Reverse Immigration Effects for Expatriates in Oman During the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock

The COVID-19 pandemic produced dramatic aftershocks throughout the global labor markets with rapid changes in differential employment opportunities. Labor market disruptions were sparked by the pandemic in Oman, where expatriates live and work. For the first time, the analysis investigates certain hypotheses relevant to the Aspirations-Capabilities framework and whether these hypotheses survive the pandemic exogenous shock. More specifically, testing these hypotheses, the analysis investigates whether the COVID-19 pandemic shock had a negative impact on expatriates in the host country, as well as it identifies heterogeneous effects among different ethnic groups. Using Datastream data, this analysis investigates the sudden drop in ethnic expatriates in Oman using ordinal least squares and instrumental variable estimations. A steeper decline in the expatriate employment rate reflects a disproportionately adverse impact that the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic had on immigrant employment. The findings identify substantial ethnic differences when reverse immigratory effects are exhibited.

     

Antecedents of brand loyalty in South African retail banking

With new banks entering the South African market and consumers generally not satisfied with their current bank, brand loyalty in the banking sector is receiving greater attention. A gap in the literature exists regarding the issues of bank loyalty and their antecedents in South African retail banking because of the few studies available in the South African context, the new competitive environment in the banking sector, the multi-cultural nature of the market, and the likely switching behaviour by customers. The South African context is a multi-cultural environment and therefore offers a unique background as most previous brand loyalty studies have been in mono-cultural contexts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents of brand loyalty, including satisfaction, brand relationship quality, customer advocacy, and brand trust in retail banking. We report on a survey of 351 banking customers through SEM using AMOS. While the findings are generally supportive of previous studies, some surprising results are discussed and implications for both theory and practice are highlighted.