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This paper investigates the effects of environmental, social and governance (ESG) on financial performance and the moderating effect of intellectual capital (IC) on the relationship between ESG and financial performance. The study performs panel data analysis on data collected from 2,956 manufacturing companies listed on the A-share index of the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges from 2018 to 2021. Regression results indicate that ESG and management initiatives in implementing ESG have a significant and negative impact on financial performance, whereas the management initiative to control controversial events exerts a significant and positive impact. Investing in ESG and IC at the same time without proper resource allocation will exacerbate the increase in costs and thus reduce financial performance. Companies in the manufacturing sector should therefore consider the challenges and opportunities related to ESG and IC investments. Regulatory frameworks may encourage these companies to align their sustainability and IC strategies, which involve upfront costs. This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between ESG and financial performance by considering IC as moderator in the context of Chinese manufacturing companies.

This study investigates the relation between managerial overconfidence and earnings management and whether this relation is moderated by family control. Using a sample of Taiwan-listed firms, we estimate managerial overconfidence from manager dealings and determine the following: First, overconfident managers are more likely to engage in earnings management behaviors; second, family control negatively moderates the positive relation between managerial overconfidence and earnings management; and third, the negative moderating effects of family control primarily result from family chief executive officers.

This paper aims to develop a complete model of competitive intelligence (CI) in the case of North African SMEs. Specifically, the objective of this paper is to analyse the mediating and moderating effects of innovation and the protection of information assets in the relationship between business intelligence (BI) and international competitiveness of SMEs based on export intensity. To do this, we rely on the approach of Baron and Kenny (1986). The Moderator–Mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173–1182 and Ping (1995). A parsimonious estimating techinque for interaction and quadratic latent variables. The Journal of Marketing Research, 32, 336–347 to identify respectively, the mediating and moderating roles of innovation and protection of information assets, and we focus on a sample of 180 North African companies. The results of this paper show that the relationship between BI and international competitiveness is both mediated by innovation and moderated by the protection of information assets. The originality of this research lies in the design of a CI model that integrates BI, mediation of innovation, moderation of the protection of information assets and the international competitiveness.

The growing number of internet banking (i-banking) users in Bangladesh requires examining their behavioral intention (BI) to adopt i-banking services. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the customers’ intention in i-banking adoption encompassing the moderating effect of demographic characteristics. This study uses an expansive approach of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model with customer satisfaction. The structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to analyze the data collected from the internet banking users of Bangladesh. Findings of the study conclude that the higher the level of performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE) and social influence (SI), the greater the level of customers’ inclination to adopt i-banking. Whereas, facilitating condition negatively affects their BI in i-banking adoption. Moreover, this study finds a positive and significant impact of system, service and information quality and security, privacy and trust (SPT) on customers’ satisfaction, which, in turn, substantially influence their intention toward i-banking adoption. While investigating the moderating effect of demographic characteristics, this study finds that all categories of customers, regardless of their age, gender, experience and education, are influenced by the customers’ satisfaction of services qualities and trust perception in i-banking adoption. Therefore, it is suggested to the policymakers that they should take such initiatives in designing the i-banking system that satisfy the customers’ expectations.

The economic environment and associated constraints have significant and unequal effects on Small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Constraints have been used, among other growth factors, to understand why some SMEs fail to grow while others foster. However, beyond knowing the effects or constraints, it is important entrepreneurs know how they can avoid constraints. The study provides an important contribution by showing that South-African SMEs that face constraints because of competition, government rules and regulations, financing gaps and corruption, can navigate away from these constraints by going international. The evidence shows a positive moderating effect of internationalization on the relationship between local constraints and SME growth. However, the results also reveal that lack of government support is a significant constraint to growth when SMEs export internationally.

This paper presents the findings of a meta-analysis of innovation characteristics that influence the adoption of information technology (IT) in organisations. Past studies that examine the determinants of IT innovation adoption have produced inconsistent and contradictory results and deducing a definitive set of attributes for innovation adoption has become impractical. The study has aggregated findings of past research on IT adoption using meta-analysis to identify key factors in terms of innovation or technology that influences adoption of IT in organisation. Six innovation characteristics most commonly examined by researchers have been analysed. The results of this meta-analysis confirm that relative advantage, compatibility, cost, observability and trialability are strong determinants of IT innovation adoption. However, the study found no association between complexity and IT innovation adoption. The effect of stage of innovation, type of innovation, type of organisation and size of organisation as four moderating conditions has also been examined.

We examine the effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining firms and the moderating effects of the degree of decline and organisational slack on executive incentives and enterprise technological innovation. We also assess the synergetic effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining enterprises. We find the following: first, executive compensation incentive, equity incentive and control incentives are beneficial to promote technological innovation in declining enterprises. Second, the degree of decline negatively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation. Third, organisational slack positively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation, as well as the relationship between control incentives and technological innovation, especially for severely declining enterprises. Fourth, there are synergistic effects between executive control incentive and compensation incentive, control incentives and equity incentive on technological innovation. The contributions are as follows: first, taking declining enterprises as sample, we suggest that to increase the role of compensation incentive and equity incentive in promoting technological innovation in declining enterprises, the control incentives should be strengthened. Second, organisational slack should be fully exploited for severely declining enterprises so that executives should have the motivation and conditions to carry out technological innovation and further help declining enterprises to turnaround successfully.

This paper explores the direct and indirect relationship between climate policy uncertainty and excessive corporate debt, and focuses on the moderating effect of financing constraints. We use the climate policy uncertainty index to represent climate policy uncertainty, and use the Kaplan and Zingales (KZ) index to represent financing constraints. Our study employs data from Chinese non-financial listed companies for the period 2007–2020. The results show that climate policy uncertainty not only directly curbs excessive debt, but also indirectly reduces excessive debt by increasing financing constraints. This direct weakening effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and high-carbon enterprises. Moreover, the financing constraints channel is more effective in state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and high-carbon enterprises. Furthermore, due to the actual situation in China, the direct weakening effect of climate policy uncertainty is very obvious in the central region, while the indirect effect through the financing constraints channel is most obvious in the western region. These empirical findings will help policymakers, managers, and financial institutions to reconsider financing risk under climate policy uncertainty.

Studies on behavioral finance argue that cognitive/emotional biases could influence investors’ decisions and result in the disposition effect, wherein investors have the tendency to sell winning stocks too early and hold losing stocks too long. In this regard, this study proposes a conceptual model to examine the relationship among cognitive/emotional biases, the disposition effect, and investment performance. Cognitive/emotional biases mainly consist of mental accounting, regret avoidance, and self-control. Furthermore, this study examines whether gender and marital status moderate the relationship between these biases and the disposition effect by collecting quantitative data through a questionnaire survey and employing a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to execute the estimation procedure. The results of this study show that mental accounting has the most significant influence on the disposition effect, which implies that prospect theory is an alternative to expected utility theory in accounting for investor’s behavior. The findings of moderating analysis indicate that female investors display a larger disposition effect than male investors.