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This research paper investigates the economic impact of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative on its historical trade partner, Egypt, within a landscape shaped by global interconnectedness.

The paper employs an augmented gravity model with a random-effects estimator and robust standard errors to analyze the impact of the OBOR initiative on China–Egypt bilateral trade from 1960 to 2022.

The findings reveal a significant increase in trade volume following the implementation of OBOR. The model confirms the continued importance of gross domestic product (GDP) and geographic proximity in facilitating trade. Additionally, the research highlights Egypt’s strategic positioning within the OBOR due to its location and existing infrastructure, such as the Suez Canal.

These results offer valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to optimize bilateral trade strategies and strengthen economic cooperation under the OBOR framework.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a fresh perspective on the impact of OBOR, employing a robust econometric approach and focusing on a specific yet crucial regional trade relationship.

This research aims to examine the relations between Shariah compliance and earnings quality.

The authors study three Shariah features: Shariah compliance status, level of Shariah compliance (H-Score) and Shariah compliance persistence. The sample consists of 463 firms from the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 to 2018. A variable determining the level of Shariah compliance was created in accordance with the methodology of S&P 500 Shariah and its underlying index, S&P 500. Then, a probate relapse study was created to identify the link between Shariah compliance and earnings quality.

Results show that Shariah-compliant firms engage in lower earnings management compared to their Shariah-non-compliant counterparts. This paper reveals that Shariah compliance status and high level of Shariah compliance have significant positive association with earnings quality. The authors also find novel evidence that persistence of the Shariah-compliant status has a significant negative association with earnings quality.

This study only examines firms listed on MENA stock markets. It is recommended to further study different markets in addition to the emerging Arab markets in order to compare and contrast the results. Further, larger sample observations from a greater date range can be used.

Few studies have examined the earnings management behavior of Shariah-compliant firms vs Shariah-non-compliant ones in emerging markets; however, no study has focused on Shariah-compliant firms and their level of Shariah compliance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which uses all four proxies for earnings quality in association with Shariah compliance and used new Shariah variables such as Level of Shariah Compliance and Persistent Shariah Compliance status.

This study aims to identify the significant scientific actors, reveal the intellectual structure and explore essential features for future research direction in Sharia governance studies.

The study applies a hybrid review combining bibliometric analysis and content analysis. It uses Rstudio (biblioshiny), VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel to analyze 457 articles published in 206 journals indexed by Scopus and/or Web of Science during the period of 1985 until the end of 2022.

The paper discovered four distinct streams of Sharia governance studies: structure of Sharia governance, Sharia governance and risk management, Sharia governance and sustainability and the effect of Sharia governance toward firm’s financial performance. Furthermore, it derives and summarizes 26 main research questions for future studies.

In terms of theoretical implications, the finding contributes to the general literature on Sharia governance by conducting bibliometric analysis and content analysis. In terms of practical implications, this study suggests that Sharia governance should be strengthened by the management of Islamic banks and other Islamic-based businesses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the early studies using a hybrid review on the topic of Sharia governance, allowing future researchers in this field to capture the trends and progress of current literature as well as the research gaps to be filled in by future researchers.

This study aims to assess the board of directors’ effectiveness in curbing earnings management (EM) in Jordan, a country where Islamic religious values strongly influence corporate practices.

Using a sample of 51 Amman Stock Exchange-listed firms from 2012 to 2022, generalised least squares regression is used to examine the association between board characteristics and EM.

Most board characteristics do not significantly affect EM. Interestingly, board activity is significantly and positively associated with EM, suggesting that the board’s monitoring function has been relegated to a secondary role.

Formal corporate governance mechanisms may prove ineffective, as their effectiveness in limiting EM is undermined by informal rules.

Regulators should adapt corporate governance rules to the context in which they are embedded. Greater attention to religious dynamics could improve board oversight effectiveness.

This study provides a new perspective to analyse the relationship between corporate governance and EM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first studies to explore this issue within the context of Islamic countries.

Prior studies on blockholders involvement in earnings management behavior have given rise to alignment and entrenchment perspectives. The alignment perspective states that blockholders are an effective control to reduce earnings management behavior. In contrast, the entrenchment perspective states that blockholders act opportunistically and encourage earnings management behavior. Firms in Indonesia generally have concentrated shares, which is probably in line with the entrenchment perspective. Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of blockholders on earnings management and the role of religiosity as a moderator of the influence of blockholders on earnings management.

This study uses multiple linear and multi-group regression to analyze 2,238 firm-year observations for firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange period 2015–2021. Multi-group regression is used to test the effect of religiosity on the relationship between blockholders and earnings management.

The finding of this study is that religiosity can mitigate the involvement of blockholders in earnings management, where blockholders positively influence earnings management in non-religious but not religious firms. This finding is expected to solve the agency problem between management with shareholders and the majority with minority shareholders.

Firms should apply religious values in their business activities to prevent or minimize profit manipulation. Another implication is that investors can glance at Sharia stocks when investing because they have lower earnings management or higher-quality financial reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study may be the first to investigate the role of religiosity by comparing the effect of blockholders on earnings management between religious and non-religious firms. This study proves that religiosity is a new alternative to mitigating blockholders involvement in earning management and agency problems.

Reverse logistics (RL) activities are becoming crucial in today’s business environment because of their ability to enhance organizational capabilities to manage waste and resources effectively and efficiently as an approach for achieving sustainability. These capabilities can eventually create sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). Drawing on resource-based view (RBV), this study posits RL as a tool to develop capabilities gained from high performance (financial and nonfinancial) to enhance SCA.

Covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze 1,207 responses collected from manufacturing organizations operating in Egypt. Data were gathered through an online survey sent via email to manufacturing organizations operating in Egypt, particularly Cairo, Giza and Alexandria, as these governorates contain most business activities in Egypt and hence high a percentage of waste.

Results indicated that RL activities (recycling, remanufacturing, repair, recondition and disposal) can fully mediate the relationship between organizational performance (financial and nonfinancial) and SCA. However, the remanufacturing and recycling mediating roles between financial performance and SCA were not significant.

Applying this research in a developing country (Egypt) will help extend RBV and incentivize organizations to apply RL activities, which can potentially solve several environmental issues such as decreasing waste.

Using the research variables in combination will help in filling the literature gap as previous research focused on RL and only organizational operational performance, where RL was used as an independent variable with no illustration of how its dimensions affect performance or its mediating role between performance and SCA.