The integration of open innovation networks and digital technology is a critical research frontier. Based on 532 survey samples from Chinese enterprises, this study constructs three coupling effects:(1) internal coupling between inward innovation network and outward innovation networks,(2) internal coupling between digital technology types and digital technology applications, and(3) external coupling between two-way open innovation networks and digital technology using a coupling coordination model. The results indicate that (1) both two-way open innovation networks and their internal coupling positively related to ambidextrous innovation, (2) digital technology variety, applications, and their coupling significantly enhance ambidextrous innovation, and (3) external coupling between innovation networks and the digital technology systems exerts a positive influence. The findings suggest that policymakers and managers should foster the integrated development of open innovation networks and digital technology to achieve synergistic innovation outcomes.
This study investigates how country-level geopolitical risk (GPR) influences firms' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance across 27 Asian economies over the period 2000-2024. The study addresses an important question in the ESG literature: (1) whether firms respond to geopolitical uncertainty by strengthening sustainability engagement as a form of strategic insurance and signalling, or (2) by retrenching ESG commitments under resource pressure. Using firm-level ESG data from Refinitiv and the Caldara-Iacoviello GPR index, we estimate firm fixedeffects models with extensive controls and further address endogeneity through an instrumental variable approach. The results show that, on average, higher GPR is associated with higher subsequent firm ESG scores, with the strongest response observed in the environmental pillar. However, this average effect conceals substantial institutional heterogeneity. The positive GPRESG association is stronger in high-peace, developing, and low-regulatory-quality settings, but weakens or turns negative in low-peace, developed, and high-regulatory-quality contexts. These findings indicate that ESG functions as a context dependent risk-management and signalling tool rather than a uniform response to geopolitical shocks. The study contributes by identifying peace regimes as a key boundary condition in the GPR-ESG relationship and offers implications for managers, investors, and policymakers seeking to strengthen corporate resilience under geopolitical uncertainty.
Faced with problems such as low energy efficiency, serious environmental pollution, and ecological degradation caused by rapid economic growth, it has become crucial to seek a balance between economic vitality and ecological management. Improving green economic efficiency, that is, the ability of an economy to minimise ecological pollution while achieving sustainable growth, can play a vital role in solving these issues. Opting for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as the case study, this research illustrates the key contribution of artificial intelligence (AI) to improving the efficiency of the green economy. Through the economic dependence theory, the level of regional economic dependence is quantified, and then a multiple regression model is constructed to empirically analyse the relationship between AI, economic dependence, industrial structure, and green economic efficiency. Research results demonstrate that AI has a significant positive effect on the improvement of green economic efficiency. This desirable positive effect can be further strengthened through the mediating variable of industrial structure rationalisation. In addition, economic dependence moderates the relationship between AI and green economic efficiency, indicating that AI has a positive contribution to optimising resource allocation and reducing ecological impact. The significance of this study is far-reaching, showing that AI not only supports sustainable economic growth but also promotes the balanced development of ecology and economy. By integrating AI, regions can achieve higher efficiency and sustainability. Finally, this study provides reference suggestions for the layout of smart industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and the improvement of other regional economic development and green efficiency.
Creativity is a crucial skill for business entrepreneurs, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the objective of this research is to examine the influence of entrepreneurial creativity using the Cognitive Process Associated with Creativity (CPAC) scale model to examine its influence on business innovation and the success of small business entrepreneurs in the post COVID-19 context according to the concept of CPAC Model as a tool to study, together with, the variables on business innovation and the success of business entrepreneurs. The findings show that the CPAC model positively influences business innovation, which in turn contributes to the success of business entrepreneurs. Thus, the findings of this research suggest that business entrepreneurs need to use creativity so that their performance leads to business innovation and to business success. The results also suggest that the CPAC model be examined in other samples to explore the perspectives of individuals regarding the use of creativity to support the search for leveraging creativity for successful business operations. This research encompasses the CPAC model into entrepreneurship, showing how cognitive processes foster innovation and business success, with both theoretical and practical contributions.
The emergence and pervasive adoption of social networking sites (SNSs) have evolved the means in which people communicate and share information. Accompanying this advancement, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has garnered considerable interest as a potent tool for information transmission and consumer decision-making. Given the interpersonal dynamics inherent in SNSs, this research investigates the association between antecedents of social relationship and eWOM as well as purchase intentions. Consequently, a conceptual model was constructed and validated to ascertain the significance of distinct factors, including interpersonal influence, social capital, homophily, and trust, as precursors to engagement in eWOM. The study also explored the moderating impact of social support on the association between eWOM intention and purchase intention. Additionally, the study analysed the moderating impact of gender on the relationship between interpersonal influence and eWOM intention. Using data from 383 respondents, the adequacy and accuracy of the model were assessed by employing partial least square technique of structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that informative influence, bridging social capital, and trust have a favourable impact on users' engagement in eWOM activities, which further effects purchase intention. On the other hand, normative influence, bonding social capital and perceived homophily demonstrated a negative relationship with eWOM engagement. These research findings have practical implications for marketers targeting new markets through eWOM activities.
The digitisation of seaports has brought about a significant improvement in efficiency, productivity, and communication within the maritime industry. However, the increasing reliance on technology exposes seaports to cyber threats, constituting significant risk to the economy and national security. This paper addresses the critical need for seaports to implement robust cybersecurity measures. While digital advancements offer numerous advantages, the potential vulnerability to cyberattacks demands a strategic decision-making model for selecting effective seaport cybersecurity strategies. The proposed decision support model integrates the Analytical Hierarchy Process-Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (AHP-TOPSIS). AHP is employed to measure the relative importance of evaluation criteria of seaport cyber threat factors in this decision hierarchy. Subsequently, TOPSIS is applied to rank the cyber threat strategy alternatives. The novelty lies in providing decision-makers with a comprehensive approach that extends beyond technical solution. The results present decision-makers with non-technical strategies, including employee training, awareness program, and educational level, which have the potential to mitigate the technology-related cybersecurity risks more effectively in seaports. This research provides vital insights essential for developing efficient cybersecurity regulations for seaports, thereby strengthening national security and economic stability. By integrating the significance of non-technical measures with conventional technical methodologies, decision makers can establish a more robust cybersecurity framework. The paper introduces a holistic approach that establishes a fundamental basis for developing comprehensive and adaptable cybersecurity strategies within the maritime industry.
Grounded on the customer experience theory and perceived value theory, the current study examines how omni-channel customer experience (OCCE) in fashion brands promotes customer loyalty in an emerging economy context. Fashion brand customers (N = 372) revealed that OCCE significantly influences customer satisfaction, increases perceived value, and advances customer loyalty. Likewise, omni-channel customer satisfaction (SAT) and perceived value also lead to customer loyalty. The study further demonstrates that SAT and perceived value also have an indirect effect on the relationship between OCCE and customer loyalty. These important insights would contribute to advancing the existing understanding in similar domains. The theoretical and practical implications, study shortcomings, and avenues for future studies are also outlined.
One of the most significant challenges facing leaders today is the need to position and enable organisations and people to adapt to an increasingly dynamic and demanding environment. This study examined and analysed the role of servant leadership in affective commitment to change in the higher education sector using a sequential mediation model of conscientiousness personality and psychological ownership. The data were collected online from 293 Indonesian lecturers. Data analysis was performed using a structural equation model using SmartPLS software. The results confirmed that implementing servant leadership encourages positive values in social learning principles in higher education, which can improve conscientiousness and psychological ownership. Conscientiousness and psychological ownership support social learning, according to the principle of servant leadership, to encourage a robust affective commitment to change in a higher education environment. Conscientiousness and psychological ownership are sequential mediators that influence affective commitment to change. This study is unique in that it highlights the conscious personality factor and psychological aspects as sequential mediation on the relationship between servant leadership and affective commitment to change in the higher education sector, as well as the fact that although all hypotheses are supported, this sequential mediation mechanism is the first such study.
In pursuing a market position, enterprises have increasingly turned to information technology (IT) to help improve their performance. Our research assesses the influence of IT capabilities as a strategic resource for business performance within the context of dynamic capabilities theory. It also examines the mediating role of organisational ambidexterity and agility in the relationship between IT capabilities and business performance, thereby shedding light on the mechanisms through which IT capabilities impact overall organisational success. The role of regulatory support in digital transformation is also investigated. This paper uses Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling to analyse 321 respondents from Vietnamese enterprises. The results highlight the mediating effects of organisational agility and ambidexterity on the relationship between IT capabilities and business performance. These findings confirm that regulatory support moderates the association between organisational ambidexterity and business performance. Limitations and future research directions are discussed in the paper as well.
This study aims to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial competencies and coopetition strategy on sustainable performance, the mediating role of innovation, and the regulatory role of digitalisation capability. Data were collected from 357 leaders at all levels of business in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The results showed that both entrepreneurial competencies and coopetition strategy had a significant impact on sustainable performance. Additionally, the innovation factor directly affects sustainable performance and positively mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial competencies and sustainable performance. This is the first study to explore the regulatory role of digitalisation capability in the relationship between coopetition strategy and sustainable performance, as well as how digitalisation capability directly affects sustainable performance positively. This research provides intriguing empirical evidence about an under- researched emerging economy in Asia, namely, Vietnam. Furthermore, the results add to the knowledge in the field of business behaviour research and the alignment of linkages between organisational elements to achieve sustainable performance and suggest meaningful management implications and practical meaning for companies in the context of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in particular, and similar Asian economies, in general.
Youth leadership programs foster skills development in youth which are pivotal for gaining successful careers and being more employable throughout their career. Given the concerning youth unemployment issues in Brunei, the study aims to highlight the importance of youth leadership programs and examine their influence on perceived employability skills. By utilising structural equation modelling to analyse the survey data gathered from 229 samples of participants from youth leadership programs, it was revealed that the impact of learning involving skills-based and attitudinal outcomes has significant positive relationships with perceived employability skills. The results further confirmed the role of behavioural outcomes as a mediating variable in the relationship between learning and perceived employability skills. Findings from this study can be valuable for program designers, practitioners, and stakeholders in contributing to the process of structuring and making ongoing improvements to these programs to align with the essential employability skills. It also offers youth the foundation to be employable in the 21st-century job market, by highlighting the importance of youth leadership programs as a channel through which youth acquire desirable capabilities necessary for attaining a set of attributes that reflect the employability skills sought by employees in the current competitive job market. Therefore, the study can be a starting point in moving forward to mitigate the unemployment issues in Brunei through improving programs to meet the demand of employers concerning employability skills. The study provides notable contributions to the existing body of literature on youth leadership development in Brunei as well as contributing to a few other studies in the Asian region to demonstrate the impact of youth leadership programs on employability skills perceptions.
This paper aims to analyse the mitigating effects of external audit quality (EAQ) factors on earnings management (EM) practices. Data were collected from firms listed on Bursa Malaysia’s main market, covering the years 2011 through 2022. Panel regression was employed to analyse the data. The findings of this study confirmed a significant negative association between audit reputation, audit quality, audit opinions, and EM of listed firms in Malaysia. Audit fees and audit tenure were found to be not significant in relation to EM. The study included five control variables in the analysis, and only economic value added (EVA) was found to be significant. The findings suggest that a number of audit quality factors are indicative of EM among listed firms. The authors extend, as well as contribute to, the growing literature on the EAQ, and therefore, wider corporate governance literature. Thus, it provides originality by presenting empirical evidence and outcomes to fully understand how discretionary accrual and real EM affect EAQ in the Malaysian context. Therefore, stakeholders should place higher concern on the selection of an external auditor, and investors should take into account the external audit factors when making investment decisions. Measuring the effectiveness of EAQ allows decision-makers to evaluate how effective employed governance measures are in improving shareholders’ perceptions of financial information quality and mitigating EM practices.
The encouraging growth in volume and exports of palm-based finished products (PBFP) was directly related to an increase in their demand. It is thus important to investigate the factors influencing such demand. Our study attempts to elucidate this for the Malaysian PBFP in 10 major foreign markets, namely, Turkey, China, Iraq, Iran, Singapore, Romania, Australia, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. This study constitutes a panel data analysis for the 10 countries using data from 2007 to 2021 using the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) method. Pedroni and Westerlund cointegration test indicates the presence of a long-term relationship between the variables under study. The empirical results show that gross domestic product (GDP) has a long-term positive influence on the demand for PBFP, with every 1% increase in GDP will increase the demand for palm oil by 0.9%. In addition, population size (POP) also shows a positive sign and is statistically significant at the 1% level, indicating that a 1% increase in POP will lead to a 0.3% increase in PBFP demand. Substitute oil price also has a long-run positive influence where for every 1% increase in the price of both commodities will increase the demand for PBFP by 0.1%. Meanwhile the price of PBFP has a long-term positive influence on its demand. Thus, information regarding the factors influencing the demand for PBFP from our findings may help industry player and policymakers in formulating strategies to improve the markets, and academicians may also benefit from sharing the knowledge gained from the study.
Using panel regression on a sample of ],532 firms listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India and 450 firms in the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) of China, this study examines the impact of promoter ownership on firm value. We find that promoter have positive impact on firm value in China while it is inversely related to India due to the entrenchment effect or opportunistic behaviour of the promoter. We provide evidence that the opportunistic behaviour of the promoter can be reduced only through monitoring by the corporate governance mechanisms such as board of directors. We contribute to the existing literature on corporate governance and corporate finance by examining the link between promoter ownership and firm value. Our results help the regulators and policy makers to formulate a regulation that reduces the opportunistic behaviour of promoters.
This article explores and consolidates the factors that influence the donor’s trust from cross-disciplinary literature, and we put factors from these different fields to the test in one topic: the donor’s trust in the fundraiser organisation. Grounded on the literature, we can say that there are nine themes of constructs that influence trust. This research utilised a quantitative survey approach and PLS-SEM as an analysis platform to analyse the data collected. We have discovered that our respondents who represent donors strongly agree that their trust is heavily influenced by perceived security, rule of law, organisational personnel personality, communication effectiveness, reputation, perceived integrity, and perceived competence. Cross-disciplinary studies are profoundly helpful towards deeper knowledge and enhance the learning experience and enable the transfer of ideas across many areas of study easier. The findings should contribute to the theoretical knowledge specifically on trust antecedent in the philanthropy setting and other disciplines. The findings presented in this paper may also be useful as input for fundraisers to build and strengthen the level of their donor’s trust. This article explores and consolidates all factors that influence donor trust, which has been published in the literature and presents the results from the cross-examination of these factors.
Despite the fact that perceived organisational support (POS) and religious coping have been advocated as a crucial component of the stress model, the roles remain unclear among academics that often associate with heavy workloads. Therefore, this study aims to examine the moderating role of POS, and the mediating role of religious coping between the relationship of workplace bullying and psychological distress among academics in higher educational institutions (HEIs). Data were collected from academic staff from private and public universities in Malaysia, and a total of 219 data were used. The results revealed that workplace bullying has a positive impact on academics’ psychological distress, and the POS significantly moderated the relationship between workplace bullying and psychological distress. However, this study failed to support the mediating role of religious coping. This study adds to our knowledge of the stress model, by focusing more on perceived organisational support in minimising psychological distress and less on personal resources (religious coping).
This paper examines the moderating effect of competition on the relationship between financial leverage and firm performance in Vietnam. Using a dataset created out of 352 firms listed on Vietnam's stock exchanges in 2015-2019, this paper estimates both the leverage-performance relation and the dependence of this nexus on market competition. The two-step system generalised method of moments is used to tackle the endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and autocorrelation problems in our model estimation. The findings reveal a negative leverage-performance nexus, and increased competition hurts this relationship. In highly competitive markets, debts become more expensive, thus leading to increased financial pressures on leveraged firms. The fiercer competition also creates a risky business environment, so leveraged firms may fail when operating inefficiently and failing to satisfy their debt obligations. Given the results, this paper proposes recommendations on using financial leverage to improve firm performance.
Drawing on the resource-based view and dynamic-capability view, this study examines the relationship between the interactive use of management control systems, dynamic capabilities, and firm performance in the Vietnamese information and communication technology industry. The research model and hypotheses have been tested by partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with 240 survey samples obtained from managers working in Vietnamese information and communication technology firms. The results indicate that the interactive use of management control systems has a positive effect on dynamic capabilities. Additionally, both the interactive use of management control systems and dynamic capabilities have direct positive effects on firm performance. The results reveal that dynamic capabilities complementary mediate the relationships between the interactive use of management control systems and firm performance. This study provides theoretical and managerial implications for Vietnamese information and communication technology firms that are striving to develop management control systems and dynamic capabilities for enhancing firm performance.
Prior studies document that managers manipulate core earnings through different methods to favourably influence the perception of stakeholders towards the operating performance of the firm. However, it is of interest to examine which core earnings manipulation method is preferred by firms because each method needs a different set of opportunities and incentives. The current study explores the methods of core earnings manipulation, namely expense misclassification and revenue misclassification in terms of opportunities and incentives. Results show that the choice of method largely depends on the size and age of the firm. In particular, results exhibit that large and old firms prefer revenue misclassification over expense misclassification for managing core earnings. This effect is found to be more pronounced among large older firms. Our subsequent tests suggest that Big Four auditors (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers) have a constraining effect on expense misclassification, however, they are unable to mitigate the corporate misfeasance of revenue misclassification, implying the partial effectiveness of Big Four auditors in curbing classification shifting. These results are robust to the alternative measurement of misclassification practices and endogeneity issues. The findings have important implications for auditors, analysts, and accounting standard-setters.
The exchange rate is a crucial macro indicator for any open economy, whereby any change in the rate would influence, to a certain extent, various socioeconomic facets. One of the significant impacts is revealed in the pass-through of exchange rate variations to price inflation, also known as the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT). This paper explores the effect of ERPT on domestic inflation in Vietnam by comparing with other Asian economies. Specifically, pass-through mechanisms are examined for every single price as well as a distribution chain from import price index (IMP), producer price index (PPI) to consumer price index (CPI). The empirical results show that exchange rate shocks positively influence the price changes in Vietnam as well as in other Asian countries. According to Cholesky decomposition, the exchange rate plays a limited role in regulating CPI movements. Besides, world commodity prices are found to have a significant impact on domestic inflation across the sample-countries. Our findings reveal profound implications for monetary policy management and price stability.
