Does CEO–Audit Committee/Board Interlocking Matter for Corporate Social Responsibility?

Journal of Business Ethics - This study examines the impact of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s interlocking, created through serving on other companies’ audit committees and/or...     

“A healthy outside starts from the inside”: A matter of sustainable consumption behavior in Italy and Pakistan

The aim of this research is to determine people's motives when purchasing organic food and how these motives are moderated by price sensitivity and ethical concerns in a cross-cultural setting. A highly structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 673 Italian and 594 Pakistani consumers, using the convenience sampling technique. Based on the etic research approach, the measurement invariance tests were performed, and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that environmental concerns and health-consciousness are significant predictors of subjective norms and purchase attitudes among Italian consumers. Food safety concern proved the strongest predictor of purchase attitude and perceived behavioral control among Pakistani consumers. The results also confirm the moderating role of ethical concerns and price sensitivity in buying organic food in both cultures. In terms of originality, this study fills significant gaps in the literature, particularly regarding the roles of attitude, behavioral control, and subjective norms in consumer buying motives and purchasing intentions in cross-cultural studies but more importantly, the results validate that consumer concerns across the globe are related to the Sustainability Development Goals and the U.N. 2030 agenda, which aptly provides a blue print for the development and developmental goals and concerns across nations.     

Moving beyond the mechanistic structures: The role of inclusive leadership in developing change‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviour

In this study, we explore the relationship between inclusive leadership and change‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) with the mediating roles of behavioural integrity and trust in leadership. Data were collected from 151 supervisor–subordinate dyads from small and medium enterprises in Pakistan. The results revealed that inclusive leadership is positively related to change‐oriented OCB. Our study reaffirms the indirect effect of the inclusive leadership on change‐oriented OCB via behavioural integrity and trust in leadership. Finally, the results supported the chain of causality: sequential mediation of behavioural integrity, and trust in leadership between inclusive leadership and change‐oriented OCB. Causal attribution theory is used to support the findings. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Muslim millennials’ attitudes towards fashion advertising

Abstract

Recognizing the rapid growth of fashion marketing efforts in Muslim consumer markets, this article aims to investigate attitudes towards fashion advertising between Muslim millennials from two countries of diverse advertising environments. The conceptual framework used for investigation was adapted from an existing framework for attitudes towards advertising. A sample of young millennials (n?=?1,691) responded to a questionnaire-based survey measuring items related to beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors towards fashion advertising, in addition to religiosity and fashion consciousness. Analysis of hypothesis testing was performed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Findings revealed that beliefs towards fashion advertising may be grouped into positive and negative factors which influence attitudes towards fashion advertising. Additionally, fashion consciousness also influences Muslim millennials’ attitudes towards fashion advertising. This article also examined the diversity of Muslim millennials in terms of religiosity, gender, and advertising environment on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors towards fashion advertising. Analysis of group comparisons was done after establishing measurement invariance in Multi-group Confirmatory Analysis (CFA). Differences in attitudes towards fashion advertising across religiosity, gender, and cross-national groups illustrate the diversity within Muslim millennials. These differences are explained in terms of differences in antecedent positive and negative beliefs. This article contributes to the literature of attitudes towards advertising by illustrating the influence of gender, religiosity, and advertising environment on attitudes towards fashion advertising in diverse Muslim markets.     

Impact of trade openness on GDP growth: Does TFP matter?

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to empirically explore the impact of trade openness on GDP growth initiating with the idea that trade openness cannot be fully characterized through the different openness measures only, we propose to account for total factor productivity (TFP) development level as an additional dimension of countries’ trade integration. Our empirical application is based on 35 years’ balanced panel of 82 countries spanning 1980–2014. To address the potential endogeneity issue, we use the system GMM estimator developed for dynamic panel data models. The results outline that there exists an interesting non-linear pattern between trade openness and GDP growth when TFP development level is taken as an intervening variable into account: trade may have a negative impact on GDP growth when countries have specialized in low-TFP development level; trade openness clearly boosts GDP growth once countries exhibit a minimum threshold of TFP development level. Therefore, there is some pattern of complementarity between trade openness and TFP development level so that the higher the TFP development level, the higher the impact of the trade openness on GDP growth.     

Impact of board gender diversity on dividend payments: Evidence from some emerging economies

This study investigates the impact of board gender diversity on dividend payments in the context of emerging economies. Using a dataset of listed firms from India, China and Russia over the period 2007–2014, we find strong and robust evidence indicating that board gender diversity is negatively related to cash dividend payments in all emerging economies. Moreover, we find that state-ownership positively moderates the relationship between gender diversity and dividend payments. However, this effect is observed only for China and Russia. In additional analyses, we find that the negative link between board gender diversity and dividend payments is more pronounced during the financial crisis. However, the moderating role of state-ownership does not remain significant during the financial crisis.     

The Pivotal Role of User-Friendly Food Label and Personality Traits on Intention to Consume Packaged Food Products

The objective of the present study was to examine the effect of friendly food labels on packaged food consumption intention. A questionnaire method was adopted for data collection. The data were collected from 14 Pakistani universities. The systematic random sampling technique was used to draw the required sample size. The sample size was 365, where 730 questionnaires were distributed among students of 14 universities to achieve the required sample. Findings disclosed that a friendly food label has a positive and significant relation with packaged food consumption intention. But in the intervening effect of personality traits between exogenous and endogenous variables, only three personality traits have positive significant mediation—extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness—whereas no mediation was found with neuroticism and agreeableness. Studies have unveiled the fact that there is need to investigate the decisiveness of personality traits for the selection of healthy food (Friedman & Kern, 2014).     

Analysis of visual presentation of cultural dimensions: Culture demonstrated by pictures on homepages of universities in Pakistan

The recent prominence of culturally rich visuals for effective global communication and establishing brands of organizations cannot be denied. This inquest observed how Pakistan universities used their homepages to demonstrate culture through a content analysis of 1064 pictures from 100 top universities. The researcher tried to take a stance on visual presentation of cultural aspects by using Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, and evaluated the impact of cultural elements in choosing pictures as part of web design and marketing strategy. Results indicated that faculty in groups doing academic and official activities were the predominant visual element, and websites mostly marketed faculty. Choice of pictures was positively correlated with Hofstede’s scores on power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence, but a different trend was observed for masculinity and pragmatism. Findings suggest that institutions should ameliorate their web marketing according to cultural needs of local as well as international students, and further research is needed.     

Does Investor Sentiment Predict the Near‐Term Returns of the Chinese Stock Market?

Recent evidence on the relationship between investor sentiment and subsequent monthly market returns in China shows that investor sentiment is a reliable momentum predictor since an increase (decrease) in investor sentiment leads to higher (lower) future returns. However, we suggest that momentum predictability of investor sentiment originates from the boom and bust period of 2006–2008 (the bubble period hereafter). The bubble period is characterized by several months of sustained optimism followed by several months of sustained pessimism, with the market consequently earning high (low) returns following high (low) sentiment months. Therefore, we find a strong positive association between investor sentiment and subsequent market returns during the bubble period. However, investor sentiment has a negligible impact on subsequent monthly market returns once we exclude the bubble period.     

Brand Power Relationships: A Co-Evolutionary Conceptual Framework

Abstract

In the era of the Internet and networking, stakeholders increasingly acquire power by influencing brand value and meanings. However, this does not imply that marketing managers have lost their power over brand creation and management. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore brand power relationships taking the co-evolutionary perspective as conceptual lenses. In particular, this article seeks to address the competitive relationship between the corporation and its stakeholders in determining the corporate brand evolution over time, suggesting that corporate brand management is successful when co-evolving power relationships are established. The relational interplay between managers and stakeholders is framed into the Brand Power Relationship Model that suggests four potential evolutionary paths. It offers new brand typologies supported by examples from business practices, which mirror four different ways of managing and adapting brands over time; namely, through the None’s Brand, the Managers’ Brand, the Stakeholders’ Brand, and the Co-Evolutionary Brand. Focusing on the latter, this study depicts managers and stakeholders as having reciprocal influences and co-determining themselves, thus triggering interrelated relational effects that influence corporate brand evolution over time. The bilateral power of managers and stakeholders is framed into a further model, focused on corporate brand co-evolution. It is proposed that corporate brands can successfully co-create their value and meanings over time only if corporations co-evolve with their environment—in this study, multiple external stakeholders.