Public-private partnerships (PPPs) were established in Brazil at the beginning of this century, following a global trend of using these partnerships to stimulate investment in infrastructures, particularly in a framework of restrictive budgetary and fiscal conditions. Despite their growing importance and the expectation of an expanding role in the future, not much is known about the actual facts on the ground. The objective of this paper is to be a first step in the direction of filling this information gap by providing important stylized facts about the universe of PPPs in Brazil: the quantitative evolution of PPP adoptions; the characterization of the geographical distribution of PPPs by government level (federal, state, district, and municipal); the characterization of the PPP intervention areas, including the total value of contracts and the modalities of PPP concession (sponsored and administrative). This objective is rendered possible by the development of a new database that covers the entire process of PPP contracting from 2005 to 2022, including the opening of public consultation procedures, the publication of the official notice, and the signing of contracts, as well as multiple thematic, financial, jurisdictional, and regional indicators. In turn, we see the establishment of these stylized facts as a necessary first step in the direction of understanding the factors that may determine or condition their adoption. In general, having a clear picture of the universe of the PPPs in Brazil is fundamental as their use and their role are expected to significantly increase in the future as the country pursues a path of improved economic activity and well-being of the population.

In order to diversify a portfolio, find prices, and manage risk, derivatives products are now necessary. There is a lack of understanding of the true influence of derivatives on the behavior of the underlying assets, their volatility consequences, and their pricing as complex instruments. There is a dearth of empirical research on how these instruments impact company risk exposures and inconsistent findings. This study examines corporate derivatives’ impact on stock price exposure and systematic risk in South African non-financial firms. Using a dataset of listed firms from 2013 to 2023, we employ Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models to assess the effect of derivatives on return volatility and beta, a measure of systematic risk. Additionally, we apply the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to address potential endogeneity between firm characteristics and derivatives use. Our findings suggest that firms using derivatives experience lower overall volatility and reduced systematic risk compared to non-users. The results are robust to various control factors, including firm size, leverage, and macroeconomic conditions. This study fills a gap in the literature by focusing on an underrepresented emerging market and provides insights relevant to global risk management practices.

Purpose: The major objective of this study is to measure the impact of various attributes, such as social attraction, physical attraction, and task attraction on para-social relationships. The study also seeks to measure how the para-social relationship mediates the association between the three attributes (above-mentioned) on perceived credibility and informational influence, and consumers’ intention to purchase banking products. Study design/methodology: PLS-SEM has been used as it is believed to be most suited for the study due to the multivariate non-normality in the data, and the small sample size. Data has been collected using the 5-point Likert scale from approximately 151 respondents, who were selected using the non-random sampling method based on purposive sampling coupled with convenience-based sampling. The data was collected from January 2023 to August 2023. Findings: Largely, the findings reveal that both social and physical attractions do have a positive impact on the para-social relationship, further leading to perceived credibility and informational influence. Notably, this perceived credibility and informational influence lead to consumers’ intentions to purchase banking products, albeit with the use of artificial intelligence-based chatbots and digital assistants. Originality: This is possibly among the first-ever studies extending the para-social theory for purchasing banking products and services using artificial intelligence-based chatbots and virtual assistants.

This paper aims to research the impact of psychological contract fulfilment on employee innovative work behaviour, and the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of social support. A quantitative analysis was adopted to address in research. Two-wave data were collected from 332 respondents working in China. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to assess the proposed hypotheses. Results revealed that psychological contract fulfilment positively impacted innovative work behaviour. In addition, engagement partially mediated the relationship between psychological contract fulfilment and innovative work behaviour. Furthermore, the findings suggest that social support moderates the relationship between work engagement and innovative work behaviour, and, in turn, moderates the indirect effect of psychological contract fulfilment on innovative work behaviour through work engagement. This research extends the generalizability of findings in the psychological contract literature. The results bear significant implications for the management of employees’ innovative work behaviour.

The development of the personal innovative competences in workers is of capital importance for the competitiveness of organizations, where the ability of the employees must respond in an innovative way to diverse situations that arise in specific contexts. Considering this, the question arises: How do innovative employees’ competences affect the sustainable development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)? Therefore, the objective of this work is to present a multi-criteria method based on the Analytic Network Process (ANP), to relate innovative personal competences and the sustainable development of MSMEs. An instrument was applied to groups of experts from 31 Ecuadorian fruit-exporting MSMEs, to develop a multi-criteria decisional network that allowed identifying the innovative personal abilities that have the greatest impact on the sustainable development of these organizations. The results demonstrate the relevance of the elements of innovative personal competencies, with a cumulative participation of 39.15%, Sustainable Export Development with 32.18% and Improvements with 28.66%. It also presents three types of analysis: i) Global to establish the weight of each variable; ii) Influences, to establish solid cause-effect relationships between the variables and iii) Integrated. The most relevant innovative personal competences for sustainable development and improvements for exporting SMEs are teamwork, critical thinking, and creativity within the international context.