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This study aims to provide insights into the drivers of student engagement in food waste reduction strategies in educational institutions. The proposed research model integrates social media celebrities' attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness with the value belief norm (VBN) theory to explore their influence on students' behaviour towards food waste reduction.

The data were collected from 417 students enrolled in public and private universities in the Riyadh and Macca regions of Saudi Arabia to evaluate the proposed model. The partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyse the responses.

The results showed that VBN theory's components, such as values (biospheric, altruistic and egoistic), beliefs (new ecological paradigm, awareness of consequences and aspirations of responsibility) and norms significantly and positively influence food waste reduction behavioural intentions. It was also discovered from the results that social media celebrities' attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness influence food waste reduction behavioural intentions.

This study contributes significantly to the literature by identifying factors influencing student engagement in food waste reduction strategies in educational institutions where limited research exists. It fills this research gap by developing a novel theoretical framework integrating social media celebrities' attributes with the VBN theory to explain these factors.

This paper aims to address the need for a more in-depth empirical investigation of exploring the link between the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and different aspects of customer behavior in a developing country. This paper develops a research framework and assesses the mediating role of trust, customer-company identification (CCI) and electronic-service quality (E-SQ) between customer perceptions of CSR and customer loyalty.

Working with a sample of 280 banking customers in Pakistan, partial least square based structural equation modeling is used to test the conceptual model.

Surprisingly, results suggest that CSR is not directly related to customer loyalty, which is contradictory to previously established findings conducted in developed countries. Thus, confirming a full mediation of CCI, E-SQ and trust in enhancing the effect of CSR on customer loyalty. The study also confirms that CSR is positively related to E-SQ, and E-SQ also directly affects CCI.

Banks should adhere to honest CSR practices and effectively communicate and advertise these practices to increase awareness and knowledge among the customers. Similarly, banks should advance in technological expertise to generate customer identification, which then leads to their loyalty.

Previous studies conferred short-term customer’s reactions, such as purchase intention and brand image. Still, this research discusses the long-term effect of CSR on customer behavior, such as the loyalty of the customers. Moreover, this is the pioneer study that investigates how CSR actions influence customer perceptions about E-SQ and how electronic services affect customer identification with a bank.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether information asymmetry mediates the relationship between disclosure and cost of equity.

The study is based on a sample of 500 companies listed in Bombay Stock Exchange for a period of six years from 2015 to 2021. Panel data regression is applied to analyze the relationship between voluntary disclosure, cost of equity and information asymmetry. Mediation effect of information asymmetry is tested with the help of Barron and Kenny’s (1986) approach.

Findings suggest that in case of Indian companies, disclosure reduces cost of equity directly and indirectly through mediation of information asymmetry. Indian investors value credible information for better estimation of future returns, supporting the validity of estimation risk and stock market liquidity hypothesis, which proposes an inverse relationship between disclosure and cost of equity.

Managers can use the findings to strategize their disclosure policy and secure funds at lower cost. Shareholders can monitor managerial actions by demanding credible disclosures. Government too can encourage voluntary disclosure by providing special incentives to the firms.

This study is a pioneering research that investigates the mediating influence of information asymmetry between disclosure and cost of equity with reference to the Indian corporate landscape.

This study examines the impact of board composition and ownership structure variables on dividend payout policy in Saudi Arabian firms. In particular, it aims to determine the effect of board size, independence and meeting frequency, in addition to chief executive officer (CEO) duality, and state, institutional, managerial, family, and foreign ownership on both the propensity to pay dividends and dividend per share for Saudi-listed firms over the period 2016–2019.

The paper captures dividend policy with two measures, propensity to pay dividends and dividend per share, and employs a range of regression methods (logistic, probit, ordinary least squares (OLS) and random effects regressions) along with a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model for robustness to account for heteroscedasticity, serial correlation and endogeneity issues. The data set is a large panel of 280 Saudi-listed firms over the period 2016 to 2019.

The results underline the importance of board composition and the ownership structure in explaining variations in dividend policy across Saudi firms. More specifically, there is a positive relationship between the propensity to pay dividends and board-meeting frequency, institutional ownership, firm profitability and firm age, while the degree of board independence, firm size and leverage exhibit a negative relation. Further, dividend per share is positively related to board meeting frequency, institutional ownership, foreign ownership, firm profitability and age, while it is negatively related to CEO duality, managerial ownership, and firm leverage. There is no evidence that family ownership exerts an impact on dividend payout policy in Saudi firms. The findings of this study support agency, signalling, substitute and outcome theories of dividend policy.

This study offers an important insight into the board characteristic and ownership structure drivers of dividend policy in the context of an emerging market. Moreover, the study has important implications for firms, managers, investors, policymakers, and regulators in Saudi Arabia.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing evidence on four board and five ownership characteristic drivers of dividend policy in Saudi Arabia as an emerging stock market, thereby improving on less comprehensive previous studies. The study recommends that investors consider board composition and ownership structure characteristics of firms as key drivers of dividend policy when making stock investment decisions to inform them about the propensity of investee firms to pay dividends and maintain a given dividend policy.

This study aims to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on firm performance, considering both firm profitability and firm value in an emerging market, India.

The study examines the effect of CSR disclosure on firm performance using panel regressions for the final sample that consists of 386 companies listed in the BSE 500 index, India. It covers all major players in the capital market for ten years from 2007–2016.

The result shows a trend toward the negative effect of CSR disclosure on firm profitability and firm value in India; this negative effect is mainly influenced by environmental disclosure score and social disclosure score. An adverse effect of firm profitability and firm value on CSR disclosure is also observed to underline the inverse relationship.

The study provides implications to consumers, investors, managers and policymakers. Firstly, consumers have to be more aware of CSR initiatives of companies, and they should support those companies to do more. Secondly, investors can use the ESG disclosure score as a signal for the level of CSR activities, which negatively affects firm performance. Thirdly, managers have to consider CSR more seriously and spend CSR amount wisely after proper research and not just to meet the mandatory limit. In addition, managers have to take necessary actions to make the public aware of the CSR activities of the company to gain an advantage in the future. Finally, policymakers have to give more emphasis on the promotion of CSR activities to reach the ultimate consumers who lie in the remote areas of the country, and more awareness has to be given to them regarding CSR activities.

The findings contribute to the literature by providing insights on CSR disclosure and firm performance relationship in India, an emerging market with increasing international attention where such studies are scant and less clear, especially after the amendments in the Companies Act, 2013. Furthermore, the measurement of CSR disclosure using environmental, social and governance (ESG) score is novel in the Indian context.

This study aims to investigate the link between audit committee characteristics and the liquidity of initial public offerings (IPOs) in Malaysia, which is an emerging economy in Southeast Asia. Another purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of the revised Malaysian code of corporate governance (MCCG) on the link between audit committee characteristics and IPO liquidity.

The final sample consists of 304 Malaysian IPOs listed in 2002–2017. This study uses ordinary least squares regression method to analyse the data. To confirm this study’s findings, a hierarchical or four-stage regression analysis is used to compare the t-values of the main and moderate regression models.

The findings show that audit committee characteristics (size and director independence) have a positive and significant relationship with IPO liquidity. Also, the revised MCCG positively moderates the relationship between audit committee characteristics and IPO liquidity.

This study’s findings indicate that companies with higher audit committee independence have a more effective monitoring mechanism that mitigates information asymmetry, thus reducing adverse selection issues during share trading.

Policymakers could use the results of this study in developing policies for IPO liquidity improvements. Additionally, the findings are useful for traders and investors in their investment decision-making. For companies, the findings highlight the crucial role of the audit committee as part of the control system that monitors corporate governance.

To the authors’ knowledge, this work is a pioneering study in the context of a developing country, specifically Malaysia that investigates the impact of audit committee characteristics on IPO liquidity. Previously, the link between corporate governance and IPO liquidity had not been investigated in Malaysia. This study also contributes to the IPO literature by providing empirical evidence regarding the moderating effect of the revised MCCG on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and IPO liquidity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the amount of trust customers have in Somali Islamic banks. Furthermore, the role of gender in CSR activities and Islamic bank clientele is evaluated.

Throughout February and March 2022, 410 clients of Islamic banks in Somalia were surveyed using a questionnaire. The partial least squares approach and the structural equation model are applied to examine the data.

Findings indicate that all variables of CSR activities, such as social product, social legal, social needs, social environment and social employees’ responsibility, are influential and significant predictors of trust in Islamic banks in Somalia. Gender inequalities moderate the relationship between social product, social needs, social environment, social employee and trust. Conversely, only social legal responsibility was unaffected by gender differences in Somalia regarding people’s trust in Islamic banks.

A sample from a developing country such as Somalia is useful for shedding light on the outcomes of consumers’ perceptions of and trust in businesses’ CSR in the developing world. Furthermore, this study contributes to knowledge regarding CSR and how it can help the Islamic banking industry. Its findings will be useful to policymakers and regulatory bodies in the banking industry in their efforts to improve CSR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of its kind about the understudied relationship among customer trust, CSR efforts and gender in Somalia context. Furthermore, it investigates how gender specifically moderates CSR in the Islamic banking sector in a developing country.

This paper presents a citation-based systematic literature review in the field of sustainability management for Arab countries. The aim is to assist potential researchers in this field to identify existing themes, gaps and other relevant information necessary for the further development of the research area.

A comprehensive list of keywords has been searched in the SCOPUS database to identify all the relevant articles in the field of sustainability management in Arab countries. After applying the relevant restriction criteria, manual screening of titles, abstracts and keywords was performed to identify the final sample. The final sample consists of 410 articles published in 218 different journals by 907 authors. Bibliometrix R-tool was used to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the selected articles.

Findings indicate a growing trend of publications on sustainability management in the generally understudied Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Besides publication trends, citation analysis presents citation trends, most influential journals and authors, and most cited articles on sustainability management in Arab countries. Theme identification is shown through analyses of conceptual and intellectual structures. Finally, social networks in the field are discussed.

Information presented in this paper informs interested researchers about the current state in the field, relevant sources of knowledge, important literature on the topic, relevant authors and other valuable particulars. This systematic literature review helps researchers make further valuable contributions to the field of sustainability management in Arab countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper offers a first comprehensive citation-based systematic literature review on sustainability management in Arab countries.

Taking a dynamic endogenous perspective, this study aims to examine neglected endogeneity issues in the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand value and the relationship’s moderation by corporate governance.

The study uses the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method on 990 samples of the 110 most valuable listed companies published by the World Brand Lab for 2013–2021 to empirically test the two-way interactive endogenous relationship between CSR and brand value.

The findings reveal that increasing investment in CSR increases brand value in the current period, which prompts companies to reduce investment in social responsibility, resulting in a decline in future brand value. Concerning the moderating effect of corporate governance variables, the size of the board of directors and the board’s proportion of independent directors positively regulate the relationship between CSR and brand value. By contrast, the proportion of executive shareholdings has a negative impact.

This study’s findings complement previous studies on endogeneity in the relationship between CSR and brand value, and enrich the literature on corporate governance, CSR and brand value as a whole. In addition, the study uses the 3SLS method, which avoids endogeneity problems and eliminates the one-sidedness of the subjective selection of instrumental variables.

This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance structures on environmental disclosure practices in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

The research model uses a panel data set of 121 publicly listed (non-financial and non-utility) firms from 11 MEA countries over the period 2010-2017, uses alternative dependent variables and regression techniques and is applied to various sub-groups to improve robustness.

The empirical results strongly indicate that MEA firms with high governance disclosures tend to have better environmental disclosure practices. The board characteristics of gender diversity, size, CEO/chairperson duality and audit committee size impact positively on MEA firms’ voluntary environmental disclosures, whereas board independence has a negative influence.

This study advances research on the relationship between corporate governance structures and environmental disclosure practices in MEA countries, but is limited to firms for which data are available from Bloomberg.

The results have important practical implications for MEA policymakers and regulators. The positive impact of board gender diversity on firms’ environmental disclosures, policy reforms should aim to increase female directors. MEA corporations aiming to be more environmentally friendly should recruit women to top managerial positions.

This is thought to be the first study to provide insights from the efficiency and legitimation perspectives of neo-institutional theory to explain the relationship between MEA firms’ internal governance structures and environmental disclosures.