This study aims to investigate the relationship between certain attributes of the psychic distance (i.e., cultural, geographical, linguistic, political, economic, and governance quality distance) through two principal components (competitiveness and location distance) between the foreign owner’s home country and host country, with a firm’s risk-taking behavior. By using fixed-effect panel regression on a data set of 251 Indonesian non-financial listed firms over 2010-2019 period, includes foreign investors from 25 countries, and by employing sub-sampling regressions based on environmental and social risks according to the ESG Risk Atlas, this study finds that competitiveness distance between a foreign owner's home country and the host country negatively affects a firm's risk-taking behavior. This result remains robust, particularly for firms clustered within the high social risk group. We recommend that the Indonesian government prioritize promoting investment opportunities to foreign institutional investors from countries with a smaller competitiveness distance. Thus, Indonesian firms' risk-taking behavior will increase, signifying a willingness to pursue new investment projects that ultimately contribute to economic growth. This study extends prior research in international distance and agency theories by demonstrating the importance of incorporating foreign owners’ competitiveness distance to reduce agency conflicts between foreign investors and a firm’s managers, thereby increasing the firm's risk-taking behavior.
Brand evangelism is gaining attention for its strategic marketing value. While researchers have explored its drivers, these remain incompletely understood. This study aims to provide a detailed analysis of the determinants and impacts of brand evangelism, organizing them into themes using bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review. Researchers looked at 66 papers that were indexed in Scopus and used bibliometric tools and the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) framework to study the theories, context, characteristics, and methods used in brand evangelism. The findings identify three key themes in brand evangelism: a) emotional and experiential branding, b) digital dynamics in brand-consumer relations, and c) green consumption behavior. By focusing on entry modes to brand evangelism through exceptional customer experiences, employee engagement, and community involvement, companies can strengthen their brands and build closer connections with customers, employees, and communities. The data was imported from the Scopus database solely to perform bibliometric and SLR analysis. Future studies may use data from other databases, such as Web of Science, to develop more comprehensive research clusters on brand evangelism. The declining credibility and effectiveness of conventional marketing, along with unprecedented changes in consumer behavior, require managers to develop appropriate strategies to acquire new customers and increase market share. The study contributes to a contemporary understanding of brand evangelism as marketing communication, emphasizing the importance of emotional engagement in this domain.
This study examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the natural resource curse in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 2011 to 2020, framed within Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth. Despite abundant natural resources, many SSA countries face the paradox of resource wealth impeding long-term development under weak institutional and structural conditions. Using panel data from 46 SSA countries, fixed and random effects models assess the impact of FDI inflows and natural resource rents on GDP across Eastern, Central, Western, and Southern Africa. The results show a negative and significant relationship between resource rents and GDP for the aggregated SSA sample, consistent with the resource curse hypothesis. However, subregional analysis reveals variation, with Southern Africa and other selected subregions showing positive and significant effects. FDI demonstrates a growth-enhancing role, particularly in regions where governance and policy frameworks are more conducive to investment benefits. These findings underscore the importance of context-specific policies that strengthen resource governance, promote economic diversification, and invest in human capital. Enhancing FDI-led sectors and fostering inclusive employment are essential for advancing SDG 8, unlocking SSA’s economic potential, and improving livelihoods across the continent.
This study aims to determine the effect of digital access, including internet facilities, internet signals, telephone signals, television, and radio, on poverty at the village level in Central Java Province, Indonesia. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that no previous study has measured the effect of digital infrastructure on poverty at the village level. The uniqueness of this study lies in its unit of analysis at the village level in Central Java. This study uses panel data analysis with a fixed effect model. The data used is the Central Java Province Village Potential data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2018, 2021, and 2024 in 8,562 villages and a total of 25.684 observations. The results of this study indicate that digital access, consisting of the variables of Internet caf & eacute;, phone signal, and internet signal, has a negative and significant effect on poverty at the village level. In contrast, the variables of government television and private television have a positive and significant effect on poverty at the village level. Radio broadcasts have no significant effect on poverty at the village level in Central Java Province, Indonesia. This research recommends that the government provide facilities and training/education programs based on an equitable digital access infrastructure. Regarding internet infrastructure, 64.3% of villages in Central Java Province do not have internet access, and 12% do not have a phone signal. Government policy interventions should focus on individual device ownership and providing inclusive shared infrastructure so the entire community can access digital infrastructure.
This study aims to investigate the impact of carbon management on environmental performance. By applying the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV) and Legitimacy Theory, this study examines key dimensions of firm-level carbon management that influence the environmental performance of manufacturing firms in Malaysia A questionnaire survey was conducted among 220 manufacturing firms registered with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers to achieve the research objectives. Data were analysed using structural equation modeling revealed that carbon governance (beta=0.424) had the strongest impact, followed by carbon disclosure (beta=0.339), carbon operations (beta=0.360), and carbon accounting (beta=0.280). Policymakers and industry players can leverage these insights to refine carbon management practices, improve operational efficiency, and achieve long-term cost savings, thereby enhancing manufacturing firms' environmental performance and overall competitiveness.
The relationship between organisational innovation and firm performance was investigated in this study with transformational leadership as a moderator. Data were collected from 79 respondents across manufacturing firms listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia using a stratified random sampling approach. Organisational innovation was conceptualised as a second-order construct comprising management, product and process innovation. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the proposed relationships. Results show that organisational innovation has a positive and significant effect on firm performance, whilst transformational leadership strengthens the relationship between organisational innovation and firm performance. These findings support the theoretical premise that firm-level capabilities and leadership behaviours jointly enhance firm performance. For firms seeking to enhance their competitive position, their innovation strategies must be supported by leadership styles that inspire, motivate and stimulate innovation. The empirical insights in this study are taken from an emerging market, making the results particularly relevant to policymakers and industry leaders in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.
This study examines the correlation between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure and firm value in Indonesian companies, utilizing Stakeholder Theory and Signaling Theory as its theoretical framework. Employing a PRISMA-guided meta-analysis, this study integrates findings from 52 empirical studies published from 2019 to 2024, utilizing a random-effects model. The aggregated results demonstrate that ESG disclosure does not significantly impact firm value in Indonesia (effect size r = 0.036; 95% CI = -0.039 to 0.11; p-value = 0.346), notwithstanding the considerable heterogeneity (I2 = 92.2%). This finding suggests that while ESG practices are being adopted more and more, they don't always have the same effect on how investors see a company and its value. The findings indicate that ESG disclosure does not directly enhance firm value in developing countries, underscoring the contextual limitations of Stakeholder Theory and Signaling Theory in emerging markets. In practice, the study emphasizes the necessity to improve the quality and consistency of ESG disclosure to more effectively promote sustainable firm value. This study serves as a secondary synthesis, utilizing existing firm-level data and integrating previous Indonesian studies to enhance the comprehension of the relationship between ESG disclosure and firm value.
Despite trillions of dollars directed toward socially responsible investment, firms and investors continue to question whether CSR creates tangible financial value. These doubts are reinforced by prior research, which provides mixed evidence on the link between CSR and firm performance. To address this gap, we focus on firm-specific performance indicators - earnings and cash flows - that directly capture a firm’s financial health and competitive position. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we argue that CSR performance represents a unique resource of the firm and allows the firm to develop competitive advantages. We predict and find that CSR is positively associated with the level of both firm-specific earnings and cash flows. Our findings contribute to the debate on CSR and firm performance and provide managers and investors with clearer evidence of the financial benefits of effective CSR engagement.
This study explores influence of exchange rate and oil price shocks on total and disaggregated consumer prices in Malaysia in the long run and short run. Moreover, this study examines asymmetric effect of exchange rate and oil price shocks on total and disaggregated consumer prices in Malaysia in the long run and short run. This study uses annual data over the period from 1980 to 2020. The results of the linear autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model show the impact of exchange rate and oil price differs across different categories of consumer prices and in the long run and short run. An implication is that weak currency or high oil price results higher consumer prices and hence leads to higher inflation in Malaysia. Moreover, there is asymmetric effect of exchange rate and oil price shocks on total and disaggregated consumer prices in Malaysia. Domestic demand, money supply, interest rate and the Asian financial crisis are important in affecting many consumer prices.
Over the past few decades, the global adoption of digital payment methods has increased substantially. While the impacts of digital payment on economic performance have been widely examined in the literature, their influence on the traditional money creation process has largely been ignored. This study argues that digital payment influences currency and excess reserve ratios, thereby affecting the money creation process. By employing the ARDL approach and monthly data spanning from 2019 to 2023, this research addresses this important issue in the Malaysian banking system. The findings reveal that digital payment significantly impacts the banks’ lending capacity, however, this effect is observed exclusively among domestic banks, including both commercial and Islamic banks. This finding underscores the importance of integrating digital payment activities into the design of monetary policy to enhance its overall effectiveness. Furthermore, the study highlights the need to acknowledge the role of Islamic banks in the money creation process.
This research advances theoretical understanding of community-based product design by explicating the mechanisms through which cultural storytelling embedded in product design influences consumer purchase decisions. Drawing on the community identity and user perception frameworks, the study investigates how Lanna cultural narratives shape consumer evaluations through multiple perceptual pathways. Data were collected from 526 tourists and local consumers who purchase community-based products in Chiang Mai and Lamphun Provinces, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results demonstrate that storytelling exerts significant positive effects on several dimensions of user perception, including creative design, perceived reputation, and product attributes. However, source credibility does not exhibit a statistically significant effect on customer purchase decision. Importantly, the findings reveal that the influence of storytelling on purchase decisions is fully mediated by cost-value assessment, reputation, and user need, rather than operating through direct effects. This study contributes to theory by demonstrating that community identity-based storytelling functions as an indirect value-creation mechanism, shaping consumer behavior through differentiated perceptual evaluations rather than generalized emotional responses. By clarifying these mediation pathways, the research extends existing storytelling and user perception theories and offers a refined explanatory model for understanding consumer decision-making in community-based and culturally embedded product contexts.
Guided by Shareholder Theory and Stakeholder Theory, this study examines the threshold influence of ESG on ASEAN-5 countries’ firm performance using the Dynamic Threshold Regression Method. DTRM is a powerful tool that addresses the dynamic nature of firm performance and resolves endogeneity problems in the variables used. Our analysis shows that ASEAN-5 firms must achieve an ESG score above the threshold to reap the benefits of ESG investment. At the low regime, we observed a negative relationship between ESG and firm performance, while at the high regime, the relationship was positive. These results remained robust across different estimation methods. The significance of the threshold value can serve as a reference for ASEAN-5 firms and relevant stakeholders in allocating funding for ESG activities to achieve long-term sustainable performance.
With the rapid advancement of AI technology, virtual influencers (VIs) have become increasingly prominent in the digital marketing landscape. Despite their burgeoning capability—akin to human influencers (HIs)—to forge emotional connections with consumers, the specific impact of VIs on purchase intentions remains under-explored. This study investigates the influence of VIs’ perceived credibility, conceptualized as a second-order construct, on consumers’ purchase intentions. Furthermore, it examines the mediating roles of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) components—namely attitude toward VIs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—within this relationship. Utilizing data collected from an online survey of 527 Chinese participants, the study employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for analysis. The results confirm a significant positive correlation between VIs’ perceived credibility and purchase intention, while also validating the critical mediating roles of the aforementioned behavioral factors. These findings offer valuable theoretical and practical insights for both scholars and marketing practitioners.
This study explored the sustainability and persistence of prosocial and honest behaviors influenced by moral preferences—specifically deontological and consequentialist orientations—within two economic games: the Public Goods Game and the Die-Rolling Game. Drawing on existing literature, we sought to understand how individuals' ethical frameworks shape their decision-making processes, particularly in contexts involving prosociality and honesty. We replicated the Die-Rolling Game and Public Goods Game to assess cheating and contribution behavior across one-shot and repeated conditions. Results indicated that consequentialists displayed more variability in decision-making, while deontologists remained consistent regardless of repeated opportunities for dishonest behavior. In the Public Goods Game, moral preferences did not significantly influence contribution levels, suggesting both groups emphasized the act of contributing. These findings contribute to the understanding of ethical decision-making in economic settings and provide insight into the mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior.
Prior entrepreneurial experiences, moral obligation, and self-efficacy shape social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) among women. This study investigates how these factors influence SEI among female students (n=153) from entrepreneurial family backgrounds in Padang City, Indonesia. The results reveal that moral obligation, prior experience, and self-efficacy all have significant and positive effects on SEI, with self-efficacy identified as the most influential factor. Prior entrepreneurial experience also plays an important role in strengthening both moral obligation and self-efficacy, indicating its broader impact beyond direct intention formation. Moreover, the findings confirm that self-efficacy serves as a key psychological pathway through which prior experience influences SEI, while the mediation role of moral obligation is not supported. These findings contribute to the understanding of social entrepreneurship by highlighting the importance of psychological empowerment and experiential learning in shaping women's intentions to engage in social ventures. The study underscores the role of educational institutions and policymakers in creating supportive environments that foster self-efficacy, leverage family entrepreneurial exposure, and encourage ethical responsibility. Such efforts are essential to promote women's participation in social entrepreneurship, contributing to inclusive and sustainable development.
Digitalization transformed financial reporting activities in emerging countries, including Indonesia. This study aims to analyze the impacts of cloud accounting, big data applications, and artificial intelligence on operational efficiency and business competitiveness, with an emphasis on organizational readiness as a mediating variable. Information was collected through surveying 225 businesses from the banking, manufacturing, service, and retail sectors and further processed using structural equation modeling-partial least squares (SEM-PLS). The results show that cloud accounting, big data, and AI have positive effects on increased operational efficiency, while organizational readiness is a mediator that further increases this effect. The results also show that operational efficiency further increases the competitiveness of companies in the Indonesian market. Theoretically, the research enhances literature by articulating how digital transformation happens in financial reporting under the context of developing countries and accentuating organizational readiness as a determinant for the effectiveness of technology implementation. Practically, these results guide to managers and policymakers on how to increase digital readiness, improve reporting efficiency, and improve sustainable competitiveness.
This study explores the relationship among intellectual capital (IC), financial leverage, and firm performance using data on Vietnam's top 200 firms (2015-2021). Results show that intellectual capital positively affects firm performance. We also find that the positive relationship is less prominent in firms with higher financial leverage, indicating a negative moderating effect. This conclusion applies to long-and short-term debts. Our study highlights the crucial role of IC in enhancing firm performance, while also indicating the negative moderating effect of financial leverage on this relationship. Findings offer practical insights for firms and policymakers, emphasizing that investing in IC and maintaining optimal leverage can enhance firm performance and sustainable value creation in Vietnam.
This study explores the determinants of green purchase intention (GPI) by integrating ethical ideologies, cognitive styles, and demographic factors within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Using data collected from 393 respondents, the research examines the influence of the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI), Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), and demographic variables on GPI. The findings reveal that ethical ideologies and cognitive styles significantly moderate the relationship between environmental beliefs and green purchase behaviors. Notably, these findings align with Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG12), emphasizing sustainable consumption and production patterns. By highlighting how individual traits and demographic variables interact with pro-environmental beliefs, this study provides actionable insights for marketers and policymakers aiming to promote sustainability. Practical implications include tailored marketing strategies addressing consumer values and demographic profiles to drive green consumerism. This research contributes to advancing TPB by incorporating ethical and cognitive dimensions, offering a nuanced understanding of green consumer behavior in emerging markets.
This study employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative thematic analysis and quantitative structural equation modelling, to examine how green innovation activities influence consumer attitudes, purchase intentions, and brand defense behaviours. Qualitative findings from consumers’ reports enrich the quantitative results by uncovering stronger motivations and emotional factors that shape their behaviour toward green products. Both qualitative and quantitative data confirm that companies pursuing a green innovation strategy, for example, the use of biodegrades and sustainable production practices, influence perceptions of a company’s environmental responsibility. The green innovation activities of the company significantly influence the attitude and willingness to pay for green products by the young consumer with the use of green marketing tools that include clear communication, real certification, and direct sustainability claims. In addition, the results underscore the significant effect of brand reputation, transparency, and consumer trust as key foundations for generators in triggering the proactive brand defense from negative publicity. The study further emphasizes the role of emotional attachment and personal experience in reinforcing these protective behaviours.
This study explores the impact of marketing and country-specific aspects on scuba diving-related tourist outcomes in China, focusing on the mediating role of scuba divers’ satisfaction and the moderating effect of memorable tourism experiences in Sanya, China. Data were collected from 385 international scuba tourists using purposive sampling. Structural equation modeling via Smart PLS 4 was employed to assess how marketing elements such as advertisements and brand image, as well as country-specific factors, shape scuba diver satisfaction. Results reveal that while marketing and national attributes positively influence satisfaction, factors like price, safety, security, and accessibility show no significant impact. Additionally, scuba divers' satisfaction mediates the relationship between Scuba tourists’ Recommendation Intentions and revisit intentions. However, memorable tourism experiences do not moderate the link between satisfaction and Scuba tourists’ Recommendation Intentions. These findings contribute to sustainable tourism development (SDG 8), advocate for responsible tourism marketing (SDG 12), and support marine-based tourism aligned with conservation principles (SDG 14). The research contributes to the importance of sustainable marine tourism by focusing on the advertisements, brand image, and country knowledge that can motivate scuba diving operators, companies, managers and policymakers to attract scuba tourists.
