Search results

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how the relational capital of the information technology (IT) department creates value in organizations. In addition, the paper presents a multi-dimensional scale to measure and manage relational capital in the IT department.

In the first, explorative phase of the study, interviews and focus groups were conducted in order to develop a new measurement scale, which was subsequently tested through a survey questionnaire (212 respondents).

This research suggests that the relational capital of the IT department is a very important resource for the creation of strategic value. The statistical analysis conducted for this study confirmed the validity and reliability of the novel scale developed to measure this resource. Finally, thanks to factor analysis, five dimensions for the scale were identified.

Data were collected in northern Italy only. Further studies are advisable to confirm the validity of the constructs and scale.

The questionnaire presented in this study can be used to monitor the effectiveness of the interactions between the IT department and the other key actors involved in IT-enabled innovation. The adoption of this scale and its possible adaptation to specific, evolving business contexts may enhance the practitioner’s understanding of the role of relational capital in the value creation process.

The paper contributes to the “third stage” of intellectual capital research by concentrating on an intra-organizational level of analysis, which has been overlooked in the literature to date.

This study explores practitioners’ perspectives on the perceived gap between university and practice beyond the hard and soft skill paradigm. Utilising Tomlinson’s graduate capital model of employability (2017), we explored human, social, cultural, and psychological capitals to enrich the understanding of this issue and employability. It provided a new perspective, useful for implementing curriculum renewal.

This study utilised a two-stage mixed methods design. Using Tomlinson’s (2017) Graduate capital model as a framework, the first stage involved distributing an online survey to qualified architects in hiring positions practising in Australia. This served as the foundation for generating qualitative and quantitative data. The second stage involved a two-hour practitioner workshop where the survey results were discussed and expanded upon.

Our results found that the practitioner’s perspective on the perceived skills gap is more complex than the hard/soft skill paradigm commonly discussed. Practitioners expressed a need for students/graduates to possess identity and cultural capital to contextualise industry norms and expectations. This knowledge lets students know where and how hard/soft skills are used. Our results also suggest practitioners are concerned with the prevailing individualistic approach to the higher education system and traditional architectural teaching methods, instead suggesting a more industry-aligned collaborative disposition.

By expanding the employability discourse beyond hard/soft skills, the results of this research provide an opportunity for architectural curriculum renewal in line with industry expectations.

Carbon emission is one of the most important problems of today. In this framework, it is important for countries to take the necessary actions to solve this problem. Energy use is one of the most important causes of carbon emissions. Choosing fossil fuels in this process increases the carbon emission problem. Therefore, it is understood that countries should be more sensitive about energy types. In this context, renewable energy (RE) sources are recommended by experts. However, due to some problems of these energy types, it does not seem possible to meet all energy needs from these sources. It is thought that nuclear energy will produce a permanent solution to the carbon emission problem. In this context, it is recommended that the use of nuclear energy be put on the agenda by countries.

Energy policy and sector developments in Greece in the last decades reveal the government and investors' intentions to exploit the energy resources and production potential of the country. Developments regard renewable and hydrocarbon energy sources. Agreements with international companies come with economic terms attached and the prospect of related sectors' development, employment generation, research and innovation. Developments, particularly those related to hydrocarbons exploration, take place in times of climate change mitigation and adaptation and actions to ensure environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development in line with the goals set out in the United Nations Agenda for 2030 and the European Green Deal. Given these challenges, the design and implementation of timely policies that can promote local supply capacity appear to be of primary importance. This chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities of designing and implementing local content policies with the intention to derive useful policy considerations. The discussion draws from the latest developments with hydrocarbons exploration and production activities in Greece and from the recent relevant to local content literature. The analysis concludes that in the face of climate action, rapid technological innovation, and the high capital intensity that characterize the sector, knowledge transfer, and education upgrade emerge as important factors of achieving sustainable growth through local content policies.

The chapter deals with China-Pakistan economic relations under China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC), which is considered to be a flagship corridor under the Chinese ‘The Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI), also known as ‘One Belt One Road’ or ‘New Silk Road’. COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the composition of the world economy. Now BRI has become even more important for China's economic strategy to sustain its long-term growth. The authors investigate CPEC to be Beijing's most ambitious project so far and mark, that despite possible concerns and challenges, CPEC will succeed. The authors identify the advantages and benefits that both Pakistan and China will gain. Further promoting of ‘westward’ strategy, which facilitates the economic and social development of Western China, boost in the export of capital, technology, production capacity is considered to give a new impulse of Chinese economic development. Rise in industrial potential, stimulating socio-economic development, improvement of population well-being, as well as maintenance of internal stability are among Pakistan's benefits from CPEC.

The chapter identifies the short- and long-term effects of the COVID-19 on implementing CPEC, as well.

This paper aims to examine the effects of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment of Islamic stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study uses a panel data set that covers 398 listed Islamic stocks from seven major Asia Pacific countries over the period of five years from 2017 to 2021, yielding 1,990 observations. Specifically, this paper investigates the said association by combining the real options theory regarding investment and the panel data-based econometric method that captures the dynamic relationship, the generalized method of moments estimators.

The findings show that the relationship between the oil price volatility and corporate investment of Islamic stocks is significant and nonlinear in nature, suggesting the presence of both the growth options and the waiting options. Overall, the results reveal that corporate investment of Islamic stocks is hindered during the unprecedented corona crash, when oil price increases at exponential rates.

The findings suggest that considering the information caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for investment decisions of Islamic stocks. Therefore, policymakers and regulators should incorporate the impact of oil price uncertainties caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic on firm’s investment expansion and diversification strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the relationship between the investment of Islamic stocks and the oil price uncertainty under compound options theory in top Asian oil-importing countries.

China is a significant energy consumer with increasingly severe resource constraints and environmental problems, requiring low-carbon energy transformation and encouraging high-quality energy development (HED). Green finance significantly affects the effect on HED as a cutting-edge financial strategy to support environmental improvement and encourage green development.

Using panel data from 30 provinces from 2007 to 2019 and the system-generalized method of moments method, this paper investigates the impact of green finance on HED, and further explores their threshold effect, heterogeneous and asymmetry analysis.

The main results indicate that: (1) green finance positively affects HED in China; in other words, a 1% increase in the green finance index will boost HED by an average of 0.767%; (2) as the economy improves, the positive impact of green finance on HED will be even more significant and (3) the contribution of green finance to HED is more significant in the northern provinces and areas with lower HED levels.

This paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions to further improve the construction of the green financial system.

This paper aims to examine the cross-quantile correlation and causality-in-quantiles between green investments and energy commodities during the outbreak of COVID-19. To be specific, the authors aim to address the following questions: Is there any distributional predictability among green bonds and energy commodities during COVID-19? Is there exist any directional predictability between green investments and energy commodities during the global pandemic? Can green bonds hedge the risk of energy commodities during a period of the financial crisis.

The authors use the nonparametric causality in quantile and cross-quantilogram (CQ) correlation approaches as the estimation techniques to investigate the distributional and directional predictability between green investments and energy commodities respectively using daily spot prices from January 1, 2020, to March 26, 2021. The study uses daily closing price indices S&P Green Bond Index as a representative of the green bond market. In the case of energy commodities, the authors use S&P GSCI Natural Gas Spot, S&P GSCI Biofuel Spot, S&P GSCI Unleaded Gasoline Spot, S&P GSCI Gas Oil Spot, S&P GSCI Brent Crude Spot, S&P GSCI WTI, OPEC Oil Basket Price, Crude Oil Oman, Crude Oil Dubai Cash, S&P GSCI Heating Oil Spot, S&P Global Clean Energy, US Gulf Coast Kerosene and Los Angeles Low Sulfur CARB Diesel Spot.

From the CQ correlation results, there exists an overall negative directional predictability between green bonds and natural gas. The authors find that the directional predictability between green bonds and S&P GSCI Biofuel Spot, S&P GSCI Gas Oil Spot, S&P GSCI Brent Crude Spot, S&P GSCI WTI Spot, OPEC Oil Basket Spot, Crude Oil Oman Spot, Crude Oil Dubai Cash Spot, S&P GSCI Heating Oil Spot, US Gulf Coast Kerosene-Type Jet Fuel Spot Price and Los Angeles Low Sulfur CARB Diesel Spot Price is negative during normal market conditions and positive during extreme market conditions. Results from the non-parametric causality in the quantile approach show strong evidence of asymmetry in causality across quantiles and strong variations across markets.

The quantile time-varying dependence and predictability results documented in this paper can help market participants with different investment targets and horizons adopt better hedging strategies and portfolio diversification to aid optimal policy measures during volatile market conditions.

The outcome of this study will promote awareness regarding the environment and also increase investor’s participation in the green bond market. Further, it allows corporate institutions to fulfill their social commitment through the issuance of green bonds.

This paper differs from these previous studies in several aspects. First, the authors have included a wide range of energy commodities, comprising three green bond indices and 14 energy commodity indices. Second, the authors have explored the dependency between the two markets, particularly during COVID-19 pandemic. Third, the authors have applied CQ and causality-in-quantile methods on the given data set. Since the market of green and sustainable finance is growing drastically and the world is transmitting toward environment-friendly practices, it is essential and vital to understand the impact of green bonds on other financial markets. In this regard, the study contributes to the literature by documenting an in-depth connectedness between green bonds and crude oil, natural gas, petrol, kerosene, diesel, crude, heating oil, biofuels and other energy commodities.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are facing unprecedented challenges related to climate change and population aging. The purpose of the analysis is to explore the relationship between population aging and environmental degradation, accounting for human capital, using a sample of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980–2019.

On the empirical methodology, the analysis uses panel estimators with heterogenous coefficients and an error structure that takes into consideration cross-country heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence for a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980–2019. To examine the relationship between population aging and environmental degradation, the authors employ two alternative measures of environmental degradation that is energy consumption and CO2 emissions in metric tons per capita. Concerning the regressors, the authors account for two alternative aging indicators, namely the elderly population and the old-age dependency ratios to confirm robustness.

The analysis provides evidence that population aging and human capital development (IHC) lead to lower energy consumption in the OECD sample. Overall, the growing number of elderly people in the OECD seems to act as a mitigating factor for energy consumption. The authors view these results as conveying the message that the evolution of population aging along with channeling government expenditures towards human capital enhancement are important drivers of curbing energy consumption and ensuring environmental sustainability. The authors' research is of great significance for environmental policymakers by illuminating the favorable energy consumption patterns that population aging brings to advanced economies.

The main limitation of this study concerns data availability. Future research, and subject to greater data availability in the future, could dig deeper into understanding the dynamics of this complex nexus by incorporating additional control variables. Similarly, the authors focus on aggregate renewable energy consumption, and the authors do not explicitly model the sources of renewable energy (wind, hydropower, solar power, solid biofuels and other). Additional analysis of the breakdown of renewable energy sources would be insightful – subject to data availability – especially for meeting the recently agreed new target of 42.5% for European Union (EU) countries by 2030. A deep transformation of the European energy system is needed for the EU to meet the target. Finally, extending the model to include a range of non-OECD countries that are also experiencing demographic transformations is a promising avenue for future research.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effects of population aging and human capital on environmental degradation using a broad set of OECD countries and advanced spectrum estimation methods. Given cross-sectional dependencies and cross-country heterogeneity, the authors' empirical results underline the importance of cross-OECD policy spillovers and knowledge diffusions across the OECD countries. The new “energy culture” calls for concerted policy action even in an aging era.