COVID-19 and business renewal: Lessons and insights from the global airline industry

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the fortunes of multiple companies around the globe. Accordingly, questions are increasingly being asked about how organizations can revitalize during and after a crisis. Yet, we have limited understanding of how organizations renew themselves during crises over time. We explore this question through the lens and examination of two South-Asian airlines: Pakistan International Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines. The cases offer important insights into the reasons behind underperformance of state-controlled enterprises and renewal activities. We shed light on strategic renewal (SR) in the wake of increasing liberalization and deregulations in the global airline industry. To this end, we propose a four-stage approach towards renewing such underperforming organizations to respond effectively to black swan events and external shocks.     

Building relationship innovation in global collaborative partnerships: big data analytics and traditional organizational powers

This study examines how relationship innovation can be developed in global collaborative partnerships (alliances, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions). The recently emerging theory of big data analytics linked with traditional organizational powers has attracted a growing interest, but surprisingly little research has been devoted to this important and complex topic. Therefore, after developing the theoretical foundations, our study empirically quantifies the links between the theoretical constructs based on the data collected from chief executive officers, managing directors, and heads of departments who work in contemporary global data‐and‐information driven collaborative partnerships. The results from structural equation modeling indicate that the relationship innovation depends on the power of big data analytics and non‐mediated powers (NMP, expert and referent). The power of big data analytics also mediates the correlation between NMP and relationship innovation. However, mediated powers (coercive and manipulative) negatively affect the power of big data analytics and relationship innovation. The interaction effects further depict that analytically powered partnerships have better relationship innovation compared with those which focus less on the analytical power. Consequently, the contributions of this study provide a deeper understanding of mechanisms of how modern collaborative partnerships can use big data analytics and traditional organizational powers to co‐create relationship innovation.     

Balancing social and political strategies in emerging markets: Evidence from India

This article explores the substitution and complementary effects between political and social strategies on firm performance in the context of an emerging market (EM). Using in‐depth, historical case‐study approach, the article investigates how companies integrate political and social resources in this market. Corporate performance includes traditional measures, such as accounting performance and nonfinancial measures like the ease of doing business. The study finds that social strategies are stronger enablers of firm long‐term performance than political strategies. The latter have a short‐term impact on performance, but their success over time is limited. The main drawback of reliance on political resources in EMs is the lack of political stability, fragmented polity, and weak political coalitions. We identify rather limited evidence of firms using these two strategies as complements. Thus, we suggest that firms should employ both these strategies in the EM.     

Preliminary test estimators of the parameters of simple linear model with measurement error

In this paper, we discuss the properties of preliminary test estimators (PTE) of the parameters of simple linear model with measurement error (ME model) when the slope of the linear model is suspected to be zero. Expressions of the bias, MSE and efficiencies are obtained under conditional as well as unconditional situations with known reliability coefficient. Conditional model results are compared to the standard model without measurement error. We also provide the unconditional model analysis in finite samples. Asymptotic theory under local alternatives is developed when the variance of measurement error or the ratio of the variance of the model error relative to the variance of the measurement error is known. Asymptotic expressions of bias and MSE of the estimators along with their efficiencies are obtained. In every case, it is shown that the measurement error tend to increase the variability of the estimators compared to the estimators without measurement error. Graphs and tables are provided to see these results and to determine optimum level of significance for minimum guaranteed efficiency. Received October 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  A. K. Md. E. Saleh is a Distinguished Research Professor and H. M. Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University, Ottawa. Acknowledgment. The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive suggestion of the referees to improve the paper. The research is supported by NSERC grant A3088.     

Can innovation shocks determine CO2 emissions (CO2e) in the OECD economies? A new perspective

ABSTRACT

This study has attempted to address prior knowledge gaps in the environmental economics literature by integrating the innovation shocks into the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) equation for twenty-six OECD economies using data from 1990 to 2014. Foreign direct investment (FDI), exports (EXP), renewable energy consumption (REC), and GDP per capita were included as control variables. The results from multiple empirical analyses indicated that positive shocks to innovation improve, but the negative shocks disrupt environmental quality. Data analyses also showed that a positive correlation exists between income per capita of OECD economies. From the negative coefficient of income per capita (squared) and the existence of a negative nexus between FDI and CO2e, both the EKC and the Pollution Halo Hypothesis (PHH) were confirmed in sampled economies, respectively. The paper offers empirical support for the favourable impacts of REC on the quality of the environment and calls for the adoption of innovation shocks as a policy instrument to formulate better environmental policies for a sustainable future.     

Market based price support program: an alternative approach to large scale food procurement and distribution system

In most developing countries of the world, large scale public food procurement and distribution systems (PFDS) have become too expensive for the country governments to support from their own resources. Despite high financial and administrative costs of the programs, the degree of seasonal price stabilization and price support achieved through the activities remain quite low. Using the Bangladesh PFDS as a case study, this research indicates that considerable improvements in price support can be achieved by providing credit to the farmers immediately after the harvest. If the government procurement is reduced by 50 per cent in Bangladesh, and providing 150 per cent of the cost of running PFDS as credit, Bangladesh can improve the farmers' income and achieve better stability of cereal prices at a cost less than one-third of the current costs of the PFDS.     

Timing of earnings restatements: CEO equity compensation and market reaction

This study investigates the impact of chief executive officers’ (CEO) compensation on their choices regarding the timing of earnings restatements. The results indicate a negative relationship between options exercised and lags in disclosing the restated earnings, suggesting that managers who exercise options in a given year tend to release information quickly. This effect is more pronounced if the options are exercised after the dark period. We also find that the market penalises longer lags in the restatement disclosure. It seems that the CEO would try to optimise the timing of information release so as to balance the costs and benefits.     

An Approach to Security for Unstructured Big Data

Security of Big Data is a huge concern. In a broad sense, Big Data contains two types of data: structured and unstructured. Providing security to unstructured data is more difficult than providing security to structured data. In this paper, we have developed an approach to provide adequate security to unstructured data by considering types of data and their sensitivity levels. We have reviewed the different analytics methods of Big Data to build nodes of different types of data. Each type of data has been classified to provide adequate security and enhance the overhead of the security system. To provide security to a data node, and a security suite has been designed by incorporating different security algorithms. Those security algorithms collectively form a security suite which has been interfaced with the data node. Information on data sensitivity has been collected through a survey. We have shown through several experiments on multiple computer systems with varied configurations that data classification with respect to sensitivity levels enhances the performance of the system. The experimental results show how and in what amount the designed security suite reduces overhead and increases security simultaneously.     

Does remittance fuel labour productivity in Bangladesh? The application of an asymmetric non-linear ARDL approach

Bangladesh, a labour-abundant country, is finally learning to reap gains from her labour abundance. The historical under-optimized capital–labour ratio of Bangladesh is slowly moving towards its optimum as the migration of its labour force and consequent inflow of remittance strategically converts its abundant labour into capital. Though the fear that remittance as an alternative source of earning may result in Dutch disease for existing family members; annual data for 1982–2013 and through applying standard testing methodologies, our empirical findings suggest that such a fear is not valid since remittance flow significantly improves domestic labour productivity in Bangladesh in the long run.