Viktoriia Makarovych

The article aims to investigate, using the VAIC and MVAIC models, the impact of intellectual capital on the financial performance of Omani companies listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange from 2017 to 2021. Regression analysis revealed a significant positive influence of VAIC and MVAIC only on the Asset Turnover Ratio at a 10% significance level. This suggests that an increase in VAIC or MVAIC by one unit could lead to a respective increase in earnings for Omani listed industrial companies by 0.0017 and 0.0016. However, the overall impact of VAIC and MVAIC on financial performance appears limited, necessitating measures for enhanced efficacy. Moreover, company size and leverage were found to significantly influence EBITDA and Return on Assets, suggesting the positive effect of increased activity and resource utilization. Conversely, Return on Customer Equity negatively affected only Asset Turnover Ratio, implying that investments in marketing and advertising may not significantly enhance financial performance. Human Capital Efficiency showed no significant impact on financial performance measures, highlighting the necessity for Omani industrial enterprises to focus on enhancing employee skills and experience for improved value-creation processes. These findings underscore the intricate relationship between intellectual, physical, and financial capital in shaping financial performance, necessitating targeted strategies for enhancement. Further analysis of suggested models indicated the significance of company size on EBITDA, highlighting the importance of scaling activities for performance improvement. VAIC and MVAIC structural elements showed mixed results, while Capital Employed Efficiency negatively affected Return on Equity, Structural Capital Efficiency positively impacted EBITDA and Asset Turnover Ratio.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a universal call to action over the past few years and a basis for assessing the progress of sustainable development of countries and organizations. This paper aims to identify the relationship between the sustainable development activities of universities in different regions of the world, as reflected in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE IR), and the progress towards achieving SDGs of the countries in which these universities operate. The research methods were correlation analysis and robust regression tools, and parametric and non-parametric methods of variance analysis. The information base was the results of annual reports based on the THE IR and Sustainable Development Reports for 2017–2021. The results confirm the existence of directly proportional close correlations between the variables, while the regression analysis confirmed that a one-unit increase in the overall THE IR ranking score leads to a corresponding increase in the overall progress of countries in achieving SDGs (on average by 0.2-0.3 units) and SDGs 3, 8, 11, 16 in particular. It was also found that universities play a key role in achieving different SDGs in various regions. In Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and North Africa, universities are critical for SDG 17 achieving. In OECD countries, universities contribute most to SDG 3. Examples of the best practices that can be used as a guide for university administrations that are at the beginning of developing sustainable development policies are also given.

Funding
Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges support from the Jean Monet module project “Transparency. Accountability. Responsibility. Governance. Europe. Trust. Sustainability” financed by the Erasmus+ program (101085395 – TARGETS – ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH).