Global Companies Research Articles

Dynamics of Indonesian stock market interconnection: Insights from selected ASEAN countries and global players during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

This study investigates the evolving dynamics of the Indonesian stock market in relation to selected ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines) and global economic players (the US, Japan, and China) during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing weekly data for the pandemic era (January 2020 – December 2021) and the post-pandemic period (January 2022 – December 2023), the ARDL technique reveals intricate relationships among these capital markets. Long-term analyses indicate that Singapore and the Philippines positively influenced Indonesia’s market during the pandemic. At the same time, China had a negative impact, highlighting heightened sensitivity and interconnectedness during crises. Since the pandemic, Malaysia, Singapore, the US, China, and Japan emerged as key positive influencers, with other countries showing insignificance. In the short term, during the pandemic, Malaysia, Thailand, and China had a significant positive impact on Indonesia’s capital market. However, only Malaysia continued to exert a significant influence on Indonesia after the pandemic. These findings provide valuable insights into the dynamic interactions shaping Indonesia’s stock market performance amidst global economic fluctuations and crises.

Sağlık Sektöründe Çalışan Adanmışlığı: Küresel Şirketlerin Sürdürülebilirlik Raporlarına Dayalı Bir Analiz

Sağlık sektöründe sürdürülebilirlik, kaynakların etkin ve adil bir şekilde yönetilmesi, hizmet kalitesinin korunması, çevresel etkilerin minimize edilmesi ve toplumsal refahın artırılması gibi faktörlerle bütünleşerek sektörün uzun vadeli başarısı açısından stratejik bir öneme sahiptir. Bu çerçevede, sağlık sektörü çalışanlarının adanmışlığı, sürdürülebilirlik hedeflerine ulaşma konusunda belirleyici bir faktör olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, küresel sağlık şirketlerinin sürdürülebilirlik hedeflerine ulaşmak için çalışan adanmışlığını nasıl teşvik ettiklerini sistematik bir biçimde belirlemektir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, 2023 Fortune Global 500 listesinde yer alan sağlık şirketlerinin sürdürülebilirlik raporları nitel içerik analizi yöntemiyle incelenmiştir. Bulgular, şirketlerin sürdürülebilirlik hedeflerine ulaşmak için iletişim ve katılım, performans değerlendirme ve ödüllendirme, liderlik geliştirme, çalışan sağlığı ve refah, çeşitlilik, eşitlik ve kapsayıcılık, sosyal sorumluluk ve gönüllülük temel kategorilerinde çalışan adanmışlığı stratejileri ve uygulamaları geliştirdiklerini ortaya koymaktadır.

The rise of Indo-German collaborative research: 1990–2022

Purpose This study aims to highlight the growth and development of Indo-German collaborative research over the past three decades. Moreover, this study encompasses an in-depth examination of funding acknowledgements to gain valuable insights into the financial support that underpins these collaborative endeavours. Together with this paper, the authors provide an openly accessible data set of Indo-German research papers for further and reproducible research activities (the “Indo-German Literature Dataset”). Design/methodology/approach The data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database from the year 1990 till the 30th of November 2022. A total of 36,999 records were retrieved against the used query. Acknowledged entities were extracted using a named entity recognition (NER) model specifically trained for this task. Interrelations between the extracted entities and scientific domains, lengths of acknowledgement texts, number of authors and affiliations, number of citations and gender of the first author, as well as collaboration patterns between Indian and German funders were examined. Findings The study reveals a consistent and increasing growth in the publication trend over the years. The study brings to light that Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Engineering prominently dominate the Indo-German collaborative research. The USA, followed by England and France, are the most active collaborators in Indian and German research. Largely, research was funded by major German and Indian funding agencies, international corporations and German and American universities. Associations between the first author’s gender and acknowledged entity were observed. Additionally, relations between entity, entity type and scientific domain were discovered. Practical implications The study paves the way for enhanced collaboration, optimized resource utilization and societal advantages by offering a profound comprehension of the intricacies inherent in research partnerships between India and Germany. Implementation of the insights gleaned from this study holds the promise of cultivating a more resilient and influential collaborative research ecosystem between the two nations. Originality/value The study highlights a deeper understanding of the composition of the Indo-German collaborative research landscape of the past 30 years and its significance in advancing scientific knowledge and fostering international partnerships. Furthermore, the authors provide an open version of the original WoS data set. The Indo-German Literature Data set consists of 22,844 papers from OpenAlex and is available for related studies like literature studies and scientometrics.

Factors Associated with Inclusion of Japan in Phase I Multiregional Clinical Trials in Oncology.

Early inclusion of Japan in the global development program could be a key factor in reducing the drug lag, making participation in phase I multiregional clinical trials (Ph. I MRCTs) an important consideration for oncology drug development in Japan. We aimed to investigate the factors associated with the inclusion of Japan in Ph. I MRCTs in oncology. We compared the trial design, target population, type of primary tested drug, trial conduct profile, and sponsor profile for Ph. I MRCTs with or without Japan conducted by the top 20 companies in more than two countries and started between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2020. One hundred and ninety-seven Ph. I MRCTs included Japan, and 697 did not. Detailed features of the Ph. I MRCTs in oncology were summarized, and several factors (trial design, target population, trial conduct profile, and sponsor profile) associated with inclusion of Japan in the Ph. I MRCTs were identified. It is important for Japanese subsidiaries within global pharmaceutical companies to closely communicate with the headquarters based on medical practice and unmet needs in Japan to join global development from an early stage. In addition, further efforts to attract emerging biopharmaceutical companies to Japan from the regulatory and/or political perspectives would be needed, thereby preventing drug lag in Japan.

Globalization and its Effect on the National Economy: The Albanian Case

Globalization is a widely discussed phenomenon that involves the free flow of goods, services, capital, and people across the world. It is mainly focused on economic and cultural aspects, among others. Globalization can be considered as a trend towards increasing of the interdependence and integration among the countries and regions of the globe. Globalization affects us all and leads a radical change in the human’s lives all over the planet, in the relations between them as well as in culture and other aspects related to institutions. So globalization increases incomes but simultaneously increases social inequalities, leaving some countries and groups of people behind. To put it simply, globalization can rapidly enrich a small group of capable individuals while impoverishing the larger population. This ultimately leads to a decline in living standards across the world. Globalization has both positive and negative sides, globalization also produces winners and losers, both between countries and within them, so there are losses and the lost, but the supporters of globalization do not accept this fact. In conditions when the economies are converging and that this phenomenon is generally acceptable, national governments should look forward to pay attention to the growth of domestic capital the pursuit of international financial reforms with the aim of making it possible to find solutions to help losses and the lost. National governments should have social protection policies on the top of their agenda as well as programs that will help as much as possible in the correcting of the unequal distribution, to help different groups in need. Labor migration is a negative phenomenon that caused by the globalization and damages the economy of small countries in transition as people capable of working move to developed countries for a better life than what they leave in their country of origin. The main indicators of the globalization of the national economy are producing for world markets, being part of the global financial markets, as well as foreign direct investments. Globalization is inevitable, under these conditions the duty of the national governments is to face of the pressure that leads to the subordination of the local economy to the global one. Globalization facilitates the connection of different parts of the world, reducing borders and allowing national economies to cater to global tastes. The decreased transportation costs also contribute to the intermingling of the global and local aspects, ultimately leading to the unification of regions. About globalism, there are currents for and against, while the opponents of globalism as well as those who call globalization the cause of poverty and inequality have not drawn up any alternative model for economic growth and development throughout the globe. Small countries like Albania require large international corporations or companies to invest in them to achieve comprehensive economic development, reduce unemployment, and increase well-being. Financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund also play a crucial role in this process. Received: 25 December 2023 / Accepted: 25 February 2024 / Published: 23 April 2024

Electronic Sales Partnership Network Management Information System Model Of In Multi-Level Marketing

Advertising is a commercial activity that has found its place in our lives since the earliest known periods of trade. The impact of developing technologies has led to changes in advertising techniques and media. An important part of trade has recently moved online. Similarly, advertising activities have also moved online. Advertising activities to be carried out online have superior and weak sides. One of the marketing methods adopted and accepted by businesses today is multi-level marketing. Another working method adopted by businesses is the sales revenue partnership system. Within the scope of our research, we have tried to put forward a working model that brings together the superior aspects of multi-level marketing and sales revenue partnership system organization. On the one hand, it is aimed to create a management information system model that accepts the advertising campaigns organized by advertisers and acts as an affiliate system, and on the other hand, it is aimed to create a management information system model for promoting these campaigns quickly and reliably on the internet through publishers who have come together with the multi-level marketing organization. The question "How can a management information system be designed for this type of working model?" was adopted as the main problem of the research and a literature review was conducted in this direction. Leading global and local companies adopting both working models were analyzed in terms of structure and terms used. With the information gathered, an application software based on the theoretical model was developed and tested in terms of all stakeholders and workflows. In cases where the objectives of the theoretical model could not be achieved, the model was revised and workflow problems were eliminated. After the successful operation of the application software, concrete results were presented on how this new working model should be managed as a management information system. Suggestions are presented for the superior aspects of the new model, as well as the points that may create vulnerabilities.

End-to-end tire defect detection model based on transfer learning techniques

Visual inspection of defective tires post-production is vital for human safety, as faulty tires can lead to explosions, accidents, and loss of life. With the advancement of technology, transfer learning (TL) plays an influential role in many computer vision applications, including the tire defect detection problem. However, automatic tire defect detection is difficult for two reasons. The first is the presence of complex anisotropic multi-textured rubber layers. Second, there is no standard tire X-ray image dataset to use for defect detection. In this study, a TL-based tire defect detection model is proposed using a new dataset from a global tire company. First, we collected and labeled the dataset consisting of 3366 X-ray images of faulty tires and 20,000 images of qualified tires. Although the dataset covers 15 types of defects arising from different design patterns, our primary focus is on binary classification to detect the presence or absence of defects. This challenging dataset was split into 70, 15, and 15% for training, validation, and testing, respectively. Then, nine common pre-trained models were fine-tuned, trained, and tested on the proposed dataset. These models are Xception, InceptionV3, VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50, ResNet152V2, DenseNet121, InceptionResNetV2, and MobileNetV2. The results show that the fine-tuned VGG19, DenseNet21 and InceptionNet models achieve compatible results with the literature. Moreover, the Xception model outperformed the compared TL models and literature methods in terms of recall, precision, accuracy, and F1 score. Moreover, it achieved on the testing dataset 73.7, 88, 80.2, and 94.75% of recall, precision, F1 score, and accuracy, respectively, and on the validation dataset 73.3, 90.24, 80.9, and 95% of recall, precision, F1 score, and accuracy, respectively.

Fast Friends: The Impact of Short-Term Visits on Firms’ Invention Outcomes

We examine how employees’ short-term visits between research and development (R&D) centers across different countries can enhance a firm’s invention outcomes through enhancing intraorganizational knowledge flows and mutual trust between scientists. We utilize the staggered introduction of the U.S. visa waiver program (VWP) to 41 countries in 1988–2023, which substantially increased short-term visits to the United States. Following the introduction of the VWP, global pharmaceutical companies with R&D centers in VWP countries showed a significant increase in invention quantity and scope compared with those without R&D centers in VWP countries. Notably, we find that the benefits of short-term visits are greater when there is an intermediate knowledge distance between firms’ R&D centers in the United States and VWP countries. If R&D centers have similar knowledge bases, efficient knowledge flows can occur even without visits. For centers with very different knowledge bases, short-term visits do not provide enough time for sufficient knowledge flows. Benefits of short-term visits are also magnified when the cultural distance is greater between firms’ R&D centers. Our findings highlight that even short-term face-to-face interactions can enhance the sharing of tacit knowledge and subsequent invention, thereby offering important managerial and policy implications. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.16081 .

Increasing Business Resilience of International Corporation in Current Environment

The issues of business resilience of international corporations and, in particular, enterprises operating in the nuclear field are becoming important in terms of modern political and economic instability in Russia caused by both the coronavirus pandemic and political factors especially. The purpose of the presented article is to justify the need to conduct a study of the business resilience of an international corporation and develop ways for its improvement using the example of the state corporation (SC) Rosatom. The objectives of the research are clarifying the concept of "business resilience", studying economic indicators that characterize the business resilience of an international corporation, conducting a study of the factors that form the business resilience of the SC Rosatom, as well as developing recommendations for increasing the business resilience of an international corporation using the example of the SC Rosatom. The concept of "business resilience" is clarified, indicators characterizing it are determined. A number of problems that international corporations faced in current environment were identifi ed based on the analysis of the economic security system of the SC Rosatom, as well as a study of the process of creating business resilience. Also, recommendations and actions were worked out to improve the business resilience of an international corporation using the example of the SC Rosatom. These recommendations are of applicable nature and can be used by nuclear enterprises.

Due diligence of transnational companies in India

Due diligence is the minimum framework for responsibility and reparation for damages in matters of human rights that may arise during and after the production processes of companies have been carried out. In other words, an alternate strategy for encouraging businesses to voluntarily engage with the externalities that their operations may create. This paper aims to evaluate the notion of due diligence in international corporations situated in India using a qualitative case study technique. In this regard, due diligence and its guiding principles are defined to assess the transparency and management responsibility of international companies in India. Then, cases related to positive and negative aspects of due diligence in this Asian country are presented. Finally, conclusions are given. The results lead to the conclusion that even though India is a desirable destination for international investments in industries like electronics, fashion, IT, finance, and the automotive sector, foreign firms have not yet demonstrated that they have complied with due diligence requirements. The most vulnerable population continues to be subjected to cycles of poverty, slavery, and mistreatment because some of the jobs paid by large corporations represent the only means of economic subsistence.

Preventing the Immense Increase in the Life-Cycle Energy and Carbon Footprints of LLM-Powered Intelligent Chatbots

Intelligent chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) have recently been sweeping the world, with potential for a wide variety of industrial applications. Global frontier technology companies are feverishly participating in LLM-powered chatbot design and development, providing several alternatives beyond the famous ChatGPT. However, training, fine-tuning, and updating such intelligent chatbots consume substantial amounts of electricity, resulting in significant carbon emissions. The research and development of all intelligent LLMs and software, hardware manufacturing (e.g., graphics processing units and supercomputers), related data/operations management, and material recycling supporting chatbot services are associated with carbon emissions to varying extents. Attention should therefore be paid to the entire life-cycle energy and carbon footprints of LLM-powered intelligent chatbots in both the present and future in order to mitigate their climate change impact. In this work, we clarify and highlight the energy consumption and carbon emission implications of eight main phases throughout the life cycle of the development of such intelligent chatbots. Based on a life-cycle and interaction analysis of these phases, we propose a system-level solution with three strategic pathways to optimize the management of this industry and mitigate the related footprints. While anticipating the enormous potential of this advanced technology and its products, we make an appeal for a rethinking of the mitigation pathways and strategies of the life-cycle energy usage and carbon emissions of the LLM-powered intelligent chatbot industry and a reshaping of their energy and environmental implications at this early stage of development.

Customer Engagement and the Corporate Sustainability Reputation of UNIQLO Impact Consumer’s Purchase Intention as Mediated by Customer Satisfaction

The ongoing debate on “fast fashion” and environmental impact has created a great divide amongst fashion industry players as well as consumers. The two sides of the narrative posits the upsides to retail manufacturing and consumer accessibility, whereas the other offers responsible consumption with long-term impact. Where fast fashion is defined as clothing manufactured at a rapid production cycle—from design to retail—-for the purpose of creating or leveraging trends. This innovation in the supply chain has enabled clothing companies to introduce capsule collections over a two-week period. The United Nations Environment Programme (2019) published an article citing the fashion industry as responsible for two to eight percent of global carbon emissions, and with implications expanding to a social context. With cognizance of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) 12, the conversation leads to a study on sustainable consumption and production patterns. One such company now participating in this conversation is UNIQLO. Considered among global players in the fast fashion sector, the company has decided to consciously depart from this approach towards a more sustainable model. This study focused on an investigation of the customer engagement and the corporate sustainability reputation of UNIQLO consumers as mediated by customer satisfaction. The main concepts include two independent variables of customer engagement, the dependent variable of purchase intention, and the mediator of customer satisfaction. The researchers intend to take a quantitative approach via survey questionnaire, adapting items from measurements scales in previous studies. A total of 449 responses will be obtained from students from Metro Manila, Philippines. The data obtained will undergo statistical tests, including Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson’s correlation, simple linear regression, multiple linear regression, and mediation analysis. The results highlighted, firstly, that the variables of customer engagement, corporate sustainability reputation, and customer satisfaction significantly correlate and impact purchase intention. Secondly, it indicated that customer engagement and corporate sustainability reputation can substantially influence purchase intention. And, thirdly, the observation on customer satisfaction partially mediating the relationship between customer engagement and corporate sustainability reputation on purchase intention. As we accelerate towards the United Nation’s call to action on the SDGs come 2030, this study may bear significance to fashion industry practitioners, consumers, the Academe, on legislation, and the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion towards shifting the narrative on the fashion sector.

Remote Monitoring and Data Collection for Decentralized Clinical Trials

Less than 5% of patients with cancer enroll in a clinical trial, partly due to financial and logistic burdens, especially among underserved populations. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a substantial shift in the adoption of decentralized trial operations by pharmaceutical companies. To assess the current global state of adoption of decentralized trial technologies, understand factors that may be driving or preventing adoption, and highlight aspirations and direction for industry to enable more patient-centric trials. The Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition, composed of patient advocacy, industry, government regulator, and academic medical center representatives, developed a survey directed to global biopharmaceutical companies of the coalition from October 1 through December 31, 2022, with a focus on registrational clinical trials. The data for this survey study were analyzed between January 1 and 31, 2023. Adoption of decentralized clinical trial technologies. The survey measured (1) outcomes of different remote monitoring and data collection technologies on patient centricity, (2) adoption of these technologies in oncology and all therapeutic areas, and (3) barriers and facilitators to adoption using descriptive statistics. All 8 invited coalition companies completed the survey, representing 33% of the oncology market by revenues in 2021. Across nearly all technologies, adoption in oncology trials lags that of all trials. In the current state, electronic diaries and electronic clinical outcome assessments are the most used technology, with a mean (SD) of 56% (19%) and 51% (29%) adoption for all trials and oncology trials, respectively, whereas visits within local physician networks is the least adopted at a mean (SD) of 12% (18%) and 7% (9%), respectively. Looking forward, the difference between the current and aspired adoption rate in 5 years for oncology is large, with respondents expecting a 40% or greater absolute adoption increase in 8 of the 11 technologies surveyed. Furthermore, digitally enabled recruitment, local imaging capabilities, and local physician networks were identified as technologies that could be most effective for improving patient centricity in the long term. These findings may help to galvanize momentum toward greater adoption of enabling technologies to support a new paradigm of trials that are more accessible, less burdensome, and more inclusive.

Polish Studies on Saturation Diving and Practical Application of Their Findings. Part III a Technical and Organisational Issues of the Implementation of Saturation Diving in Poland from the 1990s Onwards. Part 1

Abstract This article is another in a series of articles on the research and implementation of saturation diving technology in Poland. It discusses the specificities related to the implementation of this technology against the background of economic and historical conditions in our country. In Poland, the issue of saturation diving for the needs of the emerging offshore mining industry has been for over a dozen years dealt with by the Department of Diving Equipment and Technology of Underwater Works (Polish abbr. ZSNiTPP). In parallel, deep diving technologies were developed, in the first stage, as a basic diving technology and, since 1994, as complementary to ensure the full backup for saturation diving. Since 1995, saturation diving has become an everyday occurrence in the Polish economic zone of the Baltic Sea. This article shows the difficult path that the implementation of saturation diving took during a period of economic instability when the scale of the domestic offshore industry's facilities was small compared to global companies. Selected animators and participants in the implementation are recalled for two periods: one marked with the cooperation with the Italian underwater services company RANA and the other one, a period of implementation of long-term underwater works based on national capabilities. The article also considers the technical and organisational conditions for the implementation of saturation diving for the Polish mining industry. In 1990, the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Company Petrobaltic (today LOTOS) played one of the key roles in the implementation of saturation diving in our country. The implementation of saturation diving in Poland was linked to the only operational diving system of Italian production, the Af-2, which enabled scientific research related to the application of new technical solutions and testing under operational conditions, as well as contributed to the development of scientific, engineering, and medical staff for the Polish offshore industry. The company played one of the main roles in the implementation of saturation diving in our country The 1995 became a landmark year in the history of saturation diving in Poland, as well as in the Baltic Sea. Through this technology, the process of installing the first two underwater exploitation heads on production wells B3-7 and B3-10 was initiated. The saturation diving was possible thanks to the leasing of the Af-2 diving system by Petrobaltic and its subsequent purchase by the Naval Academy in 1998.This system, after a series of upgrades, is still in service today.

Fast Foods Consumption Impact on Physical Health of Adolescent Girls

The fast food industry in India became the fastest growing company in the last decade as many global companies entered the market to expand their market share and region of operations. Adolescents are an aggressive target of food marketing messages (primarily for unhealthy foods) and are susceptible to these messages due to their developmental vulnerabilities and the influence of peer groups. The negative impact on adolescent weight and insulin resistance was seen in all participants who ate frequently at fast food restaurants.

Unresolvation of the Palestine problem — the main threat to regional security

The article analyzes the situation in the Middle East in connection with a new largescale armed confl ict between Israel and radical Islamist groups. The author reminds readers of the origins and causes of the Palestinian-Israeli confl ict and gives a detailed picture of the dynamics of events in the former British mandate territory of Palestine after 1948. The main reason for the ongoing tension in Israel's relations with the Arab and Muslim world is the disregard by the Israeli authorities and the leaders of a number of Arab countries of the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly on the creation of the State of Palestine. The ongoing occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and Lebanese Shebaa farms by the Israeli armed forces does not help to strengthen confi dence in Tel Aviv on the part of neighboring Arab countries. The author believes that the main goals of the attack on Israel by Hamas militants and Islamic Jihad (banned in the Russian Federation) on October 7, 2023 were, fi rstly, to attract the attention of regional and global players to the Palestinian problem, and secondly, to demonstrate the increased military capabilities of Hamas and the vulnerability of Israel, and thirdly, a slowdown or complete disruption of the process of further normalization of Israel’s relations with Arab countries. In addition, Palestinian radicals believed that a successful military operation against Israel could lead to an increase in fi nancial, economic, political and military assistance to Hamas from its supporters and sponsors. The author notes the growing involvement of a number of regional and extra-regional players in the armed confl ict in the Gaza Strip (Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, USA, EU countries). The article also notes the limited capabilities of UN institutions and other international organizations at this stage for a comprehensive and fair Middle East settlement.

European foreign language policies, national language testing and ambivalence towards the introduction of the logics of standardisation

Educational policies and priorities shaped at the supranational level by European and global agencies and players impact the processes of national policymaking in complex ways. In this study, recontextualisations of European foreign language education and language assessment policies in the Greek policy and pedagogical contexts are examined. Specifically, the politics of foreign language education and assessment are explored with a focus on English language teaching in public schools and the expected introduction of the Greek National Certificate of Language Proficiency (known as KPG) which is a state-led testing system formed by adopting the six-level scale of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages. Drawing on Bernstein’s theory of symbolic control and pedagogic discourse, it is shown that extensive recontextualisations of European (and global) discourses on English language teaching and assessment in the Greek context project competency and outcome-based curricula and learning as the desirable pedagogic model. Furthermore, attempts to introduce certification procedures in public schools derive from market-driven discourses that sanction a standardised system of student performance while the implications of standardisation for schools, teachers and students alike are downplayed.

How does excess cash affect corporate financial performance?

PurposeThis article analyzes the moderating role of investment opportunities, business risk and agency costs in shaping the nexus between excess cash and corporate performance.Design/methodology/approachThis research uses dynamic regression models (two-step system generalized method of moments) to analyze the data related to 200 Turkish companies listed on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) for the years between 2009 and 2020.FindingsThe findings indicate that when excess cash increases, the financial performance deteriorates only for firms with lower investments compared to firms with more investments. In addition, investment contributes to better financial performance for firms that hold cash surplus, whereas the influence of investment is insignificant for firms that have insufficient cash. Agency costs of equity exacerbate the adverse impact of excess cash on financial performance while agency costs of debt mitigate this effect. Excess cash reduces the financial performance of highly leveraged firms. However, this impact becomes insignificant when debt ratio decreases. The findings also show that investment has more significant role than business risk in building the precautionary motive to hold cash.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this article are limited to the Turkish market. Future research is still needed in other emerging markets to compare the results and reveal more about the effect of excess cash on firm performance, and how other factors can change this effect.Practical implicationsThe findings verify the increased significance of excess cash in the presence of investment opportunities and difficulties in accessing external funds. Nevertheless, the role of the equity related agency problem in reducing the benefits of cash surplus confirms the necessity of policies that support corporate governance, especially in emerging markets.Originality/valueThis article, according to the knowledge of author, is the first to examine the role of agency costs associated with debt and equity, and the compound effect of investment opportunities and business risk on the nexus between excess internal funds and corporate financial performance in emerging markets.

Research on the Correlation of Safety Risk of Railway Bridge Construction Based on Meta-Analysis

China has emerged as a prominent global player in the field of railways, with numerous railway construction projects spanning across diverse locations. Railway bridges, as a crucial component of railway construction, warrant significant attention. Meta-analysis, a statistical method that systematically synthesizes research findings, has been utilized to summarize and compare the results of safety risk management studies pertaining to railway bridge construction in China. By integrating social network analysis and evidence-based assessment of the literature, this study explores the interrelationships among risk factors. Within a specific railway bridge construction project, various safety risk factors may originate from common sources, including environmental factors, material and equipment factors, technical factors, management factors, personnel factors, and bridge-specific factors. Notably, there exists coupling among these security risk factors, whereby the presence or occurrence of one factor can influence the probability or severity of consequences associated with other factors. The results reveal that safety risk factors in railway bridge construction accumulate and propagate, thereby impacting the efficacy of safety risk management. Moreover, these factors are significantly influenced by the complexities inherent in the geo-meteorological and social-technical systems. This finding provides valuable insights for innovations in security risk management practices and offers suggestions for future innovation pathways.

The Influence of Internal Corporate Social Responsibility Factors on the Innovation Climate of Employees in the Healthcare Industry

This study examined the relationship between employee innovation and employee-initiated corporate social responsibility (CSR) elements in medical diagnostic enterprises in Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research identified nine variables of employee-driven CSR, including communication, empowerment, and work satisfaction. Theoretical framework of the study based on theory of corporate social responsibility and expectancy theory of motivation. It evaluated their effects on the atmosphere for employee innovation using statistical analysis by using SPSS and after collecting data by using a survey questionnaire. The study population was employees working in the healthcare industry in Pakistan. The findings showed that employee-driven CSR and innovation were significantly correlated, with work satisfaction having the most impact. Overall, this quantitative study provides important insights for both theoretical understanding and practical application in fostering innovation through CSR initiatives. It emphasizes the critical role of job satisfaction as a key motivating factor for innovation within the framework of employee-driven CSR in the medical diagnostics sector.