Tunisian Firms Research Articles

Corporate social responsibility and innovation: understanding the role of intellectual capital

PurposeThis study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on innovation, considering the role of the three dimensions of intellectual capital (human capital, structural capital and relational capital). Specifically, the analysis explores the direct effect of CSR and intellectual capital on innovation, the effect of CSR on intellectual capital, and the mediating effect of intellectual capital on the relationship between CSR and innovation.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a sample of 101 Tunisian firms operating in various industries. The conceptual model of direct and indirect effects was tested with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4 software.FindingsCSR is positively related to innovation, as well as all dimensions of intellectual capital. Structural capital is the only dimension of intellectual capital that has a significant effect on innovation. CSR affects innovation through its impact on structural capital.Originality/valueMost studies have examined the direct effect of CSR on innovation in firms in developed countries. In contrast, this research sheds light on the mediating role of intellectual capital in this relationship, underlining the specific role of human capital, relational capital and structural capital. In addition, the study focuses on a developing country, which thus differentiates it from previous studies.

Assessment of Financial Information Quality: Evidence from Tunisian Context

The present paper aims at assessing the financial information quality within Tunisian firms. We analyzed a sample annual data of 78 financial and non-financial Tunisian listed companies. We use the level of discretionary accruals and if the firm restate its financial statement or not as proxies of financial information quality. Our main results show that the financial information quality is globally low. We note a high level of discretionary accruals within financial firms compared to non-financial pears. We also find that financial firms are less likely to restate their financial statements compared to those of non-financial firms.

Chief Executive Officer Political Connection and Firms' Investment Horizon: Evidence from Tunisian Firms

Chief Executive Officer Political Connection and Firms' Investment Horizon: Evidence from Tunisian Firms

DO ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT AND INNOVATION INFLUENCE EXPORT INTENSITY? FIRM-LEVEL EVIDENCE FROM TUNISIA

This study examines the influence of environmental commitment (EC) on Tunisian firms’ export intensity and utilising the resource-based view (RBV) framework. Using firm-level data from the 2020 World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), it explores the direct and indirect effects of EC on export intensity through product and process innovation. The findings highlight that EC plays a crucial role in fostering both product and process innovation, underscoring its strategic significance in driving overall innovation within firms. Additionally, EC and product innovation are identified as key factors positively contributing to exports, emphasising the importance of a strong EC orientation and a focus on product innovation for enhancing export activities. Notably, the presence of quality certification influences the relationship between EC and process innovation, weakening the impact of EC in that context. This finding underscores the nuanced dynamics between EC, process innovation, and quality certification. Overall, this study highlights EC as a strategic approach for enhancing firm innovation and promoting export orientation, providing empirical evidence and insights derived from the specific context of Tunisia. Embracing EC and aligning it with innovation and export strategies enables firms and policymakers to foster sustainable growth, enhance competitiveness, and contribute to a greener and more inclusive future.

Corruption and corporate innovation in Tunisia during an economic downturn

This article studies the innovation behavior of the Tunisian firms using the database collected by the World Bank Enterprise Surveys in 2020. The modeling strategy used allowed us to assess the adequacy of the main regression models and the robustness of the results. Besides the firms’ characteristics, we highlight the role of institutions by considering the infrastructure and corruption that affect the firms’ incentives to innovate. We show that the firm innovation is negatively related to the gifts or informal payments to public officials to gain advantages in the drafting of laws, decrees, regulations or other binding government decisions. Petty corruption, by officials at lower levels, can grease the wheels of innovation activities, speed up the procedures for obtaining the required administrative permits and “get things done”, since the Tunisian economy is characterized by a relatively mediocre quality of governance.

Do talent management practices improve organizational resilience? An empirical study within Tunisian companies

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to study the impact of talent management practices on organizational resilience in Tunisian firms in times of the sanitary crises due to COVID-19.Design/methodology/approachA hypothetico-deductive approach is adopted. First, it is hypothesized that four talent management practices positively affect organizational resilience. Then, the hypotheses were tested by using quantitative methods. Data were collected through questionnaires and analyzed with PLS-SEM techniques.FindingsResults show that talent identification positively affects organizational resilience operationalized through the three dimensions of agility, integrity and robustness. Talent development and talent succession planning positively influence the firms' agility only, whilst talent retention had no effect on the three organizational resilience dimensions.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research may be helpful for human resources managers to recognize among talent management practices those that are mostly associated with organizational resilience and its dimensions. This could help them revise some talent management practices and implement those that are lacking to ensure strong and resilient firms, especially in a context characterized by the occurrence of crises of different natures.Originality/valueThe literature review showed that talent management practices and organizational resilience relationships are understudied. This research empirically highlights the relevance of the linkage between them. It contributes to the rare existent works by identifying a significant effect of talent identification on all organizational resilience dimensions and a positive effect of talent development and succession planning on agility.

COVID-19 outbreak and earnings management practice: case of Tunisia

PurposeThis article attempts to investigate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the earnings management (EM) for listed Tunisian companies.Design/methodology/approachThe study focuses on both accrual-based and real EM (REM) practices. With panel data, the authors employ the multiple regression approach and the generalized least squares (GLS) estimate method. The sample is made up of 41 listed companies observed from the first half of 2016 to the second half of 2020.FindingsThis study finds that, during the pandemic period, Tunisian firms use decreasing income discretionary accruals. Also, with regard to REM, the COVID-19 variable displays a negative response coefficient but of lesser magnitude.Research limitations/implicationsThis study's findings can help Tunisian authorities, listed companies and market investors to better understand EM practices during a negative shock and to better understand the various internal and external factors influencing the quality of financial reporting. These findings may contribute, also, significant EM implications for scholars interested in other emerging markets. As limitations, the authors point out mainly to the small sample size used in this study and that the authors used a single model, namely the modified Jones model (1995), to measure the accounting EM. Also, the authors used a binary variable as a proxy for the COVID- 19 pandemic.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, it is the first in Tunisia, if not in Africa, to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on EM practices. Second, this study builds on previous work by examining both the accrual-based EM and the REM.

Human Capital, Social Capital and Business Model Design: Empirical Evidence of Tunisian Firms

Human Capital, Social Capital and Business Model Design: Empirical Evidence of Tunisian Firms

The impact of financial performance and firm characteristics on earnings management: Case of Tunisian Companies

The purpose of this study is to test the effect of financial performance on earnings management, with the presence of a firm’s specific characteristics, in a non-credible financial information context such as Tunisia. A panel data approach, namely multiple regression analysis, was applied on a sample of 30 firms operating in different sectors and observed over the period 2012–2021. Two estimation methods, the fixed effects and random effects models, are used. To choose the best estimation method, the Breusch-Pagan and Hausman tests were used.The results indicate, on the one hand, the financial performance measured by Tobin’s Q and Marris’ ratio, positively affects earnings management. On the other hand, the variables of firm characteristics, such as financial leverage, asset structure, growth rate and sectoral affiliation, decrease earnings manipulation, and firm size and managers’ ownership have no effect on earnings management. This means that managers of Tunisian firms manipulate their results to improve the level of performance and their financial sate. This manipulation is driven by goals other than those observed in other contexts and related to the financial market. This finding contributes to the literature on the association between several features of earnings management and firm performance, with the effect of firm characteristics.

The impact of digital marketing on the performance of firms in Tunisia

The objective of this study is to examine digital marketing in Tunisia and its benefits as a business model used by Tunisian businesses and to determine the influence of digital transformation on the performance of firms in Tunisia. In addition, the objective of our empirical survey is to define the capacities and skills essential to the success of a digital transformation. The study focused on: (1) establishing the extent to which digital marketing has been adopted by firms in Tunisia and (2) determining the influence of digital transformation on the open innovation performance of Tunisian firms. The result of the integration of technological power into the management of enterprises gives rise to a digitalisation that disrupts marketing strategies, significantly contributing to the creation of new business models. The results revealed that the use of digital marketing is significantly linked to three open innovation performance metrics: increased revenue, acquisition of new customers and retention of existing customers. This open innovation performance also has a positive and significant relationship with the use of digital channels by customers, showing that customers using digital channels in their purchasing process will tend to buy, consume and be more loyal than customers using the classic channels.

Effects of IS Quality on Firm Performance from the Perspective of a Business Executive: The Role of Business Strategy

Given the lack of knowledge on IS success evaluation at the organizational level, the purpose of this study is to integrate the resource-based view, process-oriented approach, IS success models into an integrated model to examine the relationship between the IS quality and its performance impacts. This study also examines the moderating effect of the firm’s business strategy on this relationship. The model is tested on a sample of 102 Tunisian firms using the structural equation modeling method. The results show that business-process performance and individual performance played a role of partial mediation in the relationship between IS quality and organizational performance. The results also indicate that the mediation process between IS quality and organizational performance via the business-process performance differs depending on the business strategy. This article is one of a few early efforts that address the role of business strategy in explaining the performance impacts of IS quality.

Do Tunisian firms manage their earnings around the corporate tax rate cut?

Earnings management (EM, hereafter), which affects the quality of corporate financial information, continues to receive increased attention from practitioners and legislators. The paper deals with this topic and attempts to investigate the EM practices around the tax rate cut following the Tunisian tax reform of 2021. Evidence of EM is examined by focusing on both accounting and real EM. From a sample of 61 Tunisian public offering companies, observed from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2021, the results estimated from the system GMM model argue that this tax rate reduction constitutes a real incentive to shift income from the period of higher tax rate (2020) towards the period of lower tax rate (2021) achieving significant savings for corporations. Furthermore, the results show that Tunisian firms have both accounting and real EM downward in the second half of 2020, and that the former is sharper. For the first half of 2021, the results show a joint use of accruals management and real management upwards, and that the latter is broader. These findings may be useful to tax policy-makers in the application of tax rules put in place to counter aggressive tax evasion. In addition, external auditors and tax auditors should consider the period around the change in the corporation tax rate to be more suspect.

Determinants of the Export Performance of Tunisian SMEs: Analysis Trough the MICMAC Method

Exporting companies survive in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable environment, characterized by technological development and acute competition linked to the globalization of economic activities. Exporting has a positive impact on the trade balance of countries, especially in times of crisis, on the level of employment and on the improvement of the standard of living in general. The challenges faced by exporting companies and the actions they need to take in order to be more successful must be systematically addressed. The authors of this article have highlighted the key factors that can help companies to be more competitive and successful in exporting, based on theoretical approaches carried out in this field. The MICMAC method was used to identify the determining factors that can influence the performance of companies in exporting. The variables used in this research were identified based on the review of existing literature. 21 variables were collected and classified into 7themes. The results of the structural analysis were prioritized by performing a sensitivity analysis to prioritize the key factors. It was found that three factors condition the export performance of firms: strategic factors, management profile, commitment and international experience were found to be related to the export performance of the firm. The results of this research were used to develop recommendations for business leaders, practitioners and policy makers. The authors hope that this advice would help Tunisian firms' export performance in the future.

The Quality Effect of Auditing on Tax Compliance: Evidence from Tunisian Context

Taxation is the subject of complex and evolving regulations. it has become one of the major concerns of any business to better manage its finance, the responsible for corporate governance give an importance to the fiscal in the strategy and management of the company. In recent years, the importance of taxation in the financial and accounting environment is motivated to study the impact of control and transparency of infomation affected by audit quality. We study a sample of 19 companies between 2013 and 2017, the result shows that audit quality improves tax compliance in the Tunisian context while measuring tax evasion by the difference between the statutory tax rate and the effective tax rate. This study finds that tax evasion in Tunisian firms may have decreased with better audit quality.

Bid-ask spread, corporate board and stock liquidity in emergent markets

PurposeThis study analyzes the relationship between governance and stock liquidity. It uses different variables of corporate board characteristics and test three proxies of a bid-ask spread. It also provides comprehensive and robust evidence for the association between the corporate board and stock liquidity in the pure order-driven Tunisian market.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a sample covering all financial firms in Tunisia (banks, insurances and leasing companies) from 2008 to 2019. It employs a panel data approach.FindingsThe author finds a negative relationship between board sizes, financial institutional members in corporate board and bid-ask spread (absolute, relative and effective spread). The author suggests that better-managed firms have greatly improved their stock liquidity and lower trading cost. The empirical results reveal that better corporate governance firms improve stock liquidity since it is associated with higher information disclosure.Practical implicationsThis research encourages Tunisian firms to develop their governance mechanisms and restructure their board organization to improve stock liquidity. It can support the regulators to simultaneously design appropriate governance recommendations, disclosure policies and trading regulations.Originality/valueThe author presents empirical evidence of the role of corporate board on the bid-ask spread in an emerging market. The research is the first to analyze the corporate board characteristics using seven variables representatives of the board of directors and without using the governance index.

Board of director's effectiveness, audit quality and ownership structure: impact on audit risk-Tunisian evidence

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential influence of internal and external corporate governance mechanisms on audit risk in Tunisian companies.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of Tunisian non-financial firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE) over the periods 2005 to 2010 (pre- 2011 revolution) and 2011 to 2017 (post −2011 revolution), consisting of 371 observations for the whole period, the authors apply the generalized least square (GLS) to test the research hypotheses and model.FindingsThe results are consistent with the agency theory suggesting that efficient corporate governance is able to control and reduce a company’s agency problem. Evidence reveals that the effectiveness of the director’s board/ownership structure and audit quality have the most influence on audit risk before than after the 2011 revolution, although governance mechanisms should play a more active role in encouraging companies to be more transparent in the post-revolution period. Moreover these findings are confirmed when identifying a composite measure of corporate governance.Practical implicationsSignificant implications are provided for analysts, investors, regulators and academics. First, findings can help Tunisian regulators determine corporate governance disclosure requirements. Second, this research will make investors and stakeholders aware of the fact that minimizing auditor risk will be effective in reducing agency problems in emerging markets like Tunisia. Then, this work can help researchers better understand and realize the corporate governance role in the quality of audit process and financial statements and encourage them to deeply and broadly investigate this issue on other emerging markets.Originality/valueThis study stands for an extension of the existing research on corporate governance and audit risk. It fills a research gap in the local context. In fact, the considered data are those of the pre- and post-revolution Tunisian market, mainly in periods of instability. Although emerging markets make up the vast majority of economic activity around the world, they have received limited attention in academic research.

Could CSR improve the financial performance of developing countries’ firms? Analyses of mediating effect of intangible resources

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance in the context of developing countries. More specifically, the mediating role of a firm’s competitive advantage and intangible resources, namely, human capital and reputation are studied.Design/methodology/approachThe study considered a sample of 100 Tunisian firms. The analysis makes use of the structural equation modelling method to explore the relationship between CSR and financial performance, by including mediator variables.FindingsThe results confirm that CSR has no significant direct effect on financial performance. In particular, they indicate that the social dimension of CSR has a negative impact on performance. However, CSR does have a positive impact on competitive advantage via the two intangible resources considered, human capital and company reputation.Research limitations/implicationsThe research fills a gap that occurred in the previous literature. In effect, previous studies focussed only on the direct link between CSR and financial performance. In addition, it enriches the limited literature on CSR strategies in the context of developing countries. However, further studies should explore the opposite relationship, i.e. the impact of financial performance on CSR strategy. In addition, the authors believe that amongst other potential research avenues, it would be interesting to study the moderating role of the activity sector.Practical implicationsFrom a practical point of view, this study suggests new applications with respect to the link between CSR and financial performance. To enhance their company’s financial performance, managers need to ensure that intangible resources are managed efficiently.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the literature by examining how a firm’s intangible resources mediate between CSR and competitive advantage and how competitive advantage mediates between intangible resources and financial performance. Second originality is related to the study of the link between CSR and the financial performance of business organisations in the context of a developing country.

Business Model and Firm Performance in Tunisian Firms: a Mediated Moderation Analysis

Business Model and Firm Performance in Tunisian Firms: a Mediated Moderation Analysis

The impact of ownership and contractual practice on the technical efficiency level of the public transport operators: An international comparison

We aim to assess the impact of ownership and contractual practices on technical efficiency in the public bus transport sector in the world. The sample is decomposed from eight Tunisian firms and thirty firms from France, Spain, Belgium, and so on for the period of [2009–2016]. The methods used for this purpose is the two-stage DEA in which we used three techniques in the second stage namely the Tobit and Truncated regressions and Bootstrap technique and the SFA via the Batesse and Coelli (1995) and True Fixed Effect techniques. The main results show that the TFE model has the greatest mean of efficiency scores with a value equal to 0.88, while the CRS version of the DEA approach has the lowest score with a value equal to 0.27. Regarding the second stage, there is a significant impact of the ownership on the technical efficiency estimates, the public mode affect negatively the efficiency with a value equal to0.24 (Truncated regression), an interpretation is similar to the cost-plus contract. Also, according to the statistical tests, we find a significant difference between the public and private firms as well as the cost-plus and fixed-price contract in terms of technical efficiency.

The impact of international interorganizational relationships on creativity: the local partner perspective in an emerging country

PurposeThis paper aims to understand how international interorganizational relationships (IORs) impact the organizational creativity of a local partner in an emerging country, and how the creative capacities of emerging countries firms are developing.Design/methodology/approachThe study is exploratory and qualitative, based on five IORs between European multinational corporations (MNCs) and Tunisian firms operating in the consumer goods sector analyzed using the Gioia method.FindingsThe results show that it seems necessary for firms in emerging countries first to be legitimate, then to have dynamic capacities (learning capacities in particular), and that they know how to develop an innovation strategy and implement it concretely. The authors highlight three different organizational mechanisms. The first concerns analyzing the legitimacy of the local partner to engage in an innovation process based on its distinctive capacities and formalization of procedures. The second involves building dynamic capabilities, especially technological and managerial skills, in order to meet the challenges of the growing collaboration between the partners and to expand their mandate. The third deals with implementing an innovation strategy on two fronts: trust between partners and sustainable innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThe contributions focus on the international dimension of the IORs' impact on creativity and the role of the local partner's creative capacities. The work highlights to what extent “techno-centric” creativity plays a role in the absorption capacity of local partners, as well as the level of assistance provided by MNCs for developing innovation in emerging countries' firms. Moreover, our results show that increasing awareness of ecological and responsible consumption is reorienting production patterns on both local and global scales and offers many benefits for local and multinational firms. The limitations concern the sample size, the narrow diversity of the sector and the lack of information regarding multinational firms.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper is to show the construction of the creative process at the level of the local partner, from the execution of a specification to the implementation of a sustainable innovation strategy.