Shen Kunrong and Jin Gang
The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine the influence of formal and informal institutional differences on enterprise investment margin, mode and result.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine the influence of formal and informal institutional differences on enterprise investment margin, mode and result.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on 2,440 micro samples of large-scale outbound investment from 609 Chinese enterprises from the years 2005 to 2016.
Findings
The study has found that formal institutional differences have little impact on investment scale, but significantly affect investment diversification. In order to avoid the management risks brought by formal institutional differences, enterprises tend to a full ownership structure. However, the choice between greenfield investment and cross-border mergers and acquisitions is not affected by formal institutional differences. In contrast, the impact of informal institutional differences is more extensive. Both formal and informal institutional differences significantly increase the probability of investment failure. Further research found that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridges the formal institutional differences.
Originality/value
The study concludes that developing the BRI, especially cultural exchanges with countries alongside the Belt and Road, will help enterprises to “go global” faster and better.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the metaverse platform in a social context to better understand the future of this tool in tourism cities and how this can help to improve…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the metaverse platform in a social context to better understand the future of this tool in tourism cities and how this can help to improve the well-being of residents in both digital and physical scenarios.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the current and probable developments in the metaverse, and its use in tourism cities and companies have been investigated. Moreover, this study develops, collects and examines the main metaverse definitions by expert authors and organizations as a methodology to ensure the transparency and credibility of the metaverse analysis.
Findings
Findings suggest that the fusion of the metaverse and tourism cities must create residents’ services and experiences in the new MetaTourPolis to help interact and connect citizens with the city’s institutions and companies, as well as make tourism cities more attractive, innovative, environmentally friendly and healthier places to live. Metaverse will bring new changes for residents and tourists, in fact, this virtual platform is already changing and improving the residents’ quality of life and people with disabilities in tourism cities. For instance, the metaverse platform has been implemented in Seoul, Santa Monica and Dubai MetaTourPolis to interact with their residents, including people with disabilities, to resolve bureaucratic and administrative problems, avoiding this group and the rest of the residents travelling by bus or car to the city’s institutions. In addition, several metaverse applications based on softbot tutors or metaverse virtual social centres have been developed to improve blind and impaired people, and elderly people’ quality of life, respectively.
Originality/value
A new concept called “MetaTourPolis” has been included to stage the relationship between tourism cities and the metaverse platform, where the fusion of metaverse and the new tourism polis of the 21st century will be at the service of citizens, tourists and companies, to create more sustainable, efficient, quantitative and environmental tourism cities.
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Pooja Singh and Anindita Chakraborty
This paper aims to examine the relationship between financial distress risk and stock returns in the Indian context.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between financial distress risk and stock returns in the Indian context.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an empirical study wherein the Altman-Z score is used to identify the distressed and the non-distressed firms listed on Nifty 500. The author uses the Fama–French five-factor model to study the relationship between stock returns and distress risk. The study analyses the differences in the factor loadings among the portfolios sorted by distress. It evaluates if incorporating distress risk factors in conventional pricing models enhances the goodness of fit.
Findings
The study reported a positive relationship between the distress risk factor and stock returns in the distressed portfolios, signifying that distress risk is a systematic risk only for distressed portfolios. Furthermore, after including the financial distress risk premium, the observed fluctuations in the small-minus-big (SMB), high-minus-low (HML), RMW and CMA coefficients indicate a common association with distress risk-related information.
Originality/value
This study tests the Fama–French five factors for distress risk and examines its nature in asset pricing for emerging markets like India. The study examined the performance of the augmented Fama–French five-factor model across different sets of portfolios sorted based on distress.
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As the world faces a new health crisis threatening people with the spread of Covid-19, this study aims to summarize the key information of Covid-19 related to disease…
Abstract
Purpose
As the world faces a new health crisis threatening people with the spread of Covid-19, this study aims to summarize the key information of Covid-19 related to disease characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and prevention along with the lessons learned from Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach
The narrative review was synthesized from various sources such as the World Health Organization; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Ministry of Public Health and other related news; articles in ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar; and the author's perspective regarding the lessons learned from Thailand with keywords of “Covid-19” and “Coronavirus” from January to August 2020. Google Trends was used to set common questions.
Findings
Covid-19 is the seventh family of coronaviruses that cause various symptoms related to respiratory systems. The disease can be treated through general and symptomatic treatment, by using antiviral drugs. As of July 2020, there are four potential vaccine candidates ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, mRNA-1273, Ad5-nCOV and BNT162b1. The recommendations for Covid-19 prevention are physical distancing, face masks, eye protection and hand washing. Thailand is now considered as low-risk for Covid-19 possibly because of (1) soft policy by government actions, (2) village health volunteers, (3) integration of technology and (4) fact-based communications.
Originality/value
This study summarized the key points about Covid-19, clarified some misunderstandings and shared strategic actions from Thailand, which can be adapted according to the different capacities and situations in other countries.
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Mohammed Yassin Mohd Aba Shaar, Budi Waluyo, Nur Lailatur Rofiah, Phanit Singhasuwan and Kanyarat Tongumpa
The study examined the antecedents of lecturers' online teaching anxiety and analyzed their relationships with variables such as gender, age, education, teaching experience and…
Abstract
Purpose
The study examined the antecedents of lecturers' online teaching anxiety and analyzed their relationships with variables such as gender, age, education, teaching experience and faculty.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-methods design, the study involved 115 university lecturers through surveys and 15 through semi-structured interviews, with data analyzed via mixed-methods approaches.
Findings
Personal matters and digital literacy caused the lowest anxiety, teaching methods and classroom management triggered moderate anxiety, and teaching context and health factors provoked the highest. Female lecturers experienced greater health-related anxiety due to prolonged screen time. Education lecturers reported lower anxiety than science lecturers, whose laboratory-based content was harder to adapt to online teaching.
Originality/value
Lecturers' online teaching anxiety stemmed from six factors: digital literacy, teaching context, teaching methods, class management, health and personal matters. Institutional and social support have been identified as crucial for improving well-being and reducing anxiety.
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Rabiatu Bonku, Faisal Alkaabneh and Lauren Berrings Davis
Inspired by a food bank distribution operation, this paper aims to study synchronized vehicle routing for equitable and effective food allocation. The primary goal is to improve…
Abstract
Purpose
Inspired by a food bank distribution operation, this paper aims to study synchronized vehicle routing for equitable and effective food allocation. The primary goal is to improve operational efficiency while ensuring equitable and effective food distribution among the partner agencies.
Design/methodology/approach
This study introduces a multiobjective Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model aimed at addressing the complex challenge of effectively distributing food, particularly for food banks serving vulnerable populations in low-income urban and rural areas. The optimization approach described in this paper places a significant emphasis on social and economic considerations by fairly allocating food to food bank partner agencies while minimizing routing distance and waste. To assess the performance of the approach, this paper evaluates three distinct models, focusing on key performance measures such as effectiveness, equity and efficiency. The paper conducts a comprehensive numerical analysis using randomly generated data to gain insights into the trade-offs that arise and provide valuable managerial insights for food bank managers.
Findings
The results of the analysis highlight the models that perform better in terms of equity and effectiveness. Additionally, the results show that restocking the vehicles through the concept of synchronization improves the overall quantity of food allocation to partner agencies, thereby increasing accessibility.
Research limitations/implications
This paper contributes significantly to the literature on optimization approaches in the field of humanitarian logistics.
Practical implications
This study provides food bank managers with three different models, each with a multifaceted nature of trade-offs, to better address the complex challenges of food insecurity.
Social implications
This paper contributes significantly to social responsibility by enhancing the operational efficiency of food banks, ultimately improving their ability to serve communities in need.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose and analyze this new variant of vehicle routing problems in nonprofit settings.
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This study explores the characteristics of high-speed rail (HSR) and air transportation networks in China based on the weighted complex network approach. Previous related studies…
Abstract
This study explores the characteristics of high-speed rail (HSR) and air transportation networks in China based on the weighted complex network approach. Previous related studies have largely implemented unweighted (binary) network analysis, or have constructed a weighted network, limited by unweighted centrality measures. This study applies weighted centrality measures (mean association [MA], triangle betweenness centrality [TBC], and weighted harmonic centrality [WHC]) to represent traffic dynamics in HSR and air transportation weighted networks, where nodes represent cities and links represent passenger traffic. The spatial distribution of centrality results is visualized by using ArcGIS 10.2. Moreover, we analyze the network robustness of HSR, air transportation, and multimodal networks by measuring weighted efficiency (WE) subjected to the highest weighted centrality node attacks. In the HSR network, centrality results show that cities with a higher MA are concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta; cities with a higher TBC are mostly provincial capitals or regional centers; and cities with a higher WHC are grouped in eastern and central regions. Furthermore, spatial differentiation of centrality results is found between HSR and air transportation networks. There is a little bit of difference in eastern cities; cities in the central region have complementary roles in HSR and air transportation networks, but air transport is still dominant in western cities. The robustness analysis results show that the multimodal network, which includes both airports and high-speed rail stations, has the best connectivity and shows robustness.