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Prior research on meeting or beating earnings thresholds documents that firms with earnings momentum are awarded with valuation premiums. However, it is unclear from this strand of literature why this is the case. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects of time-varying earnings persistence on earnings momentum and their pricing effects.

This study exploits a firm that reports earnings momentum as research setting to examine whether earnings persistence is significantly higher for firms with consecutive earnings increases. In addition, it investigates a relation between earnings momentum and fundamentals-driven earnings persistence and estimates return associations of earnings momentum conditional on economic-based persistence of earnings.

The empirical evidence suggests that firms with earnings momentum reflect higher time-varying earnings persistence. It further reveals that longer duration of earnings momentum is associated with higher fundamentals-driven earnings persistence. More importantly, valuation premiums are exclusively assigned to earnings momentum determined by strong firm fundamentals, not momentum itself.

This study provides new empirical evidence that valuation premiums accrued to firms with earnings momentum are conditional on time-varying earnings persistence. The research implications are relevant to investors, regulators and auditors, as the results bring conclusions that earnings momentum reflects successful business models not poor accounting quality. This leads to a more complete view of earnings momentum and helps allocate resources when evaluating earnings-momentum firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on China.

In the analysis, the author conducts a survey on the tax avoidance situation of Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2020. Then, a multivariate regression analysis is performed in order to analyse the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and earnings persistence.

The findings of the present study show that tax avoidance has a significant positive effect on earnings persistence. However, when the degree of tax avoidance is high, the “risk effect” of tax avoidance exceeds the “value effect”, and tax avoidance will reduce the persistence of earnings. This conclusion is even more prominent when the company is non-state-owned. Further research shows the increase of institutional investors’ shareholding ratio can improve “value effect” of tax avoidance, lessen “risk effect” of tax avoidance, and positively affect the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence.

This study provides evidence for investors to understand the dual effect of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. The results may have implications for regulatory bodies. They can provide a better understanding of the corporate governance role of institutional investors in curbing opportunistic tax avoidance.

This study enriches the research on tax avoidance effects by analysing the impact of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. This study also compensates for the shortcomings of analysing earnings persistence mainly from the perspective of tax differences in the past, and promotes the study of the corporate governance effects of institutional investors under different levels of tax avoidance.

This paper evaluates the risk-adjusted returns, selectivity, market timing skills and persistence of the performance of Nigerian pension funds.

Annual return data of 23 pension funds that operated in Nigeria between 2018 and 2022 were obtained from the National Pension Commission (PenCom). Risk-adjusted return was appraised using the Treynor ratio, Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha, while the Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton multiple regression models were applied to decompose selective and timing skills. Performance persistence was assessed using the contingency table and rank correlation models.

Evidence shows that pension funds deliver excess risk-adjusted returns and exhibit selective skills. However, the evidence does not support the presence of timing skills, and there is overwhelming evidence that good (bad) performance does not repeat.

An evaluation of the investment performance of pension funds is crucial for ensuring the financial stability of retirees, maintaining economic stability and making informed investment decisions. It serves the interests of pensioners, pension fund managers, regulators and the broader economy. Our evidence that pension funds generate positive excess returns is a departure from most of the literature on managed funds. We recommend that more Nigerians should leverage the pension fund industry to grow their wealth and prepare for retirement.

This study, to our knowledge, is the first to appraise all the key facets of the investment performance of pension funds in the Nigerian context.

This study examines the association between internal corporate governance mechanisms (i.e. board of directors and audit committee) and the information value of bank earnings. The authors comparatively assess this association across different bank types, Islamic versus conventional banks. The authors also investigate the mediating effect of Shariah governance.

The authors utilize a unique and an international sample of 723 bank-year observations representing 100 listed banks from 16 countries during the period 2007–2015. The authors investigate the characteristics of the board of directors and audit committee (i.e. size and independence) and employ three core analyses for earnings informativeness (i.e. earnings persistence, cash flow predictability and reliability of loan loss provisions). Additional analyses address Shariah supervisory boards’ (SSBs’) size, financial expertise and multiple outside directorships. The authors use the random-effect Generalised Least Squares (GLS) estimation technique and provide several robustness checks and sensitivities.

The authors find that, on average, having large and independent boards (and audit committees) increases the informativeness of reported earnings for banks. Conditional on bank type, our results report strong evidence for differential effects across the two alternative banking systems. In Islamic banks, large and independent board of directors (and audit committees) is positively associated with all measures of information value. There is insignificant evidence for conventional banks. However, SSBs show no significant effect on the reported earnings’ informativeness.

This is the first study, to the best of our knowledge, that empirically and comparatively assesses the information value of reported earnings in association with effective internal governance while recognizing the institutional characteristics of different bank types. The authors offer new insights to policymakers, investors and other stakeholders located within countries operating on a dual banking system. The results could help regulators to improve their rules/guidance related to double-layer governance and financial reporting quality.

The purpose of the present study is to identify the active and dead links of uniform resource locators (URLs) associated with web references and to compare the effectiveness of Chrome, Google and WayBack Machine in retrieving the dead URLs.

The web references of the Library Hi Tech from 2004 to 2008 were selected for analysis to fulfill the set objectives. The URLs were extracted from the articles to verify their accessibility in terms of persistence and decay. The URLs were then executed directly in the internet browser (Chrome), search engine (Google) and Internet Archive (WayBack Machine). The collected data were recorded in an excel file and presented in tables/diagrams for further analysis.

From the total of 1,083 web references, a maximum number was retrieved by the WayBack Machine (786; 72.6 per cent) followed by Google (501; 46.3 per cent) and the lowest by Chrome (402; 37.1 per cent). The study concludes that the WayBack Machine is more efficient, retrieves a maximum number of missing web citations and fulfills the mission of preservation of web sources to a larger extent.

A good number of studies have been conducted to analyze the persistence and decay of web-references; however, the present study is unique as it compared the dead URL retrieval effectiveness of internet explorer (Chrome), search engine giant (Google) and WayBack Machine of the Internet Archive.

The web references of a single journal, namely, Library Hi Tech, were analyzed for 5 years only. A major study across disciplines and sources may yield better results.

URL decay is becoming a major problem in the preservation and citation of web resources. The study has some healthy recommendations for authors, editors, publishers, librarians and web designers to improve the persistence of web references.

Inflation expectations are an important part of the transmission mechanism of the inflation targeting regime. As such, central bankers must study the inflation expectations of economic agents to anchor them close to the level of the inflation target. However, economic agents are affected by the past and current macroeconomic situation when they form their expectations concerning future inflation. Using survey data on inflation expectations in Czechia, we investigate the macroeconomic determinants of Czech analysts' and managers' inflation expectations. We find that both actual and past inflation have a substantial impact on inflation expectations of the agents surveyed. We also identify backward-looking behaviour among these agents: persistence in inflation expectations of up to two quarters was detected. Moreover, financial analysts formed inflation expectations more in line with economic theory, while company managers evinced expectations similar to those of consumers.

The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to explore whether gamification and personalization as environmental stimuli to learners’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs) and, in turn, their learning outcomes in MOOCs.

Sample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking gamified MOOCs provided by the MOOCs platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 331 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study demonstrated that learners’ perceived gamification and personalization in MOOCs positively influenced their cognitive LE and emotional LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly explained their LP in MOOCs and, in turn, enhanced their learning outcomes. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model, respectively, explaining 82.3% and 65.1% of the variance in learners’ LP in MOOCs and learning outcomes.

This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct learners’ learning outcomes in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is influenced by gamification and personalization. Noteworthily, while the S-O-R model has been extensively used in prior studies, there is a dearth of evidence on the antecedents of learners’ learning outcomes in the context of MOOCs, which is very scarce in the S-O-R view. Hence, this study enriches the research for MOOCs adoption and learning outcomes into an invaluable context.

The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether media richness (MR), human-system interaction (HSI) and human-human interaction (HHI) as technological feature antecedents to medical professionals’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sample data for this study were collected from medical professionals at six university-/medical university-affiliated hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 309 (51.5%) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.

This study certified that medical professionals’ perceived MR, HSI and HHI in MOOCs positively affected their emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which together explained their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model accounts for 84.1% of the variance in medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs.

This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is affected by MR and interaction (i.e. HSI and HHI). Noteworthily, three psychological constructs, emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE, are adopted to represent medical professionals’ organisms of MOOCs adoption. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more commonly adopted as organisms in prior studies using the S-O-R model and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study enriches the S-O-R model into an invaluable context, and this study’s contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely explaining three types of technological features as external stimuli to medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs is well-documented.

Wage employees enter self-employment either directly or in a staged manner and may subsequently undertake multiple stints at self-employment. Extant research on the relationship between entry modes and the persistence and outcomes of self-employment is inconclusive. This study investigates the relationship between wage employees’ initial mode of entry into self-employment and the duration of the subsequent first two stints of self-employment.

This study used a matched longitudinal sample of 9,550 employees who became majority owners of incorporated firms from 2005 to 2016.

The findings demonstrate that the initial mode of entry into self-employment matters for the first two stints at self-employment. Staged entry into self-employment was associated with a shorter first stint and became insignificant for the second stint. Staged entry into self-employment was positively related to the odds of becoming self-employed for the second time in the same firm.

Using a comprehensive and reliable dataset, the paper shifts focus from the aggregated onward journey of novice entrepreneurs (survival as the outcome) to the duration of their self-employment stints. By doing so, the paper offers insights into the process of becoming self-employed and the patterns associated with success/failure in entrepreneurship associated with self-employment duration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Asian Americans' perceptions of the police, specifically how they construct support. Although such literature has been growing in recent years, research on Asian American interactions with the police remains limited. Additionally, this paper is situated within the theoretical framework of system justification theory to account for Asian Americans' views of the police.

This study relies on interview data collected from 20 Asian Americans residing in mid-Atlantic states. Participants were either recruited directly by the researchers or through the snowball-sampling method.

Police support is influenced by perception of neighborhood safety, personal police contact and empathetic feelings toward the police. Specifically, regarding the latter component, humanizing or empathizing with police officers is a form of rationalizing individual police misconduct that reinforced police legitimacy. Most participants had similar characteristics and displayed police justification. Additional research is needed regarding what characteristics or patterns are likely to lead to lower levels of police justification.

This article's findings improve our understanding of system justification among Asian Americans, particularly as it relates to policing.