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Digital technologies are essential for improving efficiency and unlocking new opportunities in various domains. The purpose of this study is to assess whether digital technologies can ameliorate servitization among manufacturing firms via the interaction of organizational slack and research and development (R&D) intensity.

Drawing on resource-based and service-dominant logic, the study employs a deductive approach and gathers empirical evidence from 1,929 listed A-shares manufacturing firms in the top-seven China mainland industrial provinces spanning the period 2012–2021. It used fixed-effect logistic regression techniques while controlling for various factors to analyze the relationship between digital technologies and manufacturing firm servitization.

The findings revealed that digital technologies significantly ameliorate manufacturing firms' servitization. Moreover, the study uncovers the contingent nature of this relationship, demonstrating that high levels of both internal and external slack, which provide flexibility and support, intensify the direction of digital technologies towards servitization. Additionally, R&D intensity reflects the firm's commitment to innovation, thereby enhancing synergistic effects in the relationship.

This study contributes robust and comprehensive empirical evidence that validates and establishes a clear baseline relationship reflecting the most current digital technology landscape and its implications for manufacturing firms servitization. Moreover, it provides a more patterned understanding of how internal and external slack typologies and R&D intensity contextualize our study’s findings. Additionally, it demonstrates how our theoretical synthesis advances firms’ strategic shifts towards service-oriented business models through digital technologies.

Transnational corporation (TNC)-led oil investments have been widely encouraged as a mechanism for the development of the Global South. Even though the sector is characterized by major accidents, oil-based developmentalist narratives claim that such accidents are merely isolated incidents that can be administratively addressed, redressed behaviorally through education of certain individuals, or corrected through individually targeted post-event legislation. Adapting Harvey Molotch’s (1970) political economy methodology of “accident research”, this paper argues that such “accidents” are, in fact, routine in the entire value chain of the oil system dominated by, among others, military-backed TNCs which increasingly collaborate with national and local oil companies similarly wedded to the ideology of growth. Based on this analysis, existing policy focus on improving technology, instituting and enforcing more environmental regulations, and the pursuit of economic nationalism in the form of withdrawing from globalization are ineffective. In such a red-hot system, built on rapidly spinning wheels of accumulation, the pursuit of slow growth characterized by breaking the chains of monopoly and oligopoly, putting commonly generated rent to common uses, and freeing labor from regulations that rob it of its produce has more potency to address the enigma of petroleum accidents in the global south.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between multi-national firms (MNEs), institutions and innovation.

We empirically examine the link between corruption and innovation within the environment of Russia. The use of data on foreign direct investment (FDI) from both emerging and developed markets provides us an opportunity to test whether the impact on innovation of different types of MNEs varies.

We find that, in the environments with high political risk, corruption may act as a hedge against such risks, boosting the scope and scale of innovation. We, however, find no support for the assumption that the experience at home of emerging country MNEs would offer them the advantage over the developed country MNEs in environments with weak institutions.

One of the major implications of this study is that, in as geographically large country as Russia, it is critical to consider the factors affecting innovation output at sub-national level.

The study is novel as it is the first to examine how innovation is affected by institutions in general and corruption in particular. But in our approach, we use the measure of the actual rather than perceived corruption. Previous studies have largely focused on developed country MNEs; in this study, we examine the impact on innovation of investors from developed as well as emerging economies.

This study seeks to examine unions’ influence on employees’ access to paid holiday/leave, paid pension and social security payment by employers in Ghana. The study also finds out whether unions are potent at minimizing gender inequality of access to these benefits.

Data for the analysis are extracted from the 5th and 6th rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), 2005/2006 and 2012/2013, respectively, as well as the 2015 Ghana Labour Force Survey (GLFS). The study employs binary probit model with a selectivity-correction term as an estimation technique.

The findings indicate that trade unions significantly increase employees’ likelihood of having access to paid holidays/leave, paid pension and social security contributions. We also find that trade unions minimize gender inequality of access to these non-wage benefits.

The findings imply that trade unionism in Ghana is an effective mechanism for enforcing employers’ compliance with the provision of legal benefits to employees. It is also an effective tool for minimizing gender inequality of access to these benefits.

This research paper adds value to the literature by examining the role that unions play in minimizing gender discrimination with regard to access to non-wage benefits.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2024-0234

The degree and impact of competitiveness in the banking sector is of great importance as this has great impact on the financial system and the wider economy. A question of interest here is, does competition in the commercial banking sector boost or hamper economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that competitiveness in commercial banking is linked to economic growth.

The authors use the Boone (2008) indicator to estimate competitiveness of banking markets in ten frontier countries in Africa from 2005 to 2012. This model measures banking competitiveness by assessing the relationship between relative marginal costs and relative market share. Through a panel data model, the authors examine the effect banking sector competitiveness has on economic growth.

The results of Boone (2008) indicator suggest that, to a greater extent, banks in the countries studied have a competitive banking sector. The results of the panel data estimation support the hypothesis that banking sector competition impacts positively on economic growth.

The paper recommends for more policy geared towards enhancing bank competition. This is because competitive banking system will allocate resources more efficiently to improve economic growth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to test the link between bank competition and economic growth in a cross-section of Frontier African countries.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of huge external debt with its servicing requirements on economic growth of the Nigerian economy so as to make meaningful inference on the impact of the debt relief which was granted to the country in 2006.

The neoclassical growth model which incorporates external sector, debt indicators and some macroeconomic variables was employed in this study. The paper investigates the linear and nonlinear effect of debt on growth and investment utilizing the ordinary least squares and the generalized least squares.

Among other things, the negative impact of debt (and its servicing requirements) on growth is confirmed in Nigeria. In addition, external debt contributes positively to growth up to a point after which its contributions become negative reflecting the presence of nonlinearity in effects.

Nigeria's external debt is analyzed in a new context utilizing a different but innovative model and econometric techniques. It is of tremendous value to researchers on related topic and an effective policy guide to policymakers in Nigeria and other countries with similar characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study of the contribution of the services sector to per capita economic growth for Pacific Island countries.

Within the new growth theory framework, the empirical procedure consisted of the regression analysis of data using the panel data fixed effects procedure.

The results confirm the positive and statistically significant correlation of services growth to per capita gross domestic product growth.

Limitations largely centre on the use of aggregate cross‐country data. Variations may be found in what actually drives the services growth at the country level. Thus, a country‐specific study would be more appropriate in order to get more robust results. Also, the data do not capture the effect of non‐market services. Disaggregate services data that separate market data services with non‐market services would provide a more accurate picture of the influence of non‐market services.

The practical implication is that that service sectors in the Pacific Island countries ought to be given greater support, for example, investment in physical and institutional infrastructure, market access, financial support, skill development and investment incentives.

Pacific Islands services sectors contribute to household welfare through paid employment and meet household demands of service sector output.

This paper presents the first study among the Pacific Island countries that has examined the importance of services sector and its contribution to growth. The findings of this study are useful to Pacific policy makers in terms of improving the services sector through instituting appropriate growth enhancing policies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore theoretically and empirically which institutional factors (including good governance ones) help public-private partnerships (PPP) in providing better infrastructural services, which would then in their turn lead to attracting more private investment for the whole economy.

On the theoretical level, while a focus is put on discussing the institutions that should be responsible for PPP success, reconciliation is being attempted between institutional economics from one side and the new public management and networks management perspectives from the other. Empirically, OLS multivariate panel regressions test the suggestions of the theoretical discussion with emphasis on interaction terms between PPP and the studied institutions.

Evidence is found that good governance institutions, and specifically good regulatory quality, bureaucratic efficiency and independence, help PPP in performing well as evident from their positive effect on investment growth.

The limitations of this paper are mainly empirical. Further results with great policy implications could have been obtained if better proxies were developed for a number of variables. Certainly this is the case for the proxies used for cronyism and public-private dialogues (PPD).

Tackling bureaucratic efficiency and independence and higher regulatory quality should be a top priority if the great positive externalities resulting from PPP in infrastructure are to be realized.

The novelty of this research is attributed to constructing a proxy for PPP, as well as testing empirically the effect of the interactions of PPP with other institutional variables on the performance of infrastructural services (as evident from attracting more investment). The synthesis between the literature on PPP, new public management, networks, good governance, and institutional economics is another aspect of this work. The obtained results suggest important policy recommendations, and, the author hopes to, add to the literature on PPP.