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Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self, it must be intentionally managed to obtain its optimum results. This study aims to illustrate how personal branding may also pose unintentional and unconscious strategic tool for women academics in academia to help them get wider visibility and increase their chances of getting into leadership positions.

We employed a case study approach and convenience sampling to select our unit of analysis. Three universities in both public and private universities in the eastern regions of Indonesia were purposefully selected, and interviews were held with 30 female leaders occupying and occupied middle and lower leadership hierarchies.

Our research shows that, despite their unintentional, unplanned and poorly designed personal branding, women have been able to advance to their current leadership positions by building their own rooms for practising their own preferred leadership values to get them visible and heard. This way is performed through a gendered networking, previous leadership experience and bureaucratic requirements. The consequence of such a practice may limit the range of visibility to getting noticed as worthy individuals for senior leadership roles. This might be one reason why women are scarcely found in senior leadership positions.

We propose that natural strategies of constructing, narrating and marketing or communicating personal branding in academia through authentic actions can also be helpful for the success of women to get to leadership roles in a smaller and ambient environment.

A mobile wallet (m-wallet) is a part of financial technology products and is still in the infant stage in Palestine. The technology acceptance model (TAM) formed the basis of the model development, which was extended in the study to include an analysis of how knowledge sharing (KOS), perceived value (PEV), perceived privacy awareness and control (PRI) and perceived security (SEC) influenced the primary TAM components of perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PRU) and intention to use m-wallets among Palestinian users.

This study used questionnaires as its primary data collection method. The questionnaires were distributed via online media, and the data collection period spanned from January 10, 2023, to February 21, 2023. The study received 360 responses from participants. Smart PLS and SPSS v.23 software were used to perform a method test on the collected questionnaire data.

The study’s findings demonstrate the factors influencing Palestinian users’ adoption of m-wallets by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to include knowledge sharing, perceived value, privacy awareness and control and security, in addition to the main TAM elements, perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU), offering new insights into technology adoption in developing regions and addressing gaps in the literature.

This study has some limitations. First, it is limited because it looks at users’ intentions to use rather than their actual usage. The actual use of an m-wallet should be the topic of further research. Second, rather than focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), this study examined users’ intentions to use m-wallets. Thus, SMEs’ use of m-wallets may be studied in future research. Third, because the study users were from Palestine, the results may not be generalizable. Therefore, additional populations and cultures should be studied in future research. Fourth, the study used a convenience sample of 282 users. As a result, it is not easy to generalize to a sizable population. Future studies should use larger sample sizes or random samples. Finally, this study examined the direct relationship between independent and dependent variables. Future research may consider personal innovativeness and artificial intelligence as potential moderators.

User knowledge sharing can be an important factor driving user intention to use m-wallet. Users can raise awareness of m-wallets by sharing their knowledge and experiences with others about their uses, features and advantages. This is particularly useful in a country like Palestine, where m-wallets are not widely accepted or used. Therefore, m-wallets service providers should improve their services to motivate the users to share their knowledge with others to increase user intention to use. For instance, m-wallet service providers can provide user support programs that assist users in resolving issues, responding to inquiries and offering feedback on the service. Additionally, m-wallet service providers can enhance the user experience of their m-wallet by providing user-friendly interfaces, quick and dependable service and robust security features. By improving the user experience and providing users with a supportive and responsive environment, service providers can encourage users to share their positive experiences with others and increase user intention to use the m-wallet. User knowledge sharing can be an important factor driving user intention to use m-wallet. Users can raise awareness of m-wallets by sharing their knowledge and experiences with others about their uses, features and advantages. This is particularly useful in a country like Palestine, where m-wallets are not widely accepted or used. Therefore, m-wallets service providers should improve their services to motivate the users to share their knowledge with others to increase user intention to use. For instance, m-wallet service providers can provide user support programs that assist users in resolving issues, responding to inquiries and offering feedback on the service. Additionally, m-wallet service providers can enhance the user experience of their m-wallet by providing user-friendly interfaces, quick and dependable service and robust security features.

The widespread adoption of m-wallets is an important area of research, as it has significant theoretical implications for technology adoption. M-wallets provide an easy and secure way to pay without cash or physical cards. Therefore, identifying the factors affecting users’ intention to use m-wallets can help Palestinian m-wallet service providers to develop their marketing strategies. Extending the TAM to include four important factors (knowledge sharing, perceived value, perceived privacy awareness and control and perceived security) has improved our understanding of technology adoption models. The study empirically examines the intentions of Palestinian users to use m-wallets and how this novel technology is used in this area of the Arab world. The results empirically support that these factors strongly affect users’ intentions to use m-wallets. Thus, this study fills the knowledge gap about the factors influencing the use of m-wallets in Palestine and adds to the literature on the user intentions to use new technologies. Finally, this study is one of the first to examine the relationship between knowledge sharing, perceived value, perceived privacy awareness and control, perceived security and technology acceptance models in general and the extended TAM with these factors in a specific m-wallet context.

The preliminary empirical study investigates the factors affecting the use of m-wallets in Palestine by extending TAM with knowledge sharing, perceived value, perceived privacy awareness and control and perceived security as external variables to the model. The findings of this study help to fill a gap in the existing literature by identifying key variables that affect Palestinians’ intentions to use m-wallet. This study also contributes to the increase in knowledge in the area. To date, no studies have explored privacy in terms of awareness, control and knowledge sharing as essential factors that affect users’ intention to use m-wallets in Palestine.

As of now, the digitization of corporate finance presents a paradigm shift in business strategy, innovation, financing and managerial capability around the globe. However, the prevailing finance scholarly works hardly document the impact of the digitalization of corporate finance on firm performance with global evidence and analysis. Hence, the contemporary debate on whether firm performance is genuinely stimulated because of the digitalization of corporate finance or not has been a pressing issue in the relevant literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify a data-driven, concise response to an unaddressed finance issue if the performance of high-digitalized firms (HDFs) outperforms that of their counterpart peers for wealth maximization.

The first stage test models examine the firm performance of relatively high-digitalized firms as opposed to low-digitalized firms based on the system GMM. The second stage test of the probabilistic (logit) model infers that the probability of being HDFs explores because of better performance. Then, the authors execute robust checks based on the different quantile regressions and Z-score-based system GMM. In addition, the authors recheck and present the test results of the fixed effect and random effect to capture time-invariant individual heterogeneity. Finally, the supplementary test findings of firms’ credit strength by using Altman five- and four-factor Z-score models are presented.

By using cross-country panel analysis as 15 years’ test bed for HDFs and low digitalized firms (LDFs), the test results indicate that the overall firm performance of a digitalized firm is significantly better than that of a non-digitalized firm. The global evidence documents that HDFs are exposed to higher values and are financially more persistent as compared to their counterparts. The finding is remarkably concomitant across several possible subsample analysis, such as country–industry–size–period analysis.

This study can be remarkably effective in encouraging managers, policymakers and investors to acknowledge the need for adopting the required digitalization. Overall, this original study addresses a core research gap in the corporate finance literature and remarkably provides further direction to rethink the assumptions of firm digitalization on additive value and thereby identify optimal decisions for wealth maximization. The findings also imply that investors require an additional risk premium if they invest in relatively LDFs, which have relatively lower market value and weaker firm performance.

From an investors point of view, the academic novelty contributes to an innovative and unsettled issue on the impact of digitization of corporate finance on firm performance because there is a new question of high or low digitization of corporate finance in the global market. Hence, this academic novelty contributes to sharing global evidence of the digitalization of corporate finance and its effect on firm performances. In addition, an intensive critical review analysis is conducted based on the most recent and relevant scholarly works published in the top-tier journals of finance and business stream to fix the hypothesis. Overall, this study addresses a core research gap in the corporate finance literature; notably provides further direction to rethink firm digitalization; and thereby identifies optimal decisions for shareholders’ wealth maximization.