Economies, Volume 10, Issue 2 (February 2022) – 27 articles

This study builds on the debate on whether mothers‘ employment in the early life of children bring positive or negative impact to children in later life. This is based on the fact that employment often result in reduced family time in which mother may not be able to take care of their children fully. This study estimated the effects of mothers’ employment status on children’s education in the short-term and in the long-term in 24 provinces in Indonesia. This study used data on children from three waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS): IFLS-3 (in 2000) aged 0–7 years, IFLS-4 (in 2007) aged 7–14 years, and IFLS-5 (in 2014) aged 14–21 years. The outcome variable was the children’s education and the variable of interest was the mother’s employment status. To overcome endogeneity, the analysis of the relationship between outcome and interest variables in this study was done by using the ordinary least square estimation (OLS) method and instrumental variables (IV). This study also used a cross-sectional design which estimated IFLS-4 (in 2007) and IFLS-5 (in 2014), separately. The main finding suggests that the mother’s employment status positively influenced children’s education both in the short- and long-term, as evidenced by the ordinary least square estimation (OLS) results. The instrumental variable (IV) estimate showed that decision-making was a strong instrument; and, it further revealed that mothers’ decision-making within the family affected their opportunity to work. This research could contribute to strengthening working mothers’ self-border and the concept of work-family facilitation in a family. It could also become a reference for stakeholders involved in the policy making to regulate policies which facilitate and support working mother to create ideal working environment. This condition is expected to supports children’s development as well as creating equity for working mothers in Indonesia. Full article

The restaurant industry is quite similar across borders. It is a labour-intensive industry that is important for tourism and employment. It consists mainly of many small businesses that are regionally dispersed. There are many studies that have analysed this sector. However, rather few articles have focused on the dynamics of growth and profit. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of profit persistence and the law of proportionate effect (LPE) to Norwegian restaurants by using publicly available public panel data from 2010 to 2019. The sample includes 866 restaurants. One important finding is that Gibrat’s law (LPE) does not seem to hold, meaning the growth is not independent of the size of the firms. Small businesses grow faster than the others, and they are also more profitable. There is some degree of profit persistence in the restaurant industry. Profitability is negatively linked to debt ratios but positively related to working capital. The study shows there is a trade-off between size and profit. These findings are useful for the industry and for others (public planning, lenders, and more). Full article

Examining and analyzing the determinants facilitating consumers’ intention to buy via mobile commerce platforms have untapped potential when it comes to advertisement potential and perceived advertising value. Therefore, this paper examines various aspects of the advertisements on mobile commerce platforms and analyzes the importance of intention to buy. The goal of the article is to analyze and determine which aspects of the advertisements have an influence on expediting purchase through mobile commerce. The underlying hypothesis for this investigation is the applicability of the perceived advertising value of mobile commerce, positively associated with attitude towards advertising channels. The Facebook social network has been chosen as an advertisement channel as it is the most popular and biggest investment-generated channel. It is also proven that subjective norms are positively associated with the intention to buy via mobile commerce. This, combined with perceived advertising values and attitudes towards Facebook ads on mobile commerce, influenced the intention to buy. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected all spheres of services-related business, including the higher education sector. As a pre-emptive measure, almost all traditional educational institutions have been transformed into virtual organizations. This pandemic-induced work transition has created stress among academic staff and has hampered their performance. The present study aims to examine the impact of leadership behaviors, e-training, and employment security on the stress management process, consequently improving employee performance during and after the pandemic. Based on the IPO (input–process–output) model, this study examines the effect of leadership behavior, e-training, and employment security on teaching staff’s tasks and adaptive and contextual performance, mediated by stress management. To test the conceptual model, data were collected from the teaching staff of Malaysian universities. The structural equation modeling technique was used for data analysis, while bootstrapping with the maximum likelihood estimator was used to confirm the mediational role of stress management. The study revealed that task- and relation-oriented leadership behavior, e-training, and employment security positively influence stress management and employee performance in virtual organizations. Moreover, stress management acts as a full mediator in the relationship between leadership behavior and employee performance, while partial mediation occurs between e-training, employment security, and employee performance. This study offers valuable insights into the literature by proposing leadership behavior, e-training, and employment security as input in the stress management process to attain the performance output of teaching staff. Higher education institutions should come forward to assist their teaching employees in managing their stress levels for better outcomes. Full article

Although sustainable development and desertification risk are hegemonic concepts in environmental economics, their intimate relationship was occasionally studied and made spatially explicit. The present study contributes to fill this knowledge gap by delineating a statistical procedure that investigates, at the municipal scale in Italy, the association between two composite indexes of sustainable development (SDI) and desertification risk (ESAI). Based on a refined knowledge of the local context, results of a geographically weighted regression delineate two distinctive territorial models reflecting the mutual interplay of sustainable development and desertification risk in Italy. The level of sustainable development was negatively associated with desertification risk in Southern Italy, a region classified as ‘affected’ based on the Italian National Action Plan (NAP) to combat desertification. These findings document a traditional ‘downward spiral’ between local development and early desertification processes, suggesting that a high desertification risk is associated with local contexts having structural conditions that lead to unsustainable development, e.g., population growth, industrial development, tourism pressure, crop intensification, agricultural mechanization, and land abandonment. In non-affected regions such as Northern and Central Italy, the level of sustainable development was positively associated with desertification risk, indicating that sustainability conditions can be unable, at least in some local contexts, to assure a significant containment of environmental degradation. Policy strategies reconnecting local development with more specific environmental conservation targets in development countries are increasingly required to adapt to (and differentiate on the base of) heterogeneous local contexts. Full article

A strategy that has the potential to contribute to the achievement of the targets established under SDG 8 (“Decent Work and Economic Growth”) involves the development of sustainable tourism to create productive job and livelihood opportunities and to promote local culture and products. In the province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Indonesia, ikat weaving is an integral part of the cultural heritage of the region, with ikat characterized by unique design motives and the use of natural dyes. Unfortunately, in some areas, the use of natural dyes is diminishing as a result of competition with synthetic dyes and the limited availability of raw materials, particularly for the production of blue dye. The development of Indigofera spp. to produce natural, plant-based blue dye has significant potential to contribute to community incomes and employment. This study outlines a strategy for developing the use of Indigofera spp. as a natural dye and describes its potential for contributing to community incomes, especially on Timor Island, NTT. The study shows that weavers currently use indigo plants that grow naturally in gardens and yards. Although the community has a tradition of using these plants, informed by local wisdom, to develop the cultivation and processing of this plant through the application of the appropriate techniques, including innovative approaches to producing indigo paste, could enable the development of Indigofera spp. cultivation on a larger scale. The study shows that the availability of suitable land is high (±370 thousand ha), with 80% of the suitable land being categorized as critical. The study proposes a development based on the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to assess the manner in which these opportunities could be leveraged with the support and participation of local communities and other stakeholders by leveraging the culture and wisdom of the community regarding the use of Indigofera spp. Full article

Our world is evolving at an incredibly enormous speed and what was impossible three years ago is now a reality. The concept of leadership and leaders has also undergone profound transformations. Moreover, the recent COVID-19 pandemic caused a digital surge in the ways economic life, business, or education are perceived or conducted. The pandemic proved that small and large businesses, industries, and the whole economies can be suddenly upended by massive technological shifts. Hence, there is a need for a theoretical research update in leadership in business and economics that would bring new insights into this topic and define its place within the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our paper presents the novel insights for the leaders and the leadership concept in business and economics from various approaches and angles of view in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on sustainable leadership and organizational resilience. It aims at outlying the theoretical background of leadership in business and economics after the pandemic and bringing up interesting and recent leadership case studies from all around of the world. Moreover, this paper aims as sharing the valuable insights into what it means to be a sustainable leader in business and economics, why leaders are needed, and how to become one. The main criteria of this research and its instrumentation include both the theoretical discussion based on the literature review and analysis and the empirical analysis that supports these theoretical provisions. The paper features an empirical model that assesses how business and economic leaders are searching for new ways of work and personal development during and after the COVID-19 pandemic using the own data from the 400 respondents collected in the Czech Republic and Russia. We found that the pandemic enhanced the emotional creativity of business and economic leaders and made them to invest and engage more into using new digital technologies and fundamentally altering the old ways of managing and governing their respective companies and institutions. Our results might provide valuable food for thought both for academics working on various angles of leadership, as well as for entrepreneurs and businesspeople who want to receive recent updates on the topic of leadership to use them in their daily work. Full article

Tourism contributes 10% to global gross domestic product (GDP), yet it generates 5% of all anthropogenic CO₂, while 50 to 60% of carbon emissions are indirectly related to the sector. High levels of poverty afflict rural areas in developing countries, and sustainable tourism based on renewable energy is an ideal approach to generate local development. Our objectives are thus to gauge sustainable tourism’s influence on local development in the community of La Florida, Huaral, Peru and to evaluate the potential of renewable energy (solar and wind power) to propose an eco-efficient business alternative. A non-experimental, quantitative approach was used, in which 265 local residents completed a survey to ascertain their perspectives on the proposal. Moreover, the potential for solar and wind energy was measured to identify sustainable alternatives that residents might incorporate into local ventures. The results demonstrate a relationship between sustainable tourism and local development, as tourism activity enables community members to improve their quality of life and offers them the opportunity to generate new enterprises. Likewise, the assessment of renewable energy potential confirms its feasibility in this area. Full article

This study explores the asymmetric impact of oil supply and demand shocks on the sectoral stock market returns of Pakistan. For this purpose, the study uses the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach based on monthly time series data for four sectors in the Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 2005–2018. First, the findings of the unit root tests identified that all data series are stationary at first difference. Second, the F-bound test explored that oil supply and demand shocks have a cointegration relationship with sectoral stock market returns. Third, the study explored the asymmetric impact of oil supply shocks (OSS) and oil-specific demand shocks (OSDS) on sectoral returns of commercial banking and the symmetric impact of oil demand shocks (ODS) on sectoral returns of commercial banking. In addition, the asymmetric impact of oil supply shocks (OSS) and oil demand shocks (ODS) on sectoral returns of the power generation, chemical and fertilizer sectors was found. Moreover, the symmetric impact of oil-specific demand shocks (OSDS) on sectoral returns of the power generation, chemical and fertilizer sectors was explored. The study suggests important policy implications for policymakers and investors. Full article

An effective and competitive investment policy requires improvements to the existing tools. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis requires understanding as to how the recovery processes should be implemented. This study aims to develop a model for determining the autonomous expenditure multiplier (AEM) values, considering the investment accelerator action. The scientific novelty consists of proving that the AEM is not only an effects enhancer of the government and private investment, but also a tool to specify on the regional industrial map of Russia where investment projects will allow significant economic growth. The work’s practical significance consists of determining the possibility of applying the AEM as a tool to improve investment efficiency. The key research method was paired linear regression analysis. Based on the developed model, the AEM values for the economies of the five Central Federal District regions are calculated. Additionally, authors provide an explanation on how AEM values correlate to regional economic specialization. For example, atypically low AEM values for Moscow can be explained by high daily workforce movement among Moscow and the Moscow region. The information support difficulties of the proposed model are defined, and the directions to overcome them are proposed. Empirical results show significant differences in the AEM values of the researched regions, and that the AEM as a management tool for interregional investment distribution will help to invest the limited resources of both the state and private businesses more effectively. Additionally, authors establish that the achieved results fall in line with real macroeconomic situations within the regions, which proves that the proposed model reflects real world processes. Primary beneficiaries and end users of the study are government agencies, state-owned corporations, and members of broader scientific community. Full article

The idea that high levels of economic inequality negatively affect the rate and sustainability of economic growth is quite popular in the scientific literature. Therefore, it is usually proposed to take some regulative measures to reduce economic inequality in order to boost economic growth. Should the thesis be considered as a populist slogan or a scientifically proven fact? This article analyzes the results of 22 empirical studies on the relationship between economic inequality and economic growth conducted during the period of 1917–2018. We used meta-analysis to examine and systematize the results of previous empirical studies. The literature review and the analysis of the results from previous studies mainly indicate a negative relationship between economic inequality and economic growth (59% of the previous empirical research). The research gap is that on average these studies are rather controversial to each other and we cannot say that we understand these relationships correctly. To answer the questions concerning the interrelations between income inequality and sustainable economic growth, we made our own empirical research. To do this we used a qualitative pairwise correlation comparison method and analyzed panel data of 39 countries for the period of 1980–2019. The correlation between income inequality and sustainable economic growth was evaluated basing on the Gini index (GI) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Our calculations and analysis show that on average, in approximately 57.8% of moments in the period between 1980–2018, this correlation was positive in our sample of countries. The novelty of our study is that we show in detail how income inequality and economic growth are interconnected for each particular country and on average for the whole sample of countries. In addition, we used the inequality transparency index to adjust our calculations for data quality. Three hypotheses were tested in the study. Only one of them was confirmed by our research. The level of income inequality determines the direction of its impact on economic growth. An increase in income inequality in countries with low levels of inequality in most cases boosts economic growth and vice versa. Additionally, we received partial confirmation of our other hypothesis and found out that the correlation between economic growth and income inequality is definitely more negative for countries with low income and more positive in countries with high income per capita. Full article

One of the most difficult problems analysts and decision-makers may face is how to improve the forecasting and predicting of financial time series. However, several efforts were made to develop more accurate and reliable forecasting methods. The main purpose of this study is to use technical analysis methods to forecast Jordanian insurance companies and accordingly examine their performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several experiments were conducted on the daily stock prices of ten insurance companies, collected by the Amman Stock Exchange, to evaluate the selected technical analysis methods. The experimental results show that the non-parametric Exponential Decay Weighted Average (EDWA) has higher forecasting capabilities than some of the more popular forecasting strategies, such as Simple Moving Average, Weighted Moving Average, and Exponential Smoothing. As a result, we show that using EDWA to forecast the share price of insurance companies in Jordan is good practice. From a technical analysis perspective, our research also shows that the pandemic had different effects on different Jordanian insurance companies. Full article

The “technology bubble” in the late 1990s, the financial crisis in 2007/2008, and the Eurozone crisis generated significant losses across several asset classes. The objective of this paper is to investigate risk premia factors such as size, value, momentum, carry, quality, and low volatility and their time-variant behavior. The time-variant behavior of these risk premia baskets has been analyzed based on different financial conditions: The business cycle, the yield curve, equity market momentum, and different risk conditions. Factor calculations are based on the MSCI World universe. The monthly data set ranges from January 1995 to September 2017. The results underpin the prevalent observation that equity risk factors consistently outperform the broad market and therefore generate significant alpha. However, the paper shows that a dynamic allocation of risk factors can achieve an attractive return–risk relation. The study shows very clearly how different risk factors behave in different financial conditions and that an allocation to more offensive or more conservative risk factors can outperform a diversified, equally-weighted portfolio. Full article

The international wine market has undertaken important structural changes in the first decades of the 21st century, both in terms of demand and offer. In order to mitigate the effect deriving from the increase in competition, the European Union (EU) continues to allocate important resources to increase the competitiveness of the winemaking sector by means of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Market Organization (CMO). This paper aims to understand which factors have an influence on the correct implementation of the CMO measure of promotion in the principal wine exporter country: France. A fuzzy-set model (fs/QCA) has been utilized, studying a period of 10 years since 2009. Results show that is it possible to obtain a better execution ratio of measure of promotion by adapting some key factors, such as CMO budget allocation. These findings could support French national and regional authorities in the task of planning. Moreover, other Member States (MS) could also benefit, since in the new CAP approach, a higher participation in strategic plans is required for them by the EU. Full article

The study estimates the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market outcomes of major industrial sectors in Toronto, the largest urban centre in Canada. Using various economic data, we classify the sectors as distressed, stable, and those requiring ongoing monitoring. Furthermore, we estimate the expected impact of the pandemic shock using the Impulse Response Function (IRF) method. The results show an uneven impact of the pandemic with adverse outcomes for low-paying front-facing sectors, such as accommodation & food services and manufacturing. The post-pandemic projections show lingering negative implications for various sectors. The insights are helpful for policy recommendations, such as targeted responses to address the declines and structural changes in these sectors because of increasing technology adoption and the resulting labour market challenges. Full article

In the current study, we investigate the impacts of social capital (SC) and intellectual capital (IC) on audit fees among the companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Since the criteria for the norms and the networks are extremely correlated, we used a principal component analysis (PCA) to construct an index of social capital for each province between 2011 and 2016. The Pulic model is also used as a proxy for measuring value added intellectual capital (VAIC). The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is employed in this study to test our research hypotheses as well. According to the research literature, on the one hand, investors and lenders can be more confident in the financial reporting honesty of the firms headquartered in areas with high social capital; on the other hand, auditors judge the trustworthiness of their clients based on where the firm is headquartered. Inconsistent with the prior studies, our findings show that companies headquartered in provinces with high social capital pay higher audit fees. Given that Iranian firms are under heavy financial pressure due to economic sanctions, those companies located in areas with higher social capital likely have abused the high level of trust that auditors and other groups in the market have in them and participated in earnings manipulation to mask their weak financial performance. Among the various components of IC, we found strong evidence that employed capital efficiency (ECE) and audit costs correlated positively. In short, this paper sheds light on the fact that severe financial pressures on managers may sometimes lead them to take advantage of the dark side of social capital and intellectual capital when preparing financial reports. Full article

Previous literature supports the view that the financial inclusion leads to economic growth and helps alleviate poverty; however, it is still unclear whether financial inclusion increases bank profitability. The study assumes that financial inclusion is significant in enhancing the economy and minimizing loan accounts, and along with this assumption, the deposit size decreases the Jordanian banks’ profitability despite the fact that the financial services and access to them have no significant influence upon such profitability. The major profitability drivers examined in this study comprised financial inclusion and financial leverage. In this study, 13 Jordanian banks’ data from 2009 to 2019 were examined to determine the above issue. The study applied fixed effects on a panel data regression model. The findings indicated that the number of loan accounts and size of deposits negatively and significantly impacted the profitability of the commercial banks in Jordan. However, the number of branches and ATMs had no significant effect on the bank’s profitability. In sum, both leverage and bank size were the top two determinants of commercial banks’ profitability in Jordan. Based on the findings, Jordanian policymakers can shift their focus to offering affordable financial services that support SMEs’ loans and start-ups. Full article

The study assessed the effect of inflation targeting (IT) policy on inflation uncertainty and economic growth in African and European IT countries. This study contributes to the existing knowledge by analysing and comparing the African IT and European IT countries using two advanced approaches which include the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) and Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR). To determine how the IT policy affects the inflation uncertainty in selected countries, time series techniques were employed. Panel data approaches were used to determine the effect of inflation targeting on economic growth in the selected countries. The results are as follows: (1) Inflation Targeting policy is insignificant in reducing inflation uncertainty in South Africa, and the effect of the policy in Ghana is inconclusive; (2) The IT policy has a significant impact in reducing inflation uncertainty in European countries (i.e., Poland and the Czech Republic); (3) Inflation targeting has a negative impact on economic growth in African Countries; (4) The policy has a positive impact on economic growth in European Countries; (5) In comparison to European countries, the strategy has a negligible impact on economic growth in Africa. Overall, the results suggest that European countries inflation targeting regimes are more credible in terms of reducing the level of inflation uncertainty and sustaining economic growth compared to African countries. In this respect, policymakers must ensure that they assess the economic condition of an individual country before implementing such a policy. Full article

The social economy (SE) has emerged as an interesting alternative for dealing with social problems. However, there are some concerns related to the abilities of these institutions regarding accountability. Thus, the present work aimed to determine if private social solidarity institutions (IPSS) are prepared to meet management requirements by increasing their accountability. In Portugal, IPSS are social economy organisations. Using an exploratory focus, we conducted qualitative research on 31 Portuguese IPSS. Interviews with those responsible for these entities took place between June and July 2019. The interviews were guided based on a semistructured script that was created based on a literature review. After content analysis, it was found that, in most of the institutions interviewed, the board does not use management tools, such as performance analysis, social impact assessments, strategic planning, and quality management systems, even though they recognise the importance of using them. This is due to the lack of access or knowledge about their use. In addition, the majority of the IPSS interviewed showed concern about the transparency and ethics of managers. Current strategic management practices are remarkably targeted at companies in the for-profit sector and can compromise the principles of investment in human and social issues. Full article

In order to allocate resources and formulate policies effectively, governments and enterprises often need accurate geographical information on profit-seeking enterprises. This study explores the impact of local fiscal expenditure and environmental regulation on the number of profit-seeking enterprises in Taiwan’s counties and cities from the perspective of spatial econometrics, and analyzes data from 2001 to 2019. After comparing the explanatory power differences of various spatial econometric models, the spatial Durbin model, with spatial and time fixed effects, was used to explore the direct effect on the number of local profit-seeking enterprises, and the spillover effect of the number of local profit-seeking enterprises in different geographical locations on neighboring regions, especially the spatial spillover effect of local fiscal expenditure and labor and environmental regulations. This paper discusses the decision-making choices of local government regarding the competition strategy of environmental regulation, and finally provides the policy implications for the government as a reference. Full article

Examining and comparing the FinTech investment environments of major economies has untapped potential when it comes to comparing their innovativeness in the financial sector. Therefore, this paper examines the development of FinTech companies from Germany and Russia by investigating funding circumstances and by analyzing equity investments. The goal of the article is to analyze the growth and development of equity funding in FinTech companies in both countries. The underlying hypothesis for this investigation is the applicability of an exponential growth model for the examined funding rounds. The analysis shows that the German market has more FinTech start-ups pursuing equity funding rounds. From Pre-Seed to Series D funding, the considered investment market is about 18 times larger in Germany than it is in Russia. The German market shows strong evidence of exponentially increasing investment tickets based on the behavior of the total data set. This is further supported by testing exponential and linear models on the averages for the investment stages. In this analysis, the exponential model shows a significantly better fit than its linear counterpart. The analysis of the Russian market is not supportive of the hypothesis, as substantial evidence of the superiority of a linear model over an exponential model could be found. This, combined with comparatively compact average funding sizes, signals a more immature equity investment market in Russia. Full article

The paper assesses the current state and development trends of the social service system. The authors presented the current scheme of the system of social services in Russia and determined that it includes the budgetary, non-profit and commercial sectors. In particular, it is shown that the dominant sector providing social services is the public sector. However, despite the dominant role of the public sector in the provision of social services, in recent years there has been a tendency towards an increasing role of the sector of non-profit (non-budget) and commercial organizations, which have different principles of pricing for social services. For a more complete description and development trends of the social services system in the Russian Federation, the authors determined the most important indicators characterizing the functioning of the social service system and the provision of social services to the population. For a quantitative assessment, a regression model of the dependence of these indicators was created. Analysis of the data in the table shows that, on average, over the past 3 years, the number of recipients of social services in the stationary form of social services has de-creased by 2% per year, while in the form of social services at home it has grown by 0.25% per year. The authors determined, that in the future, the demand for inpatient social services will be within the range of recent years, which should not increase the load on the system. Full article

The objective of the article is to evaluate the impact of personnel costs on apparent labour productivity by employing the 1995–2018 panel data of the manufacturing industry in 27 European countries. The methods of independent samples t-test, correlation analysis, Granger causality test, unit root test, and ARDL were employed. The analysis shows that a long-term relationship exists among personnel costs and apparent labour productivity, and there are not significant differences among European countries concerning the impact of personnel costs on apparent labour productivity, but it varies in time. Companies often avoid increasing wages, as it decreases the profit of the company, and seek to increase the turnover in order to reduce the cost of goods sold. This research shows that growth of personnel costs does not necessarily mean lower profitability. The growth of personnel costs increases the gross operating rate if the turnover per person employed is stable. Turnover growth has a positive effect on apparent labour productivity, but a negative impact on the gross operating rate. Thus, the impact of turnover on apparent labour productivity is significantly lower than the impact of personnel costs on apparent labour productivity. Full article

The present study aimed to adopt the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) to determine the intentions of owner-managers in SMEs towards engaging in sales tax compliance. The study distributed a total of 660 questionnaire copies through systematic random sampling to the mangers/owners of Jordanian manufacturing SMEs, from which 385 questionnaire copies were retrieved and considered useable and appropriate for further analysis. The study made use of Partial-Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for the validation of the measurement model and structural model, and to establish the predictive relevance of the proposed model. Based on the obtained findings, the attitude towards behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and patriotism were significant determinants of the intentions towards engaging in sales tax compliance among the examined enterprises. Full article

Sustainable tourism supports a great level of tourist contentment and assures a significant experience for the visitors, realizes the importance of sustainability issues and encourages sustainable tourism practices and customs among them. Long-term success in tourism is possible only with the support of the local residents. Earlier research supports the significance of local population backing in order to make tourism more sustainable. As a result, it is necessary to comprehend the attitudes and perception of the local people, which will provide a treasured acquaintance for numerous tourism improvement programs. The present study was conducted in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, to understand the community perception on tourism impact and environmental protection measures taken by the government. The study indicates that the local community is aware of the benefits of tourism development. The government should take steps to create awareness about the need for public support for the preservation of heritage sites. They should also be provided information about how the local community can benefit by way of job opportunities, small businesses, etc. Full article

Business bribery is a particularly serious problem in the integration era. First, this article investigates the effects of institutional obstacles on firms’ bribery in 131 countries classified by nation income groups. Through the appropriate proposal of fitting functions, the relationship between obstructions and the predicted margin effect of bribery is intuitively elucidated. Second, this paper sheds light on the relationship between bribery payment and exports. Then the analysis is upgraded when controlling for the moderation of a firm’s growth constraints. The results detected that not only institutional barriers, but also internal and external hindrances play an essential role in the interaction between bribe payments and export share. More interestingly, this study scrutinizes the role of obstacles in this relationship separately. Besides, SMEs and large enterprises are also adopted in further sensitivity analyses. To solve the endogeneity problem, the study uses the average amount of bribery in a firm’s location, sector, and the country as an instrumental variable (IV). The results obtained are not consistent across country groups classified by national income. Due to obstacles during a firm’s operation, the amplitude of the positive effect of bribery on exports is reduced. Full article