Impact of Executive Remuneration and Firm Leverage on Firm Stability: Lessons from European Firms

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of executive remuneration and firms’ leverage on firms’ stability as measured by winsorized Zscore (wZscore). The wZscore measure corresponds to the Altman Zscore, which increases as default risk decreases. To test the study’s hypotheses, a linear regression model is applied to a 6-year panel dataset of 180 listed firms categorized in 10 economic sectors operating in 22 countries from the years 2013 to 2018. The results show that executive remuneration has a significant negative impact on firm stability as measured by wZscore. Additionally, firm leverage has a significant positive impact on firm stability. Beyond the theoretical implications, the findings of this study have some practical implications that are particularly relevant to boards of directors, shareholders, managers, and policymakers. The findings suggest that executives should be offered a proper remuneration package to maintain their firms’ stability along with the capacity of firms’ equity and assets to cope up with unprecedented circumstances and the firms’ long-term debts. Finally, this study offers specific recommendations for how firms can balance their pay and performance in terms of executive remuneration and ensure better leverage to optimize their own and society's sustainable development.

Remote Working Environment Challenges in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

As a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, employees have begun working remotely from home, which has resulted in new challenges in the work environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges of the remote work environment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to determine the level of these challenges according to the worker’s gender and job. This study was conducted on 11 Jordanian IT companies at the end of 2020. The intentional sample was used,125 valid questionnaires were used in the analysis. The results show that the respondents' perceptions of the challenges of the remote work environment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic were high. There are also statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α≤0.05) for the level of challenges in the remote working environment according to gender (male/female) in favor of females and according to job level (supervisory or non-supervisory) in favor of non-supervisory jobs. To increase organisational performance, all parties—employees, families, and management—must cooperate to overcome the challenges of the remote work environment.

Determinants of GCC Women Entrepreneurs Performance: Are they Different from Men?

The study aims to understand the impact of different factors on the performance of GCC entrepreneurs and to what extent this effect is different between women and men. To accomplish the determined aim, the research used quantitative research method. Survey strategy has been implanted to collect the data via structured questionnaire technique. The questionnaire was distributed online for 750 GCC male and female entrepreneurs. 262 responses have been received. The data was analysed using descriptive analysis while ANOVA was implemented to assess the differences between men and women in their reflections towards determinants of their performance. The investigation found that females consider education, training and business networks and access to finance are significant factors impact their performance. GCC women’s performance is affected by these determinants more than men counterparts. Both men and women entrepreneurs believe that access to finance as an important determinant for their performance without significant difference between the two genders. This research provides a proper guidance for the policy makers to give more attention to education and training for women entrepreneurs. More focus on entrepreneurship education may foster the women entrepreneurship. Training is also a significant determinant of their performance than men. This may pay the attention to the role of supporting institutions, even formal or informal; to design proper training programmes for women entrepreneurs. Supporting institutions needs also to play more roles towards enforcing the networks for women entrepreneurs.

On Competitive Strategy from OEM to OBM - A Case Study on a Sealing Parts Company in Taiwan

As the market becomes more globalized and the international situation continues to undergo complex changes, the income and profits of the OEM business are getting thinner and smaller. In such circumstances, many companies have initiated OBM business, causing fierce brand competition in the market. This study took a sealing parts company in Taiwan as the subject to explore how the company operates smoothly to maximize profits with both OEM and OBM business, determines the proper business strategy according to different customer groups and market segments, distributes customer orders and develops business strategy when OEM business conflicts with OBM business, so as to avoid customer complaints and reduce the risk of losing orders. This study first discussed the brand positioning of the subject company and brand competitions in the industry. Next, through qualitative interviews, it analyzed the market segmentation under the competition among international brands and the impacts of COVID-19 on the development of company strategy.