Journal of Economics, Management and Trade

The advancement of internet technologies and the emergence of social media platforms have made the influence of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) more pronounced than ever before on consumers’ purchase decisions, especially young consumers who are more engaged with new technologies and social networks. Through social media platforms, young consumers nowadays are always connected to friends, families and organizations on smartphones, tablets or computers and actively look for eWOM before making purchase decisions. This study is aimed at examining the effect of perceived eWOM on the university enrolment intentions by the Saudi high school students mediated by the corporate image of the university. The sample comprised of 133 high school students studying in Saudi high secondary schools. The findings revealed that electronic word of mouth (eWOM) had a significant and positive association with the students’ enrolment intentions, and the corporate image mediates this relationship. This research’s findings and recommendations can largely help who are in charge of the private and public universities in Saudi Arabia to understand how eWOM shapes the university choices of students.

Organizational learning refers to the sum total of individual and collective learning through training programs, experience, experimentation and work interactions within the organization. Thus, sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to offer superior customer value on an enduring or consistent basis, a situation in which competitors are unable to easily imitate the firm's capacity for value creation. It is worrisome that most literary works have not clearly linked organizational learning with sustainable competitive advantages, as is the case with intellectual capacity (knowledge-based resources) using the resource-based view of the firm. A survey approach was the research design used with particular reference to the South East Zone of Nigeria. Findings revealed that organizational innovation leads to sustained competitive advantage. The Z-statistic value with the corresponding probability value confirms that the organization to a large extent draws its competitive strength jointly from the following factors: creation of new products, changes in way of production, changes in architecture of production, improved ways of sourcing supplies, opening new market opportunities, providing goods and services that others are not yet offering or are not able to copy, being able to offer products of comparable quality at a lower price, maintaining a configuration of resources and capabilities that cannot easily be imitated by competitors, being able to attract customers from competitors due to a positive corporate image and encouraging employees to improve their personal skills. The results total Z-scores in absolute term shows that the listed factors pose challenges to the organization in the process of achieving sustainable competitive advantage through innovation.  For further justification, we proceed to their joint significant analysis adopting the one sample Z-test. The proxies employed in this study for the measurement of sustainability agreed with resource-based view strategies on sustainability of competitive advantage in an unstable business environment.

Aims: The paper empirically investigated the effect of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards on earnings predictability of deposit money banks and insurance firms. 

Study Design: It adopted ex post facto research design.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in Nigeria and covered the period 2008 to 2014.

Methodology: The study used 196 firm-year observations obtained from annual reports of the deposit money banks and insurance firms quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It formulated two hypotheses and tested the hypotheses using random effect model of Generalized Least Square Method.

Results: The regression results revealed that the mandatory adoption of IFRS did not improve earnings predictability of firms in the services sector, based on earnings and cash flows. The results also showed that the earnings predictability in the post mandatory IFRS adoption period was not significantly different between DMBs and insurance firms.

Conclusions: Nigeria has relatively short IFRS experience and preparers are still contending with several evolving issues. The paper recommends sustained training for both the preparers, users and regulators so as to improve financial reporting and consequently enhance earnings predictability.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of ethical climate on creative problem-solving capacity. The paper also aims to identify how knowledge sharing and affective commitment influence this relationship.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This is quantitative descriptive study applied on human resource employees working in companies belong to four different sectors in Saudi Arabia.115 responses were used to test research model using Partial Least Square approach.

Findings: The results reveal that ethical climate indirectly affect creative problem-solving capacity through knowledge sharing. In addition, affective commitment moderates the relationship between knowledge sharing and creative problem-solving capacity.

Research Limitations/Implications: The study conducted only in Saudi Arabia so results cannot be generalized. The study demonstrates the role of ethical climate, knowledge sharing, and affective commitment on enhancing creative problem-solving capacity.

Originality/Value: The paper broaden knowledge on antecedents of creative problem-solving capacity. In addition, the paper extends the line of research on affective commitment by examining its moderating role on the relationship between knowledge sharing and creative problem-solving capacity.

The objective of this study is to shed light on the determinants of Open Economy in India. The paper discusses the move of allowance of Open Economy. The initial step took towards economy reform and liberalization took by the Central Government of India with respect to its reasons and effects on different sectors in India. The effect of policies introduced and applied in economy. Issues concerning economic policy, impact of the reforms on poverty, sectoral issues relating to agriculture, industry and infrastructure are briefly discussed. The paper is based on secondary data collected from different newspapers and online sources, mentioned in references.