As digital technologies continue to shape the economy, countries are faced with increasing scrutiny in the use of digital transformation to aid productivity and improve performance. In South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Small and medium-sized businesses’ (SMEs’) uptake of digital technologies, as many businesses had to shift their operations online and adopt new digital tools and technologies to solve the challenges posed by the pandemic. This has led to an increased focus on digital transformation mechanisms among South African firms. Therefore, the study examines the effect of digital transformation on the productivity of firms using cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) (2020). The survey was based on firms and is a representative sample of the private sector in the South African economy and covers a wide variety of business environment themes, such as infrastructure, competitiveness, access to finance, and performance indicators. We found that digital transformation improved productivity of South African firms. Furthermore, empirical findings are reassuring robust to the IV-2SLS and quantile regression model, size of business, sectoral and provincial analysis. Finally, we recommend that policy makers should develop and implement initiatives to improve digital infrastructure, including high-speed internet access and reliable connectivity, especially in rural and underserved areas.

This study uses the annual financial data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2020 to investigate the relationship between multiple large shareholders (MLS) and earnings management (EM). After analyzing the samples using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model and endogenous switching regression (ESR) model, the empirical results show that the presence of MLS can increase corporate EM activities and the MLS have a significantly positive effect on EM in both the treatment and control groups. In addition, this conclusion still holds after conducting multiple robustness tests. The cross-section analysis shows that the external audit supervision quality, institutional shareholders, and the uncertainty of the external economic environment have significant impacts on the baseline model results. Lastly, mediation effect analysis shows that the presence of MLS increases the corporate operating risk through EM activities. The conclusions of this paper are critical for policymakers to supervise China’s capital market, improve the level of corporate governance of China’s listed firms, and further promote reform of ownership structure.

Workplace bullying (WB) and workplace incivility (WI) appear to be the most alarming events with a potentially threat to the entire workforce and organization. Considering their implications, this research study is examining the effect of WB and WI on employee performance (EP) in the presence of psychological well-being (PW) among both relationships. Sample of the female employees (Nurses) working in the health care units and hospitals of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K), Pakistan was taken to collect the data. Data were collected from female nurses and their supervisors working in the public sector hospitals of AJ&K, Pakistan. The current study uses AMOS 21.0 for empirical analysis to estimate the “Structural Equation Model (SEM)”. The results of SEM show that WB and WI negatively influence nurses’ performance in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s health sectors. Moreover, PW mediates the association between WB and EP. Similarly, the effects of WI decrease in the presence of PW. The current study provides theoretical and practical implications for Pakistan’s health sector regulators and other stakeholders. It also sheds highlight on the importance of a stress-free environment for health sector employees and postulates that employee productivity may be enhanced after eliminating bullying and incivility at the workplace. Further, the study guides managers to create stress-free environments and policies to enhance employee’s productivity.

While infrastructure provides necessary public services and is vital for the socio-economic development of a nation, public funds alone cannot finance all infrastructure needs in society, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, where many countries are facing budget deficits. Although private financing schemes, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs) and land value capture, have been considered intensively, they have yet to produce adequate private capital flows to infrastructure projects due to a lack of incentives for private investors. Against the background, this paper proposes a new financing mechanism in which governments might divert some of the increased tax revenue from the spillover effects of newly constructed infrastructures to fund the private sector through grants or subsidies. The empirical work in Vietnam shows a significant increase in tax revenues after completing two expressways, supporting our idea about spillover effects, which includes small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development. This study’s results suggest that spillover effects can bring new opportunities for governments and multilateral development banks (MDBs) to implement infrastructure projects with greater private sector involvement in the region. It also proposes some financial schemes, such as land capture and financing for business startups, including SMEs, to enhance the spillover effects of infrastructure.

This study focuses on the problems of imperfect internal control effectiveness, insufficient information transparency, and plummeting stock prices. The study selects the data of non-financial main board listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2012 to 2021 as a sample, and adopts an empirical research methodology, which reveals that the effectiveness of internal control is negatively related to the trend of share price crash, and efficient internal control is positively related to the transparency of corporate information environment. The findings suggest the impact of internal control on the risk of stock price crash at the individual stock level and provide empirical support for listed companies to manage their risks. This study has practical value in guiding listed companies to strengthen internal control, improve information transparency, mitigate the risk of stock price crashes, and provide a decision-making basis for the healthy and stable development of the capital market.