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As the financial condition of most individuals has taken the toll during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to analyze varied risk perceptions owing to dynamic behavioral aspects ingrained in individuals. The study primarily incorporates the impact of COVID-19 induced risk perceptions on psychological bias and its aftermath on perceived investment performance, with gender differences being moderators in the aforesaid relationship. A mix of probability and non-probability sampling has been used to collect data from 1,133 respondents through a structured questionnaire. The partial least square structured equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has been employed as an estimation technique. The findings highlight that risk perception has been significant in affecting the heuristics and prospects. However, it is insignificant in directly impacting the perceived investment performance. However, psychological biases, proxied by heuristics and prospects, were found to mediate the relationship between risk perception and perceived investment performance. Practical implications suggest a judicious combination of risk, return, and behavioral portfolio to stimulate, and upscale investments thereby enhancing the investment momentum to reach pre-covid levels. At the same time, the relevance for society lies in the fact that they need to re-consider their investment portfolio to adjust for uncertainties like COVID-19. Future studies can embark on cross country research to investigate varied risk perception-investment performance relationships prevalent in respective economic settings. Also, studies can explore the variation in findings with respect to different classes of investors that is, experiences, first timers, institutional, influencers and others.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between a model of electronic procurement (e-procurement) adoption behavior and the level of Government e-procurement adoption amongst Small Medium Enterprise (SME) in Malaysia. Data was collected through questionnaires that were distributed to SME selected randomly in all SME in Malaysia.The data were analyzed using factor analysis, reliability analysis, independent-sample t-test, descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation and multiple regressions. Regression results reveals that 'power', 'trust' and 'value' have a positive relationship with the level of e-procurement adoption amongst SME in Malaysia.All dimensions, namely; the power of supplier, power of procurement, trust on supplier, trust on information technology, value of implementation system efficiency and value of cost efficiency were also correlated with the level of e-procurement adoption amongst SME. Past studies on e-procurement are beset by problems of buyer-seller relationship perspective.In addition, these studies are skewed towards Government-SME relationship perspective which the Government possesses more power than SME and provide a better incentive to educate and influence SME to adopt e-procurement.In investigation the relationship between a model of e-procurement adoption behavior and the level of Government e-procurement adoption amongst SME in Malaysia, this study also tries to provides recommendation to Malaysian government for improving the level of e-procurement adoption amongst SME.

AbstractThe self‐sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) is a growing concern as they work as non‐profit organizations to achieve global poverty reduction goals. This study aims to examine the MFIs' self‐sustainability using an efficiency measurement technique based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It also determines the influence of different financing sources on MFIs' self‐sustainability as well as the moderating impact of external governance on this relationship. It uses the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to analyze the panel data from 661 MFIs in 86 countries during the 2010–2018 period. The DEA analysis reveals that MFIs are still in the intermediate stage of self‐sustainability in terms of technical and cost efficiency. The second‐stage regression results reveal that financing sources such as retained earnings and equity have a robust positive and statistically significant effect on the MFIs' self‐sustainability, implying that MFIs that rely more on these two sources are more likely to be self‐sustainable. The moderation analysis reveals that good governance accelerates the positive effect of financing sources on MFIs' efficiency. Given these empirical findings, MFIs' decision‐makers can benefit from considering their own funding and equity. Quality governance can be ensured by government agencies and regulatory bodies to support the MFIs' sustainability.