Turbulent Economic Times Research Articles

Synchronicity and Sentiment: Decoding Earnings Quality and Market Returns in EU under Economic Policy Uncertainty

This study investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty on earnings quality and market returns in the European Union, a topic of growing importance in the wake of fluctuating global economic conditions. Using data from 14 EU countries spanning the period from 2000 to 2022, the findings of this study are significant, revealing a clear correlation between heightened economic policy uncertainty and altered investor behavior, as well as a deterioration in earnings quality. We also found that (a) stock market returns are threatened by the shroud of economic uncertainty, (b) higher market sentiment anticipates a negative return but, on the other hand, lower market sentiment expects an increase in the return, (c) stock market returns are higher in the case of highly accurate analyst forecasts, and (d) stock market returns are higher in the case of a higher level of stock return synchronicity. These insights have profound implications for investors, policymakers, and scholars, offering a deeper understanding of market dynamics under uncertainty and guiding more informed decision-making in turbulent economic times.

The Functioning Mechanism of the System of Legal Incentives and Restrictions in the Investment Policy of the Construction Sector

The legal incentives and restrictions regulating investment activities in the construction industry were analyzed. Russia’s current civil law governing construction matters is inadequate for the turbulent economic times. While construction and other related contracts provide general solutions to the urgent tasks, they still fail to offer clear guidelines for navigating the relations amid the changes triggered by the global events such as sanctions or other unilateral coercive measures. This study considers the prospects for improving the existing legal regulations in the construction industry by creating flexible and convenient contractual means to support the economic relations between different entities.

Tail risk spillover effects in commodity markets: A comparative study of crisis periods

This research aims to investigate the propagation of extreme downside risk, commonly referred to as tail risk, within commodity markets using an innovative CAViaR-based connectivity model. We also evaluate the influence of various crises, including the global financial crisis, the shale oil revolution, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, on the dynamic relationships among seventeen different commodity markets. Our findings reveal a diverse pattern of interconnections among these markets during distinct crisis periods. Surprisingly, we observe that the nature of these interconnections is remarkably similar during geopolitical and health crises. Notably, the spillover effects between different commodity categories are more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict than during the global financial crisis and the shale oil revolution. However, it is important to note that the total risk spillovers are more substantial during the global financial crisis. Furthermore, our analysis delves into the unique characteristics of each market, revealing that precious metals can function as a safe haven for both energy and industrial metals during times of economic turbulence.

Necessity Entrepreneurs’ and Stakeholders’ Strategies: Bridging Business Survival in the Hairdressing Salon Industry

Entrepreneurs specialize in increasing productivity and thus, contribute to the country's development and economic growth. The focus of the study is to investigate the extent to which necessity entrepreneurs’ and stakeholders’ strategies can enable the survival of small services and businesses such as hair salons. The argument is that hair salons that are created out of necessity may not be able to survive turbulent economic times. The paper argues that survival strategies may assist entrepreneurs to survive and grow in business. A positivist approach was employed and a sample of 144 was randomly recruited from hair salon business owners. The structured questionnaire was analyzed, yielding descriptive and inferential analyses with means, percentages, variances, correlation coefficients, regression analysis, and the Normal Q-Q plot used to analyze and explain the variables. The findings show a significant relationship between necessity entrepreneurship and business survival. This largely explains that they work assiduously for the growth of their enterprise. Necessity entrepreneurs influence economic development, and entrepreneurs create new businesses by helping in intensifying competition which assists in the growth of the business. Stakeholders influence the rate of necessity entrepreneurs’ survival. It is, therefore, concluded that hair salons build active participation with their stakeholders (customers, employers, community, and environment). Stakeholders are more willing to work with a business when they believe it is acting in ways consistent with its values. 
 
 Received: 10 April 2023 / Accepted: 7 September 2023 / Published: 5 November 2023

Impact and Viability of Gastronomic Ventures in Manzanillo, México: Situational Analysis in the Post Covid-19 Era

One of the alternatives that are available to people in a situation of economic crisis are gastronomic ventures. The economic environment plays a fundamental role for the success of this type of company, so it is necessary to identify and develop instruments that empower the entrepreneur to achieve their organizational objectives in order to be present in an increasingly competitive market. The gastronomic sector in Mexico has been beaten over the last two years by different factors; public health (pandemic restrictions), violence (curfews in some regions) and economic (inflation and shortages). However, this sector represented -until 2019- 2% of the national GDP, so it was important to know the economic impact in the post covid-19 era in this sector of the country. In times of economic turbulence, crises behave like a kind of "sweeper" that wipes out companies and businesses that lack organizational strength to face the ravages of a phenomenon of this type such as lack of liquidity, low sales and rising prices. Prices. For this reason, this research focuses on studying the ventures in the gastronomic sector, the impact suffered by covid-19, the scarcity and the rise in prices of inputs derived from war conflicts and political situations in the world environment that affect the macroeconomic indicators of the country and region. The study will focus on companies in the gastronomic sector of the municipality of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. Where inflation was identified as the main problem that lacerates restaurant businessmen with 88.7% of the cases studied. Finally, the instruments used to cope with the crisis experienced are detailed, the main strategies for the improvement and reactivation of sales were identified, as well as the red flags to attend to a possible resurgence of economic stagnation in the short term.

Task Challenge and Employee Performance: A Moderated Mediation Model of Resilience and Digitalization.

Lately, organizations are giving attention to enhancing employee resilience due to turbulent economic times caused by lockdowns in the last couple of years. This explanatory research proposes and tests the mediating role of employee resilience to link task challenge and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in government schools of Oman using the broaden-and-build theory. An explanatory research design was used for this empirical study. An Arabic-translated questionnaire version was designed to collect primary data online during the lockdown using simple random sampling. We used the Preacher and Hayes macro to analyze moderated mediation using cross-sectional data and analyzed 441 responses. The findings confirm the mediation roles of employee resilience and moderating roles of digitalization during unusual circumstances. The study has implications for the school administrators, Omani policymakers and schooling staff of the Middle Eastern educational industry.

Comparing traditional news and social media with stock price movements; which comes first, the news or the price change?

Twitter has been responsible for some major stock market news in the recent past, from rogue CEOs damaging their company to very active world leaders asking for brand boycotts, but despite its impact Twitter has still not been as impactful on markets as traditional news sources. In this paper we examine whether daily news sentiment of several companies and Twitter sentiment from their CEOs have an impact on their market performance and whether traditional news sources and Twitter activity of heads of government impact the benchmark indexes of major world economies over a period spanning the outbreak of the SAR-COV-2 pandemic. Our results indicate that there is very limited correlation between Twitter sentiment and price movements and that this does not change much when returns are taken relative to the market or when the market is calm or turbulent. There is almost no correlation under any circumstances between non-financial news sources and price movements, however there is some correlation between financial news sentiment and stock price movements. We also find this correlation gets stronger when returns are taken relative to the market. There are fewer companies correlated in both turbulent and calm economic times. There is no clear pattern to the direction and strength of the correlation, with some being strongly negatively correlated and others being strongly positively correlated, but in general the size of the correlation tends to indicate that price movement is driving sentiment, except in the turbulent economic times of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in 2020.

Job insecurity, job satisfaction and organisational commitment in turbulent economic times at a textile and clothing manufacturing company

Job insecurity, job satisfaction and organisational commitment in turbulent economic times at a textile and clothing manufacturing company

Relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility to Companies During Turbulent Economic Times: A Survey of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Listed Companies

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has remained topical and contentious as various schools of thought are put forward on its relationship to cost versus profitability for businesses. This study explored the relevance of CSR and its effect on the survival of businesses during an economic meltdown in Zimbabwe. The study purposively sampled 31 companies that are listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and have sound CSR programmes. A total of 93 questionnaires were administered and a Chi-square was conducted to test and establish the relationship between CSR strategies and business survival. The study concluded that companies with CSR strategies had a higher chance of surviving during turbulent times. Following the findings of the study, it is recommended that government comes up with CSR policies for different industries and that organisations continue investing in CSR especially in times of economic challenges.

PNS14 The Importance of Payer Tracking in Times of Economic Turbulence and Disruptive Innovation

Objectives: To explore the impact of Covid-19 on the pricing, market access, and payer evidence requirements in disease areas where new therapies or diagnostics are expected to be “payer disruptive” Methods: A survey-based Covid-19 payer impact tracker covering US and EU (n= 80 EU, 25 US) identified factors that are currently, and likely in the future to be, “payer-disruptive” A targeted literature review (TLR) based on PubMed and Investment Analyst Reports identified likely “payer-disruptive” disease areas 2020-2025 Selection criteria: Low diagnosis rates, significant burden of illness, high unmet need, intensive RDCurative therapies in disease areas of high burden unchanged • Evidence and communication of patient centric outcomes becoming more important as patient affordability and willingness to pay becomes increasingly relevant The TLR identified cell and gene-therapies and personalised (digital and genomic) healthcare as significant future “payer disruptors” NASH was most frequently referenced as a disrupter in the short-term due to high incidence of disease with current low diagnosis / treatment rates that is likely to grow rapidly driven by improved diagnostics and the availability of therapies Conclusions: There is value in tracking the evolution of payer behaviours, evidence requirements, and decision-criteria in disease areas where Covid-19 driven economic turbulence and disruptive innovation is likely to have a significant impact on healthcare systems and budgets This would be useful for informing healthcare policy shaping, advocacy, and clinical / commercial development programmes

Diversification in the age of the 4th industrial revolution: The role of artificial intelligence, green bonds and cryptocurrencies

In the context of the 4th industrial revolution, artificial intelligence (AI) and environmental challenges, this study investigates the role of AI, robotics stocks and green bonds in portfolio diversification. Using daily data from 2017 to 2020, we employ tail dependence as copulas and the Generalized Forecast Error Variance Decomposition to examine the volatility connectedness. Our results suggest that, first, portfolios consisting of these assets exhibit heavy-tail dependence which implies that in the times of economic turbulence, there will be a high probability of large joint losses. Second, volatility transmission is higher in the short term, implying that short-term shocks can cause higher volatility in the assets, but in the long run, volatility transmission decreases. Third, Bitcoin and gold are vital assets for hedging, though the Bitcoin is also affected by its past volatility, a feature it shares with green bonds and NASDAQ AI. During economic downturns, gold may act as a safe haven, as its shock transmission to NASDAQ AI is just around 1.41%. Lastly, the total volatility transmission of all financial assets is considerably high, suggesting that the portfolio has an inherent self-transmitting risk which requires careful diversification. The NASDAQ AI and general equity indexes are not good hedging instruments for each other.

Just Notice: Re-Reforming Employment At-Will for the 21st Century

This Article proposes a fundamental shift in the movement to reform employment termination law. For forty years, there has been a near consensus among employee advocates and worklaw scholars that the current doctrine of employment at will should be abandoned in favor of a rule requiring just cause for termination. This Article contends that such calls are misguided, not (as defenders of the current regime have argued) because it grants workers too much protection vis-a-vis management, but because it grants them too little. A just cause rule provides only a weak cause of action to a narrow subset of workers – those able to prove their firing was for purely arbitrary reasons. It fails to account for the justifiable, but still devastating, termination of workers for economic reasons, by far the most common reason for job loss today. In this way, the rule is not only inadequate, but anachronistic. Just cause protection is consistent with a mid-twentieth century view of the social contract of employment, which anticipates a long-term, symbiotic relationship between employer and employee in an economy dependent on internal labor markets. Under such a system, the just cause rule gave legal force to parties’ social contract of employment. In contrast, today’s employers operate principally in an external labor market in which implicit promises of long-term employment have been replaced by implicit promises of long-term employability. Both companies and workers anticipate significant job turnover both in times of economic turbulence, such as the current downturn, in which employers are forced to shed numerous workers due to financial hardship, as well as during economic bubbles, in which companies lay off workers and reorganize for strategic reasons. Given these practices and expectations, the goal of termination law ought not to be protecting individual jobs but rather assisting workers in the inevitable situation of job loss.To that end, the Article proposes the adoption of a universal “pay-or-play” system of employment termination. Absent serious misconduct, employers would be required to provide advance notice of termination or offer wages and benefits for the duration of the notice period. In contrast to just cause proposals, “pay-or-play” recognizes the necessity and value of employment termination. Rather than encouraging parties to maintain status quo relationships, “pay-or-play” seeks to facilitate transition. It affirms managerial discretion in hiring and firing by eliminating fact intensive inquiries into employer motive. At the same time, it makes real employers’ implicit promise of employability by granting workers a window of income security in which they can comfortably search for the next opportunity.

Management Accounting Change as a Sustainable Economic Development Strategy during Pre-Recession and Recession Periods: Evidence from Russia

The volatility of both global and national markets has emerged in recent years. In response to the changes in the operating environment, organizations have been adopting various practices to ensure sustainable development by anticipating threats and managing risks. While many studies are focusing on the investigation of strategic adaptation to the volatile economic environment, there has been little research examining management accounting (MA) as a sustainable development strategy in times of economic turbulence. This study investigates the degree of variation in the use of MA practices induced by economic recession. Investigating the variations in management accounting practices in Russian organizations in 2000–2013 (pre-recession period) and 2014–2018 (economic recession), the authors explore the change across 54 MA tools split into operation, management, and strategy pillars. The contribution of this study to the literature involves the understanding of the use of particular MA tools across various types of organizations and industries before and during the economic recession, as well as discovering the intention to change the instruments in case the economic situation deteriorates. The survey of four types of organizations (micro, small, medium, and large) in five sectors (service, industry, trade, agriculture, and tourism) was conducted in seven territories of Russia differentiated on the level of their economic performance (well-performing, average, and declining). The survey revealed that, during the crisis, the respondents tend to drop using many of proactive sustainability-oriented MA tools and instead focused on achieving immediate and direct effects on sales, profits, and other performance parameters by employing less-sophisticated short-term MA instruments. The forecast of future application of MA tools in a falling economy revealed that, in an attempt to achieve durable and sustainable performance, the organizations of all types and sectors intended to focus on practices such as risk management variance analysis, rolling forecasts, payback, breakeven analysis, and activity-based management.

Measuring Personal Economic Hardship and Its Impact on Political Trust During the Great Recession

The great recession has severely harmed the living conditions of many citizens in South European democracies. This article explores to what extent the deterioration of personal circumstances due to the economic crisis is related to the erosion of political trust. Previous accounts have provided scarce evidence of this sort of egotropic effects. Instead, they have underlined the role of sociotropic evaluations of the economic and political performance of institutions. However, these factors could be suspicious of endogeneity and third-variable bias. This article uses a survey fielded in the Spanish region of Catalonia that contains a novel battery of items to measure how the crisis has personally affected respondents. Latent class analysis is applied to that battery and propensity score matching is employed to estimate the causal effect of being personally affected by the crisis vis-a-vis not being affected. Results indicate that personal hardship reduces trust in institutions in turbulent economic times. Furthermore, the study of the Catalan circumstances sheds light on how attribution of blame works in a multilevel structure of governance during times of crisis. Personal economic hardship happens to decrease trust on national institutions and the EU but not on regional institutions, controlling for the ethno-national composition of the population of that region.

INFLUENCE OF SACCOS IN ENTREPRENEURIAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT IN DAGORETTI SOUTH CONSTITUENCY, KENYA

Purpose: The main objective of this study is to find out the influence of SACCOs in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency, Nairobi, Kenya. To successfully achieve the study objective the research was guided by the following specific objectives: - To establish the extent to which disbursed credit by SACCOs help in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency; To determine the extent to which deposits/share capital help in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency; To find out how SACCOs investment portfolios help in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency. To find out how information dissemination helps in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituencyMethodology: The study employed a descriptive survey research design to find out the role of SACCOs in entrepreneurial development in Dagoretti constituency. The study adopted a census study. A questionnaire was used as primary data collection instruments. The collected data was examined and checked for completeness and comprehensibility. The data was then summarized, coded and tabulated with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 17.0) Data presentation was done by the use of pie charts, bar charts and graphs, percentages and frequency tables.Results: With all the independent variables having p < 0.05, this indicates that there is a significant relationship among all the four variables with the influence of SACCOs in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoreti South constituency. From the results, a unit % increase in Access to Loans would result to 44% decrease in share capital. Additionally, a unit % increase in entrepreneurship education would result to 36% increase on the influence of SACCOs in entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency. Having the composite mean as 3.68053 and the standard deviation as 0.4768, meant that the respondents agreed that Access to Loans, Share capital, and Entrepreneurship education had a significant influence on SACCOs in influencing entrepreneurial capacity development in Dagoretti South constituency.Recommendation: With the Kenya government steering towards industrialization in her vision 2030, entrepreneurship training should be the first gear towards this direction. Many countries have prospered as a result of constructing and embracing entrepreneurial culture among their population. SACCOs are a good starting point especially in rural-urban areas where government devolution tentacles have started to spread.SACCOs should strive to maximize on the earnings to build the institutional capital. This institutional capital ensures the permanence and growth of the SACCOs even in turbulent economic times. In fact, it would help the SACCOs to grow and, remain economically and financially viable. Such growth should be enhanced by effective financial practices not to mention entrepreneurial training.

The linkage of information quality to an executive decision support framework for the financial service sector of a developing economy

Background: Executives are steering organisations in our most turbulent economic times, whereby market disrupters are becoming the norm that are eradicating entire value chains of organisations. It is for this reason that decision support mechanisms for executives have become more critical than ever before. We have seen many leading organisations being reduced to market followers. This leaves many critical questions: What could the executives of those prior leading organisations have done to prevent this? Does the information that is being presented at various senior committees for decisions in an organisation contain information quality and is information quality linked to decisions made by executives?Objectives: This article presents mathematical evidence that information quality does form part of an executive decision support framework (EDSF) and confirms that information quality should form part of an EDSF.Method: A mixed method research approach was then followed where semi-structured interviews were held with chief information officers. The semi-structured interviews thereafter informed the survey questionnaires design. The survey questionnaires were statistically analysed using structural equation modelling and the maximum likelihood estimates method, to mathematically prove if information quality does form part of an EDSF.Results: This research provides evidence that information quality is linked to an EDSF and that information quality should form part of an EDSF.Conclusion: It is clear, therefore, that information quality is mathematically linked to an EDSF. Although information quality is made up of other latent variables that affect it, there is a strong correlation between information quality and an EDSF.

Antecedents of consumer price consciousness in a turbulent economy

AbstractMajor economic crises create financial and normative stressors, affecting consumers long after economies technically leave recession. Consumer adaptations to these stressors challenge researchers’ and marketers’ assumptions of well‐established concepts and theories, notably consumer price consciousness (CPC). We examine this pivotal marketing construct within the domains of stress and coping during times of economic turbulence. In this paper, the authors develop and test a conceptual model, then present implications for consumer researchers, brand marketers, and retailers. The model focuses on the relationships between changing CPC and major economic and normative stressors, respectively financial well‐being and frugality norms. To inform opportunities for specific interventions, we identify mediating roles of consumer anticipated guilt, financial fear, and smart shopper self‐perception. SEM and mediation analysis test this model, based on a national survey of 1202 UK consumers. The results identify stressors that influence changing CPC, following fundamental shifts in consumer psychology and behaviour since recession. Each antecedent of CPC presents opportunities for marketers and retailers to defend or adapt brands to the challenges and opportunities presented by more price conscious consumers.

De‐ownership orientation and collaborative consumption during turbulent economic times

AbstractIn this article we aim to increase understanding of which social factors are central when looking at de‐ownership orientation (DOO), collaborative consumption attitudes (CCA) and collaborative consumption intentions (CCI). In addition, we analyze how DOO, CCA and CCI are linked to each other. We scrutinize DOO, CCA and CCI in Finland during a period of economic crisis. Our results show that DOO is rather evenly spread across the socio‐demographic groups, and that CCA is at a much higher level than CCI among the respondents. CCA is less impacted by factors that originate from a consumer's social and economic conditions. The studied concepts are found to be closely associated: with the increase in DOO, the propensity for CCI and CCA to increase also grows. However, DOO has a stronger effect on CCA than on CCI. Of studied socio‐economic features, age clearly has the strongest effects on each studied factor. The younger age cohorts have more positive attitudes towards collaborative consumption than others. In terms of employment status the groups that are the most positive towards collaborative consumption are those staying at home on parental leave, whereas the retired, entrepreneurs (for CCI) and unemployed (for CCA) have the least inclination towards collaborative consumption. Thus, economic crisis can be seen as working against the development of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption, or at least it could create social divisions between groups who take part in it.

Spirituality as Foundation of Agency in Turbulent Economic Times

The changing meaning of work calls for care and concern for the spiritual dimension of the workplace. Toward this end, a more liberal form of workforce education and human resource development in response to workplace preparation for managers is needed.

Fiscal Policy, FDI and Macroeconomic Stabilization

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of counter-cyclical fiscal policies and FDI inflows on macroeconomic stabilization in the selected Euro area countries. Performing a panel data analysis for 9 economies over the timespan 1980-2014 and, using a Pooled Mean Group estimator, it was shown that a counter-cyclical fiscal policy, associated with a lower tax burden during turbulent economic times, contributes to the reduction of output volatility. At the same time, increased FDI inflows positively influence the macroeconomic stabilization. In addition, a reduced volatility of investment inflows has a positive impact on the economic growth stabilization, but this result is sensitive to the way the tax burden is calculated. In a nutshell, the findings show that, in the long-run, authorities should resort to counter-cyclical fiscal policies and encourage FDI inflows to stabilize the economy and, thus, reduce the amplitude of business cycles.