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Conflicts among top management team (TMT) members have a significant impact on sustainable development of family enterprises in China. The complex attributes of different kinds of conflicts in a TMT have dual effects on firm performance and its stability. Thus, avoiding conflicts in a TMT through a systematic conflict management strategy is very important. This paper aims to therefore investigate how to maximize the performance and income level of the TMT in family enterprises through managing conflict systematically, while adopting the best conflict coping strategies.

In this study, the authors apply conflict coping strategies as a useful tool of conflict management and propose five kinds of dynamic conflict coping strategies among TMT members. Repeated game and multi-agent simulation by computer experiment are used to dynamically simulate the rules and evolution of individual conflict coping strategy choices.

It is found that with the passage of time, different conflict coping strategies have different effects on earnings of individuals and teams at different conflict levels. It is also revealed that conflict coping strategies affect not only the earnings of individuals and teams but also their distribution; it also reflects the conflict level in TMT of a family enterprise but in reverse.

This study contributes to the existing literature on conflict management in relevance to the choice and revolution of conflict coping strategies in a Chinese business culture context. It focuses on strengthening the unity and cooperation of TMT members. Controlling the conflict level of TMT members at a reasonable level, investigating the primary cause of conflict and identifying its nature lead to better performance of the TMT and the sustainable development of Chinese family enterprises. Based on these outcomes, different conflict coping strategies can be appropriately used to solve TMT conflicts.

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms with inclusion of compliance and diligence index on corporate performance (CP) of firms in Nigeria and Ghana. It further examines the moderating effect of financial distress on the relationship between CG and CP.

The study used panel data of 102 nonfinancial listed firms of Nigeria and Ghana stock exchange for the period 2012–2016 with total observation of 510. The study first used OLS in estimating the influence of CG mechanisms on CP. Due to multicollinearity in the independent variables, ridge regression was employed.

It was revealed that ownership structure index and board compliance and diligence index, board size, board disclosure, ownership structure, shareholders' right and board compliance and diligence index had positive influence on ROA and ROE. Growth of Tobin's Q depends on board procedure and board compliance and diligence index. Also, financial distress (ZFS) negatively moderates the relationship between board structure index, board disclosure index, board procedure index, shareholders' right and performance (ROA and ROE) but negatively moderates between ownership structure index and Tobin's Q.

This study provides interesting findings to policymakers in full implementation of CG codes as stated by OCED (2015) by West African firms with greater emphasis on compliance and diligence index since it positively influences all CP measures.

The study provides evidence of the importance of the introduction of the new index: compliance and diligence, which looks at disclosure of CSR activities. This has been overlooked by most researchers especially in Africa in assessing quality CG mechanisms.

Succession of family enterprises has been an issue of concern to a number of researchers, and extensive studies have been conducted on this. Transfer of family business from one generation to next has resulted in collapse of most family business in both developed and developing economies. This study looked at succession in family enterprise in Ghana using theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and cognitive dimension of social capital theory to know the intention of founder/incumbent to hand over the family business to an internal successor.

Our target population for this study is family businesses run in Ghana, Western region. Ghana is not having statistical database on family businesses; therefore, the study relied on the database of registered SMEs which was gotten from Registrar General's Department, Ghana. This is the government department that is in charge of registering business in Ghana. A sample of 596 was used and received a response rate of 60%. The study used structural equation model to find out how the variables correlate to discover the intention of the founder/successor on internal succession.

It was discovered that intention of founder/incumbent to hand over to an internal successor is predominantly determined by attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and cognitive dimension of the social capital. Trust does not influence the intention of founder/incumbent but attitude; this rejects the findings of most researchers.

Most family enterprises were not registered, which made it difficult to reach out to all family businesses. This limited the authors approach to only the registered family enterprises.

Family firms are the backbone of any economy, which comprise mostly of SMEs. Therefore, the understanding of succession by incumbents/founders as well as policymakers enhances firms' value and continuity.

The study was conducted in Africa, Ghana in particular, owing to the limited studies in this region.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between digital transformation and excess employees. This research investigates the questions of when human−machine synergy can be achieved after a firm goes through digital transformation and whether there will be excess employees in the interim.

This paper takes A-share listed companies as research object in the period of 2011−2020 and a total of 24,718 samples are obtained. Hypothesis testing and regression analysis are performed in STATA.

This paper finds a human−machine mismatch in the short term, as evidenced by an increase in the rate of excess employees; however, with the progress of digital transformation, it can drive the achievement of human−machine synergy in the long term, and management efficiency plays a mediating role in this process. Further research showed that the effects of digital transformation on the number of employees, revenue generation per capita and profit generation per capita varied in both the short and long term. In addition, the characteristics of the company affect the relationship between digital transformation and excess employees.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the impacts of digital transformation on the human capital structure of companies at a micro level. It also provides insights into how to improve human capital demand structure through digitalization, thus providing insights into labor market changes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance, investor sentiment and financial liberalization on downside systematic risk and the interplay of socio-political turbulence on this relationship through static and dynamic panel estimation models.

The evidence is based on a sample of 230 publicly listed non-financial firms from Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) over the period 2008–2018. Furthermore, this study analyzes the data through Blundell and Bond (1998) technique in the full sample as well sub-samples (big and small firms).

The authors document that corporate governance mechanism reduces the downside risk, whereas investor sentiment and financial liberalization increase the investors’ exposure toward downside risk. Particularly, the results provide some new insights that the socio-political turbulence as a moderator weakens the impact of corporate governance and strengthens the effect of investor sentiment and financial liberalization on downside risk. Consistent with prior studies, the analysis of sub-samples reveals some statistical variations in large and small-size sampled firms. Theoretically, the findings mainly support agency theory, noise trader theory and the Keynesians hypothesis.

Stock market volatility has become a prime area of concern for investors, policymakers and regulators in emerging economies. Primarily, the existence of market volatility is attributed to weak governance, irrational behavior of market participants, the liberation of financial policies and sociopolitical turbulence. Therefore, the present study provides simultaneous empirical evidence to determine whether corporate governance, investor sentiment and financial liberalization hinder or spur downside risk in an emerging economy. Furthermore, the work relates to a small number of studies that examine the role of socio-political turbulence as a moderator on the relationship of corporate governance, investor sentiment and financial liberalization with downside systematic risk.

This study investigates the mediating role of working capital management (WCM) efficiency between board diversity (based on gender and financial knowledge) and firm performance. The study further examines which WCM approach (conservative, moderate, and aggressive) they employ to increase (decrease) firm performance.

The study employs listed energy firms of Pakistan over the period 2010 to 2019. The system generalized method of moments estimator and logit model are utilized to estimate the underlying relationships.

The results show that WCM efficiency partially mediates the relationship between board financial expertise (BFE) and firm performance. Nonetheless, the presence of female directors is merely symbolic until they reach a certain level as only the quadratic term of board gender diversity (BGD) has a significant effect on firm performance. Female directors do not influence WCM efficiency. The results also demonstrate that BGD encourages a conservative WCM approach, while BFE encourages a moderate WCM approach. Furthermore, both conservative and moderate WCM approaches are significantly associated with firm performance.

The findings hold implications for increasing the representation of women and financial experts on board to improve the capital structure decisions of the energy firms in Pakistan.

This study is the first attempt to explore the mediating role of WCM efficiency between board diversity and firm performance. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has investigated the effect of BGD and BFE on different WCM approaches distinctly.