Search Results (13)

This study investigates the long-run impact of digital transformation and fintech innovation on environmental sustainability across OECD countries from 1999 to 2024. Drawing on a novel empirical framework that integrates panel fully modified ordinary least squares, the system-generalized method of moments, and machine learning estimators, the analysis captures both linear and nonlinear dynamics while addressing heterogeneity, endogeneity, and structural complexity. Environmental sustainability is measured by per capita CO₂ emissions, while digital transformation and fintech innovation are proxied by secure internet servers and G06Q patent applications, respectively. The findings reveal that both digital infrastructure maturity and fintech-driven innovation significantly reduce carbon emissions, suggesting that technologically advanced digital ecosystems serve as effective instruments for climate mitigation. Robustness checks via the system-generalized method of moments confirm the stability of these relationships, while machine learning models—Random Forest and XGBoost—highlight digital variables as top predictors of emissions reduction. The convergence of results across estimation methods underscores the reliability of the digital–environmental nexus. Policy implications emphasize the need to embed sustainability metrics into digital strategies, promote green fintech regulation, and prepare labor markets for Industry 4.0 transitions. These findings position digital and fintech innovation not merely as enablers of economic growth, but as structural levers for achieving environmentally sustainable development in high-income economies. Full article

Digital transformation has become a crucial strategic decision for enterprises to strengthen international competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. This study aims to investigate the impact of digital transformation on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) performance and the conditions that influence this relationship using the ordinary least-squares regression estimation method and the data of Chinese A-share listed enterprises. The results show that digital transformation improves OFDI performance. The mechanism analysis verifies that digital transformation enhances OFDI performance by promoting corporate reputation and innovation. The moderating analysis demonstrates that the host country’s digital infrastructure negatively moderates the positive relationship between digital transformation and OFDI performance, while diplomatic relations between home and host countries play a positive moderating role. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that state-owned, labor-intensive, and technology-intensive enterprises and enterprises investing in non-Belt-and-Road countries benefit more from digital transformation to promote OFDI performance. This study extends the OFDI theory of emerging market enterprises in the context of digital transformation and provide practical implications for improving the OFDI performance of multinational enterprises. Full article

As both investment attraction and mergers and acquisitions targeting information technology and platform companies are becoming more important in the digital-centric economic environment, interest in valuing corporate data assets is increasing. Accordingly, among the income approaches used in business valuation, this study presents a data valuation model based on discounted cash flow. This model is expected to be useful for corporate investment decision-making. The assumptions used in this study for the estimation of data income include intangible asset value, exclude net asset value, and data attribution is centered on technology, human resources, and market factors. In particular, data attribution accounts comprise ordinary data research and development, data labor costs, and data advertising expenses. Data costs were divided into those incurred during collection, storage, curation, analysis, and utilization. Financial statements and related data from a real estate information platform operator over three years were collected and used to simulate the data valuation model. The simulation reveals that the operator possesses KRW 472.6 billion in data assets. Ultimately, the data valuation model developed in this study can contribute to strengthening platform operators’ investment attraction, guaranteeing financial sustainability, and transparency and data assetization. Full article

This research paper aims to examine the impact of innovative HRM practices, including employee participation, performance appraisal, reward and compensation, recruitment and selection, and redeployment–retraining on firm performance. For this purpose, four different models are utilized to examine the impact of innovative HRM department practices on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a country. The dependent variable, firm performance, is proxified by different variables such as labor productivity, product innovation, process innovation, and marketing innovation. For empirical analysis, primary data are collected using a questionnaire. Estimation is conducted using ordinary least squares (OLS) and logit regression techniques. The estimated results indicate that most innovative HRM practices have a statistically significant impact on firm performance in terms of labor productivity, product, process, and marketing innovations. These results imply that SMEs in a country may observe the benefits of devoting greater attention to innovative HRM practices to achieve their future growth potential. Full article

Education represents the basic pillar of preparing individuals for integration into the labor market, but also is a crucial component of ensuring sustainable development. The purpose of this research was to identify the type of influences existing between education and the labor market in EU member countries in the context of different levels of investment in the educational system. Cluster analysis and the ordinary least squared method were used to identify the type of influences between the indicators characterizing the level of education and the labor market between 2000 and 2021. The empirical results showed that there was a significant negative correlation of the educational dropout rate with the level of employee compensation, number of hours worked by each employee, and their labor productivity, in the countries with the poorest level of educational investment. In the countries with significant investments in education, getting a graduate diploma and participating in vocational training programs led to a better compensation of employees and a higher employee productivity while the financial aid given by the state for pupils and students reduced the number of worked hours, brought down unemployment amongst people with primary and secondary education and, last but not least, increased the employment rate for higher education graduates. An average level of educational investment led to negative influences between early-stages and employees’ payment level and real labor productivity, while becoming involved in educational activities and participating in vocational training programs increased their rates of remuneration and real productivity. A significant impact of higher education graduates on both increasing unemployment rates and falling employment rates was noticed as has been identified in other studies. Full article

Recently, with the intensification of employee suicides in well-known international companies such as Facebook and Pinduoduo, people are paying more and more attention to the violation of employee rights and interests. As an important embodiment of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of employees, the corporate social responsibility to employees has become one of the focuses of academic discussions. The aim of this article is to build a corporate social responsibility evaluation system for employees for Chinese clothing companies. As a representative of labor-intensive enterprises, enterprises in the cloth industry often need to rely on the strength of their employees to create value more than ordinary enterprises. Therefore, it is of practical significance to study the corporate social responsibility of employees in the cloth industry. In addition, China is an important exporting country of clothing in the world, and its market environment is different from that of developed countries. Research with Chinese enterprises as samples may lead to different conclusions. Finally, unlike general CSR, the evaluation of employee CSR needs to consider the importance of subjective and objective factors. At this time, the use of the catastrophe progression method can more accurately evaluate the weight of each factor. The result of our research on 100 Chinese clothing companies shows that enterprises with higher rankings in clothing industry will fulfill social responsibility to employees better. The use of the catastrophe progression method to evaluate corporate social responsibility to employees can reduce errors caused by subjective steps such as assigning weights in Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and improve the accuracy of evaluation. Full article

This study explored the linkage between financial development, human resources, and economic growth in a group of twenty-five transition countries during the period 1995–2019. The author applied a range of estimations such as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), fixed effects model, and two-step GMM methods in order to estimate the empirical research model. Different from previous research, financial development in this paper was a proxy variable that was assessed based on the level of outcomes of financial institutions and the financial market in three aspects: depth, access, and efficiency. In addition, the labor force participation rate and the human development index were employed as the comprehensive proxies for human resources. Generally, financial development and human resources exert positive impacts on economic growth. Financial access and financial efficiency boost economic growth, while financial depth does not. Human development was also documented as the driver of economic growth. In addition, the interaction between aggregate financial development and the human development index demonstrated a robust spur to economic growth. These findings contribute to the literature on economic growth and have considerable implications for policymakers in transition economies. Full article

The objective of this article is to analyze the characteristics of the most attractive companies in the labor market, which each year maintained their position in the ranking published by the Spanish business magazine Actualidad Económica (AE) for the period 2013–2020. The research study will focus on permanence in ranking, global valuation, and training. To do this, control variables were added: business management gender, geo-cultural areas, regional areas, economic activity, size and stock market membership. This is a quantitative work, where statistics such as partial correlations, Pearson coefficients and independent sample means were used with the Levene test; in modeling, multiple regressions of ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel data were used. It is concluded that the permanence in the ranking significantly increases the total value and training, which leads companies to excellence, along with the fact that they are in the capital of the country and that they focus on the commerce, professional, scientific and technical, and finance and insurance sectors. On the other hand, assessment of training is explained by employee valuation, the work environment and talent management. On the contrary, factors such as the gender variable in the business direction, nationality, size and stock market membership do not significantly influence the overall valuation. Full article

Social protection systems are a key factor for ensuring the long-term sustainability and stability of economies in the European Union, their reform being nowadays present in the political agenda of member states. Aging and the dependence on mandatory levies applied to the employed population on the labor market represent a threat for the sustainability of public social protection systems. In terms of sustainability, our purpose was to highlight the factors influencing social insurance budgets, considering the fiscal policies implemented in six countries of Central and Eastern Europe and their particular labor market characteristics. Therefore, a panel study based on a regression model using the Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) with cross section random effects was used to determine the correlations between funding sources and labor market specific indicators. The data analyzed led to relevant results that emphasize the dependence of social insurance budgets on positive factors such as the average level of salaries, the share of compulsory social contributions, the unemployment rate, and the human development index, suggesting the continuing need for professional and personal development of the workforce. Full article

This study examines the extent to which existing foreign direct investment (FDI) theories apply to Chinese investment in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. This is important because existing explanations of Chinese outward FDI (OFDI) generally make scant reference to these theories. By using OFDI data for BRI countries between 2003 and 2017, we tested hypothesizes applicable to existing theories by using both pooled ordinary least squares (PLOS) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. The results show that a large part of the existing theories apply to Chinese OFDI. Chinese OFDI is likely to choose countries with big market size, abundant natural resources, cheap unskilled labor, stable politics, good infrastructure, high trade cost and high investment cost. These positive findings notwithstanding, they do not invalidate the alternative factors cited by commentators which have not been subject to direct testing, which may require the use of qualitative analytical approaches. Full article

In this study, we explore the returns to education among different job locations for off-farm wage employment using nationally representative samples from rural China. Through a series of robustness checks, we conclude that there is heterogeneity in returns to education for different job locations within the rural labor force. Specifically, we have found that the returns to education for laborers in big cities are significantly higher than those for laborers working both in ordinary cities and within counties. That is to say, the utility of education is better-reflected in big cities. We conclude that the returns to education in big cities are 5.4 percent, while the returns to education are no more than 1 percent in ordinary cities and within counties. These results suggest that labor markets in the underdeveloped regions of China have factors that undermine the productivity effect of human capital. Full article

In the context of global innovation systems, it has become a universal law that the resource elements of scientific and technological innovation, such as talents, flow along the track of high efficiency to the regions that can produce high benefits. As faculty in research universities are important resources of scientific and technological innovation, developing countries such as China have sought to accelerate the transnational mobility of faculty by leveraging income. This study endeavors to gain a better understanding of the motivations for and the outcomes of faculty mobility at Chinese research universities and to determine whether attaining higher income levels through academic mobility can be considered a lever for facilitating change and improving the status of the academic profession in China. Using survey data from 445 faculty members at 11 major research universities in China, this study found a significant relationship between mobility frequency and indirect income. The findings also revealed, however that employees’ different attitudes toward income during the process of mobility are a key variable in confirming academic professional boundaries. The findings suggest that more successful mechanisms to attract or retain talented scholars should be developed and that these mechanisms should not focus exclusively on income. Full article

Basic science education provides the most fundamental knowledge for preparing students to pursue departmental major courses. Considering that basic science courses are laboratory classes conducted alongside theory classes, the factors affecting instructor–student communication and feedback can vary between theory and laboratory classes. We applied the ordinary least squares model to the refined data of basic science courses. We drew on variables reflecting instructor–student interaction such as class size, type of subject, and instructor characteristics to analyze the factors affecting student satisfaction with theory and laboratory classes. The analysis results indicated that the educational environment of a large-sized class could be improved by subdividing it into smaller groups to facilitate feedback. The use of online platforms to supplement offline courses provides an additional mechanism for the exchange of feedback and positively affects student satisfaction. We also confirmed empirically that the instructor–student communication which takes place during laboratory work, in contrast to the one-sided conveyance of course materials by the instructor in lectures, was a crucial factor in the quality of education. These results are linked to the demand for knowledge in engineering education, the student’s educational performance, and the labor market performance needed to establish a sustainable system in engineering education. Full article