Junaid Haider and Hong-Xing Fang
This paper aims to investigate whether a powerful chief executive officer (CEO) impacts corporate risk taking in the distinctive institutional and market setting of China? Second…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether a powerful chief executive officer (CEO) impacts corporate risk taking in the distinctive institutional and market setting of China? Second, in case such relationship exists, the paper further aims to investigate whether the presence of large shareholders affects it, and finally, whether this effect of large shareholders varies in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have used a sample of 1,502 Chinese firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Sample period is 2008-2013. Besides conventional fixed-effect regression, dynamic panel data estimation (generalized method of moments) is applied to address the potential endogeneity.
Findings
The results show that CEO power is negatively related with corporate risk taking in two risk proxies, i.e. total risk and idiosyncratic risk. Second, the presence of large shareholders significantly affects this relationship, but does not change the primary negative relationship between CEO power and corporate risk taking. Finally, the results show that the relationship between CEO power and corporate risk taking is different in SOEs and NSOEs. The findings of this paper contend the organizational and behavioral theory viewpoint that individual decisions are more extreme.
Practical implications
This study provides useful implication for policymakers and suggests that while evaluating CEO’s performance, institutional and market settings should be considered.
Originality/value
This study provides new insights on the impact of CEO power on corporate risk taking under the two distinctive features in a developing country, i.e. presence of large shareholders and state-owned enterprises.
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Junaid Haider and Hong-Xing Fang
The purpose of this paper was first to find out whether the negative relationship between board size and future firm risk persists in China while contemplating all sorts of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was first to find out whether the negative relationship between board size and future firm risk persists in China while contemplating all sorts of endogeneity. Second, the authors have investigated the role of large shareholders in influencing the managerial decisions concerning future firm risk via board size. Finally, the authors examined whether the moderating role of large shareholders is any different in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs) in China.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample included all the A-listed firms listed on the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stock exchanges over a sample period from 2008 to 2013. The authors used fixed effects regression and the generalized method of moments (GMM) to test the three hypotheses.
Findings
The authors found that board size is negatively associated with future firm risk when measured as volatility in future stock prices and future cash flows. Second, large shareholders directly influence managerial decisions about future firm risk, irrespective of board size. Third, the moderating role of ownership concentration is insignificant in both SOEs and NSOEs.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which has analyzed the role of large shareholders in the relationship between board size and future firm risk. This study provides valuable insights, particularly in the context of a developing country, into the role played by large shareholders in influencing managerial decisions concerning future firm risk.
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This paper aims to make a call for the establishment of a new research journal: a likely title for which would be Chinese Public Management. The background to this is clearly set…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to make a call for the establishment of a new research journal: a likely title for which would be Chinese Public Management. The background to this is clearly set out here for posterity’s sake. The review of selected papers unveils an emerging trend amongst Chinese researchers for undertaking deeper, cluster-based analyses. See, for example, the insights presented in this issue concerning competitiveness in China’s automobile industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A diary-like account has been made of the series of recent events that sparked the author’s interest in creating a journal to be known as Chinese Public Management. Why is there currently this focus on empirical research for public policy? From the author’s five years’ work for a serial visiting professorship across China, he has found that there are now well-established, substantial databases dedicated to the subject. Even more importantly – as this paper illustrates – a growing community of scholars has become keen to embark upon an in-depth, quantitative research. Perhaps, for the new journal, we would need an editor concentrating specifically on databases. Furthermore, undertaking scholarly work that is still of practical relevance for guiding authorities in their formulations of public policy will add a whole new dimension to the available research.
Findings
There is scope for a new endeavor that documents management research within the public sector in China. This may be seen as a sister journal for “Chinese Management Studies” that focuses on the other, much larger Chinese sector, that is, governmental organizations.
Originality/value
This paper documents the emergence of the necessity for a new journal about management in China.
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Umer Yaseen, Rana Nadir Idrees, Muhammad Haseeb Shakil, Sayyed Zaman Haider and Junaid Khalil
This study aims to investigate the impact of academic leadership on the organizational commitment of faculty members in private universities in Punjab. Work engagement was…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of academic leadership on the organizational commitment of faculty members in private universities in Punjab. Work engagement was examined as a mediator, and co-worker support was considered as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a quantitative, cross-sectional approach with convenience sampling. Regression and correlation analyses were used for hypothesis testing. Social exchange theory guided the exploration of academic leadership’s impact on faculty members’ organizational commitment.
Findings
Results of the current study indicated a positive and significant effect of academic leadership on organizational commitment. Work engagement was identified as a partial mediator in this relationship. However, co-worker support was found to be an insignificant moderator, indicating no substantial influence on the relationship between academic leadership and work engagement among faculty members in private-sector universities.
Originality/value
The similarity of the paper is less than 18%.
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Muhammad Shehryar Shahid, Lalarukh Ejaz and Kiran Ali
The policy approach in Pakistan with regard to combating the informal economy has remained quite myopic and skewed in its reliance on measures informed by the rational…
Abstract
Purpose
The policy approach in Pakistan with regard to combating the informal economy has remained quite myopic and skewed in its reliance on measures informed by the rational economic-actor theory as opposed to the social-actor approach. Thus, this study attempts to evaluate and synthesise the two alternative policy approaches and formulate a more theoretically integrative understanding of the subject.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gather data from 600 micro-entrepreneurs operating in the retail and wholesale sector of Lahore, Pakistan, which is then analysed using an ordered logit regression technique.
Findings
In contrast to more developed countries, the finding here is that higher perceived penalties have a highly significant and positive impact on the level of formality of Pakistani micro-entrepreneurs. The perceived risk of detection, meanwhile, has only a moderately significant impact on the micro-entrepreneurs level of formality. Likewise, the level of vertical and horizontal trust has a positive but moderately significant impact on the level of formality. Nonetheless, both the vertical and horizontal trust exhibit a very significant moderating effect on the relationship between the use of penalties and the level of formality, that is, the higher the level of trust that the micro-entrepreneurs have in the state and other businesses, the lower is the effectiveness of punitive measures.
Practical implications
Deterrence is an effective way to enhance the level of formality in the case of the Pakistani context. Nonetheless, the authors imply that without building trust, this overreliance on punitive and detective measures can actually be counter-productive. A combined and congruent (not sequential) use of voluntary compliance measures is thus warranted.
Originality/value
It is a unique attempt to evaluate and synthesise the global policy theorisations in a non-mainstream and antagonistic climate, such as Pakistan.
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Muhammad Ahad, Saqib Farid and Zaheer Anwer
In the presence of informal sector in the country, designing an energy policy and the pursuit of higher economic growth become challenging for emerging economies. These economies…
Abstract
Purpose
In the presence of informal sector in the country, designing an energy policy and the pursuit of higher economic growth become challenging for emerging economies. These economies are usually resource starved, and the presence of underground economy leads to faulty estimates of energy demand. The authors explore the energy–growth nexus in the presence of underground economy for Pakistan, an emerging economy host to large informal sector and facing recurring energy crises.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors evaluate the impact of underground economy on energy demand in the presence of explanatory variables, including official gross domestic product (GDP), foreign direct investment and financial development. The authors first assess the influence of official economy on the consumption of energy. The authors investigate how energy consumption is influenced solely by underground economy. Finally, the authors evaluate the impact of true GDP on the energy consumption. The authors employ combined cointegration method of Bayer and Hanck (2013) and then apply vector error correction model.
Findings
The results reveal that official GDP, underground economy and true GDP positively and significantly affect energy consumption in both short and long run. Similarly, financial development as well as foreign direct investment enhance energy consumption. The authors find unidirectional causality between energy consumption and official GDP variables (OGDP → EC), underground economy (UE → EC) and true GDP variables (TGDP → EC) in the long run. The authors observe bidirectional causality in the short run between energy consumption and official GDP (OGDP ↔ EC) and true GDP (TGDP ↔ EC).
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study examines the causal relationship of energy consumption and underground economy. Overall, the findings assist policymakers to consider and implement different energy-related policies considering the significant role of underground economy for energy consumption in Pakistan.
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Aamar Ilyas, Muhammad Shehryar Shahid and Ramraini Ali Hassan
Conventionally, the marginalised population was considered to engage in child labour due to poverty, education or lack of other options, but indeed, a few children work…
Abstract
Purpose
Conventionally, the marginalised population was considered to engage in child labour due to poverty, education or lack of other options, but indeed, a few children work voluntarily. However, a growing number of scholars, in recent years, have drawn their attention to the valuable question, “why children are engaged in child labour in the informal economy”. Even though a few studies have explored the motives of informal workers, to our knowledge not a single paper has explored the motives of child labourers working in the informal economy. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by evaluating the motives of child labourers, through three competing theorisations of the informal economy.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, face-to-face structured interviews of 45 child labourers were conducted, who worked in different automobile workshops in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. Respondents were selected using the snowball sampling technique as this strategy is suitable for researching sensitive issues and is feasible for small sample sizes.
Findings
The main finding is that no single explanation is universally applicable to all child labourers. Some (27 per cent) justify their participation in the informal sector as driven by necessity (structuralist perspective), majority (40 per cent) explain their participation in the informal economy as a rational economic choice (neo-liberal perspective) and finally, more than a quarter of respondents (31 per cent) engaged in child labour due to their own free will or voluntarily to work for their family (post-structuralist perspective). This study also revealed that entrepreneurial spawning is a key determinant of child labour as the majority of children, in our study, working in automobile workshops intended to start their own workshop business in the future.
Research limitations/implications
This article shows that children early engaged in work with entrepreneurial intention/spawning. Entrepreneurial education is very important in a child’s life. Entrepreneurial education will be a ticket to fulfill their dreams and learn new things with entrepreneurial attitude.
Practical implications
Government should develop the vocational training institutes for children who left the schools.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the body of literature by providing a better understanding of why children work in informal employment, an occupation generally perceived as constituting exploitative working conditions. This study also contributes to the wider literature of entrepreneurship by exploring “entrepreneurial spawning” as one of the major reasons underlying the participation of children in informal work.
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Mazhar Iqbal, Muhammad Kabir Khan and Arslan Sheikh
The aim of this study was to investigate the use of software for the automation of academic libraries in Sialkot. This study consisted of three objectives, including recognizing…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study was to investigate the use of software for the automation of academic libraries in Sialkot. This study consisted of three objectives, including recognizing the reasons to adopt the software for library automation, investigating the problems faced by librarians while using library software and identifying the satisfaction level with the attributes of library software.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research approach was used to achieve the objectives of this study. A survey was conducted to collect data from the library information science professionals working in the academic libraries of Sialkot. The data was collected from 46 library professionals through a structured questionnaire.
Findings
The findings showed that the economic cost of implementation, maintenance and the software providing multilingual support were the major reasons for adoption of software for the purpose of automation. In this study, compliance with the internet, noncooperation in library automation by university/institution, availability of training facilities, insufficient library budget, a lack of financial/economic resources, staff transfer and a lack of consultancy and technical service were identified as major issues when using library automation software. However, the respondents were quite satisfied with the performance of software attributes including circulation modules, easy to use cataloguing modules, reports’ modules, software attributes of administration modules and multilingual facility.
Originality/value
This study persuades library and information science professionals to automate their libraries through the adoption of library software.
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Ghulam Moin Ud Din, Muhammad Ijaz Mairaj and Arslan Sheikh
This paper aims to measure the perceptions of librarians about information literacy (IL) instruction, their current IL practices and the problems they face while offering IL…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to measure the perceptions of librarians about information literacy (IL) instruction, their current IL practices and the problems they face while offering IL instructional programs in public and private sector university libraries in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research design was adopted, and a survey was carried out for this study to collect the data through an online questionnaire for the university librarians. All librarians (a total of 120) were approached to collect the data, of whom 92 (76.6%) responded to the survey.
Findings
The findings reveal that the librarians working in the university libraries of Islamabad are aware of the significance of IL instruction to fulfil the information needs of their library users. A majority of the librarians indicated having adequate skills to offer IL instruction. Moreover, the majority of the librarians are offering IL instruction to users at their respective universities. However, some of the barriers affecting IL instruction programs were also reported including the absence of IL instruction courses in the library and information science (LIS) curriculum, a shortage of trained library professional staff to provide IL instruction, a lack of commitment among librarians for IL instruction, a lack of training opportunities for librarians and a lack of interest from library users. These obstacles have a negative effect on IL instruction in the university libraries of Islamabad. Therefore, this study suggests that librarians are needed to take several necessary steps to overcome these obstacles to achieve the best results in IL instruction programs.
Originality/value
This study presents a picture of the status of IL skills, current practices and barriers to offering IL instruction in the university libraries of Islamabad. This research bridges the gap in the existing literature and will help to create awareness about the importance of IL skills among LIS professionals in Pakistan. Moreover, the findings of this study will help encourage librarians for the enhancement of IL instruction services in university libraries of Islamabad in particular and Pakistan in general.