The effect of decreasing interest rates on European banks’ earnings quality

The war conflict in the East Ukraine impacts the geopolitical security and stability of Europe and other countries of the world. So, there are the global effects of the war conflict in Ukraine. And the instability in Ukraine has its social consequences that influences the European development. The aim of the article is to identify and elaborate social effects of the war conflict in Ukraine and to get understanding of its influence on European stability, on position of Ukraine on European arena. The article has been prepared by using such methods as: analysis of Ukrainian and European research papers, comparison and generalization of the facts about war conflict in Ukraine. In the article social consequences of the war conflict in Ukraine, such as migration, unemployment, crime growth, decreasing of population and others have been studied. It has been described that social dimension of the war conflict in Ukraine has its influence on European stability and geopolitical situation, especially Ukrainian migration. At the end of the article the authors present the conclusions and the mechanism for solving the war conflict situation in Ukraine. Also, Ukraine needs an integrated approach in order to solve all economic and social problems in the country. Only integrated approach will allow to use available Ukrainian resources and advanced European experience to provide economic and social stability of the country.

The recent development of integrated reporting intends to address the limitations associated with corporate reporting practices. This paper aims to examine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between integrated reporting quality and financial performance. Secondary data was used, namely the integrated reports and annual financial statements of South African banks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) for 2010–2014. For the period 2005–2009, only the financial statements were used, since integrated reporting was not yet mandatory. The research design was longitudinal and it combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Descriptive statistics and Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) were used to explore the relationships between financial performance and integrated reporting quality. The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and earnings per share (EPS). However, there is no significant relationship between IRQ and Tobin’s q (Q-Ratio), IRQ and return on equity (ROE), IRQ and return on assets (ROA) as well as IRQ and economic value added (EVA). Moreover, there are no significant differences on the financial performance of the listed banks before and after the introduction of integrated reporting.

Corporate accelerators are on the rise and established companies from a diverse set of industries and regions have set up such startup support programs to predominantly pursue strategic goals. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the benefits of corporate accelerators from a corporate perspective and that of the participating startups. In order to do so, this in-depth single-site case study investigates the SAP Industry 4.0 Startup Program building upon an inductive research design with explorative nature. The authors qualitatively examine a newly established corporate accelerator program of one of the world’s largest enterprise software companies and provide valuable insights for both practitioners and scholars engaged in corporate accelerators. The benefits for startups participating in corporate accelerator programs can be linked to operational go-to-market acceleration in regards to product development, sales acceleration, as well as skill and knowledge development. Moreover, the startups receive benefits linked to strategic business development acceleration in the areas of strategy and business model improvements, pitching, financing, and strategic partner development. At the same time, corporate accelerators overall aim to increase the competitiveness of established companies running such programs by developing a product ecosystem and the brand, infusing startup culture into the organization and developing customer relationships.