Search Results (14)

This study investigates consumer perceptions of procedural and distributive fairness/unfairness in service interactions involving AI versus human providers. It also examines how these perceptions are influenced by technology-related discomfort and the perceived responsibility of the service organization. A scenario-based online experiment was conducted using participants recruited through the Prolific research platform. Participants were asked to review a small business loan application process at a fictional digital bank where the application is processed either by an AI algorithm or a human loan officer. The study found that consumers experienced a higher level of satisfaction when they encountered procedural unfairness from humans compared to AI. The negative effect of procedural unfairness on satisfaction was amplified as algorithm discomfort and perceived company responsibility increased. The findings suggest that AI unfairness requires special attention to address differences in consumer reaction. Full article

Most museum collections are not displayed since they are held in storage, out of visitors’ reach. However, little is known about the size of stored collections, how they are used, and to what extent museums enhance their accessibility in New Zealand museums. This study aims to provide an overview of the size of stored collections, the strategies adopted by museums, and how these solutions impact the accessibility of stored collections in museums in New Zealand. Data were gathered through a survey sent to the New Zealand office of ICOM and direct invitations to museums between December 2020 and January 2021. Respondents represented different museums’ legal statuses, sizes, and collections. The results show that 84% of collections are held in storage. Strategies such as the rotation of items enabled museums to use 28% of stored collections. In comparison, 18% of stored items were used through loans and 17% through exchanges, making them accessible to everyone. Specifically, it was found that the most effective strategies in terms of accessibility are visible storage, with 55% usability of stored collections, and the digitisation of collections, with 41%. These findings indicate that factors such as different legal statuses of museums, sizes, and types of collections, might impact the use of stored collections. Full article

This paper aims to investigate the effects of accessibility to bank branches on the capital structure of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by analysing the change in three different leverage measures (total, short-term and long-term leverage). The analysis was conducted using random effects models on two data samples. The full sample consisted of 19,064 SMEs while the other sample used to estimate the long-term leverage consisted of 8707 SMEs over two years, 2007 and 2013. The results show that the distance to the nearest bank branch has a negative relationship with total leverage and short-term leverage but a small positive relationship with long-term leverage. An interesting result from the robustness test shows that the distance to the nearest bank negatively affects the long-term leverage of SMEs in rural areas. SME owners and policymakers may benefit from this research amidst the changing banking landscape; policymakers can help increase access to other types of funding for SMEs in bank deserts by increasing the volume of governmental loans. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the distance to the nearest bank branch office has not been examined in the earlier literature as a determinant of the leverage of SMEs. Full article

Bank lending to SMEs plays a vital role in economic growth, contributing significantly to employment and GDP. Access to bank lending is crucial for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they contribute significantly to global employment and GDP. New financial technologies promise better bank operations, fewer costs, and enhanced credit supply to SMEs. However, there is still a lack of empirical findings on how these technologies can solve demand-side bank lending problems for small- and medium-sized firms. This study gathered data from a sample of 381 respondents, comprising CEOs, managers, officers, loan managers, IT consultants, and other relevant stakeholders. The findings indicate that the adoption of blockchain technologies, as well as the adoption of Big Data technologies encompassing cloud computing, data analytics, algorithms, and programming, along with the adoption of mobile banking technologies, have had a substantial positive impact on bank credit supplies for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. This novel study contributes to existing knowledge in two ways. First, it provides knowledge to SMEs looking to adopt new technologies; second, it provides knowledge to a manager looking to finance the SMEs with information asymmetries. This research also provides key findings for researchers and policymakers. Full article

The article compares the effects of crisis on the real estate market in two regions of the Czech Republic that differ from a macroeconomic point of view. The region of Prague represents the rich and developed region while the Karlovy Vary region struggles with many socio-economic and structural problems. An analysis was performed for the time period of 2018 to 2022. It analyzed the development of apartment prices in both regions, the availability of housing, the turnover of the real estate market in terms of the number of apartment sales, the development of liens on real estate, the number of apartment transfers from state property to private ownership, and the development of the number of real estate foreclosures. The basis for creating statistical outputs is the EVAL software, which was developed by one of the co-authors of this article. The EVAL software collects price offers of apartments offered for sale and rent throughout the Czech Republic and collects publicly available data from the cadastral office. The authors found that the real estate market experienced a significant turnaround in the volume of mortgage loans granted in 2022. This decline led to a significant drop in the total volume of real estate transactions. The findings suggest that potential buyers should wait for property prices to drop before buying, while rental property owners and investors can take advantage of the increased demand for properties. Full article

This paper examines the impact of multi-layer corporate governance (MCG) on banks’ performance under the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. Using a random and fixed effects method, we regressed the impact of MCG variables on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and non-performing loans (NPL) of a panel data of 44 conventional banks (CBs) and 40 Islamic banks (IBs), across 17 countries, and over the period from 2006 to 2020. The results show that board of directors (BoD)’ structure has no association with CBs performance whereas the chief executive officer (CEO) duality is strongly negatively impacting CBs performance, especially during the GFC. In addition, supervision framework proxies have a strong positive influence on CBs performance, especially in the period after the GFC. Furthermore, cross-membership and the size of the Shariah board (SB) have a significant negative influence on IBs’ performance, but SB qualification has a positive non-significant impact overall—with the exception of NPLs, which had a positive significant impact during the GFC. The supervision position has a favorable impact on IBs performance except during crises. Full article

In microfinance, with more loans, there is a high risk of increasing overdue loans by overloading the resources available to take actions on the repayment. So, three experiments were conducted to search for a distribution of the loans through the officers available to maximize the probability of recovery. Firstly, the relation between the loan and some characteristics of the officers was analyzed. The results were not that strong with F1 scores between 0 and 0.74, with a lot of variation in the scores of the good predictions. Secondly, the loan is classified as paid/unpaid based on what prediction could result of the analysis of the characteristics of the loan. The Support Vector Machine had potential to be a solution with a F1 score average of 0.625; however, when predicting the unpaid loans, it showed to be random with a score of 0.55. Finally, the experiment focused on segmentation of the overdue loans in different groups, from where it would be possible to know their prioritization. The visualization of three clusters in the data was clear through Principal Component Analysis. To reinforce this good visualization, the final silhouette score was 0.194, which reflects that is a model that can be trusted. This way, an implementation of clustering loans into three groups, and a respective prioritization scale would be the best strategy to organize and assign the loans to maximize recovery. Full article

The agricultural sector ensures food security and is a major source of employment, income, and economic activity in rural areas. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) considers that family farms are the key to a sustainable future in Europe and Central Asia. In Romania, small farms represent the pillar on which Romanian society has been developed. Although the trend has been a reduction in the number of small farms and an increase in the number of large farms, the Government of Romania understands the importance of small farms and therefore supports them through policies involving direct payments, rural development instruments, special initiatives, and loans and outstanding obligations, among others, which focus on increasing their economic performance. The aim of our research was to determine the relationship between farmers’ motivation, their job satisfaction, and the farm economic performance in the case of small Romanian farms. The research sample consisted of 900 small farms (utilized agricultural area (UAA): under 20 ha; standard output (SO): under EUR 15,000). The data obtained after applying the questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and Amos 24.0. For the exploratory factor analysis, values of Bartlett’s test of sphericity, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were calculated for each dimension of the proposed model. The hypothesis that motivation, job satisfaction, and farm economic performance directly and positively influence each other was confirmed. An important finding was that the correlation coefficient between farmers’ motivation and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.78, while that for the relation between farmers’ job satisfaction and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.53, which was similar to the correlation coefficient calculated for the relationship between farmers’ motivation and farmers’ job satisfaction. This result allows us to conclude that the influence of farmers’ motivation factors on farm economic performance is stronger than the influence of job satisfaction in the case of Romanian farmers on small farms. This might explain why, although work in agriculture is considered to be worse than an office job and the people that work in agriculture are sometimes stigmatized and receive lower incomes, there are still very strong motivators for Romanian farmers to continue their work in agriculture. This is proven by the fact that Romania has the highest number of small farms in Europe, and this number is not decreasing. Full article

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is widely employed in various settings; however, whether, and in what contexts, PES programs achieve their objectives by improving local livelihoods and conservation goals is still being debated. This paper aims to evaluate the impacts of payments for forest environmental services (PFES) policies on livelihoods and the environment using propensity score matching of data on 725 systematic randomly selected households in the buffer zones of seven protected areas (PAs) of Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue provinces in Central Vietnam and data from the General Statistics Office and Landsat. The findings indicate that the PFES policy has some positive effects on economic and environmental issues for different groups. In terms of financial capital, the study found that poor households with PFES have slightly higher income than what they would have had they not participated in PFES. The difference in total income between poor households with and without PFES, however, was statistically insignificant, while the income of non-poor households with PFES was significantly higher than those without PFES. In addition, PFES households are likely to have more consumption expenditure for their daily living and better access to loans from various microfinance sources compared to those without PFES. The PFES policy has provided slight changes in the forest and forest cover and reduced natural forest loss between the pre-PFES and PFES periods. The findings of this study contribute to designing future PFES policies that can better distribute benefits to all household groups as well as harmonize social and natural capital. Full article

This article investigates the causal factors underlying cornerstone investor (CI) participation in initial public offerings in China’s offshore Hong Kong market. Prospectus-based declarations on such allocations suggest that CI undertakings offer strong certification effects. Entrepreneurs planning for IPO thus have a material incentive to court CIs. The present analysis reveals that a firm’s pre-IPO financials and governance attributes strongly correlate with success in this field. Specifically, CI participation is greater in issuers with established long-term loan positions. Firms housing younger CEOs and a greater number of family-connected board officers also generate more CI interest. In contrast, the fraction of independent directors and women on boards exert minimal effect. However, further analysis reveals that greater independent director presence strongly supports CI participation in family-centric entities, but imparts little to no effect on such investment in either state-run or non-family-controlled private issuers. Additionally, an issuer’s political connections galvanize CI participation. Moreover, the present study highlights the importance of family resources (in non-state sponsored entities) and political connections (in state-held firms) in drawing-in CI involvement. Given the spread of CI arrangements to other primary market settings, the present enterprise also offers guidance on anchor investment elsewhere. Full article

Since their inception in the 1970s, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have received increasing attention both from policymakers and academic circles. Using unbalanced panel data (2000–2017) from Ethiopia, in this paper, we investigated the performance of MFIs and its determinants on the one hand and whether or not mission drift exists on the other hand. To this end, we employed seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) and fixed/random effect panel models. The results indicate that, based on different outreach and financial performance metrics, the MFIs in Ethiopia have good performance compared with those of the 10 biggest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The econometric estimation results show that asset holding and the yield on gross portfolio have a positive and significant effect on the social and financial performances of MFIs in Ethiopia. Furthermore, the number of loan officers, loan officer productivity, and personnel productivity have a positive and significant impact on the financial performance of MFIs. Our results also suggest that the null hypothesis—that MFIs are not shifting away from poorer clients—cannot be rejected, implying that there is no mission drift by MFIs in Ethiopia. Full article

The objective of this study is to analyze Chief executive officer (CEO) succession via hierarchical jumps in Chinese listed firms which orientate towards innovative activity. Good corporate governance is a vehicle to attain the competitive advantage which ultimately makes the organizational sustainability undeterred. The current study will test not only low hierarchical jumps but also medium hierarchical jumps in CEO succession. The study will identify the relationship between specific attributes like education, age and the duality of CEO successors via hierarchical jumps with innovation. We have analysed the data of Chinese listed firms on Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges for the years 2012–2016. Significantly, it has been observed that CEO successors via hierarchical jumps orientate towards innovative activity amongst Chinese listed firms. Conclusively, empirical results have unveiled that hierarchical CEO succession escalates the firms’ innovation. It has also been contemplated that not only the low hierarchical jumps but also medium hierarchical jumps in CEO succession invigorate the organizational innovation. Mature firms with a substantial return on assets or earning per share and having less loan burden concentrate on innovative activity decisively. It has been demonstrated that specific attributes like education, age and the duality of hierarchical CEO successors have no relationship with innovation. The study results are robust via confirmation of 2SLS instrumental regression. Full article

A field study was conducted in six Village Development Committees (VDCs) of Ilam district to identify common disasters linked with climate change and people’s response mechanisms to those disasters in farming communities. Altogether, 300 randomly selected households facing different disaster problems were interviewed using a structured and semi-structured questionnaire, which was supplemented by direct observation, timeline analysis, a key informant interview, and a focus group discussion. In addition, secondary data were collected from the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO), Ilam, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), Ilam. Farmers’ perceptions and the reviewed literature revealed that floods, landslides, droughts, insect pests, hailstorms, and fires comprise a major disaster risk, and they have been affecting agriculture, livelihood, physical infrastructure, and property for years. It was found that different types of loss, such as landslides, have the following risks and impacts: loss of land (45% of families) and crops (90%), property loss (10%), loss of physical resources (50%), effects on water resources (69%), loss of livestock (5%), forest degradation (72%) and loss of human life (3%). The risks and impacts of flood, drought, and fire are also presented in this study. It was also found that local communities adopt different mitigation measures for different disasters including afforestation, checking dam construction, awareness creation, contour farming, relocation, shed reconstruction, construction of plastic ponds, and conservation of local varieties (different frequencies for different measures). Social networks play an important role in mitigating disaster risks. People get help from government (38% families) and non-government (50% families) organizations, friends (22%), neighbors (44%) and relatives (20%) in the form of loans (18%), helping hands or physical support (77%), information (62%), and basic need materials (48%) to manage or respond to disaster risks. The paper suggests that local mitigation measures need to be supplemented by more sustainable solutions to make the efforts sustainable, which requires local level integrated planning and coordinated efforts. Full article

One proxy of price rationing of credit is an aggregation of information on interest rates, while loan officer survey data measures quantity rationing of credit, meaning some borrowers are denied loans. The latter Granger causes real GDP but the former does not. The loan officer survey is a better leading indicator of credit market conditions that affect real activity. Full article