Albulena Shala, Peterson K. Ozili and Skender Ahmeti
This study examines the impact of competition and concentration on bank income smoothing in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the impact of competition and concentration on bank income smoothing in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The two-step system GMM method was used to analyse the impact of competition and concentration on bank income smoothing in 17 CEEs from 2004 to 2015.
Findings
Loan loss provisions (LLPs) are negatively related to bank competition and concentration. The authors find no evidence for income smoothing using LLPs in a high-competition or high-concentration environment.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of the study is that the analysis was restricted to commercial banks. The authors did not examine investment banks or microfinance banks in this study. Also, not having access to databases does not allow them to include recent years in the study.
Practical implications
CEE commercial banks will likely keep fewer provisions or engage in under-provisioning when they face intense competition, and this can expose them to credit risk, which may threaten their stability.
Originality/value
This study is the first to investigate the effect of concentration and competition on income smoothing among CEE banks.
Details
Keywords
Lum Çollaku, Muhamet Aliu and Skender Ahmeti
This study aims to examine the relationship between job burnout, psychological well-being and intention to change occupation among accounting professionals. It focuses on the role…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship between job burnout, psychological well-being and intention to change occupation among accounting professionals. It focuses on the role of psychological well-being in explaining the link between job burnout and intention to change occupation.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected with the help of a structured questionnaire. The final sample includes 218 accounting professionals in the private sector. To test the hypothesized model in this study, IBM AMOS ver26 was used to perform the structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The results of this study show that job burnout has a positive impact on the intention to change occupation and a negative impact on psychological well-being. In addition, psychological well-being was found to mediate the relationship between job burnout and intention to change occupation.
Practical implications
This study provides important implications for accounting firms and recommends that they implement the necessary practices to increase the psychological well-being of accounting staff to reduce job burnout and intention to change occupation.
Originality/value
This work complements current studies in the field of accounting by highlighting the intermediary role of psychological well-being on the relationship between job burnout and intention to change profession among accounting professionals.
Details
Keywords
Argjente Qerimi, Besnik A. Krasniqi, Driton Balaj, Muhamet Aliu and Skender Ahmeti
Insufficient internal financing capacities and challenges to accessing external finance are crucial to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) investment and growth. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
Insufficient internal financing capacities and challenges to accessing external finance are crucial to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) investment and growth. This study aims to investigate how SME leverage of bank financing is related to the investment decision.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Heckman’s two-step econometric modelling to correct for sample selection bias, this study investigates the effect of entrepreneur characteristics, firm characteristics and performance on firms’ capital structure choices conditional on new investment decisions.
Findings
The main results reveal that larger firms with growth aspirations tend to make new investments. In the second stage equation, empirical results demonstrate that among SMEs who made a new investment, those SMEs with highly educated owner/managers, on average, use more external financing (i.e. banks loan) rather than internal funds – also, the smaller the company, the less bank leverage. Compared to the limited liability legal form, SMEs registered as individual businesses have less bank financial leverage. These results confirm that internal capacities for funding new investments are limited, and hence small firms must rely on external finance.
Originality/value
This study provides a unique empirical investigation and evidence based on a sample of SMEs in Kosovo. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to empirically analyse investment behaviour in relation to capital structure for SMEs in Kosovo and one of the few, in general, to consider the sample selection bias issues underpinning the other studies in this field. The analysis corrects for sample selection bias, using growth aspiration as an instrumental variable.