Patterns of Social Media Usage among Malaysians During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper explores the use of social media among Malaysians during the Covid-19 pandemic. Questionnaires were distributed to 424 people in Malaysia who were directly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The research findings revealed that the main reasons that drove people to use social media were cognitive aspects, escapism, affective factors, and social integration. The data also shows that Malaysians frequently employed social media to search for information, for diversion purposes, and due to habit. Meanwhile, the highest levels of gratifications were derived from factors of convenience, surveillance, and interpersonal discussion. This study concludes that social media plays a crucial role for Malaysians while confronting the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside other media components. It cannot be denied that technology also influenced uses and gratifications among the audiences. The uniqueness of social media, coupled with the smartphone, gives it a distinct advantage over other media forms. The audiences had at their disposal a multitude of information that could bring numerous usages and forms of gratifications.

Does Corporate Governance and other Factors Influence Earnings Management? A Study on Indonesia’s Banking Sector

The issue of misreporting financial data and earnings management has become more prominent in recent years. Several studies have been conducted determining the influences of the mechanisms of corporate governance and earnings management in various countries. In this study, it was proven that the existence of a good corporate governance (GCG) mechanism did not suppress earnings management practices in the banking sector industry in Indonesia. However, another factor, dividend policy, can prove effective in suppressing earnings management. The measurement of earnings management in this study was carried out using the Modified Jones model with a population of 43 conventional banks from which research data were taken using a purposive sampling technique sourced from the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The analysis was carried out using multiple linear regression. The implication of this research is that the implementation of good corporate governance by an entity must be considered given that earnings management practices in Indonesia are still relatively high.

The Impact of Transformational Leadership Style and Employee Creativity on Organizational Innovation in Universities During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Organizational innovation is one of the important issues for organizations in every country to adapt to changing operating environments, scientific and technological progress, and crisis issues. This study aims to evaluate the impact of transformational leadership style and employee creativity on organizational innovation in universities in Vietnam. We employed Bayesian exploratory factor analysis and Bayesian regression analysis with primary data of leader–employee pairs to explore the abovementioned effects. The findings show that the components of transformational leadership style, including idealized influence (II), inspirational motivation (IM), intellectual stimulation (IS), and individual consideration (IC), have positive impacts on organizational innovation (OI) and employee creativity (EC). The findings also imply that employee creativity (EC) is a mediating factor in the impact of transformational leadership style (TLS) on organizational innovation (OI). Finally, increasing intrinsic motivation (INM) can increase the positive impact of transformational leadership style (TLS) on employee creativity (EC). Based on the results, we propose policy implications to promote organizational innovation in Vietnamese universities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fertility and Household Welfare in Nigeria: A Time Series Econometric Approach

This study examines the effect of fertility levels on household welfare in Nigeria during the period from 1980 to 2020. Using data from the World Development Indicators for 2021, the estimation process began with a unit root test for the stationarity of the variables. A bounds cointegration test showed the presence of a long-run relationship between household consumption expenditure and fertility, but the result was inconclusive when real GDP per capita was used as a welfare proxy. The ARDL model was employed and the results showed that fertility had a negative, significant effect on household consumption per capita only in the short run. The effect was from previous years thereby showing a lagged effect. However, when welfare is measured using real GDP per capita, there were both short-run and long-run effects, such that Kuznets’ hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship was obtained in the short run. In the long run, however, the relationship becomes U-shaped, implying that there is the possibility of a demographic dividend in the long run. Fertility policies must endeavor to control for the immediate or short-run negative effects of rising fertility rates and make deliberate plans to engage the future large working population in order to reap the possible demographic dividend.

Building Innovation Capabilities on Collaboration and Market Orientation for Improving Marketing Performance of Wood Furniture Craft

This research aims to test the direct influence of market orientation and innovation capabilities collaboration, with relationship marketing orientation and excellence as mediating variables, on the marketing performance of the micro industry of wood furniture handicrafts. The data was collected using questionnaires submitted by 242 people, and the analysis was carried out using SmartPLS software. The significant impact of collaborative innovation ability and relational marketing orientation on market orientation was shown to have no effect on competitive advantage. The innovation capabilities of collaborating are known to have no significant impact on marketing performance. Competitive advantage has a relationship with marketing performance, and relational marketing orientation has a significant impact on the ability of collaborative innovation. It was also found that relationship marketing orientation has a significant effect on marketing performance. This study is related to improving the marketing performance of the micro industry of wood furniture handicrafts, which has a limited scope, so the results of this study can't be generalized. It was also difficult to determine if there was any bias from the respondents. The marketing orientation of relationships and competitive advantages have contributed significantly to marketing performance. The wood furniture handicraft micro industry must improve collaboration capabilities with dealers and customers and use this as a strategic component to improve the marketing performance of the woodcraft industry. The novelty of this research is related to the capability of collaboration innovation, which is able to improve the marketing performance of small industries.

Marketing Investigation: Customer Relationship Management and Innovation to Improve Competitive Advantage and Business Performance

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM) and competitive advantage and to analyze the role of innovation capabilities in mediating CRM with a competitive advantage. In addition, it examines the role of competitive advantage on retail business performance. The study was conducted on retail companies in Indonesia using a quantitative approach, and responses from 255 retail owners/managers were obtained via the random sampling method. The analysis technique used is structural equation modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS software. The research findings reveal that retail competitive advantage can be achieved through the implementation of customer-oriented CRM. CRM is also able to support innovation capabilities, which will further increase competitive advantage. It is important for retail companies to strengthen the implementation of customer relationship management in order to achieve business performance because CRM is proven to increase the ability of innovation and competitive advantage of retail companies. Research on a broader type of company is needed to provide a better level of generalization.

An Experimental Economic Study of Loss Aversion in Stock Trading Decisions

The disposition effect is a form of behavioral bias that tends to result in investors holding on to their losing stocks for too long and selling winning stocks too soon. It can be explained by the behavioral economics theory of loss aversion. Even though many have studied this kind of behavioral bias in a variety of different countries, none of them have investigated the disposition effect in the case of Thailand. Therefore, the main objective of our study is to test the disposition effect among Thais by applying the experimental economic approaches of Weber & Camerer (1998) and Odean (1998) whilst also including the findings from questionnaires and interviews. We set up a simulation stock trading market to test the disposition effect of participants regardless of whether they had stock trading experienced or not. Subjects were required to trade among six stocks in 14 trading periods. We also added three more periods to test how different types of news impacted the subjects’ trading decisions. In addition, we analyzed socioeconomic factors that affect disposition effect behavior by using an econometric binary choice model. We found that this experiment can exhibit the disposition effect of subjects in terms of overall and individual measurement. In normal stock trading situations, we found that over 70% of subjects showed clear signs of the disposition effect, which seemed to decrease after they received fictional news.

Do Performance-Based Pay and Pay Competitiveness Moderate the Relation Between Lower-Level Employees Total Compensation and Job Satisfaction? Evidence from South Korea

Decades of international multidisciplinary studies have examined how compensation affects employees and organizations, but they neither specify the boundary conditions for employee job satisfaction nor differentiate the effects of pay on job satisfaction of employees at differing tiers within an organization. We explore whether performance-based pay and pay competitiveness moderate the relation between total compensation and job satisfaction among lower-level employees in South Korea. To investigate boundary conditions for that relation, we use performance-based pay and pay competitiveness as variables that tie compensation structure to job satisfaction. Drawing from data for 2,281 employees at 470 South Korean firms, we consider how two variables—incentive compensation and pay competitiveness—influence job satisfaction of lower-level employees. First, we confirmed a positive relationship between compensation and job satisfaction, and second, we found that the relationship is stronger among employees of firms where average compensation is below what is paid elsewhere.

The Mediating Effects of Key Audit Matters on the Relationship Between Audit Quality and Earnings Management: Evidence from Jordan

The relationship between audit quality and earnings management has not been tested with consideration of key audit matters as a mediating variable. This study examined whether audit quality (AQ) decreases earnings management (EM) in shareholding corporations through improving key audit matters (KAMs) in Jordan’s emerging environment. A regression analysis was carried out on a sample that included financial reports and auditor reports of 105 industrial and service shareholdings companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2017 to 2019. The study found a negative relationship between audit quality and earnings management. The results showed that audit quality increases key audit matters, which, in turn, decreases earnings management. Also, the study confirmed the mediating effect of KAMs between audit quality and earnings management. The study confirms the importance of key audit matters to provide more relevant and useful information for the users of financial reports and provides important indications to the regulatory authorities and standards bodies that key audit matters should be given more attention regarding the way that they are presented and disclosed.

Does an Exchange-Traded Fund Converge to its Benchmark in the Long Run? Evidence from Ishares MSCI in Asia-Pacific Countries

This study examines the linkages between exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and their benchmark indices from 2013 to 2019 using iShares MSCI of ten Asia-Pacific countries. Our results show, first, that there is a long-run causality running from the benchmark index to ETFs. These findings imply that ETFs may replicate the performance of the benchmark index over the long run. Second, there is a unidirectional causal relationship from ETFs to the benchmark index in the short run, which indicates that benchmark index prices respond to the short-run changes in the ETF prices when new information is available. Third, there is a significant tracking error between ETFs and the benchmark index. This finding justifies the existence of stock selection and market timing abilities among the ETF managers. Lastly, fund managers add value to the ETFs and generate better than the market returns. This paper provides new evidence to support this new stylized fact of ETFs.