The paper aims to investigate the performance of domestic Saudi Arabian ETFs. ETFs are investment vehicles in vogue. These instruments were the first levers for investors allowing them to enter some markets that have been highly protected or out of reach. Saudi Arabia, which has been promoted as an emerging country by MSCI, seeks to attract more foreign investors. The first ETFs were launched in the years 2010-2011. Even though their number has not increased since then, there is a desire to attract a large number of investors. We use premiums/discounts analysis, standard risk-return models, and tracking errors measurements to assess how closely their replicate the underlying benchmark based on monthly data. The results indicate that out of the three funds investigated two are slightly traded at premium, while the latter exhibit a price discount. However, tracking errors are at minimum for all funds suggesting that they track well the benchmark index. Further, the Jensen’s model shows that alphas are negative or null, and betas capture largely the systematic risk which is consistent with index investing strategies. Finally, traditional risk-adjusted measures of performance are used to compare ETFs, and results exhibit negative ratios showing that portfolios achieve lower return than the risk-free rate.

This study analyzes the effect of the capital structure of Korean manufacturing firms on default risk based on Moody’s KMV option pricing model where the probability of default is obtained by measuring the distance to default as a covariant in logit model developed by Merton (1974). Based on the panel data of manufacturing firms, this study achieves its primary objective, using a fixed effect regression model and examines the effect of a firm’s capital structure on default risk amongst publicly listed firms on Korea exchange during 2005-2016. Empirical results obtained suggest that the rise in short-term debt to assets leads to increase the risk of default whereas the increase in long-term debt to assets leads to decrease the default risk. The benefits of short-term debt financing over a short-term period fade out in the presence of information asymmetry. However, long-term debt financing overcomes the information asymmetry and enjoys the paybacks of tax advantage associated with long-term debt. Additionally, size, tangibility and interest coverage ratio are also the important determinants of default risk. Findings support the trade-off theory of capital structure and recommend the optimal use of long-term debt in a firm’s capital structure.

In the Korean capital market, there are three credit rating agencies. Potential credit ratings based on credibility in the financial market are calculated independently for each rating agency. It often happens that despite the fact that the grades of the rating agencies are the same and have the same rating system, their actual ratings are different, even for the same firm. In such circumstances, investors may wonder why. In this study, we assume that the cause is the information environment in which the company operates. The credit ratings of rating agencies are mainly classified into bonds or commercial papers. The bonds are rated primarily for long-term of three years or more, and commercial papers specify ratings for less than one year. The information environment to be verified in this study was observed with a commercial paper. Under the assumption the larger the analyst following is, the more transparent is the information environment, we analyzed the influence of the number of analysts following on the degree to which ratings conflicted among credit rating agencies. The results of our analysis confirmed that opinion conflict among credit rating agencies is clearly reduced for companies with good information environments.

The Indonesian government launched a new people's business credit program as part of a package of economic policy and deregulation. The interest rate is set lower than the average of the current loan interest rates, especially when compared with rural bank interest rates. To capture the social spatial aspects, quota sampling is applied to ten areas that divided based on the social culture. Further, the method utilized in this research is logit models, which designed to analyse the determinants of asymmetric information particularly on the rural bank and small micro enterprises. The study was conducted in East Java as the province with the largest number of rural banks in Indonesia. Based on the estimation of asymmetric information model to the respondent of rural banks and small businesses, the result shows that adverse selection can be avoided by strengthening the information about prospective borrowers. Regarding moral hazard, rural banks and small businessmen argued that the imposition of the collateral to the debtor has an important role to avoid moral hazard. Rural bank respondents stated that the KUR program with low-interest rates has affected their business development. The results implied the need of broadening the collaboration schemes between this people’s business credit program and rural banks.

This study examines whether auditors restrain the analysts’ opportunistic behavior as reviewing the companies’ interim reports. Analysts' forecasts show a walkdown pattern in which their optimism has decreased as the earnings announcement date has approached. At the beginning of the year, there is a lack of high-quality benchmark information that enables information users to judge the accuracy of analyst’s earnings forecasts. Thus, early in the year, analysts are highly inspired to disseminate optimistic forecasts in order to gain manager’s favor. In this study, we examine adequate benchmarks prevent analysts from disclosing optimistically biased forecasts. We conjecture that auditors’ efforts might mitigate analysts’ walkdown pattern. To test this hypothesis, we use data from Korea, where it is mandatory to disclose auditor’s review hours. We find that the analyst forecast’s walkdown decreases with the ratio as well as the number of audit hours. It implies that an auditor's effort in reviewing interim financial information has a monitoring function that reduces analysts' opportunistic optimism at the beginning of the year. We conjecture that the tendency will be more pronounced when BIG4 auditors review the interim reports. Consistent with the prediction, BIG4 auditors’ interim review effort is more effective in suppressing the analysts’ walkdown.

China has become the second largest economy since 2010. China’s economy is supported by the rapid growth of its automobile industry. The rapid growth of the automobile and tire industry will increase the natural rubber (NR) demand as its primary raw materials. Although as a significant producer, China cannot fulfill the consumption by its domestic production. Thus China relies heavily on import from Southeast Asia countries as the primary producers of natural rubber in the world. China and Southeast Asia are dependent on their economy in terms of the availability of natural rubber as raw materials. But the economic slowdown in China since 2008 is expected to affect the international trading between China and Southeast Asia countries. This research aims to analyze the determinants of NR export from Southeast Asia to China using panel data analysis. The results show NR price, exchange rate, and China’s economic slowdown significantly affect NR export to China, while Southeast Asian NR production has no significant effect. China as the main importer of NR from Southeast Asia has a big role in growing NR export in Southeast Asia. If China's economy doesn’t improve soon, it will affect the economy in Southeast Asia.

The paper aims to investigate relationships between technology and innovation management, total factor productivity and economic growth in China. By comparing the trends in total factor productivity growth of industrialized economies (i.e. OECD), this study intends to showcase the importance of total factor productivity progress in the Chinese economy. The study employs time series data of an annual basis for the period from 1977 to 2016 retrieved from the World Development Indicator. The study employs unit root test, cointegration test, fully modified least squares estimation method, canonical cointegrating regression and dynamic least squares estimation method to test the hypotheses. The results of the cointegrating regression analysis show that manufacturing growth leads to an increase of total factor productivity in the short-run in China. The findings of the study suggest that manufacturing (i.e. technology and product innovation) is positively related to the increase of total factor productivity in the short-run and total output growth in the long-run. The findings suggest that promoting technology and innovation management and supporting R&D subsidies may reduce the marginal cost of conducting R&D and increase the rate of technology and innovation management and R&D activity and therefore, the total factor productivity growth rate.

The paper aims to investigate the impacts of long-term savings motives on fostering household participation and contribution to savings mechanisms in rural Vietnam. The paper is organized in five parts: introduction, data description, methodology, empirical results, and conclusion. The quantitative methodology is employed and three simultaneous estimation methods, including instrumental variable model, two-step model, and Heckman model are used to test these impacts as well as the robustness of results. In each model, the paper examines the impacts of independent factors on both household participation and household contribution to savings mechanisms. Two sets of independent variables: long-term savings motives (profit-making investment, accumulation for big expenditure, providing for old age, and cost of educations) and control variables (dependency rate, number of people in household, and household wealth) are in each model. A set of dataset of 2,314 households for analysis is obtained from household survey in rural Vietnam. Robust statistical findings indicate that profitmaking investment emerged to be the strongest motive fostering household participation to savings mechanisms while other long-term savings motives have little or no impact on fostering household participation to savings mechanisms. In addition, education investment encourages household contribution to savings mechanisms in rural Vietnam.

This paper provides empirical evidences from the Baltic States on the relationship between technology and trades. In this study, regression and correlation analysis were employed an attempt to reveal the relationship between technology index and net-export coefficient, as well as the relationship between technology index and import coefficient. In this research, technology level was measured by technology index, while trades included of domestic and foreign trades; export and import. The data used for this study were collected from world input-output databases of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for the period 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2014. The findings remarked that the relationship between technology and domestic trade was positive and statistically significant. The result of the study implies that the higher was the technology index leads to the higher domestic transaction. Furthermore, relationship between technology and net-export was unpredictable. In year 2000, data from Estonia and Latvia showed that the relationship between variables was negative and in other years of the study, the relationship was positive. However, the relationship between variables was not statistically significant. Lastly, the relationship between technology and import was negative and statistically significant. It implies that the higher was technology index, will have a consequence the smaller was import.

Along with the economic globalization and network generalization, this provides a good opportunity to the development of cross-border ecommerce trade. Based on this background, this paper sets ASEAN countries as an example to exploit the determinants of cross-border ecommerce trade including the export and the import, respectively. The panel data from the year of 1998 to 2016 will be employed to estimate the relationship between cross-border e-commerce trade and relevant variables under the dynamic ordinary least squares and the error correction model. The findings of this paper show that there is a long-run relationship between cross-border e-commerce trade and relevant variables. Generally speaking, the GDP(+) and real exchange rate(-export & +import) have an effect on cross-border e-commerce trade. However, the population (+) and the terms of trade (-) only have an effect on cross-border e-commerce import. The empirical evidences show that the GDP and the real exchange rate always affect the development of cross-border e-commerce trade. Therefore, all ASEAN countries should try their best to develop the economic growth and focus on the exchange rate regime so as to meet the need of crossborder e-commerce trade development.

The study aims to investigate the effects of brand value in the oriental medicine cosmetics market, as perceived by consumers, on brand satisfaction, brand loyalty, and purchase intention. The subjects were Korean and Chinese female consumers, the primary consumers of oriental medicine cosmetics. A total of 615 sample surveys were analyzed from consumers who have experience using oriental medicine cosmetics. Out of the sample, 264 respondents had used Oriental medicine cosmetics for one to four years, 199 respondents for more than four years, and 108 respondents for three months to a year. Based on existing research, we categorized the value of oriental medicine cosmetics brands into four dimensions: emotional, social, functional, and epistemic values. Whether brand satisfaction and brand loyalty can be mediating factors in brand value influencing purchase intention was inspected through several hypotheses. As a result, except for the epistemic value factor, the brand value factors were found to have a positive effect on brand satisfaction and brand loyalty. In addition, emotional, social, and functional brand value factors influence purchase intention through brand loyalty, and it was found that brand loyalty is an important factor for oriental medicine cosmetics consumers, however mediator effects did not appear for brand satisfaction.

The study aims to investigate factors influencing business households’ decision for borrowing credit: the case of commercial banks in Tra Vinh Province, VietNam. The study was conducted by collecting data from 300 business households traded at four commercial banks in Tra Vinh province (Viet Nam bank for agriculture and rural development, Tra Vinh Branch; Viet Nam jointstock commercial bank industry and trade, Tra Vinh Branch; Asia joinstock commercial bank, Tra Vinh Branch; Viet Nam jointstock commercial bank for foreign trade, Tra Vinh Branch). By the use of the Binary Logistic regression method, the research found out that the factors influencing to borrow credit of household business’s decision including: banks brand names, loan interest rates, service attitude, and loan procedures. Of those, the banks brand names and lending interest rates have the strongest impacts on borrow credit decision of business households at commercials banks in Tra Vinh province. Since then, the study has proposed solutions to improve access to credit of business households in commercial banks in Tra Vinh province in the coming time, such as: developing a bank brand; the development of flexible lending interest rate policies; improve service style of bank staff; at the same time, simplifying lending procedures.

The study aims to investigate the nexus of between role identity, self-efficacy, feeling of energy, and employee creativity in the hotel industry of Korea. The employees’ innovative behaviors like creativity have been many researchers’ interest for decades in the hotel industry. The hypotheses depicting the relationship among the variables have been proposed based on a review of existing literature. The number of 215 cases was used for final analysis and the results were explained through structural equation modeling. The results indicate the hotel employees’ role identity and creative self-efficacy positively influenced their feeling of energy. Further, both role identity and creative selfefficacy make significant impact on employee creativity. Feeling of energy also makes a positively significant impact on employee creativity. Feeling of energy partially mediates the relationship between the two independent variables and employee creativity. As a result, creative role identity, self-efficacy, and feeling of energy explain the variance of the hotel employees’ creativity. The results present that hotel practitioners need to regard their employees’ creative roles and build organizational culture to support creative activities so as to enhance employee creativity. Finally, theoretical and practical implications for the hotel industry and future studies have been discussed.

The paper aims to investigate the factors of brand equity affecting the purchase intention of car buyers in Ho Chi Minh City. The authors use qualitative method and quantitative research to study the matters, specifically using scales and data collected for Cronbach alpha reliability testing, analysizing the discovery factor of EFA, CFA and verifying the regression models through AMOS software with SEM linear modeling. The study proposes four factors: (1) brand awareness, (2) self-expression value, (3) perceived quality, (4) brand psychology impacting on the brand loyalty and intention to buy cars of customers. The results show that all four factors are statistically significant for positive brand loyalty and purchase willing. The results showed that brand loyalty positively affects consumers' intention to buy cars. Among the factors included in the study, the brand psychology is a new factor which developed by experts in the context of Vietnam. This is the first study in Vietnam to quantify clearly the element of "crowd psychology" affecting the interests and habits of Vietnamese consumers. This explains why Vietnamese consumers prefer brands that are familiar in the market and some new cars with nice models and colors suitable for Vietnamese psychology.

Compared with the research on consumer engagement in brand community, the research on consumer engagement in brand public has been relatively less. This research aimed at exploring how brand public characteristics such as information variety, various communications and no limitation in expressing self affect the brand public engagement. 274 questionnaires answered by Chinese consumers are used to conduct analysis. Principal component analysis is used to test the reliability and validity of each construct, and structural equation model is used to test hypotheses. The study finds the positive effects of information variety on information benefits, those of various communications on social benefits, and also positive roles of no limitation in expressing self to brand-related self-expression motivation. And each of the information benefits, social benefits and brand-related self-expression motivation is proved to positively affect brand public engagement. The study implies that marketers should give attention to characteristics of brand public, and provide the ways by which members of brand public engage the brand. Additionally, marketers should pay more attention to both direct and indirect engagement activities of consumers toward brand public in social media to better understand their target consumers.

Personality factors and ethical values are considered as vital element in social and professional life. This present research aims to explore the relationship between Personality and Job Satisfaction. Further, we tried to test the moderating effect of Islamic work ethics (IWE) in the relationship of Personality traits with Job satisfaction. Convenience sampling was used in defining sample as in Pakistan there is no data base which provides information regarding number of employees. Due to moderating variable the data has been collected from respondents who identify themselves as Muslim. To collect data from respondents Self-administered, close-ended questionnaires and e-questionnaire were used in this study and respondents were targeted in the normal working environment. Correlation and regression analysis was used to analyze the data statistically. The results of study indicated that neuroticism exhibits significant negative effect on job satisfaction. Also, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness showed positive effect on job satisfaction. Whereas, extraversion exhibits no effect on job satisfaction and IWE has a negative effect on job satisfaction. However, the output indicates that IWE do not act as moderator in the relation of agreeableness and conscientiousness with job satisfaction moderation effect of IWE is observed between the relationship of neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience with job satisfaction.

The paper aims to evaluate the combination of strategies that influence the success of New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs) located in isolated areas with resource constraints. We utilize the Kauffman Firm Survey to construct a subset of 224 firms operating in primary metal manufacturing industries and who are located in non-thriving areas. We focus on the impact of technological strategy, in the form of Inward Technology Licensing (ITL), combined with financial strategy, in the form of increased financial slack. Using a negative binomial-specification technique to model these relations, we find that ITL positively impacts internal innovation in the firm and this relation is strengthened by the presence of greater financial slack. This positive impact of financial slack supports the behavioral theory of the firm rather than agency theory in that financial slack enables further innovation rather than stifling it. This research confirms the importance of resource acquisition, suggesting that entrepreneurs may utilize external sources of knowledge in an effort to build a favorable situation when facing the challenges of location. Finally, by presenting evidence showing the compatibility of a financial strategy with a knowledge strategy (ITL), this study emphasizes the importance to entrepreneurs of choosing the proper combination of varying strategies.

The paper aims to provide some recommendations to improve the operational capacity of the Tra Vinh Provincial Center of Public Administrative Services and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of management in the State administrative agencies. The study on people's satisfaction towards public services of Tra Vinh Provincial Center of Public Administrative Services was conducted by collecting primary data of 300 people who used public services provided by this Center from September 2018 to November 2018. By using the multivariate regression method, the author found that there were a number of factors affecting people's satisfaction towards public services at the Center, including procedures, service fee, and attitudes of the staff, empathy, staff capacity, and trust. These factors had an impact on people's satisfaction towards public administrative services performed by staff officers from Tra Vinh Provincial Center of Public Administrative Services. Since then, the study has proposed policy implications to improve people's satisfaction on service quality at the Center such as: Develop a flexible charge mechanism of public services; Enhance the sense of responsibility of staff officers; Pay attention to improving administrative procedures; Establish trustworthiness to people; Pay attention to professional improvement; and Build up a friendly and respectful team of staff.

The purpose of this study is to identify elements of job crafting impacts on work engagement and individual work performance in Vietnamese commercial banks. The research data, collected from 226 bank officers, uses the quantitative research tools as: Cronbach's Alpha Analysis, Explanatory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis as well as Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the hypothesis test show that only two hypotheses (H2, H3) are accepted: the impact of cognitive crafting on work engagement of bank officers (H2) and the impact of work engagement on individual work performance (H3). However, three remaining relationships (H1, H4, H5) are not accepted in the study: the impact of relational crafting on work engagement of bank officers (H1), the impact of relational crafting on individual work performance of bank officers (H4) and the impact of cognitive crafting on individual work performance of bank officers (H5). The study results indicate that cognition on job crafting leaves positive impacts on work engagement, leading to individual work performance enhancement. On the other hand, the relational crafting element implies contribution on neither collective nor individual working performances. Furthermore, no direct effect of cognition on job crafting to individual performance has been identified.

A system Integrator (SI) makes a consortium with multiple providers of hardware and software solutions to sell an information system. The success of information systems (IS) mainly depends on establishing a trustful relationship between SI supplier and client, and delivering high-quality system. However, the determinants of trust and system quality have been investigated mostly from the perspective of system buyers rather than system sellers. This study examines the influence of key variables that SI can handle to improve trust and system quality which finally leads to user satisfaction toward SI. This study adopts resource complementarity, user participation and information sharing as the key variable then builds a research model to explain their relationships to user satisfaction. Respondents are recruited from 251 firms that have built any information system in recent two years in South Korea. Results of partial least square (PLS) modeling analysis show that both resource complementarity and information sharing have positive relationships with trust. Also the relationships between trust, system quality and user satisfaction toward S.I are supported. In addition, the mediating roles of trust and system quality are identified. We discussed some of the key managerial and theoretical implications of the paper and suggested further research directions.