Md. Ashraful Alam, Debashish Roy, Rehana Akther and Rajidul Hoque
Consumer ethnocentrism (CE) is a matter of interest for marketers over the decades. However, buying intentions toward domestically produced household electronic products in…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer ethnocentrism (CE) is a matter of interest for marketers over the decades. However, buying intentions toward domestically produced household electronic products in developing and underdeveloped countries have not been examined sufficiently. Hence, this study investigated the consumers' ethnocentrism and attitude toward domestically-produced household electronic goods. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of consumer demographic attributes on ethnocentrism and its moderating effect on choosing domestically produced household electronic goods in the context of Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary data have been collected from a sample of 172 respondents using a mall-intercept survey. Consumers' ethnocentrism level has been measured using CETSCALE on a five-point Likert scale. ANOVA and t-test were performed to compare different demographic groups regarding ethnocentrism levels. This study also applied the qualitative method by applying a manual approach.
Findings
The result shows that consumers' ethnocentrism levels do not vary with gender and income level. However, other demographic attributes, like occupation, age and education level, play a considerable role in CE tendency.
Originality/value
The study is one of the few that examines the consumers' ethnocentrism and attitudes toward electronic products produced in a developing country. The researchers expect that the outcome of the study would contribute to the domestic manufacturer focusing more rigorously on producing electronic products that would be accepted locally as well as globally.
Details
Keywords
Ahmad Nasseri, Sajad Jamshidi, Hassan Yazdifar, David Percy and Md Ashraful Alam
With suitable optimization criteria, hybrid models have proven to be efficient for preparing portfolios in capital markets of developed countries. This study adapts and…
Abstract
Purpose
With suitable optimization criteria, hybrid models have proven to be efficient for preparing portfolios in capital markets of developed countries. This study adapts and investigates these methods for a developing country, thus providing a novel approach to the application of banking and finance. Our specific objectives are to employ a stochastic dominance criterion to evaluate the performances of over-the-counter (OTC) companies in a developing country and to analyze them with a hybrid model involving particle swarm optimization and artificial neural networks.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to achieve these aims, the authors conduct a case study of OTC companies in Iran. Weekly and daily returns of 36 companies listed in this market are calculated for one year during 2014–2015. The hybrid model is particularly interesting, and the results of the study identify first-, second- and third-order stochastic dominances among these companies. The study’s chosen model uses the best performing combination of activation functions in our analysis, corresponding to TPT, where T represents hyperbolic tangent transfers and P represents linear transfers.
Findings
Our portfolios are based on the shares of companies ranked with respect to the stochastic dominance criterion. Considering the minimum and maximum numbers of shares to be 2 and 10 for each portfolio, an eight-share portfolio is determined to be optimal. Compared with the index of Iran OTC during the research period of this study, our selected portfolio achieves a significantly better performance. Moreover, the methods used in this analysis are shown to be as efficient as they were in the capital markets of developed countries.
Research limitations/implications
The problem of optimizing investment portfolios has to allow for correlations among returns from the financial maintenance period under consideration if an asymmetric distribution of returns exists (Babaei et al., 2015). Therefore, it is desirable to select an appropriate criterion in order to prepare an optimal portfolio and prioritize investment options. Although a back propagation technique is very popular in artificial neural (ANN) training, it is time-consuming to train a network in this way, and other methods such as particle swarm optimization (PSO) should be considered instead. In the hybrid combination of PSO and ANN, it is not the structure of a neural network that changes. Rather, the weighting method and the training technique chosen for the network are the important aspects, and these relate to PSO, so the only role ANN plays in this process is to reduce the errors.
Practical implications
The hybrid model combining ANN and PSO is seen to be considerably successful for generating optimal results and appropriate activation functions. These results are consistent with the theoretical findings of Das et al. (2013) and an application of the simple PSO in a study conducted by Pederson and Chipperfield (2010). Our research results also confirm the efficiency of stochastic dominance criteria as noted in the studies conducted by Roman et al. (2013), ANN as in a study carried out by Kristijanpoller et al. (2014) and PSO as in studies conducted by Liu et al. (2015) and Deng et al. (2012). These studies were carried out in the capital markets of developed countries, whereas the authors’ analysis relates to a developing country.
Originality/value
The authors deduce that the tools and methods whose efficiency was proven in the capital markets of developed countries also apply to, and demonstrate efficiency in, two novel applications of portfolio optimization within developing countries. The first of these is gaining familiarity with the theory and practice of these research tools and the methods that enrich financial knowledge of investors in developing countries. The second of these is the application of tools and methods identified by investors in the capital markets of developing countries, which enables optimal allocation of financial resources and growth of the markets. The authors expect that these findings will contribute to improving the economies of developing countries and thus help with economic development and facilitation of improving trends.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to investigate the impact of board characteristics on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure in the energy industry of emerging economies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of board characteristics on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure in the energy industry of emerging economies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopt the Bloomberg ESG rating to measure the extent of ESG disclosure using a sample of 1,260 observations from BRICS emerging economies. Multiple regression techniques were used to estimate the effect of board characteristics on ESG disclosures of a sample Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) listed companies between 2010 and 2019.
Findings
The authors find a relatively low (at 37%) level of ESG disclosure among the sampled firms and a relatively high degree of variability. The authors also find that board gender diversity, board composition and board diligence are positively related to the level of ESG disclosure while the study documents no relationship between board size and ESG disclosure.
Practical implications
The study’s findings highlight the importance of corporate board attributes in influencing strategic decisions such as the level of ESG disclosure and the findings may be useful to regulators, policymakers and investors in making informed investment decisions.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts at examining the impact of board characteristics on ESG disclosure in the energy industry in emerging economies. The paper provides new evidence on the relationship between board characteristics (BC) and ESG disclosure in the energy industry of emerging BRICS countries within a panel multi-country research setting.
Details
Keywords
Md. Mizanur Rahman, Mohammad Ashraful Ferdous Chowdhury, Md. Mahmudul Haque and Mamunur Rashid
Owing to religious and economic preferences in Muslim-dominated countries, middle-income customers are at the heart of banks’ strategic targeting. This study aims to investigate…
Abstract
Purpose
Owing to religious and economic preferences in Muslim-dominated countries, middle-income customers are at the heart of banks’ strategic targeting. This study aims to investigate selected middle-income Islamic bank customers from Sylhet, one of Bangladesh’s top religious and cultural cities, to examine their perceptions of the Islamic banking services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study forwards three determinants of overall satisfaction. These are perceived relative advantage (PRA), perceived risk management (PRM) and perceived customer engagement (PCE). The study has used structured questionnaire and collected complete data on 300 middle-income Islamic bank users. The data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM).
Findings
While all the three selection factors significantly influence overall satisfaction, PCE has greater positive impact on overall customer satisfaction, followed by PRA and PRM. “Convenient location”, “competitive charges” and “return on deposit despite low earnings” are the top three instruments measuring “PCE”. Religion did not qualify as a standalone selection factor. The results are robust across tests conducted by using EFA, CFA and SEM.
Practical implications
Gross purchasing power of middle-income class in Bangladesh grew from 7% to over 30% during the past decade, and the purchasing power of this class stood at US$100bn. Having a greater portion of this population as Muslims, banks can design products and marketing campaigns by using the three selection criteria that offer a combination of faith and non-faith-based variables.
Originality/value
Similar studies on the middle-income customer group have been rare, especially from the Islamic banking perspective. These findings offer a concise list of three factors for the bank managers to build their strategies. With respect to the Vision 2021, these findings carry greater socio-economic significance given the transition of Bangladesh to a middle-income country.
Details
Keywords
ABM Fazle Rahi, Ruzlin Akter and Jeaneth Johansson
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of sustainability (environmental, social and governance or ESG) practices on the financial performance (FP) of the Nordic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of sustainability (environmental, social and governance or ESG) practices on the financial performance (FP) of the Nordic financial industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The study covers a sample selection of observations for a total of 152 firm-years for 39 financial companies within the Nordic region (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway) for the business years including 2015–2019. Data regarding ESG and FP indicators were extracted from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database in July 2020. This is a quantitative study using regression and a generalized method of moments.
Findings
Using static and dynamic estimators, the authors found both positive and negative impacts of sustainability practice on FP. The authors identified a negative relationship between ESG practices and FP (return on invested capital, return on equity and earnings per share). The authors identified a positive relationship between governance and return on assets.
Originality/value
A key contribution to the accounting literature is the finding that there is a risk for financial firms in adopting sustainability practices, as they follow a logic that contradicts the purely economic rationale. On the other hand, the positive relationship between governance and FP helps not only companies but also regulators and researchers to understand the positive impact of a good governance structure.