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This study aims to examine the non-linear relationship between corporate diversification and real and accrual earnings management, using a sample of 5,659 US firm-year observations for 1,221 firms covering the period from 2001 to 2012.

The authors use various techniques and regressions to test the hypotheses. Following prior research, several proxies have been used to measure diversification, accrual earnings management and real earnings management.

The study produces several important findings. First, the study provides evidence that diversified firms engage in real and accrual earnings management to manage their reported earnings upward. These results are consistent with recent research (Farooqi et al., 2014; Jirapon et al., 2008) that finds that diversified firms engage in earnings manipulation. Second, and most importantly, the study contributes to the literature by providing the first evidence on a non-linear relationship between corporate diversification and earnings management. Specifically, the study provides evidence that diversified firms engage in accrual (real) earnings management, but this engagement is associated with level of diversification in a non-linear U-shaped (inverted U-shaped) relationship.

Like all other studies, the current study has some limitations. The study was conducted only on the largest firms in the USA that have market capitalization of more than US$10m; hence, the findings may not be generalizable to small publicly traded firms. Further, the findings may not be generalizable to other markets, given the unique characteristics of US markets such as the presence of very sophisticated investors.

This study provides some important implications for US regulators to revise their regulations to prevent diversified firms from using earnings management to manipulate reported earnings.

This study is the first in the USA to examine the non-linear relationship between corporate diversification and earnings management. The study focuses on one of the most active, most attractive and largest capital markets throughout the world, that of the USA. Also, this study is one of the few studies that examine whether diversified firms use real activities manipulation to manage their reported earnings.

This paper aims to identify and discuss selected reasons for social media disengagement (SMD). Drawing upon two-factor theory, it is argued that the determinants of consumer disengagement may be different from those that enable consumer engagement. Accordingly, extrinsic factors of social media experiences (SMEs), subjective norms (SN), perceived anonymity (PA) and perceived credibility (PC) trigger previously engaged consumers to terminate their interactions with the brand on social media.

A quantitative survey targeting young members from one of the largest social media communities in Vietnam was used in 2018. A total of 387 completed questionnaires were used for data analysis using covariance-based structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that PC is the main driver of SMD. Moreover, PA, SME and SN are indirectly related to SMD via PC.

The study provides some strategic recommendations for brand managers to re-design user interaction with social media brand pages to improve consumer retention and minimize consumer disengagement.

While consumer engagement with social media has received much attention from practitioners and academics, a research gap exists around the “dark side” of consumer engagement in which consumers can disengage from their relationship with brand on social media. This disengagement can lead ultimately to the termination of the relationship between the consumer and the brand. This research contributes to marketing literature by providing empirical evidence for relevant constructs driving consumer disengagement from the brand’s social media pages.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether higher levels of transparency, accountability, and participation have a statistically significant association with corruption, and whether corruption is highly correlated with lower public service quality in the context of Vietnam’s transition economy.

Using individual-level survey data from Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index, the research employs an ordered probit model to test whether greater transparency, accountability, and participation is associated with lower levels of corruption. Moreover, district-level data are used to test the relationship between corruption and quality of public services particularly in healthcare and primary education.

Results show that a higher level of transparency, participation, and accountability is associated with a lower level of corruption, and that corruption is negatively associated with public service quality.

The use of cross-sectional data does not allow the establishment of causal relationships among variables.

The research suggests that fostering accountability to citizens and non-state sectors and promotion of genuine participation from these actors are critical for the future anti-corruption agenda.

In developing countries, whether corruption enhances efficiency of service provision is highly debatable. This research contributes to this debate by suggesting that corruption significantly decreases the quality of public service, and that improving local governance helps reduce corruption.

This study explores how problem-based learning (PBL) programs can address Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via the higher education (HE) curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments, supporting learning at scale for HE institutions.

Employing SDGs and their indicators as the coding framework, our two-phase study evaluates the curriculum and teaching materials of seven PBL programs at a leading higher education institution (HEI). The first phase involved a content analysis to assess the degree of sustainability integration in 156 relevant courses. The second phase applied a semi-automated mapping protocol to analyze learning and teaching materials in 120 relevant courses.

The school aligns with 17 SDGs (100%), covering 94 indicators (55.62%). On average, each program within the school addresses over ten of these goals and incorporates more than 24 associated indicators. However, the study reveals an imbalance in the incorporation of SDGs, with some goals not yet deeply and comprehensively embedded in the curriculum. While there is a substantial focus on sustainability theories, the practical implications of SDGs in emerging countries, particularly through case studies and assessments, require significant enhancement.

Mapping SDGs allows HEIs to identify strengths and gaps in SDG integration, thereby improving the PBL approach to enhance student work readiness in sustainability-focused careers.

Through the lens of transformative learning theory, this study provides evidence of SDG integration into PBL curricula. It highlights a mapping methodology that enables HEIs to evaluate their sustainability readiness in curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments.

This paper investigates how different types of corporate political connection, including government-linked investment (GLI), former officials as politically-connected directors (PCD), cronyism (CRO) and government leaders' family ties (FAM), influence financial distress risk in Malaysian firms.

We separate political connections into four distinct categories and investigate their relationship with firm distress risk and compare the results with the one-size-fits-all treatment which is popular in the literature. We apply a battery of sensitivity test to ensure that our inferences are robust to a wide range of test specifications, endogeneity concern and sample selection methods.

The empirical results show that the effect of political connections on distress risk is strongly heterogeneous. GLI and PCD firms tend to have higher distress risk via increased risk-taking behaviors because of the different incentives of the connections, while this nexus does not directly exhibit in CRO and FAM firms. Further analyses reveal that CRO and FAM firms are more likely to venture into risky international diversification, thus indirectly amplifying their distress risk.

Our findings are novel and provide practical implications for financial analysts, investors and portfolio managers operating in the capital markets.

Drawing from institutional theory and organizational learning perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to examine how social norms of corruption in home countries and those in host localities influence firm bribery behavior. It also investigates factors that moderate the influence of these norms.

The study is based on survey data of foreign invested firms (FIFs) in Vietnam, conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry between 2010 and 2018 along with Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. The authors run ordinary least squares regressions to test the hypotheses.

The study provides evidence that social norms of corruption in both home countries and host localities influence firms’ bribery behavior, but their effects are moderated by different sets of factors. Specifically, the use of local leadership augments the impact of the host province’s corruption norms on the firm’s bribe payments. By contrast, the relationship between the home country’s corruption norms and a FIF’s bribe payment is weaker if local leadership is used, and stronger if the FIF’s home country belongs to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Repeated cross-sectional data do not allow us to genuinely keep track of the changing roles of home country and host province corruption norms over time. In addition, the use of perception measures for corruption norms is subject to potential biases.

As the hiring of local executives weakens the impact of the home country’s norms which are embedded in the MNCs’ general practices, a stronger learning measure and regular review of the headquarters’ policies and practices is needed to ensure the overseas branch’s compliance. For policymakers, it is critical to recognize that local corruption plays a role in shaping FIFs’ bribery behavior.

While the effect of social norms of corruption on firm bribery behavior has been recognized, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the learning processes FIFs may take to make sense of and cope with these norms, and also the first one to specify factors that moderate the influence of these norms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether competitor concentration relates to better customer acceptance of the firm’s offerings and better networking of the firm with competitors and government officials.

The research is conducted in the context of the transition economy of Vietnam, using a combination of methods. Qualitative interviews are followed by a survey of 199 small firms in Hanoi, Vietnam. Since competitor concentration is count data, Poisson regression is used to test the relationship between networking, customer acceptance, and competitor concentration.

The results show that locating in a competitor concentration area improves customer acceptance of the firm’s offerings and increases networking with competitors, while decreasing networking with government officials. Competitor concentration does not help improve firm performance.

A sample of 199 businesses in the food, furniture, and jewelry sectors in Hanoi may not be representative of all private businesses in Vietnam. The use of cross-sectional data could not establish causational relationships among variables.

Small firms in transition economies should be aware of the trade-offs between initial customer acceptance and negative consequences of being in a competitor concentrated area. Thus, once the firm’s offerings are generally accepted by customers, the firm may consider moving out of competitor concentration areas to expand and differentiate.

This paper points out that in the absence of effective market institutions, businesses want to be located near a concentration of similar firms as a means of gaining initial customer acceptance. This initial acceptance does not necessarily help firms improve business performance beyond the firm’s survival.

This article studies the moderating effect of institutional pressures on the impact of bank ties on the capital structure of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

The study uses an unbalanced longitudinal dataset covering three years—2011, 2013 and 2015—from a project on small manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam. The sample consists of 7,680 firm-year observations.

Pressures from formal and informal institutions lessen the positive effect of bank ties on the capital structure of SMEs. These moderating effects are more salient in regions having lower institutional quality.

Empirically showing how institutional factors can be investigated together with relational factors to explain the capital structure of SMEs in a developing economy. Distinguishing between formal and informal institutional pressures and revealing their indirect effect on SMEs' capital structure through impacting the effect of bank ties.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which rewards-based crowdfunding really does provide financial support for start-ups and small businesses relative to other types of activity such as creative and cultural projects.

The paper reports findings from a series of multiple regression on a unique data set covering around 205,000 rewards-based crowdfunding projects across a number of leading platforms in the USA, the UK and Canada.

The authors report two main findings. First, rewards-based crowdfunding is highly inequitably distributed and that success is concentrated within a relatively small number of platforms and campaigns. Second, crowdfunding campaigns explicitly related to business perform relatively poorly compared with those in other categories; particularly those in creative areas such as music and dance.

These findings call into question the extent to which rewards-based crowdfunding really is a means by which significant numbers of start-ups can bridge gaps in the provision of finance.

Drawing from fraud triangle theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the use of internal control systems and codes of conduct, as a specific element of internal control, helps firms to reduce law violations and bribery payments to public officials.

The study is based on survey data of Vietnamese firms, conducted between September and December 2018. The authors run logistic and ordinary least squares regressions to test the hypotheses.

The study showed that the use of internal control systems has a negative and significant relationship with law violation but not with bribes paid to public officials. By contrast, the use of codes of conduct appears to reduce bribe payments but not law violations.

Cross-sectional data do not allow us to confirm causal relationships. The self-reported measures of the use of codes of conduct and internal control systems may suffer from social desirability biases and should be further validated with different samples of firms. Finally, the relatively modest number of firms that participated in the survey raises a concern of sample representativeness.

For businesses, the application of codes of conduct and internal control systems enhances the reliability and certainty of the firm's operations as well as its integrity, contributing to the firm's long-term development. For policymakers, encouraging businesses to use internal control systems and codes of conduct would contribute meaningfully to the anti-corruption effort.

Businesses in emerging economies face a dilemma of how to participate in an anti-corruption agenda while staying profitable. This study shows that the use of internal control systems and codes of conduct would serve both purposes, contributing to businesses' sustainable development.