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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the regulatory-driven market structure on firm pricing behaviour by testing the structure-conduct-performance (S-C-P) hypothesis for both life and non-life insurance markets in Ghana.

Using a panel data on 14 life and 22 non-life insurers from 2007 to 2011, the authors employed the Herfindahl Hirschman Index and concentration ratio as proxies for the S-C-P hypothesis while efficiency scores were estimated using the data envelopment analysis technique to proxy for the efficient structure (ES) hypothesis. The dependent variable, profitability was measured as return on assets while controlling for size, underwriting risk, leverage, GDP growth rate and inflation. The models were estimated using the panel corrected standard errors of Beck and Katz (1995) and random effects estimations.

The results from the empirical estimation provide ample evidence in support for ES hypothesis for both life and non-life insurance markets. While conflicting results was found for SCP hypothesis in the non-life insurance market, it was rejected in the life insurance market. The findings also point to an increasing level of competition in both life and non-life insurance industry in Ghana though they still remain concentrated with the life insurance sector having high levels of efficiency compared to the non-life sector.

The findings of the study will enhance the understanding of firm behaviour in the new markets created to shape regulatory and competition policies of the regulator to promote consumer welfare while ensuring a stable industry to enhance its role in economic development.

This is the first study to test the market power and efficient hypotheses on the insurance industry in Ghana. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to examine the determinants of profitability in the non-life insurance market.

Using classic and contemporary perspectives on work, this paper examines how and why extrinsic and intrinsic job rewards, work–life conflict, and flexible hours are related to mismatches between actual and preferred hours of work. We find that making raises, bonuses, and promotions contingent on job performance has little effect on actual or preferred work hours. Discretionary effort, as signaled by higher actual and preferred hours, is more common when people find their work meaningful. Work-to-life conflict, in contrast, generates a desire for fewer hours because people who report it prefer average hours but work many. Offering men flexible hours can partially offset that problem by increasing their appetite for work.

We investigate the relative roles of key components of earnings change in explaining the value relevance of earnings across different life‐cycle stages of the firm. We hypothesize that firms in different life‐cycle stages take different strategic actions: change in sales is emphasized in the growth and mature stages, while in later stages, profitability is emphasized. Because payoffs to such strategies vary across the life‐cycle, the stock market reaction to the success firms have in employing these strategic actions is likely to vary across the life‐cycle. To test our hypotheses, we disaggregate changes in earnings into three key components: earnings change from change in sales, earnings change from change in profitability, and an interaction term comprising both sales change and profitability change. Our findings are consistent with our hypotheses: when firms are in the growth stage, the value‐relevance of change in sales is relatively greater than that of change in profitability. In the mature stage, the value relevance of change in profitability increases, relative to that of change in sales. When firms are in stagnant stage, the value‐relevance of changes in profitability are relatively greater than that of change in sales. Collectively, the results demonstrate a shift in the value relevance of earnings components from a growth emphasis early in the life‐cycle to a profitability emphasis later in the life‐cycle.

Using Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions as the study site, this study aims to empirically substantiate, under the theoretical underpinnings of job enrichment theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) and Maslow's (1943) theory of the hierarchy of needs, the impact of flexible work practices (FWPs), on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, with the mediating lens of work life enrichment.

Field data were collected at five higher education institutions located in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Pakistan, using the convenience sampling technique and analyzed under the quantitative research paradigm.

This study substantiates with an empirical evidence that flexible work practices (FWPs) have a significant positive impact on both employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness. Markedly, the study findings reveal that the said impact is significantly stronger than that of sabbaticals. Furthermore, the study reveals that the positive relationship is mediated by work life enrichment, signaling its significance in understanding FWP's such impact on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness.

The study findings provide significant implications for academia, practitioners, and policymakers, in evidence-based recommendations for higher education institutions to design and implement FWPs that are effective in enhancing employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, and, in turn, leading to improved organizational performance.

This research study provides a novel contribution to the existing literature by exploring the combined impact of flexible work practices on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness in the peculiar context of Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions. Additionally, the study's focus on the mediating role of work life enrichment further adds to its novelty.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between servant leadership and life satisfaction through the mediating role of workplace positive affect (WPA), and the moderating roles of collectivistic orientation and general self-efficacy.

Using a sample of 304 employees in a two-wave survey, the hypotheses were demonstrated with hierarchical regression analyses.

The results revealed that servant leadership was positively related to employee life satisfaction, and WPA served as a mediator between them. Moreover, collectivistic orientation and general self-efficacy moderated the relationship between servant leadership and WPA, and the indirect effect of servant leadership on life satisfaction via WPA.

The time-lagged research design of this study may limit the ability to draw causal conclusions. Moreover, as this research was conducted in a Chinese context, the question of the generalizability of our findings calls for more attention.

Leaders are encouraged to adopt the servant leadership style to facilitate employee life satisfaction and organizations should select and recruit managers with servant leadership qualities. Furthermore, because employees’ collectivistic orientation and general self-efficacy moderate the effects of servant leadership on followers’ outcomes, managers need to take individual differences into consideration when they implement managerial strategy.

This research contributed to a burgeoning stream of servant leadership literature by investigating the functions of servant leadership in promoting life satisfaction, and exploring the affective mechanism linking servant leadership and life satisfaction as well as the boundary conditions of collectivistic orientation and general self-efficacy.

This study aims to analyze factors that influence the utilization of remittances by Indonesia Migrant Workers (TKI) and to analyze the role of stakeholders in the implementation of financial inclusion. This research used a mixed method, regression analysis, and Matrix of Alliances and Conflicts: Tactics, Objectives, and Recommendations (MACTOR). This study found that the factors that influence savings are training variables, education, and a dummy variable for widow status. The results when remittance as dependent show that the regional origin, dummy variable for receiving remittances, for training, and for determining the use of remittances by TKI themselves had an effect. The implementation of financial inclusion is needed in the economic development of TKI, and the main actors are migrant workers, assistants, economists, and Bapermas. Actors who have the potential for ambivalence are workers who do not participate in mentoring and do not join BUMDes.

The study examines the relationship between the consequential social cost of market power (i.e. welfare performance of banks) and cost efficiency using data covering the period 2009 to 2017 from the Ghanaian banking industry.

The study adopts the ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effect (FE) panel regression and the quantile regression (QR) approaches to control for heterogeneity and provide increased room for policy relevance. The two-stage least squares instrumental variables (2SLS-IV) regression is used to ensure the robustness of the findings against the problem of possible reverse causality.

The results indicate a positive relationship between banks' welfare performance and cost efficiency, which suggests that greater cost efficiency hedges welfare losses. In other words, welfare gains and cost-efficient banks are not mutually exclusive. Also, the results show evidence that the sensitivity of welfare gain to cost efficiency depends on the knowledge of local market dynamics. Further, the findings from the QR estimation suggest that, but for welfare loss at low (Q.25) to the median (Q.50) quantiles, cost efficiency is a necessary and sufficient condition to hedge the welfare losses.

The results demonstrate that financial consumer protection cannot be achieved without cost efficiency in the presence of both foreign banks and high market knowledge. Therefore, our paper suggests an integrated cost efficiency policy approach that has the complementary effect of a robust information sharing mechanism and incentives to hedge against welfare losses in the banking sector of emerging economies. Moreover, if welfare gain is synonymous with cost-efficient banks, then the presence of a quiet life is typical of financial consumer protection.

This study provides insight into the importance of cost efficiency to the public policy of financial consumer protection in an era of foreign banks' dominance. From the review of prior literature, this paper is the first to apply the QR estimation technique to examine the effect of cost efficiency throughout the conditional distribution of bank welfare performance rather than just the conditional mean effect of cost efficiency.

The authors examine the longitudinal relationship between work satisfaction and life satisfaction, and the moderating role of work ethic.

The authors use a nationally representative sample of Dutch working adults (N = 1020; three waves over five years) and take a model comparison approach to identify the longitudinal relationship between work satisfaction and life satisfaction. To test the moderating effects of work ethic, the authors use conditional process analyses.

The authors find more evidence as to how work satisfaction and life satisfaction are positively and reciprocally linked over time using longitudinal data. More importantly, work ethic strengthens the positive effect of work satisfaction on life satisfaction, but no such moderating role is observed as to the effect from life satisfaction to work satisfaction.

The findings raise awareness that employees' overall happiness in life matters to workplace satisfaction. More importantly, one effective strategy to promote work satisfaction is to design work that nurtures strong work ethic – measures that help employees see more value in their work.

The findings regarding the role of work ethic show that the conservation of resources theory can be an informative lens to understand the work–life satisfaction relationship. For individuals with strong work ethic, work satisfaction constitutes a more salient form of psychological resources benefiting their overall life satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an empirical solution to dividend policy relevance.

The paper combines measures of firm maturity in a logit regression to define a comprehensive life-cycle model of the likelihood of dividend payment. The valuation of firms that conform to the model is compared to the valuation of firms that do not fit the model. Valuation is measured by the market to book (M/B) ratio.

The analysis indicates that dividend policy is related to firm value. Dividend-paying firms that fit the life-cycle model have a higher median valuation than dividend-paying firms that do not fit the life-cycle model. Similarly, non-paying firms that fit the life-cycle model have a higher median valuation than non-paying firms that do not fit the life-cycle model. The results also provide evidence that the disappearing dividend phenomenon is related to shifts in valuation.

This paper focuses on the payment of dividends. Stock repurchases are not considered.

The results indicate that dividend policy is related to firm value. Approximately 15 percent of sample observations have a dividend policy counter to the life-cycle model.

This paper shows that the relation between a firm’s M/B ratio and dividend policy changes over the firm’s life-cycle. It also shows that the catering motive for dividends is strongest among firms that are outliers in the life-cycle model and firms of intermediate maturity.

This paper aims to reflect on the Sámi reindeer industry, which, in spite of a low economic return, contrasts with other primary industries in not displaying a population decline.

The project in this paper is based on two major hypotheses: the life form hypothesis: reindeer management has a particular value for the performers, being the condition for an active choice of staying within the industry; the capital hypothesis: lacking recognition of the resources of the reindeer‐managing Sámi is/has been limiting their establishment in capital requiring undertakings.

In the paper there are indications that the reindeer‐managing Sámi practices are in a Weberian sense a substantial rationality. Analysis at hand indicates close connections between landscape, management type, and type of rationality in reindeer management.

The project in the paper analyses the economy of reindeer management in chosen regions by both quantitative and qualitative studies, focusing on the household level. For the quantitative analyses the creation and extent of value streams in the households of reindeer management and near surroundings are focused. In the qualitative analyses the point of departure is decision situations and strategic choices with reindeer‐managing Sámi. Comparative analyses will be undertaken to explore representation of the regional studies.

The paper shows that the design is original and the outcome is expected to have a potential for changing the focus of current policies.