International Journal of Economics, Management and Accounting

List of Reviewers for Volume 31 (2023)

Hawa Ahmad — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

The Accounting of Zakat al-Mal in Saudi Arabia

Khalid Al-Adeem — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Employees’ CSR Perception s a Determinant of Work Motivation: The Mediating Role of Quality of Work Life

Younes Nikkhah — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Employees’ orientation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a key role in constructing efficient and consistent employer-employee relationships. Economic CSR perception ensures the understanding of employees towards organizational growth profit margins and quality applicable successes. Legal CSR is the practice of rules and regulations, responsibilities, and obeying laws and orders through upholding respect for the organization. Employees’ ethical CSR perception aims at securing morality, ethics of conduct and ways of principled communications. Also, Philanthropic CSR aims at efficient utilization of organizational resources. Knowledge of CSR helps employees to understand the importance of quality work environment involvement and simultaneous importance of work determination. Therefore, this study has investigated the effect of employee CSR perceptions on self-determined work motivation with the mediating role of quality of work life (QWL). This study elicited the opinions of 316 employees of the Social Security Insurance organization in Iran. The structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS) method has been used to investigate the effects of variables on each other. The results show that all the relationships between the study model paths are significant. In fact, having a good QWL among employees has an effective role in the impact of employees’ CSR perceptions on self-determined work motivation.

Modeling the Impact of Accounting Conservatism on Information Behaviour in Equity Valuation Based on PLS-SEM

Mohammad Amri-Asrami, Mohammad-Ali Aghaei — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Based on residual income valuation models, this study used PLS-SEM with a formative approach to investigate the moderating effects of conservative policies on the relation between accounting information of the current and lagged periods with the equity value of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The sample consisted of 149 companies from 2012 to 2019. The moderating effect of conditional / unconditional accounting conservatism on the relation between current/lagged accounting information and equity value is insignificant at the 10% level. In contrast, conditional conservatism has a significant relation with current/lagged accounting information, current/lagged market information, and equity values. Unconditional conservatism has significant relation with current/lagged accounting information, lagged market information, and equity values. Unconditional conservatism, however, has no significant relation with the current market information. Referring to Ohlson's vision (1995) on the expected long-term convergence between book value and market equity value, this paper's findings show that the current/lagged book value constitutes the structure of linear dynamics used in the residual income valuation model; therefore, the dynamics in residual income evolve on the dynamics of book value and market equity value.

Factors Influencing Young Consumer Trust in Online Purchase Decision of Luxury Perfume in Malaysia: A Preliminary Qualitative Study

Nur Farihah Isamudin, Ikra Binte Islam — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

This qualitative study aims at investigating the factors influencing young consumer trust towards purchase decision of luxury perfume online. Data were collected through interviewing 5 consumers via real time online chatting method. Data were examined based on content analysis. A preliminary model was then developed as a basis to explain the relationship between the factors extracted, consumer trust and purchase decision. The findings of the study reveal crucial factors which influence consumer trust in purchasing luxury perfume online namely reputation of online sellers, peer customer reviews, recommendation from experts, proof of product authenticity and past experience. The study also incorporates in depth discussion regarding the criteria of reputable sellers. This study discloses meaningful consumer insights regarding motivation towards online shopping, the risks encountered and suggestions for making better purchase decisions. The findings provide invaluable insights for marketers especially those in the luxury perfume industry in Malaysia to devise effective marketing strategy for gaining consumer trust. This study contributes to implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) item 12 emphasizing responsible consumption and production. Findings from this study provide guidelines for consumers in making purchase decisions and to avoid being scammed by online sellers; the findings benefit regulatory bodies in revising policies for protecting consumer rights in Malaysia.

Informal Sector and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Since a persistent increase is seen in the size of the informal sector and its continuous coexistence alongside the formal sector and institutional development, this study empirically examines the effect of informal sector size on the financial development in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1996-2019. The study represents financial market development by the financial market depth, which is regressed against informal sector size, growth rate of GDP, interest rate, trade openness, and institutional quality index. The study relied on the estimates of the Discroll-Kraay and IV-2LS. Results indicate that informality repressed financial development, while trade openness, growth rate of gross domestic product, interest rate, and institutional quality have a positive impact on financial development. It is therefore recommended for policymakers to reduce the size of informality to improve the financial sector.

Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure of Publicly Traded Manufacturing Companies in Bangladesh

Md. Rabiul Islam, Md. Golam Mostakim — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

This study is aimed at analyzing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure of publicly traded manufacturing companies in Bangladesh based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and the legitimacy theory. The study used a stratified random sampling procedure to select the representative number of manufacturing companies listed in the country’s largest capital market- the Dhaka Stock Exchange Limited (DSE). The study has analyzed the annual reports of 51 companies out of 202 manufacturing companies belonging to 11 different sectors. It has used the content analysis method to identify CSR disclosures made in the corporate annual reports. Content analysis used social and environmental categories of the GRI categorization. The study has used measurement instruments and coding processes for social and environmental disclosures adapted from previous works. Findings show that the selected companies have disclosed some CSR information in their annual reports but the CSR reporting pattern as well as the extent of such reporting is diverse across different company categories. The findings also suggest that the entire manufacturing companies do not follow the GRI standard completely to disclose CSR information and tend to focus on limited aspects only. The nature of disclosure was mostly declarative statements associated with good news or self-laudatory while bad news or neutral news was scant. This self-laudatory pattern of CSR disclosure implies that companies are trying to prove their positive stance toward society and the environment, which is consistent with legitimatizing motives. The study thus provides some support for legitimacy theory to explain current CSR practices. This study recommends that policy planners in Bangladesh make it mandatory for companies to disclose socio-economic-environmental information following international best practices such as the GRI standard categories.

Government Incentives: The Role of Human Resource in Delivering Flexible Organizational Working Strategies in Singapore

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Rapidly changing and turbulent business environments due to the socio-economic changes, the increased technology use and the Covid-19 pandemic crisis have forced governments to fast-track development of flexible working arrangements (FWAs). The recent initiatives have seen government FWA incentives to support FWA adoption in the workplace. Singapore is a leader among developing Asian countries regarding adopting FWA incentive-based approaches, which also emphasize human resource (HR) roles in delivering the FWA program. This paper investigates the nexus between government incentives and HR roles in managing FWAs. Additionally, during times of pandemic crisis, most businesses have no option but to implement FWAs in sustaining business continuity or ensuring survival. Therefore, strategic FWAs are critically needed. This paper has two aims; first we investigate how HR translates government FWA incentives into strategies and practices, and then we critically analyze these findings to improve the current FWA strategies by developing a conceptual framework for strategic FWAs. Twenty case studies from Singapore were used as a data set. As results, we identified ten themes representing the role HR plays in delivering organizational flexibility through their strategies and practices. We then propose a conceptual model for advancing FWA practices from policy formalization to flexibility strategy and agility working practices.

Probability of Getting Households Out of Poverty: Empirical Studies in Indonesia

Roosemarina Anggraini Rambe, Purmini Purmini, Merri Anitasari — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

This study aims at analyzing the impact of household characteristics on increasing the chances of households getting out of poverty. Independent variables in this study consist of nine household characteristics (both parents’ education, employment status, and job sector; the family size, location of residence, and social assistance received). The analytical method used is logit regression. The results showed that four out of the nine variables have a significantly positive impact on increasing the chances of getting households out of poverty: residence location, fathers working in non-agriculture sector, mothers working in non-agriculture sector, and mothers working in general. Family size has a significantly negative impact. Thus, the government should promote SME (Small Medium Enterprises) development in rural areas that support agriculture production since it will increase the chances of households escaping poverty.

Assessing Economic Activities by Using Term Spreads

Sheik Ahmad Ryman Bissessur, Noor-Ul-Hacq Sookia — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Both linear and non-linear models have been used in literature in developed countries to assess the forecasting power of the term spread on output. When it comes to developing economies, however, a gap in research exists. As such, the main objective of this research work is to assess the predicting capacity of the variable term spread on economic growth in the context of a developing country, namely, Mauritius. In this regard, an extended production function is designed that includes major relevant macroeconomic variables such as Spread, Investment, Human Capital, Openness to Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and Inflation. Following the test of stationarity, where a mixture of I(0) and I(1) variables are obtained but no I(2), the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is chosen for regression purposes. We found that the spread variable has a positive impact on economic growth though being weakly significant and very low. A major limitation when dealing with Treasury Bills in Mauritius is the lack of data on medium to long-term securities, hence, restricting the longest term security use to the 1-year Treasury Bills. This research can be viewed as a pioneering work in assessing term spread on economic activity in developing economies.

The Mediating Role of Segmentation in Social Media Marketing and Brand Equity: A Study in Food and Beverage Industry

Ilhaamie Abdul Ghani Azmi — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Food and beverage industry in Malaysia provides a significant GDP contribution. However, majority of firms are SMEs that face financial access as their main problem. Social media marketing is a novel trend in business nowadays due to technology intensification. This article investigates the link between social media marketing and brand equity whereby segmentation is the mediator variable in the SME food and beverage industry. By using questionnaires distributed systematically to consumers at shopping malls, about 329 usable responses were obtained. The results indicated no direct relationship between social media marketing and brand equity. A positive and significant relationship exists, however, between social media marketing and segmentation, segmentation and brand equity which indicates that segmentation is a partial mediator. The findings imply that SMEs especially in the food and beverage industry should carefully segment their market and at the same time, increase social media usage in marketing their products. This study is the first attempt to examine segmentation as mediating variable in the food and beverage industry.

External Debt Financing and Real Earnings Management: Evidence from Malaysian Family Group Affiliation

Wan Nadiah W Abdul Rahman, Noorhayati Mansor — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800

The role of external debt in an emerging country with highly concentrated ownership is expected to raise the expropriation risk by the controlling shareholders as wider separation between cash flow and control rights might increase borrowing cost. This study investigates external debt financing role in exacerbating real earnings management (REM) in family group affiliation firms with complex pyramidal structure. A sample of 1,170 firm-year observations was collected covering 2006 until 2015. The Hausman test was used to determine the estimation method of fixed and random effects regression of each REM activity of the suspected firms towards short-term debt (STD) and long-term debt (LTD). We found a significant positive relationship between STD and REM. STD might motivate stringent monitoring by lenders and encourage family firms to manipulate earnings, possibly to avoid violating debt covenants and to portray healthy financial conditions to mask their entrenchment behavior. We have also found less manipulation of REM with LTD, as lack of tight monitoring by lenders might less likely trigger earnings manipulation. This study provides additional input to users of financial information in making informed decisions. This study, however, only documents the results in family group affiliation firms. Hence, causality of debt in non-family group affiliation firms also requires further theoretical and empirical examination. We argue that this is the first study to examine external debt financing effect on REM in family group affiliation firms in Malaysia.