University of Dubai's Dubai Business School (DBS): E-Journals
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The impact of women executives on companies’ financial performance: A study of south Africa’s state-owned companies
Full text linkSouth Africa’s former apartheid government deeply entrenched racial and gender inequalities amongst South Africans and excluded both blacks and women from participating in the economy and the workplace. Since the advent of democracy in the country in 1994, regulations such as the Employment Equity Act of 1998 were introduced to include both women and blacks in the working environment. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of gender diversity on 21 State-Owned Companies (SOCs), from 2010 to 2014. Correlation and regression analysis were used to investigate the relationship between women who are executive managers and the companies’ financial performance (i.e. profit margin, return on assets and fruitless and wasteful expenditure as a percentage of revenue). The results indicate that there has been slow progress made by the South African government in recruiting women at the executive management level in SOCs. Furthermore, an insignificant relationship was found between women in executive positions and the financial performance of those SOCs. These findings are useful for South African regulators and policymakers as they justify efforts to employ women in the executive management teams in SOCs. The study adds to existing research in the private sector, demonstrating the financial benefits of gender diversity
Sustainable stock market indices: A comparative assessment of performance
Full text linkThe paper focuses on the sustainability stock market indices and investigates whether there is evidence of synchronization between the price return provided by sustainability indices calculated for various geographic regions. Due to data availability constraints, the analysis had been performed only for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices family, which comprises six types of indices. It had been considered the daily price return time series recorded in the last 10 years (November 30, 2010 – July 26, 2019) by each of the six Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, and it had been applied to the Principal Components Analysis method. Our findings confirm the initial research assumption that sustainability indices build for certain geographical areas are more correlated and hence more synchronized than others. More specifically, sustainability indices which include companies from Europe, Japan, US, World developed countries and World best-in-class exhibit correlated price returns, and hence are synchronized while DJSI for emerging countries is far apart. Therefore, the first five categories of indices may act as a substitute for each other. A second conclusion is that both emerging markets' sustainability index and any of the five indices may be included in investors’ portfolios for purposes related to risk diversification and hedging
Do firms substitute earnings management methods? The case of the MENA region
Full text linkThe purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether firms substitute accruals-based earnings management with real activities-based earnings management or complement the two methods in the MENA region. Further, this paper seeks to investigate the impact of IFRS adoption on accruals-based earnings management. To test the research hypotheses, this paper employs a panel fixed-effects regression model for a sample of 798 non-financial listed MENA region firms over the period 2008-2015, inclusively. The research findings provide evidence that firms complement accruals-based and real activities-based earnings management methods rather than substituting one earnings management method for the other, which suggests that MENA firms conduct both methods concurrently to achieve earnings targets and are not constrained by the relative costs of employing a particular method. Furthermore, a significant positive association between GDP growth and accruals-based earnings management is found, which provides evidence that economic growth leads to a greater degree of accruals-based earnings management behavior in MENA region firms.
Ownership structures and firm performance in Nigeria: A canonical correlation analysis
Full text linkThis study examined the relationship between ownership structure and performance of listed non-financial firms in Nigeria. Secondary data on managerial ownership, ownership concentration, foreign ownership, institutional ownership, Tobin q, return on assets, return on equities, and earnings per shares were collected from forty (40) sampled firms. The data were analyzed using canonical correlation and the findings showed that managerial and foreign ownerships are the dominant ownership structures while Tobin q, EPS, and ROA are the dominant performance measures. The study also found that ownership concentration, foreign ownership, and institutional ownership are positively correlated with firm performance, while managerial ownership is negatively correlated with firm performance. The study recommended that listed non-financial firms should encourage foreign investments in their firms and rewards performing managers with shares in the firm.  
The pattern, sources, and growth of remittances to Pakistan: The kinked exponential approach
Full text linkThis paper examines the pattern, sources and growth of remittances to Pakistan. It analyses the growing trend of remittances and share of remittances to GDP over the period 1972-2014. We use the kinked exponential model (Boyce, 1986, 1987) to estimates the growing trend of remittances in Pakistan. The results show that remittances received by Pakistan have three distinct growth phases over the study period – Phase I (1973 – 1983), Phase II (1984 – 2000) and Phase III (2001 – 2014). The remittances received by Pakistan have positive growth during the first and the third period while the second period shows negative growth. Before globalization, the UK was the major source of remittances to Pakistan but after globalization, the sources of remittances to Pakistan have been cantered on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Gulf countries
Does corporate reputation matter in the relationship between organizational cultural intelligence and customer loyalty among SMEs in Nigeria?
Full text linkThe declined customer loyalty and low competitive spirit confronting Nigerian owned SMEs when compared to their foreign counterparts operating under the same business environment have been an issue of concern for scholars and practitioners. The main thrust of this study is to evaluate the role of organizational cultural intelligence and corporate reputation on customer loyalty. A survey questionnaire was retrieved from 250 businesses owned by Nigerian (other than the natives of the place of operation) and Non-Nigerians operating in Plateau State Nigeria, and from 335 customers of these businesses as well. The data collected was analyzed using Smart-PLS 3.2.7 Software to determine the direct relationship between Organisational Cultural Intelligence and Customer loyalty and the indirect relationship through the intervening role of corporate reputation. The results revealed the relationship between organizational cultural intelligence and customer loyalty as positive but insignificant. While corporate reputation mediates the relationship between organizational cultural intelligence and customer loyalty. We further discussed the theoretical and practical implications as well as a recommendation for future studies. We inferred that Organisational CQ and Corporate reputations are important predictors and mechanisms to understanding customer loyalty among SMEs in Nigeria
Turnover intentions and job performance of accountants: The role of religiosity and spiritual intelligence
Full text linkThis paper examined the turnover intentions of accountants practicing with audit firms in Ghana. The study specifically, investigated the factors that influence the intentions of accountants to quit their jobs and further ascertained if the intentions to quit have any implications on the job performance of accountants. A survey method of research was adopted and a set of questionnaires was administered to accountants working with accounting firms certified and approved by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG). The hypothesized relationships of the study were tested using the Partial Least Square-based structural equation modeling technique. The findings of this study demonstrate that organizational commitment, job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and religiosity are good predictors of turnover intentions of accountants. Further, our analysis also indicates that turnover intentions impact negatively on job performance of accountants. Our findings have two important implications. First, we highlight the relevance of the spiritual dimension of the determinants of turnover intentions by demonstrating with evidence that the extent of an individual’s attachment and commitment to religious values and beliefs have important implications on turnover intentions. Second, while job performance has been found to influence turnover intentions of employees, the evidence provided in this study suggests that turnover intentions are also a good predictor of employees’ job performance
Evaluation of the diversification of Macau’s hotel market
Full text linkThe tourism and hospitality industry was always an essential component sector in the world's economy, they all have a mutual benefit for each other and cannot be separated. Macau is a tourism city which means that it must have a stable hospitality industry to support the sustainable development of tourism. This study tried to use strategic thinking to evaluate the diversify hotel market in Macau's hotel industry based on the master plan of Macau tourism development. The research and date from the master plan and some literature reviews showed that the hotel industry in Macau is not operating in a balanced way between star hotels and economy hotels. This study provides recommendations for stakeholders in the end, including hotel owners and government
Electoral cycles, stock market volatility and exchange rate: The indissoluble trivet
Full text linkThis paper seeks to unravel the connectivity between stock market volatility and exchange rate within the political cycles of sovereign states presidential election years between 2000-2016 using the dynamic system GMM estimation and VECH technique data source from Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI). A significant positive relationship between market volatility and exchange rate manifests in the studied countries, more in Nigeria and South Africa. A significant shift in a conditional correlation of the variances of most markets exists except for Kenya, Japan, and Hong Kong. This perhaps is indicative of weak institutional and democratic culture within the financial system; hence independence of public institutions would guarantee non-interference that ensures policy consistency. Financial, economic and behavioral finance barometers need to integrate both local and international political development for effective and result-driven investment. As a result of the significant opportunistic business cycle effect that manifested with a significant shift in the conditional correlations of the variances of some of the markets we strongly believe that a truly independent central bank would not only guarantee political non-interference but also will ensure policy consistency
Firm-level determinants of capital structure in the MENA region
Full text linkThis paper investigates the behavior of firm characteristics on capital structure in firms in the MENA region. The outcomes of this research are important to bridge the gap between the theory and the practical decisions related to capital structure. The research studies the impact of firm characteristics on levels of debt from three different perspectives; short-term debt, long-term debt, and total debt. The study is applied to 416 firms from nine countries of the MENA region (Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia) over some time from 2007-2016. Various econometrics techniques are used to reinforce the generated results. The results show that a firm's profitability and liquidity levels have a significant inverse impact on leverage, whereas; firm's size has a direct impact. The empirical results also show that asset tangibility and market value impact leverage differently depending on the type of debt used. Overall, the results reinforce the importance of both the pecking order theory as well as the trade-off theory in explaining capital structure decisions in the MENA region, with the results being more significant concerning the pecking order theory