Mohammad Naushad

The purpose of the present study is to test how do the four important psychological antecedents, namely need for achievement (nAch), propensity to risk (PtR), self-confidence (SeC), internal locus of control (IlC) are mediated by the entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) to predict the entrepreneurial intention (EI) in a traditionally oil-based Saudi economy striving for economic diversification. Hypotheses are tested by applying the partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) to a sample of 282 undergraduate business students (male and female) collected from a public university of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results suggest that psychological variables and self-efficacy play a fundamental role in enhancing entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Saudi students. Personality-related variables have direct influence over EI in other context, but in Saudi context, psychological variables are necessary but not sufficient to develop entrepreneurial intention unless combined with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has a strong mediating effect between psychological variables and entrepreneurial intentions in Saudi context.

The current study is aimed at analyzing the impact of intellectual capital on the performance of Sharia-compliant banks in Saudi Arabia for the period 2013–2018. The intellectual capital efficiency has been measured by applying a widely-used proxy to intellectual capital, i.e., Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC). A multiple linear regression method, based on panel data using the pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), was exerted. Regression equations were obtained to determine the impact of VAIC and its components (Human Capital Efficiency (HCE), Structural Capital Efficiency (SCE), and Capital Employed Efficiency (CEE)) on the financial performance of banks, designated as Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). The study has found out that VAIC has a statistically significant impact on the financial performance of Sharia-compliant banks in Saudi Arabia. But VAIC components fail to have a significant impact on ROE. However, these components significantly affect ROA. The study concludes that Sharia-compliant banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia should pay particular attention to Intellectual Capital (IC) in general and Human Capital (HC), Structural Capital (SC), and Employed Capital (EC) in particular to increase Return on Assets and financial performance as a whole.

COVID-19 has impacted the world economy in an unprecedented manner; the financial markets indicate the same. This spontaneous event landed most of the stock markets into extreme volatility. Large capital outflow and extreme rapid fall were seen among almost all the world financial markets. Though similar trend prevailed everywhere during this pandemic, the impact could not be accumulated in absolute terms. Using the data of five stock markets, the current study endeavored to draw an impact of COVID-19 on major stock exchanges. The study uses wavelet coherency analysis on one-year daily data from June 2019 to May 2020 of five stock markets: Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE), NASDAQ, Tokyo Stock Exchange (Nikkei), and Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is observed that there are time-variation and scale-variation in co-movements between the studied markets. During the crisis, the co-movement concentrates on a short time scale, even for two days. These results have significant implications for international investors, which will help them in portfolio diversification with time elements. All the stock markets under study have indicated co-movement at different time scales and frequencies with varying cross-power levels. However, the concentration of co-movement is found the most between the UK and the US stock markets. It is the least between Japan and the UK. In BSE, co-movement at shorter time scales started late. NASDAQ is leading only in one case, i.e., Shanghai Stock Exchange. BSE is not leading any stock index. LSE is in the leading position in all four cases. It has also been observed that co-movement started to concentrate at a shorter time scale as soon as the impact of the crisis increased.

Organizations place great value on corporate social responsibility (CSR), as it has been found to influence customer attitudes and intentions. This study analyzed the impact of CSR on consumers’ purchase intentions. The significance of this study arises from the fact that all progressive companies are increasing their expenditure on CSR activities. In this study, purchase intention was considered as a dependent variable, while trust, ethical, and legal CSR activities were the independent variables. Data for the study was collected from 210 randomly chosen respondents from amongst consumers of Delhi and National Capital Region of India. The data, analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling, found that trust, ethics, and legal CSR activities directly impacted consumer purchase intentions. These results indicate that legal factors do not significantly influence the corporate decision on spending on CSR activities. On the other hand, ethical factors and trust factors significantly influence the corporate decision on expenditure on CSR activities. The findings highlight companies’ requirements to be conscious of their social image. Probable limitations of the study could include sample size and the number of variables chosen.