Current Topics on Business, Economics and Finance Vol. 6

The Chinese bond market has seen significant financial expansion. This is demonstrated by the country's opening to outside investors who are utilizing new investment opportunities in China's steadily growing economy. The financial regulations governing China's bond market have changed, allowing more outside capital to enter the market. However, the Chinese bond market is not without its risks, as with every investment or marketplace. The national government's efforts to stimulate the economy are evident by the influx of investor financial money into China. This enables foreign investors to benefit from the expansion of China's real estate market and the country's significant infrastructure expansion and modernization efforts. Public sector organizations rather than private businesses make up the majority of the Chinese bond market.  Foreign investors can buy bonds issued by local governments, state-owned companies, or their financial entities. The Chinese bond market is growing, however there are issues with credit ratings that may not accurately reflect information about credit quality. Bond investors may be exposed to greater risk than they can bear or afford. In terms of returns, interest rates, volatility, safety, liquidity, and marketability, the Chinese bond market must compete with bond markets in other areas of the world. There are enormous income opportunities possible, but there is also a chance of severe risk. 

The research that examined the connections between emotional intelligence, knowledge sharing, and team effectiveness is outlined in this article.  The study also investigated the impact of emotional intelligence and knowledge sharing on team performance.  Although these interactions are crucial for improving team performance, there aren't many empirical research that look at these interactions together. This study used data from 357 employees of SMEs in Vietnam to analyze those associations using SEM.  The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS Version 22. Results from a test of these relationships largely support our hypothesized model. The findings showed that through encouraging knowledge sharing, emotional intelligence indirectly improves team performance. Furthermore, knowledge sharing has a direct impact on how well a team performs. On the other side, there is a strong correlation between sharing knowledge and emotional intelligence. The study's findings, implications, and suggestions for further study are explored.

This book chapter aims to build on existing research to examine the impact that an effective and efficient credit risk management system has on the survival of microfinance. Like any other financial institution, microfinance institutions encounter various forms of risks but their intensity is due to their small sizes and their volume of operations. Of all the risks a financial institution could face, credit risk is one of the most severe.  A cluster sampling approach was employed in this study consisting of 200 credit clients and 80 employees of a major leading microfinance institution in Cameroon. Primary data was collected through the use of a designed questionnaire, interview, and personal observation. Results show that there were a good number of lapses in the credit risk management system as highly unmonitored provisions, a poor recovery procedure, credit officers without an educational background in the field, manual execution of some loans, slow credit management processes, the bad faith of customers, and poor follow-up of loans given out. It is vital to note that the survival of every Financial Institution lies in how it can effectively and efficiently manage its loan portfolio. It is thus, of critical importance for every financial institution to have an adequate and efficient credit policy manual, credit process, competent credit personnel, tight loan recovery procedure, and tight control system for its provisions if it must survive in this highly competitive sector having clients who are ready to take advantage of any loopholes.

This chapter provides an overview of corporate finance practices in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The chapter reviews recent literature on the topic and discusses the importance of corporate finance in the economic development of the region. It also examines the challenges faced by firms in the GCC countries and the ways in which they have adapted to the changing business environment. Corporate finance and digitalization have become two inseparable concepts in today's business landscape. As digital technology continues to evolve, it has become increasingly clear that companies that embrace digitalization in their finance functions can achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and cost savings. This chapter will also explore some of the ways digitalization is transforming corporate finance. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future of corporate finance in the GCC countries and the need for continued research in the field.

Social entrepreneurship has gained significant attention in recent years as a means of addressing pressing social and environmental challenges. This chapter explores the relationship between innovative business models and their impact on society. Drawing on a comprehensive review of literature, the chapter provides evidence that social entrepreneurship can drive change through innovative business models that have a positive impact on society. The chapter also identifies key factors that contribute to the success of social entrepreneurship, including collaboration, networking, and a commitment to social and environmental values.

Social entrepreneurship is a rapidly growing field that seeks to create innovative and sustainable solutions to social problems. As society continues to face new challenges, social entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to address these issues and create positive change. Social entrepreneurship has gained momentum over the last decade, as entrepreneurs have begun to recognize that profit and social impact are not mutually exclusive. However, social entrepreneurship is a relatively new field, and its future is uncertain. This chapter provides an overview of the current trends, challenges, and opportunities facing social entrepreneurship, based on a review of recent literature. Most research findings suggest that social entrepreneurship will continue to grow, as more entrepreneurs recognize the benefits of social impact. However, there are also significant challenges, including funding, scalability, and regulatory hurdles. To overcome these challenges, social entrepreneurs will need to be creative, collaborative, and resilient, and will need to leverage new technologies and business models.

This study seeks to establish whether there is a relationship between service integrity and customer retention in classified hotels in Kenya’s coastal tourism hub. It targets hotel customers of the 15 classified hotels in Kenya’s Mombasa County, based on a descriptive research design. A stratified sampling technique is adopted where three strata based on the hotels’ star-rating are formed to cover 384 customers, 26 for each of the hotels. A questionnaire is developed for data collection. Kenya’s coastal region, a rich tourist hub endowed with world renowned pristine beaches, tourist sites and classified hotels has been facing a slump partly occasioned by insecurity in the region, seasonality challenges and constant travel advisories. This is despite the hotel industry’s phenomenal growth globally. While other tourism destinations affected by calamities are highly resilient to such shocks, thanks to their innovative management strategists that enhance customer retention, it is not clear whether the same applies to Kenya’s coastal tourism hub. The results of this study are significant to hotel practitioners and policy-makers as it will help them re-invent their customer service integrity strategies so as to maximise on customer retention, hence boost hotel performance. Though studies on customer retention have been curried out, there is little empirical evidence suggesting the use of service integrity.

The aim of this study is to explore the interests and perceptions of stakeholders and the general public on policies and technologies that promote energy sustainability. To accomplish this aim, we have set three attainable objectives. The first objective is to investigate stakeholders' opinions on new policies and technologies that promote sustainable energy. The second objective is to comprehend why the public may be reluctant to embrace new technologies and policies that promote energy sustainability. The third objective is to determine feasible approaches to serve the interests of stakeholders while mitigating the climatic impact of unsustainable energy sources and obtaining public acceptance. In this meta-analysis investigation, we selected 23 studies that met our rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria. We analyzed the extracted data using HOMA and MARA. Our findings indicate that stakeholders are primarily interested in assuring energy autonomy and promoting renewable energy solutions to address the environmental impact of fossil fuels. On the other hand, the public is sensitive to procedural justice, distribution justice, placement, and trust. Our study emphasizes the significance of aligning the interests of stakeholders and the public to develop feasible and acceptable policies to drive sustainable development.

This research is anchored on the argument that the application of ethics of integrity, ethics of objectivity, ethics of professional behaviour and ethics of professional competence and due care has not significantly improved the accounting practices of corporate organizations in Nigeria. Ethics in the accounting profession was for long associated only with accounting scholars, investors and accounting bodies around the world. The general notion to this is the public perception that organizations should strive towards ethical transparency. The concept of ethics simply deals with how decisions affect other people and organizations. The study employed stratified and simple random sampling techniques to develop the sample components. The goal of stratified random sampling is to achieve desired representation from various sub-groups in the population. Due to large size of the target population, 269 participants were accessible. Taro Yamane formula was used to arrive at the population sample of this study. The questionnaires were administered to the registered members of the ICAN District Society in Calabar, Nigeria and data generated from the questionnaires were analysed using IBM SPSS V.20. The results revealed a significantly negative relationship between ethical thoughts and the accounting practices of corporate organizations in Nigeria. On the basis of the findings, the study recommended the following among others: Professional accountants as custodians and producers of accounting information should adhere to the codes of professional best practices issued by relevant professional bodies. It is complex to the extent that there is the likelihood that a conflict of interest might arise due to the multiplicity of end users of accounting information. Consequently, the continuum of interested parties; Management, shareholders, creditors, employees amongst others puts the financial statement and its preparers in a complex environment. Every organisation in Nigeria should set up an ethics department to make sure that all practises, including financial reporting, adhere to the codes of ethics. The Board of Directors and Audit Committees should be made up of individuals with financial knowledge, demonstrated integrity, and corporate experience. Greater efforts should be made by the appropriate professional bodies to review the various ethical codes that direct members' conduct or behaviour in practise. Additionally, widespread education combined with harsher penalties for professional misconduct may be a solution.

Throughout the globe, knowledge transfers and sharing activities are a concern of policymakers as the countries transform into knowledge based economy. While Malaysia has no exception in this regard, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) put the concern on knowledge transfer and sharing on Malaysia research universities (RUs) as the research, development and commercialization initiatives and collaborations have been the key activities of Malaysia RU. However, the knowledge transfers and sharing through research collaboration and publication co-authorship may occur in different circumstances involving different level of authors and co-authors and inter-universities and intra-universities. The complexity of the circumstances makes it difficult to determine the knowledge transfer level through the co-authorship collaborations. This research examines the co-authorship collaboration pattern as it is believed that co- authorship collaboration directly portraying the knowledge transfer and sharing activities in Malaysia RUs. This study applies the social network analysis (SNA) as a tool for a proper understanding on how academicians in Malaysia RUs transfer and sharing the research’s knowledge and collaboratively publish their research’ works with each other. The SNA’s structural dimension results in the form of visualizations and tabulations shows that the knowledge transfers and sharing activities through co-authorship collaboration extensively practiced by researchers affiliated with Malaysian RUs. This directly implies that knowledge management has been widely regarded and promoted in research works in Malaysia.

Purpose: This research paper aims to present a Discussion on Regulations and The efficiency of logistics services in Vietnam – And a case of Logistics in Ca Mau province. Logistics services are commercial activities whereby traders organize to perform one or more jobs including receiving goods, transporting, storing, storing and handling goods.

Method: The panel approach allows the authors to explore the heterogeneity in data across countries. Fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) models were used to estimate the model. Then, the Hausman test is carried out to decide which model is appropriate. The results show that the FE model is more suitable than the RE model. 

Findings: To increase the efficiency and logistics efficiency of enterprises: The Vietnamese Government needs to cooperate and propose ideas to partner countries to improve logistics activities for exports from Vietnam. Logistics is beginning to play an increasingly important role in the competitiveness of economies.