Search results

This study examines the impact of financial inclusion on the corporate sustainability of banks in both Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and non-OIC emerging economies, considering the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research utilizes data from 3,159 bank-years from 2007 to 2021 across 33 emerging markets.

Empirical findings indicate that firms operating in higher financial inclusion developing countries tend to exhibit higher levels of sustainable development. This positive relationship has become even more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting the importance of financial inclusion in fostering corporate sustainability, especially in times of economic challenges. Interestingly, while the positive correlation between financial inclusion and sustainable development remains consistent across both OIC and non-OIC countries, firms in OIC countries do not show significant changes during the pandemic.

This observation suggests that the pandemic’s impact on corporate sustainability may vary between the two groups of countries. This study highlights the significance of financial inclusion in promoting corporate sustainability in developing economies. In times of recessions when accessing finance becomes expensive, policymakers in OIC countries should identify firms that adhere to Islamic principles, such as those sensitive to interest rates, and provide them with targeted support. This assistance can enable these companies to compete effectively and achieve their financial sustainability objectives.

There has been no attempt to investigate the effect of financial inclusion and the pandemic on the sustainable development of banks in developing countries.

The authors investigate the impact of governance on the leverage of East Asian firms in the financial crisis context, in order to understand the puzzle whether debt acts as a substitute for governance or an outcome of the governance mechanism.

The authors use 86,030 firm-years and the country-level governance data from eight East Asian countries over the period 1996–2017. The authors employ the fixed effects (FE) model, in the main analysis and the weighted least squares model, as a robustness check in order to compare the two competing hypotheses of agency theory, substitute and outcome models.

The authors’ results show that debt acts as a substitute for governance before the GFC, but during and after the GFC the picture changes. Namely, debt acts as an outcome of the governance mechanism during the GFC and its aftermath. Since during financial downturns both agency costs increase, and information asymmetry widens, firms in poor-governed countries may be reluctant to increase their leverage in order not to face financial distress and additional restrictions. Thus, the results imply that the use of debt as a tool to mitigate agency conflicts and a substitute for governance strongly depends on the environment that the firms operate and the general macroeconomic conditions, such as facing a financial crisis or not.

This study provides an interesting case of the firms' capacity to raise money during a crisis and that governance plays an important role in borrowing activities of firms. This will undoubtedly help motivating owners and policymakers for improving governance. The authors’ findings may be useful for policymakers to develop policies considering the adverse effects caused by exogenous shocks. This is crucial because the severity of GFC as a shock seems to change the macro and institutional environment that firms operate. While the authors properly address the research hypotheses using country governance data, future research may employ corporate governance data to attain firm-level results by testing two competing hypotheses.

There are several important areas where this study makes original contributions. First, while Tsoy and Heshmati (2019) focus on the dynamics of capital structure for only Korean firms, the authors extend the sample including eight East Asian countries considering the impact of country governance on capital structure policy. Specifically, this study is the first in using the robust country governance data, which differs by country and year, in the crisis context. Next, the authors investigate both the AFC and GFC to compare whether these two crises have different effects on capital structure policy of East Asian firms. Finally, the authors aim to understand whether leverage is used as a substitute for governance or an outcome of governance mechanism considering recessions.

This study assesses the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) certification on capital structure decisions considering the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study utilizes the annual Asset-4 and Datastream data of Thomson Reuters Eikon for non-financial firms in member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Firm-fixed effects are used to avoid unobserved heterogeneity.

Firms with higher corporate sustainability have a higher leverage ratio. The positive impact of ESG scores on book leverage became more significant during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings imply that ESG activities might serve as a signalling tool, especially considering the pandemic: ESG activities mitigate financial constraints when they are most pronounced and impactful.

Firms should invest in ESG activities to alleviate financial constraints. Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to explore how ESG and macro-specific factors jointly affect debt financing. Policymakers should incentivize ESG investment to reduce agency conflicts. Regulators in OIC countries should support firms that are encountering obstacles in obtaining ESG certification.

To date, the role of ESG investing in capital structure policy by considering the recent pandemic has not been assessed in OIC countries.

This study aims to measure economic uncertainty in Turkey by a novel economic uncertainty index (EUI) employing principal component analysis (PCA). We assess the impact of Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey with our constructed uncertainty index.

In order to obtain the EUI, this study employs a dimension reduction method of PCA using 14 macroeconomic indicators that spans from January 2011 to July 2020. The first principal component is picked as a proxy for the economic uncertainty in Turkey which explains 52% of total variation in entire sample. In the second part of our analysis, with our constructed EUI we conduct a structural vector autoregressions (SVAR) analysis simulating the Covid-19-induced uncertainty shock to the real economy.

Our EUI sensitively detects important economic/political events in Turkey as well as Covid-19-induced uncertainty rising to extremely high levels during the outbreak. Our SVAR results imply a significant decline in economic activity and in the sub-indices as well. Namely, industrial production drops immediately by 8.2% and cumulative loss over 8 months will be 15% on average. The losses in the capital and intermediate goods are estimated to be 18 and 25% respectively. Forecast error variance decomposition results imply that uncertainty shocks preserve its explanatory power in the long run, and intermediate goods production is more vulnerable to uncertainty shocks than overall industrial production and capital goods production.

The results indicate that monetary and fiscal policy should aim to decrease uncertainty during Covid-19. Moreover, since investment expenditures are affected severely during the outbreak, policymakers should impose investment subsidies.

This is the first study constructing a novel EUI which sensitively captures the critical economic/political events in Turkey. Moreover, we assess the impact of Covid-19-driven uncertainty on Turkish Economy with a SVAR model.

This study aims to investigate the effect of fear sentiment with a novel data set on Bitcoin’s (BTC) return, volatility and transaction volume. The authors divide the sample into two subperiods to capture the changing dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors retrieve the novel fear sentiment data from Thomson Reuters MarketPsych Indices (TRMI). The authors denote the subperiods as pre- and post-COVID-19 considering January 13, 2020, when the first COVID-19 confirmed case was reported outside China. The authors use bivariate vector autoregressive models given below with lag-length k, to investigate the dynamics between BTC variables and fear sentiment.

BTC market measures have dissimilar dynamics before and after the Coronavirus outbreak. The results reveal that due to the excessive uncertainty led by the outbreak, an increase in fear sentiment negatively affects the BTC returns more persistently and significantly. For the post-COVID-19 period, an increase in fear also results in more fluctuations in transaction volume while its initial and cumulative effects are both negative. Due to extreme uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, investors may trade more aggressively in the initial phases of the shock.

The authors are convinced that the results in this paper have more far-reaching implications for other markets regulated by the states. BTC provides a natural benchmark to understand how fear sentiment drives and impacts the markets isolated from any interventions. Hence, the results show that in the absence of regulatory frameworks, market dynamics are likely to be more volatile and the fear sentiment has more persistent impacts. The authors also highlight the importance of using micro, asset-specific sentiment measures to capture market dynamics better.

BTC is not associated with any regulatory authority and is not produced by the governments and central banks. COVID-19 as a natural experiment provides an opportunity to explore the pure effects of market sentiment on BTC considering its decentralized and unregulated features. The paper has two main contributions. First, the authors use BTC-specific fear sentiment novel data set of TRMI instead of more general market sentiments used in the existing studies. Next, this is the first study to examine the association between fear and BTC before and after COVID-19.

The objective of this study is to examine the causal relationship between economic growth, information and communication technology (ICT) penetration and innovation development in OECD countries.

This study incorporates data for 24 OECD countries from 2000 to 2018, which is divided into the earliest (2000–2009) and the latest (2010–2018) periods. The econometric methodologies of this study employ panel cointegration, estimation procedures and vector error-correction modelling to investigate the potential interconnections between ICT, innovation development and economic growth.

The results from the latest period illustrate that OECD countries have achieved positive and significant economic development from high ICT penetration, while results from the earliest period show that OECD countries were just beginning to enjoy the benefits of ICT penetration. Moreover, findings show that innovation development is highly significant in the latest period when promoting economic growth.

The policy implications suggest that promoting ICT infrastructure establishment and expanding the innovation development may drive the process of economic development in OECD countries.

This study employs mobile and Internet penetration as the development of telecommunication which is in line with the enlargement of innovation to foster economic growth in OECD countries. Comparing the evidence from two decades provides significant value for policymakers and decision-makers regarding the advantages of technology expansion and innovation development to promote economic growth in recent conditions.

This article examines the inaction, silencing and ignorance in ex ante disasters whilst conducting a case study analysis of the Izmir/Samos earthquake, a 6.6 Mw (moment magnitude) earthquake that occurred at a depth of 14.9 km from the ground on 30 October 2020 at 2:51 PM. The 8-floor Riza Bey Apartment in Bayrakli/Izmir was demolished in the earthquake approximately 100 km from the epicenter. After the earthquake, several lawsuits started to conduct investigations on an apartment basis. Focusing on the causes of disasters in engaging with adoptive thinking in disasters, the current article posits the following research question: what are the ex ante socio-technical dynamics and causes of fatality in disasters?

The methodological tools and advice related to disaster prevention in ex ante disasters originate from the actor network theory (ANT). Although ANT probes complex and dynamic multiplicities in disaster prevention management, this may be unsatisfactory for conceptualizing and operationalizing a disaster, as it is heavily reliant on discerning between humans and non-humans. Data were gathered (February 2021–February 2022) from 15 face-to-face interviews, 2 phone interviews, official documents, archival records, open-sourced public interviews, political speeches, newspaper articles, public reports, expert reports stories, videos, legal transcriptions and photographs. Additionally, data were gathered from the commission minutes officially published on the government website.

This article revealed the confusion of authority between the local and central governments and the gap between institutions and citizens in understanding and implementing the disaster prevention laws and regulations. It found that the causes of disasters beyond any dichotomies, such as surface versus site and ground versus grounded, rely not only on the technical roles of disaster prevention but also the non-technical roles assigned to it.

Since the lawsuit has been in continuation, the process is still alive, and data gathering is limited to the litigation conditions of public servants in terms of sharing information. Since many of the flat owners died, it is difficult to access information on the apartment meetings to learn more about the resistance of flat owners against urban transformation and the possibility of ignoring or hiding the risk assessment report.

Disaster prevention is such a complex process which generates complex adaptation mechanisms (physical, behavioral, biological, cognitive through training, learning and experiencing). Also, there is a need to understand the scale of adaptive behavior and its function to improve adoptive mechanisms. With a transdisciplinary focus, each discipline needs to embrace one another's calculation and calculative practices while they measure, observe, analyze and implement risk and uncertainties.

It is hard to prevent disasters without knowing the flow of root relations between actors and elements that are in movement with different directions, forms and motions. These unbalanced, uneven and endless root relationships between actors' movements create a constant state of tension of organizing, recording, auditing, quantifying, computing, mapping (geology, Earth information system and micro-zonation), budgeting, bookkeeping, measuring, performance, regulating, controlling, monitoring and auditing with all the numbers and data.

There is a gap in the literature in terms of the interaction between accounts and institutions in ex ante disaster.

This study aimed at exploring to what extent social media has educated and shaped public opinion regarding cash waqf. This research comprehensively analyzed the social media content to find the most discussed topic and highlighted the trends in cash waqf literacy.

Twenty-nine videos discussing cash waqf in Indonesia from the YouTube platform were analyzed using NVivo R1 with a content analysis approach.

The research findings revealed that YouTube videos addressing cash waqf were categorized into four distinct clusters: government, ulama/influencers/professionals, nadzir (waqf manager) and TV stations, with the government cluster producing a higher number of videos (n = 11) than the other clusters. The findings also highlighted the limited involvement of nadzir in educating the public about cash waqf, as evidenced by a smaller number of videos (n = 5). Among these videos, the most frequently discussed topics included the utilization of cash waqf (n = 20), promotion of cash waqf (n = 14) and risk management (n = 13). Negative sentiment (n = 262) was observed to exceed positive sentiment (n = 107).

The findings of this study contribute to the fundraising aspect of cash waqf because the inclusivity of digital content in cash waqf campaigns is crucial to raise awareness of the public. In addition, these findings may help waqf managers (nadzir) assess the extent of educational content about cash waqf on YouTube and the public’s response to this content.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the social media content, particularly from YouTube platforms, and public sentiment against cash waqf.

The current Industry 4.0 era is considered not only as a process that dominates technological developments but also as a process that influences the leadership styles. Management 4.0 is essential for businesses to find and apply the appropriate technologies in the age of Industry 4.0. The leadership styles that business managers will adopt in order to be successful in this process and to survive in an intensely competitive environment can play an important role. At this point, a significant problem arises: identifying leadership styles that will bring success. In this context, the primary purpose of this chapter is to explain the modern leadership styles that business managers can adopt or follow in the age of Industry 4.0. In line with this purpose, the chapter first describes the historical development of leadership, leadership theories and modern leadership styles, such as transactional, transformational, technological, strategic, visionary and agile leadership, and all these concepts are discussed based on the Industry 4.0 perspective.

The development in information communication and technology (ICT) has led to many changes such as reorganization of economics, globalization and trade. With more innovation processes being organized and adopted across technologies, trade, etc., these are getting more closely related and needs fresh research perspective. This study aims to empirically investigate the interrelationship between ICT penetration, innovation, trade and economic growth in 20 developed and developing nations from 1995 to 2018.

The present paper examines both long-run and short-run relationships between the four variables, namely, innovation, ICT penetration, trade and economic growth, by applying panel estimation techniques of regression and vector error correction model. ICT penetration and innovation indices are constructed using principle component analysis technique.

The findings of the study highlight that for developed nations, growth, trade and innovation are significantly interlinked with no significant role of ICT penetration While for developing nations, significant relationship is present between growth and trade, ICT penetration and innovation. With respect to trade, in case of developed nations, significant relationship is present with ICT penetration. While for developing nations there is no significant result for trade promotion. On further employing the vector error correction model, the presence of short run causality between growth, trade and innovation in case of developed nations is established but no such causality between variables for developing nations is seen.

The present paper adds to the existing strand of literature examining interlinkage between innovation and growth by introducing new variables of ICT penetration and innovation.