E-mail Advertising in Syria: Assessing Beliefs,Attitudes, and Behaviors

The present study aimed at assessing Syrian consumers' beliefs regarding, attitude, and behavioral responses toward e-mail advertising and investigating the relationships among those variables. A cross-sectional survey was conducted and it yielded 273 valid responses. The proposed model was analyzed and tested using a structural equation modelling approach. Our findings showed that both informativeness and entertainment beliefs positively predicted Syrian consumers' attitudes toward e-mail advertising. Additionally, attitude was found to fully mediate the relationship between beliefs regarding and behavioral responses toward e-mail advertising.     

Cross-sectional determinants of bank performance under deposit dollarization in emerging markets

Dollar-denominated deposits and loans could increase financial fragility in emerging market banking systems. This currency mismatch does not only increase banks' currency risk when the proportion of dollar-denominated loans with respect to local-denominated loans increases but also it increases their clients' default risk if depreciation occurs. This paper investigates the profitability of 36 dollarized banking systems. Results suggest that after controlling for some macroeconomic and institutional variables, dollarization, as the currency mismatch hypothesis suggests, depresses bank performance and lowers bank profitability. Results also show that the effect of institutions more than offsets the negative impact of dollarization on banks' profitability.     

The Causes and Consequences of Accelerated Stock Repurchases

We examine the choice between accelerated share repurchase (ASR) and open market repurchase (OMR) as repurchase mechanisms between 2004 and 2007. For a sample of ASRs and OMRs that actually buy shares in the announcement quarter, we find that ASR firms have lower market‐to‐book ratios, less cash, but greater managerial entrenchment. Prior to repurchase, ASR firms are subject to significantly more takeover rumors than OMR firms are, and this, along with entrenchment and undervaluation, affects the choice to use ASRs. ASR firms experience positive average abnormal returns both before and after the announcement. Moreover, the latent takeover probability is significantly lower for both ASR and OMR firms (when compared with pre‐announcement levels), but the reduction for ASR firms is more pronounced. Our results suggest that repurchases, and especially ASRs, indeed make a firm a less attractive prospect for takeover.     

A Pyramid of Hate Perspective on Religious Bias,Discrimination and Violence

Journal of Business Ethics - This study provides a ‘pyramid of hate’ perspective on issues and challenges facing minority religious communities in social and political climates that...     

Exogenous brand crises: brand infection and contamination

Marketing Letters - Although there is an established literature regarding brand transgressions, Covid-19 has highlighted the need to better understand exogenously created brand crises. We...     

Catastrophe futures and reinsurance contracts: An incomplete markets approach

We present a theoretical methodology for the pricing of catastrophe (CAT) derivatives with event‐dependent and non‐convex payoffs given the price of a CAT indexed futures contract. We do not assume a fully diversifiable CAT event risk, nor do we assume knowledge of the martingale probability measure beyond the futures price. We derive tight bounds on the contract value and present trading strategies exploiting the mispricing whenever the bounds are violated. We estimate the bounds of the reinsurance contract with data from hurricane landings in Florida. Our method is also applicable when there is no futures market but the price of a CAT‐indexed bond is available.     

Understanding consumers' perspectives on food labelling in India

This study aims at identifying the factors influencing consumers' perception on food labelling and its impact on food purchase decision making, through personal interviews of 631 respondents using a structured questionnaire. To analyse the consumers' perceptions on food labelling, factor analysis has been carried out to identify the underlying dimensions among a set of food labelling attributes using the principal component analysis. Based on factor analysis, four sets of components/factors have emerged, that is, (i) serving method; (ii) quality and nutrition; (iii) production and storage; and (iv) product identification, which explain 66.271% of the variance. Logit regression analysis indicates that among the socio‐demographic indicators, the estimated coefficients for gender, education, income and location of residence are statistically significant. Similarly, information on quality and nutrition, production and storage processes, and basic information of the product is found to be significant, implying that these factors are more likely to influence the use of food labels in making informed purchase decisions by the consumers. The findings of the study give practical insights on food labelling issues for the food processors and policy makers.     

Entrepreneurial intention and startup preparation: A study among business students in Malaysia

Intention, as the starting point of pursuing self-employment and creating new ventures, is crucial before actually establishing a business enterprise. Entrepreneurship is understood to be an essential ingredient for enhancing a country's economic competitiveness, growth, and sustainability while confronting the escalating challenges of globalization, such as increasing unemployment. This study provides empirical evidence on the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention and startup preparations among university students in Malaysia. The findings provide scholars and academic policymakers with insights into the effectiveness of Malaysia's entrepreneurial education as designed and practiced by public universities. The Malaysian government should apply these findings to fortify existing policies and programs and formulate new ones to support graduate entrepreneurs, while universities and other higher education institutions should provide high-quality entrepreneurial courses and programs to young Malaysians to foster an inclination toward entrepreneurship.