firms to exit the market. This is an alarm for the competition in every economy, specially developing ones.

This study evaluates the impact of government social protection interventions on households’ welfare in South Africa.

The study uses survey data comprising 393 observations and the multinomial logistic regression technique to analyse the effect of government interventions on households’ welfare. For robustness purposes, a negative binomial regression model is also estimated whose results corroborate the main results from the multinomial regression model.

The study’s findings show that government economic interventions through social protection significantly reduce the likelihood of a decrease in household income or consumption. COVID-19 grant/social relief of distress grant, unemployment insurance, tax relief and job protection and creation are all significant in sustaining household income and consumption.

The findings have policy implications for social development. Specifically, the findings support the use of government social protection as a safety net for low-income groups in South Africa.

The study presents preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of several measures used to ameliorate the COVID-19-induced recession within the South African context.

This article analyzes the impact of social insurance on firm performance by obtaining evidence from Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The method employed in the research is the generalized method of moments for testing hypotheses of data collected from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

The results show that social insurance contributions can enhance firm performance in three dimensions: return on equity (ROE), labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP). In addition, financial leverage, firm size, the average wage of workers and fixed assets have an impact on the social insurance costs of these companies.

This article provides a novel explanation of the contribution of social insurance to firm performance. In particular, social insurance contribution not only increases labor productivity but also boosts the growth of the TFP of companies. In addition, the article points out that taking care of the benefits of employees is a valuable investment of companies. These are the unique contributions of the paper to the literature on the economic impact of social insurance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how an influential supplier of electronics manufacturing services (i.e. Foxconn) discloses its labour practices.

The analysis is conducted through the theoretical lens of legitimacy and impression management. This particular firm is selected as it provides a rich case on labour practice disclosures in a setting where significant labour malpractice incidents occurred from 2009 to 2011. The sample period covers 12 years of the firm's labour practice disclosures (2008–2019) to match with publicly available information that is used to construct expert comparative accounts on the disclosures. The authors corroborate the comparative accounts with sociological studies and responsibility reports from the major customer (i.e. Apple).

The authors found that the disclosures become more detailed over successive years. Occupational health and safety issues are predominantly reported, followed by issues relating to vocational guidance and training and then employment policy. Regarding impression management strategies, defensive strategies embedded in the disclosures are rarely detected and assertive strategies are persistently used from 2008 to 2019 to maintain legitimacy. The comparative accounts show the persistent use of one defensive strategy (i.e. omission) to maintain and regain legitimacy. In other words, as an economic strategy, material labour practice issues are persistently omitted in the disclosures. The incidents discernibly affect how Foxconn discloses labour practices.

The authors’ study contributes to the limited extant research on suppliers' labour practice disclosures from the perspective of legitimacy theory and impression management. The results will be of great interest to researchers, investors, assurers and other stakeholders.