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The aim of this paper is to document the impact of dividend policies on the downside risk in stock prices.

The authors use the data for non-financial firms from the MENA region to test our arguments by estimating the pooled OLS regressions. The data cover the period between 2010 and 2018.

This paper shows that firms with higher dividend payouts have significantly lower downside risk in their stock prices than the other firms. The findings of this paper are robust across various proxies of dividend policy and across various sub-samples. This paper contends that lower downside risk associated with the stock prices of firms paying high dividends is due to the fact that these firms have lower agency problems. Lower agency problems reduce the downside risk in stock prices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the prior research (covering the MENA region) overlooks the impact of dividend policy on the downside risk in stock prices. This paper fills this gap by documenting the relationship between the two by using the data for firms from the MENA region.

Does Shariah finance have any impact on the cost of debt? The existing literature on Shariah finance revolves around its effect on the macroeconomic level but remains poor when looking at its impact on the corporate level. The purpose of this paper is to strengthen the latter by examining the relationship between the Shariah compliance level and the interest rate.

The authors have used a sample of 600 companies, all Shariah-compliant but with different levels of compliance, from 2002 to 2015. A variable determining the level of Shariah compliance was created in accordance with the methodology by S&P 500 Shariah and its underlying index S&P 500; then, a Probit relapse study was conducted to identify the impact of Shariah level on the cost of debt.

Consistent with the theoretical predictions of the authors, the findings reveal that there is a positive relationship between the level of Shariah compliance and the cost of debt, suggesting that the higher the level of Shariah compliance of a firm, the higher the interest rate.

One important portfolio implication of this study is that the level of Shariah compliance plays a major rule in the cost of debt determination besides the firm-specific factors. The revealed results can be of interest to actors in the fields of corporate finance, corporate governance, decision-makers and investors.

Islamic finance has been one of the most studied and researched topics in the finance world. However, the interest of scholars thoroughly assessed the dynamics of Islamic banking. The effect of Shariah compliance on corporate finance can still be more explored. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a first attempt to capture the effect of Shariah compliance on the cost of debt through the use of a large scope to enrich the literature and at the same time analyzing the effects of Islamic characteristics on firms’ fundamentals.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, most higher education institutes shifted to online learning as the sole alternative to continuing education while mitigating the risks imposed by the pandemic. This has raised several concerns regarding students’ learning experience, satisfaction and academic achievement, particularly in countries where students have restrained technological resources (i.e. developing nations). The current research aims to investigate the key factors influencing students’ attitudes, satisfaction and academic achievement among university students in an emerging market context (i.e. Morocco). The moderating effect of students’ motivation to study online was also scrutinized.

The authors propose an integrated conceptual framework that combines the technology acceptance model (TAM) with the outcomes of prior literature related to online learning. Based on data collected from 850 Moroccan university students, the authors empirically tested the conceptual model using a partial least squares (PLS) estimation.

First, attitude toward online learning and satisfaction positively impact university students’ academic achievement; at the same time, attitude positively impacts students’ satisfaction with online learning. Second, students’ satisfaction and attitude toward online learning were found to be mainly influenced by instructor performance, ease of use of the online learning platform, information quality, interactivity and perceived usefulness (PU). Finally, student motivation acts as a moderator, e.g. students with higher motivation to learn online are more likely to develop a favorable attitude toward online learning and can, therefore, accomplish better academic performance.

The current study makes a considerable contribution to the literature by contributing to the on-going debate about the potentials and challenges of online learning, particularly in an emerging country where education remains a considerable challenge. The study findings can help higher education institutes gauge the quality of online education programs and design efficient strategies to develop high-quality online learning for students. Our findings have implications not only for educational institutions and instructors in developing markets but also for the vendors of online course delivery software.