Pro-tourism and anti-tourism community groups at a world heritage site in Turkey

This empirical study deepens our understating of support for sustainable tourism development (SSTD) from the perspectives of various community groups in Pamukkale, a world natural and cultural heritage inscribed on the UNESCO list. A quota sampling technique was used to survey the views of three communities: business, farmers, and the government. Occurrences of contrarian cases were checking using cross-tabulation analyses. Complexity theory and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), as an innovative approach, were applied to develop and test a configurational model for predicting both high and low SSTD scores for three community groups. The fsQCA results revealed that causal recipes for achieving pro-tourism behaviour are not simply mirror opposites of the conditions leading to anti-tourism behaviour. The complex configurational models indicating high/low SSTD were unique to each community group, indicating that a specified strategy must be developed for community-based tourism management. The evidence-of-fit validity of the measurement model and the predictive validity of the configurational model were provided. Support for the fsQCA results in the key tenets of complexity theory confirms that this theory explained the heterogeneity and complex interactions of SSTD antecedents well. The study outcomes provide a guideline for managing conditions to both increase SSTD and hinder SSTD negation for various community groups. The limitations and implications for further research are discussed.     

Islamic legal methodologies and Shariah screening standards: Application in the Indonesian stock market

This article provides a framework for applying the principles of Islamic legal methodology to determine the optimal Shariah screening standards for Islamic equity markets. It is argued that using maslahah mursalah (unrestricted benefit) is an appropriate method for identifying appropriate financial standards and its principles stipulate that the benchmark that yields the best economic returns to investors should be chosen. The methodological framework is applied to the Indonesia equity market where the economic implications of the Islamic stock screening standards of the Indonesian Islamic Shariah Stock Index and four global indices are assessed. Portfolios are constructed by applying Islamic stock screening standards for each of the indices by using data on 377 stocks listed in the Indonesian stock market for 5 years. The performances measured by the Sharpe ratio, Treynor index, and Jensen alpha reveal that the Dow Jones Islamic Index screening criteria performs the best. Based on the method of maslahah mursalah, the article recommends using the screening standard of this index in the Indonesian stock market to maximize benefits to investors. While the approach used in this article is applied to Islamic equity markets, the methodological framework can also be used for other similar cases in Islamic finance.     

The impact of terrorism on public debt in African countries

Given the increase in the number of terrorist attacks in African countries, a better understanding of the relationship between terrorism, the informal economy and public debt is essential for policymakers. The model is empirically tested for 47 countries during the period 1996–2015. We use ordinary least squares (OLS), random effects (ER) and system generalized method of moments (GMM). Three terrorism indicators are used: the uncertain, the domestic, and the transnational. The results confirm that the rise in terrorism and the informal economy lead to an increase in public debt. The results also show that the informal economy magnifies the effect of terrorism on public debt. In addition, the results suggest that a larger informal economy reduces income taxes and therefore increases public debt and the increase in public spending reinforces the effects of terrorism on public debt. The reduction of terrorism should therefore be governments’ primary political objective. Given the detected complementarity between terrorism and the informal economy, the reduction of terrorism would also reduce the size of the informal economy and the public debt. The reduction of terrorism will also minimize the harmful effects of terrorism on public debt through public spending.     

Violators versus non-violators of information security measures in organizations—A study of distinguishing factors

The present study analyzes the elements that differentiate violators from non-violators of information security measures. Various elements are derived from established theories and models such as general deterrence theory, theory of planned behavior, theory of reasoned action, protection motivation theory, and social cognitive theory. To examine these factors, the data are gathered through an online study conducted in a Midwestern University, USA. The data are collected using questionnaires, and after scrutiny, 195 questionnaires are selected for final analysis. This data are analyzed using second-level statistical techniques, such as chi-square analysis and ANOVA. Results reveal that violators and non-violators of information security measures differ significantly with respect to many factors. These factors include perceived privacy, subjective norms, perceived information security policy (ISP) scope, perceived severity of penalty, perceived celerity of penalty, management support, organizational security culture, and perceived organizational IT capability. The non-significant factors are trust and work load. Implications for practitioners and researchers are provided.     

Trade credit and cost stickiness

Using a large sample of US data, we examine the relation between trade credit and cost behaviour and further investigate the moderating effects on this relation of agency problem, product market competition, and customer concentration. We find that firms using high levels of trade credit exhibit lower cost stickiness and this is prevalent in the high agency problem sub‐sample. In addition, in a non‐competitive market, where the agency problem arises owing to lack of competition, trade credit plays an external monitoring role by attenuating cost stickiness. However, high customer concentration curtails this monitoring ability.     

PARADIGM SHIFT: A MEAN FIELD GAME APPROACH

This paper analyses the consequences of young researchers' scientific choice on the dynamics of sciences. We develop a simple two state mean field game model to analyse the competition between two paradigms based on Kuhn's theory of scientific revolution. The dynamics of the model are driven by the scientific choice of young researchers at the beginning of their career. Despite the possibility of multiple equilibria, the model exhibits at least one stable solution in which both para digms coexist. The occurrence of shocks on the parameters may induce the shift from one paradigm to the other. During this shift, researchers' choice is proved to be having a great impact on the evolution of sciences.     

Does board gender diversity improve the informativeness of stock prices?

We show that stock prices of firms with gender-diverse boards reflect more firm-specific information after controlling for corporate governance, earnings quality, institutional ownership and acquisition activity. Further, we show that the relationship is stronger for firms with weak corporate governance suggesting that gender-diverse boards could act as a substitute mechanism for corporate governance that would be otherwise weak. The results are robust to alternative specifications of informativeness and gender diversity and to sensitivity tests controlling for time-invariant firm characteristics and alternative measures of stock price informativeness. We also find that gender diversity improves stock price informativeness through the mechanism of increased public disclosure in large firms and by encouraging private information collection in small firms.     

Real Earnings Management,Institutional Environment,and Future Operating Performance: An International Study

This paper investigates the association between firms' engagement in real activities manipulation (hereafter REM) on future firm performance in an international setting, and whether the association is conditional upon country-level institutional factor. Our inquiry is motivated by a paucity of research on the consequences of REM in an international setting. Using a large sample over the period of 2001 to 2015, we find that current-period REM is positively associated with future performance: a finding that is consistent with Gunny (2010) in the US. Importantly, we find that the positive performance effect is driven by firms operating in countries with strong institutional environments. Finally, we find that future operating performance improves when REM is undertaken by firms in strong institutional environments only during a non-economic crisis period, but not during an economic crisis period. The paper adds to the existing REM literature by showing a non-monotonic effect of REM on future performance that is conditional on the strength of a country's institution. We also contribute to the accounting information and crisis literature by documenting a time-variant effect of REM on future performance.     

The Effect of Tournament Incentives on Financial Restatements: Evidence From China

In this study, we examine the association between tournament incentives and financial restatements in China. Prior research documents that tournament incentives have a positive impact on firm performance. However, an alternative view suggests that tournament incentives can also have detrimental effects on firm performance. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies for the years 2008–2015, we find that tournament incentives, in the form of large pay disparities, reduce the occurrence of both core and non-core financial restatements. This negative association is more pronounced for SOEs as compared to non-SOEs. We further document that the negative association between tournament incentives and financial restatements is related to CEO turnover, and is stronger if the successor CEO is recruited from within the organization. This research contributes to a better understanding of tournament incentives, as a corporate governance mechanism, in constraining the occurrence of financial restatements in a unique institutional setting where state ownership is pronounced.