This study extends research into whether disclosure of corporate and financial information is associated with firms’ costs of equity capital. This study sets out to examine empirically the determinants of corporate disclosure in the annual reports of 37 largest and most liquid firms listed on Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) in Kazakhstan. It also reports the results of the association between company-specific characteristics and disclosure of the sample companies. Based on the analysis of existing empirical research, the disclosure index has been constructed and regression analysis of the influence of the disclosure index on the cost of equity capital has been conducted. The obtained results show that the received findings correlate with foreign empirical studies, and the disclosure index in this sample has a negative impact on the cost of equity capital. Using cost of equity capital estimates derived from capital asset pricing model, we find that firms with higher levels of financial transparency are associated with significantly lower costs of equity capital. Economic theory assumes that by increasing the level of corporate reporting, firms not only increase their stock market liquidity, but also decrease the investors’ estimation risk, arising from uncertainty about future returns and payout distributions. The results show that firms on the Kazakhstan market can reduce their cost of equity capital by increasing the level of their voluntary corporate disclosures.

Banks play a crucial role in bringing stability and economic development through their expected contribution in proper financial resource mobilisation across the economy. Despite the importance, there is little focus in recent literature which provided the empirical evidence how the global financial crisis affect the bank efficiency in Bangladesh. Thus, this paper aims to examine the effect of the global financial crisis and other factors on the efficiency of Bangladesh commercial banks. By employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, we computed the technical efficiency of individual banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector during 2000 to 2013. The empirical findings indicate that the Bangladesh banking sector has exhibited the highest efficiency level during 2001, while efficiency seems to be at the lowest level during 2010. The study finds that crisis along with bank size, capital adequacy ratio, return on average equity and real interest rate have a significant effect on bank efficiency in Bangladesh. In order to keep the sound financial development of Bangladesh, banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector have to consider all the potential technologies which could improve their profit efficiency levels, since the main motive of banks is to maximise shareholders’ value or wealth through profit maximisation.

This study aims to assess the attraction of foreign direct investment in Vietnamese economic zones (including industrial zones and economic zones). The main research method used are synthesis and comparison analysis based on the data collected from the surveyed group comprising of enterprises operating in the economic zones in the Middle (Chu Lai, Nhon Hoi, Dung Quat) and the Southern (the largest island: Phu Quoc) . After conducting surveys, research results show that there is a difference between the assessment and the level to meet the requirements of investors with business environment, expressed through the following criteria: (1) the infrastructure; (2) quality of public services; (3) preferential policies; (4) labor; (5) market; and (6) social services. Based on the assessment of the identified criteria, this paper had suggested six number of recommendations to promote the role of attracting foreign direct investment capital into the economic zones in Vietnam: (1) implementing the "one-stop-shop" policy; (2) continuing to improve the infrastructure of economic zones; (3) prevent and ensure the security of economic zones; (4) implementing vocational training activities to improve quality of human resources; (5) development of supporting industries; (6) raising the quality of capital invested in the economic zone

This paper explores the impact of corporate control, measured by ownership structure, on top-executives’ compensation in Japan. According to agency theory, the pay-performance link is expected to be affected by the firm’s ownership structure. Using a sample of 4,411 firm-year observations (401 firms for the 11-years period from 2001 to 2011) for Japanese non-financial firms publicly traded on the first section and second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), this study demonstrates that institutional ownership (both financial and corporate) is negatively related to the level of executives’ compensation. Such finding is in line with efficient monitoring hypothesis which claims that the presence of institutional shareholders provides direct monitoring over managers, limits managerial self-dealing and curves the increase in top-executives pay. On the other hand, the results also show that managerial ownership is positively related to their compensation which supports managerial power theory hypothesis, i.e. management-controlled firms are more likely to extract more compensation from the business than other firms. Overall, this study confirms that corporate control has significant impact on cash compensation paid to Japanese top-executives after controlling the conventional pay-performance relationship.

Considerable research has been done on the issue of succession in family businesses. However the process of induction, of preparing the members of the next generation for joining the family business has not been examined in detail. This paper attempts to analyse the relevance of three critical factors – ‘quality of relations’, ‘willingness of the inductee’ and ‘the ability to manage tensions harmoniously’ - to the induction process and the progress of the business. It focuses on the Indian context, specifically in the Small and medium Enterprise (SME) area. Qualitative research has been carried out. The Case Study method is used and data has been gathered from two families (including two branches of one family), using frequent unstructured interviews, over a period of five years. It is concluded that positive impact on business, family and the inductee depends to a large extent on the quality of relations, willingness of the inductee and the ability of both the inductor and inductee to handle and manage the tensions. Thus the findings of the study extend current understanding about succession drivers to the specific context of eastern cultural and developing economy represented by the Indian family businesses in the small and medium enterprise sector.

In the current competitive marketplace of real estate business, tenant satisfaction measurement is one of the important indicators to monitor competitiveness in industrial property development. It has become an industry standard to measure tenant satisfaction, commonly called customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has become the widely used metric to manage customer loyalty (Keiningham, Gupta, Aksoy, & Buoye, 2014). The aim of this research is to determine the impact of property management services on tenants’ satisfaction with the three identified variables i.e. facility management, perceived quality and lease management. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to build constructs and test the hypotheses with the collected survey samples. Of the three variables, facility management is the most influential factor that leads to tenant satisfaction with industrial buildings. Next, perceived quality is another important factor that contributes to tenants’ pleasure. Compared with these two, lease management fares worse, having the least extensive effect on tenant satisfaction, and could be disregarded. The ultimate impact of tenant satisfaction is about tenant retention and recommendation. The overall findings of this research will potentially help real estate developers to develop a better property management system, leasing program and tenant retention strategy.

This paper examines key determinants and the effect of country-of-origin on customer’s purchase intention of functional food and dietary supplement product in Vietnam. Exploratory study was identified to evaluate personal and social factors on customer’s buying behavior. Twenty-eight reflective constructs were adapted from literature and designed by using a seven-point Likert scale to facilitate measurement. By using non-probability convenience sampling, data was collected from a survey of 242 Vietnamese who have experienced in buying functional and supplement food. This paper employed partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) as a technique employed to analyze the measurement and structural models. The findings provide evidence that social prestige customer perceives and their positive attitude toward functional food which are main factors influencing on consumers’ purchase intention. Customer’s perceived prestige plays an important role in decision-making process to purchase. The higher social prestige taken up in consumers’ mind, the higher consumers’ purchase intention is. Moreover, the more positive attitude customer holds toward functional food, the higher consumers’ purchase intention. The research results provide useful information in current understanding of what antecedents determine factors influencing customer’s intention to purchase functional food and lead to managerial implications for business strategies.

The paper examines critical factors affecting consumer behavioral intentions in accepting online health communication through social networking sites. Unlike recent research under this topic, the paper assimilates some components of service quality dimensions and consumer behavior theories. The paper employs factor analysis and structural equation modelling analysis with latent variables to identify critical factors from the survey data collected from Korean consumers. The results of the study identifies three major constructs: consumer needs for health information, the perceived value of tangible attributes of health information providers, and the perceived value of intangible attributes of health information providers. The results show that consumer needs for health information and the tangible and intangible attributes of health information providers should be considered as important antecedents of accepting online health communication through social networking sites. The findings suggest that the success of online health communication via social networking sites largely depends on the tangible and intangible attributes of health information providers.