The twenty-five papers brought together in this issue of Corporate and Business Strategy Review span diverse institutional settings, industries, and methodological approaches, yet collectively point to an important development in contemporary strategy research.
This paper is a comparative research paper on Sinopharm and Kangtai Biological during COVID-19 to determine the effective enterprise risk management (ERM) in the companies during the pandemic. This study aims to analyse how ownership structure, regulatory support, and financial stability contribute to the effectiveness of risk management strategies in overcoming supply chain disruptions, regulatory compliance, and market uncertainties. Seventeen articles, reports, and literature were used in this study to employ a qualitative research methodology aimed at studying the role of ERM in improving operational resilience during the pandemic (Rajabi et al., 2024). The results indicate that ownership structure has a strong influence on the effectiveness of ERM, and the ability to manage risks is more structured, supported by resources, and proactive in the case of state ownership (Saeidi et al., 2021). Sinopharm has enjoyed massive governmental support, but Kangtai, which is a privately owned business, has had to rely on other risk mitigation measures to ensure business continuity. This study contributes to the ERM literature by demonstrating that ownership structure functions as a critical external determinant of risk management effectiveness in crisis contexts.
This study examines the competitiveness of medium-scale restaurants in Nueva Ecija, Philippines, and proposes a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)-based strategic framework for strengthening marketing, technical, and financial management practices. Grounded in strategic management and SWOT analysis perspectives (Benzaghta et al., 2021), the study employs a quantitative descriptive-correlational design using survey data from 70 owners, managers, and supervisors of local restaurants. Findings indicate strong internal capabilities, particularly in technical operations, food quality, sanitation compliance, workflow efficiency, customer responsiveness, brand recognition, and financial control. However, competitiveness is challenged by gaps in digital marketing, customer acquisition, partnership development, technology integration, revenue diversification, and external threats such as rising costs, changing consumer preferences, supplier instability, and intensified competition. The study identifies marketing innovation, operational standardization, supplier collaboration, digital adoption, and financial planning as strategic responses for improving resilience and long-term sustainability. Its central contribution is an integrated strategic framework that views restaurant competitiveness as a capability-driven and adaptive process rather than a purely market-based outcome. By aligning internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats, the framework offers practical guidance for restaurant owners, managers, policymakers, and development stakeholders seeking to enhance competitiveness, operational resilience, and sustainable business growth in Nueva Ecija.
Information asymmetry remains a critical challenge in Vietnam’s frontier stock market, where investor protection is limited, and disclosure credibility is often questioned. This study investigates whether compliance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards serves as a strategic mechanism to reduce information asymmetry and examines whether audit quality (Big 4) plays a complementary or substitute moderating role. The adoption of GRI standards is expected to provide reliable and comparable information, thereby helping to reduce the information gap between managers and investors (Bataineh et al., 2025; Isiaka, 2022; Santoso et al., 2023). Using a two-way fixed-effects model (FEM) with system generalized method of moments (GMM) robustness checks on a panel dataset of 420 non-financial listed firms over 2020–2024, the results reveal that both GRI compliance and Big 4 audits independently reduce information asymmetry. However, the core finding is a substitution effect: the impact of GRI reporting is significantly weakened for Big 4-audited firms, particularly in environmentally less-sensitive industries. This study contributes to the corporate disclosure strategy literature by providing the first empirical evidence of this substitution dynamic in a frontier market, offering actionable insights for developing optimal transparency strategies.
Decision-making is considered the main driving force in managerial accounting. To take effective and timely decisions, managerial accounting proposes a structural framework with corporate governance (CG) and professional ethics (PE). There are enormous challenges to making sound decisions in the aspect of traditional managerial accounting systems. To reduce the challenges, the study aims to adopt blockchain technology in reshaping the management accounting network and its impact on decision-making. The study uses a quantitative approach, and the data are collected from 400 valid respondents by designing a set of questionnaires (five-point Likert scale). As the measurement tools, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) logarithm and bootstrap techniques are used under the SmartPLS 4.0 software. The findings of the study suggest that blockchain significantly improves elementary decision-making by offering verifiable, reliable, and real-time financial and non-financial information. It also enables strengthening integration mechanisms through increased professional ethics and trust across the network. This study contributes to the foundation development of the resource-based view (RBV) theory systems. RBV theory contributes to integrating technology and human behavioural intention into structural shifting and improving pragmatic professional ethics insights for effective decision-making.
This study examines the drivers of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices among publicly listed companies in Vietnam, with a focus on CSR disclosures and the influence of internal and external factors. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (SmartPLS), data from various sectors are analysed to examine how management and employee perceptions, company characteristics, organisational culture, and competitive dynamics affect CSR. The findings show that employee perceptions, competitive context, and firm traits significantly influence CSR adoption, while organisational culture and management perceptions affect CSR practices both directly and indirectly. The research highlights the critical role of management commitment to CSR, which shapes organisational culture and employee implementation. It also suggests that CSR strategies should be tailored to company-specific factors, such as size, industry, and ownership structure. Although limited to publicly listed firms in Vietnam, the study provides valuable insights for enhancing CSR integration in emerging markets and calls for further research on private enterprises. Itan et al. (2025) highlight similar dynamics regarding firm performance and CSR governance in Indonesia, providing additional context to CSR practices in emerging markets.
This research analyses the impact that intellectual capital (IC) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) have on international sales. This is done across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region by considering data of firms based in Australia, China, Malaysia, and Singapore. The study considers 800 firm-year data across these APAC regions between 2017 and 2023 and applies fixed effects (FEM) and random effects (REM) models to examine these relationships. This study builds on prior research highlighting the role of IC in firm performance and ESG in enhancing international competitiveness (Nguyen & Nghiem, 2023). The results indicate that the value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) and ESG have significant positive effects on international sales of firms. Firm size also contributes positively to international sales. However, return on assets (ROA) did not have any significant impact on global sales. Moreover, the study also found that the interaction term between VAIC and ESG is positive and statistically significant. This indicates that ESG performance amplifies the impact of IC on internationalisation. The findings of the study highlight the roles of knowledge-based resources and sustainable practices in enhancing the global operations of firms. Moreover, the study also contributes to the literature by integrating the knowledge-based, stakeholder, and institutional perspectives within a sustainability-driven internationalisation framework.
This study investigates the strategic impact of foreign trade on corporate financial performance in Jordan, a small, open, emerging economy. Using annual time-series data covering 2005–2021, the analysis integrates national trade indicators (exports, imports, and trade openness) obtained from the Jordan Department of Statistics with aggregated firm-level financial data for companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). Corporate financial performance is measured by the average return on assets (ROA) across listed firms. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is employed to examine both short-run dynamics and long-run equilibrium relationships. The findings confirm the existence of a stable long-term association between foreign trade variables and corporate financial performance. Exports and trade openness exert positive and statistically significant effects in both the short and long run, indicating that international market integration enhances firm profitability and strategic competitiveness. Conversely, imports demonstrate a negative and significant impact, suggesting that import penetration may intensify competitive pressures and reduce domestic firms’ margins. These results provide strategic insights for policymakers and corporate leaders seeking to strengthen export capacity, enhance productive competitiveness, and mitigate risks associated with import dependency.
This study investigates the mediating role of efficiency in the relationship between competition and financial stability in African commercial banks and examines its implications for capital structure decisions. Using panel data from 66 banks across 12 African countries over 2010–2021, mediation is tested using the ordinary least squares approach following the Baron and Kenny (1986) methodology and validated through structural equation modeling (SEM) to ensure robustness. A composite competition-efficiency-stability index (CESINDEX) is constructed to capture the joint mediation effect, and its impact on capital structure is assessed using fixed effects models (FEM), with two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations as a robustness check. Results reveal that competition negatively affects stability but positively influences efficiency, which in turn negatively impacts stability, confirming the mediating role of efficiency in the competition-stability nexus. The CESINDEX shows a positive and significant effect on capital structure, indicating that banks respond to these interrelated pressures by strengthening capital buffers. The study provides actionable insights for policymakers and bank managers, highlighting the strategic importance of promoting operational efficiency to enhance stability and guide capital structure decisions in fragile African banking systems.
Baldacchino and Fairbairn (2006) highlighted that entrepreneurship studies on smaller islands are critical for the development of small-scale firms on the islands. Wales et al. (2021) argue that entrepreneurial orientation is a prevalent issue in the entrepreneurship literature. The purpose of this study is to quantify entrepreneurial orientation, collaboration, and business performance in small-scale tourism businesses on small islands and investigate the relationships between these variables. An exploratory sequence mixed approach was employed in this investigation. In-depth interviews with fifteen participants were conducted in the first stage, and a survey with ninety-three individuals was conducted in the second. Partial least squares (PLS) was used to process the survey results, while a deductive approach was used to process the interview results. In order to overcome the difficulties associated with small-island tourism, the present research emphasizes the significance of strategic collaboration among tourism enterprise owners. The resources, capacities, and external variables that mediate the connection between entrepreneurial orientation and corporate performance should be investigated in future research.
This study examines how business agility enhances organizational resilience through revenue diversification and risk management. Business agility reflects a firm’s ability to adapt to environmental changes while maintaining value creation rapidly (Mrugalska & Ahmed, 2021). Agility enables companies to respond effectively to uncertainty and sustain competitiveness (Yusuf et al., 2022). Using data from 260 firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2022 to 2023, this research employs partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyze causal relationships. The results indicate that revenue diversification has an insignificant adverse impact on risk management, whereas agility has a significant adverse effect. However, agility strengthens the positive interaction between diversification and risk management, enhancing resilience. The findings contribute to the understanding of how agility and diversification jointly enhance strategic adaptability in volatile markets, providing practical implications for firms seeking to strengthen their long-term resilience.
This investigation fills a significant knowledge gap by examining the impact of internal organizational procedures on strategic outcomes in ever-moving markets. In particular, the influence of the organizational immune system (OIS) on the accomplishment of organizational innovation (OI) and strategic entrepreneurship (SE). The study also focused on pharmaceutical businesses listed on the Amman Stock Exchange in Jordan to survey how OI intermediated the link between OIS and strategic business. A total of 181 individuals at the managerial level (including managers, representatives and subordinates) contributed to the survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. It has been shown that both OI and SE are significantly influenced by the organization’s immune system. The results also showed that the link between OIS and SE was mediated by OI. This research is useful for organizations looking to be more entrepreneurial in their strategic approach, as it shows how an organization’s immune system can be used to drive innovation within the company, which in turn leads to long-term success.
This study examines the influence of emotional labor strategies on customer satisfaction in Jordanian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with emotional intelligence (EI) serving as a moderating variable. Data from 190 customer-facing employees were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results confirmed that deep acting has a positive influence on customer satisfaction, whereas surface acting has a negative impact. EI was found to mitigate the negative effect of surface acting, but unexpectedly, it also attenuated the positive effect of deep acting. The findings challenge the universal applicability of EI benefits, highlighting cultural particularities in service interactions. For Jordanian SMEs, prioritizing genuine emotional engagement (deep acting) in training is more critical than generic EI training.
This study aims to examine the key strategic factors influencing employee work performance in the Malaysian manufacturing industry, focusing on the work environment, leadership and management styles, employee motivation, and training and development opportunities. The study is grounded in Herzberg’s two-factor theory and social exchange theory, which explains performance through reciprocal relationships between employees and organizations (Herzberg et al., 1959). A quantitative research design was employed. The respondents comprised 107 employees from manufacturing companies located in Kluang, Johor, Malaysia. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire through convenience sampling and analysed using SPSS version 29, incorporating descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple regression. The findings revealed that the work environment has a positive and statistically significant influence on employee work performance (β = 0.557, p < 0.001). Leadership and management style, employee motivation, and training and development opportunities were found to be non-significant predictors. The regression model explains 64.9% of the variance in employee work performance.
This study examines the impact of digital marketing strategies through e-commerce, social media, and influencer marketing on emotional resonance and customer loyalty among Generations Z and Y, as well as the moderating role of digital literacy. A quantitative approach was employed using an online survey of 300 respondents from Generations Z and Y. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling–partial least squares (SEM-PLS). The findings indicate that digital marketing strategies across the three channels significantly enhance emotional resonance and customer loyalty. Furthermore, digital literacy is shown to strengthen the relationship between digital marketing strategies and both emotional resonance and customer loyalty. These results offer practical implications for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in designing effective digital marketing strategies aligned with the characteristics of Generations Z and Y, while also emphasizing the importance of improving customer digital literacy to foster trust and emotional attachment to brands. This study contributes to the literature by proposing a framework that positions digital literacy as a moderating variable in the relationship between digital marketing strategies, emotional resonance, and customer loyalty, providing insights for MSMEs, digital marketers, and policymakers in promoting sustainable customer engagement in the digital era.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been increasingly adopted in the banking sector due to their ability to analyze large-scale datasets, process complex variables, and uncover hidden patterns, especially in the context of liquidity risk, posing a significant challenge for commercial banks. This study contributes to the field by conducting a comprehensive evaluation of several widely used early warning models, such as least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression, random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), to identify the most suitable approach for forecasting liquidity risk in Vietnamese commercial banks (VCBs) based on VCBs data over the period of 2014–2023. By pinpointing key indicators associated with liquidity crises, these models can assist banks and regulatory authorities in implementing timely preventive measures and enhancing risk management strategies. As a result, the RF model outperforms other methods in identifying possible liquidity crises, according to the empirical results, with an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent. These findings provide bank managers and policymakers with a powerful tool for timely preventive measures, thereby enhancing the resilience and stability of the financial system.
The information asymmetry, which is a critical challenge in the insurance market, primarily manifests as adverse selection, moral hazard, and fraud. This paper provides a conceptual clarification and categorization of these phenomena between the insurer and the insured. The study also revisits existing statistical modeling tools to formalize insurance fraud risk within a deterministic audit framework, drawing inspiration from the foundational work of Picard (1996, 2001) and Bond and Crocker (1997). The major contribution of this research lies in the modeling of the optimal insurance contract designed to incentivize policyholders to declare the actual amount of their loss under deterministic audit conditions. This formalization allows us to derive an optimal indemnity that maximizes utility while effectively controlling moral hazard. Furthermore, this research highlights numerous advanced techniques (including artificial intelligence [AI]) for overcoming these asymmetry problems. It provides concrete examples of the successful implementation of these strategies by insurance companies in specific emerging markets, such as Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. Finally, many avenues are proposed to find solutions to address the challenges of personal data collection and protection posed by the integration of AI in the insurance sector.
Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) remain central to local economic development but continue to face competitiveness challenges linked to resource and institutional constraints. Guided by the integrated Oslo-Porter framework and contemporary perspectives on innovation and competitiveness (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2023; Agazu & Kero, 2024), this study examined the relationship between innovation capacity and market competitiveness among 100 registered MSMEs in Nueva Ecija, Philippines. Using a quantitative cross-sectional descriptive-correlational design, innovation capacity was assessed through product, process, marketing, and organizational dimensions, while market competitiveness covered customer engagement, market access and distribution, sales performance, and competitive positioning. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression analyses were employed. Results showed moderate levels of innovation capacity and market competitiveness. Product and process innovation emerged as the strongest dimensions, whereas marketing and organizational innovation showed comparatively lower adoption. Innovation capacity demonstrated a statistically significant moderate positive relationship with competitiveness. Regression findings indicated that product, process, and marketing innovation significantly predicted competitiveness, whereas organizational innovation was not a significant predictor. The study provides evidence supporting innovation-oriented policies, enterprise development, and research-informed support initiatives for MSME competitiveness and integration.
Tax avoidance (TA) is the strategy used by companies to reduce their tax liabilities within the bounds of the law (Jarboui et al., 2020). The aims of this study are to explore the factors effectted to the TA behavior of companies listed in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Stock Exchange. This study was developed based on Mukhtaruddin et al.’s (2025) research. The environmental, social, and governance (ESG), financial distress (FD), financial performance (FP), and board gender diversity (BGD) are the factors that have an effect on TA practices. Firm size (FS) is used as a control variable. The sample is 185 companies from the ASEAN Stock Exchange (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand) for five years observation. The multiple regression analysis is used to answer the research questions. The findings indicated that the FD and FP have a positive and significant impact on TA. ESG has a negative and significant impact on TA. BGD initially shows no impact, but becomes positively significant when the role of FS is used as a control variable. A smaller number of companies’ disclosure of ESG performance are the limitation of this research. The regulators should have prepared the standards of ESG disclosure, making it easy to control and monitor. These findings highlight the importance of policymakers to monitor ESG practices, financial health, and board composition, as they meaningfully shape TA behaviour.
Digital transformation has become a key priority for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially after the pandemic crisis (Ta & Lin, 2023). However, despite the progress made in updating their digital maturity level, many companies still face significant limitations in designing and implementing truly effective digital transformation strategies.
