Suchergebnisse

This paper aims to examine the determinants influencing students' choices of academic majors, with a specific focus on business programs at private universities in Bangladesh. It evaluates the relative impact of various factors including subject interest, perceived prestige of the major, faculty reputation, earning potential, and availability of the major. Additionally, this study seeks to analyze how these determinants align with broader socio-economic and institutional contexts. Employing a hybrid analytics method, the study utilizes both quantitative analysis and factor analysis techniques. A dataset of 276 students from three private universities in Bangladesh was surveyed using a structured questionnaire based on a Likert scale. This data was collected over a period that reflects the current trends and perceptions among students regarding their choice of academic majors. The main findings of the study demonstrate that (i) intrinsic interest in the subject significantly influences major choice, (ii) perceptions of economic outcomes associated with the profession, such as earning potential, play a crucial role, and finally, (iii) institutional factors like faculty reputation and the prestige of the major also significantly impact students' decisions. These findings underscore the complexity of factors that students consider when choosing their academic majors, highlighting the interplay between personal interests, economic considerations, and institutional attributes.

AbstractIn this article, we investigate the effect of chief executive officer (CEO)–board connections on the cost of equity capital in an international setting. We find that CEO–board connections have a significant negative effect on the cost of equity. Our results are robust to alternative variable measurements, model specifications, and potential endogeneity adjustments. Examining the channel, we show that social ties reduce information asymmetry issues. We further show that firm‐level operational complexities and investment intensity, as well as country‐level developmental attributes and culture, moderate the association between CEO–board connections and the cost of equity capital.

Purpose
Drawing on the "ISO 26000: 2010 – Guidance on social responsibility" handbook, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which Bangladeshi small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are incorporating social responsibility (SR)/sustainability into their regular business activities. It is also aimed at providing insights into how Bangladeshi SME owner-managers perceive the concept of SR, and exploring the key drivers of and barriers to socially responsible and sustainable business practices.


Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method research was carried out in two sequential phases. During the first phase, 110 printed questionnaires (59 of which were eventually used) were distributed among the owner-managers of the selected SMEs. The second phase involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews.


Findings
The findings reconfirm the existence of the so called "attitude-behaviour" gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement SR; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers' personal motives are addressed, while many others (e.g. environmental issues) are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers' educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs.


Originality/value
This paper develops a tool suited to meaningfully assess the socially responsible and sustainable business activities of SMEs. By using the four key elements identified in ISO 26000, namely, labour practices, the environment, consumer issues and community involvement and development, and by using an innovative and effective technique, a sustainability score and implementation level were calculated quantitatively for the selected SMEs. The tool developed here can be used to study the sustainability related issues faced by SMEs based in other low-income developing countries.

In early 2020, the rapid adoption of remote and communication tools by governments, businesses and individuals around the world increased their reliance on cyber infrastructure for the normal functioning of countries, businesses and businesses. And in some parts of society, the urgent need for communication, while protecting human life, takes precedence over ensuring that these communication tools are safe and resilient. However, the question is raised as to whether these tools should be considered important infrastructure or more important, depending on their tight inclusion in everyday life around the world. In many countries, the important importance of the environment to sustain human life has been recognized by extending the legal personality, or legal rights, to the environmental entity. Countries like Colombia, Ecuador, New Zealand and India have generally granted legal rights to various rivers, lakes, parks and nature. This article explores future possibilities and examples, allowing the country to consider granting legal rights to other very important institutions that are unrecognized. Human Life Looking to the future of becoming increasingly dependent on highly interdependent systems in cyberspace, could these systems be personalized? The impact of remote operations and cybersecurity can lead to a whole new perception of the importance of cyberspace dependence and, as a result, new legal treatment. Against the backdrop of extensive debate on cyberspace legislation, including the law of war, this is a more complex legal consideration, especially in the light of cross-border dependencies and systems affecting multiple jurisdictions. Is to raise. Through cyber biomimetics, this white paper adopts a blue-sky conceptual approach to study policy considerations and potential impacts when highly interdependent cyber systems in the distant future receive the same protection as environmental factors.

"Employee turnover" as an expression is broadly used in business organization. Despite the fact that several studies have been performed on this topic, little research has been conducted on examining the causes and leading factors of turnover as well, as advising some feasible approaches, which can be applied by bosses to ensure that employees will continue in their respective organizations to enhance organizational effectiveness and productivity. The main purpose of this study is to determine the reasons and key factors in the perspectives of the relevant literature and identify to the intention of employee turnover. This conceptual paper also suggests various possible strategies on how to minimize the turnover and retain employees in the organizations. Hence, the paper has proposed a conceptual framework that shows the major variables in explaining the phenomenon of employee turnover and addressing sound retention strategies to handle these issues.

AbstractThis paper investigates how and under what conditions polluting SMEs (small‐scale firms that produce or deal with environmentally sensitive goods such as plastics, hazardous chemicals, textiles, and rawhides) in developing countries address the environmental issues related to their activities—a broadly neglected and under‐studied research agenda. Utilising extensive qualitative data drawn from SMEs operating in two of the most polluting industries in Bangladesh—leather tanning and textile dyeing—and a contextual lens from a developing country perspective, this paper provides insights into the construction of the environmental behaviours enacted by polluting SMEs. The analysis suggests that such behaviours are constructed under a number of micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐level socio‐economic conditions that act as either enablers of or barriers to responsible environmental behaviours, depending on the circumstances. The overall findings show that SMEs address the relevant environmental issues in a complex fashion, and may provide policymakers with support in the design of environmental policies tailored to the practical needs of small‐scale polluting firms.