• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2017

Purpose - While microfinance institutions(MFIs) from Bangladesh, such as Grameen Bank, received worldwide recognition and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, however, there is a paucity of research that provided a comprehensive discussion on the characteristics of the microfinance industry. Hence, the aim of this paper is to discuss some important aspects of the microfinance sector in Bangladesh. Research design, data, and methodology - This study used secondary sources of data, such as annual reports of the Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) and the World Bank database in its descriptive analysis. Results - This study found that Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in her socio-economic and economic development in the last few decades. It is also generally perceived that microfinance has placed significant contribution on such socio-economic development. While microfinance observed unprecedented growth domestically, however, the regulatory framework is still rather weak, and a majority of the MFIs are found to be concentrated in the well-off areas (e.g., Dhaka, Chittagong etc.). Conclusions - The findings are significantly important for the parties who are interested to know the microfinance sector in Bangladesh. To some extent, the findings of this study will provide policy implications that may benefit the industry.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.23-31
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the comparative financial performance of outsourcing and vertically integrated corporations from Footwear and Apparel industry. Research design, data, and methodology - Secondary data is collected from the published audited annual reports of the footwear and apparel corporations listed on stock exchanges globally. In the current study, 40 footwear firms have been opted that include 20 vertically integrated and 20 outsourcing firms. The sample is distributed into two groups based on threshold up-to 50 percent respectively outsourcing and vertically integrated companies. Sample independent t-test is applied to compare the financial performance of outsourcing and vertically integrated firms. Results - Based on the investigation of 10 years' data of financial ratio, the results of the study show that there is significant difference between outsourcing and vertical integration strategy on return on assets, return on equity while insignificant difference has found with profit margin. Conclusions - The findings of the current study indicates that there is significant difference between the financial performance of outsourcing and vertically integrated firms in terms of return on asset, return on equity and insignificant difference in terms of profit margin.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.157-165
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• 2019

Purpose: This study aims to provide basic data for the development of measures and promoting home health nursing by examining the current status and trends in home health nursing for long-term care (LTC) insurance beneficiaries. Methods: Secondary data, including annual LTC insurance statistics reports for 2010-2017 and LTC manpower data, were used to compute current status and trends in the provision of home health nursing. Results: Beneficiaries of home health nursing under LTC insurance, insurance-covered costs for home health nursing, home health nursing provider, and home health nursing providing institution only accounted for 3% of all insurance-covered home care services, and were on a consistent decline since 2010. In particular, vulnerable rural regions with high proportion of individuals had poor infrastructure in terms of home health nursing institutions and manpower, but had a higher home health nursing utilization rate compared to urban regions. Conclusion: In addition to measures to support home health nursing service beneficiaries, policy measures are needed to support home health nursing service personnel and institutions. Furthermore, programs to cultivate the expertise of home health nurses and improve quality of home health nursing services should be developed in order to promote home health nursing utilization in vulnerable rural regions.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.27-38
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• 2021

The physical condition assessment criteria of fill dam safety inspection are now weakly regulated and inappropriate for small agricultural reservoirs since these criteria have fundamental backgrounds suitable for large-scale dams. This study proposes the degree (critical values) of defects for the quantitative condition assessment of the embankment in order to prepare the condition assessment criteria for a small reservoir with a storage capacity of less than one (1) million cubic meters. The critical values of defects were calculated by applying the method that considers the size ratios based on the dimensional data of reservoirs, and the method of statistical analysis on the measured values of the defect degree which extracted from comprehensive annual reports on reservoir safety inspection. In comparison with the current criteria, the newly proposed critical values for each condition assessment item of the reservoir embankment are presented in paragraphs 4 and 6 of the conclusion. In addition, this study presents a method of displaying geometric figures to clarify the rating classification for condition assessment items with the two defect indicators.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.627-637
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• 2021

This research extends the literature on the effect of board characteristics and ownership structure on audit fees; these factors affect the firm's agency costs and how the auditor assesses various risks, hence the audit efforts and fees. The paper introduces political connections as a determinant of audit fees for the first time in Jordan, where the political connection is prevalent and affects decision making on the Jordanian boards. The sample consists of 109 manufacturing and service firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) over the years 2012-2019. Data is obtained from the ASE and the company's annual reports. Board characteristics are measured by board size, independence, leadership duality, meetings frequency, political connections, and audit committee. Ownership structure was measured by concentration, foreign ownership, and Institutional ownership. The study hypotheses were tested by using Generalized Least Squares regression. The Findings showed that larger boards, politically connected firms, and firms with leadership duality are more likely to pay higher fees. Besides, Firms with greater foreign ownership pay less fees, whereas the rest of the variables are insignificant. Results suggest that political connections play a major role in determining audit fees; this provides a recommendation to policymakers in Jordan to reconsider regulations regarding political connections.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.179-188
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to examine the level of aggressive tax planning (ATP) among companies listed in the Access, Certainty, Efficiency (ACE) Market of Bursa Malaysia. On top of that, this study also investigates the relationship between company characteristics, ethnicity, and ATP. This study uses a balanced pooled sample of 105 firm years-observations for the period from 2014 to 2018. These samples were selected to provide new insight into this market and to explore the attitude of small firms toward ATP in Malaysia. The data was retrieved from DataStream and the downloaded annual reports. The finding shows that profitability and financial distress have a significant relationship with ATP. Other variables including size, capital intensity, inventory intensity, leverage, and ethnicity, were not determinants of ATP. The result in this study may assist the reader in understanding the nature of companies in the ACE market, particularly on its behavior toward tax planning. A strict requirement is needed to be adopted in the sample selection process, thus limiting the sample size. Further, since the previous study focused on large companies, the discussion of this paper will provide new insight into the nature of tax planning within the small- and medium-sized companies in Malaysia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.639-648
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• 2021

The study aims to examine the role of financial risk management in predicting the financial performance of commercial banks in Pakistan over the period of 2006-2017. For this purpose, risk management is measured through credit risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk, while financial performance is measured through ROA, ROE, and ROI. For this purpose, the dynamic panel model and two step GMM panel estimators are used to test the hypothesis empirically. The annual secondary data has been taken from the published financial reports of commercial banks of Pakistan. The results show that financial risk management significantly decreases the financial performance of commercial banks in Pakistan. Overall, the results are conclusive across the alternative measures of financial risk management in predicting the financial performance of the banking sector in Pakistan. The study suggested that managers should adopt risk management and risk hedging strategies to manage commercial banks' financial risks in Pakistan. They should hold extra cash while using the trade credit facilities. Previous studies mostly used a static model, but this study used a dynamic panel model. This study is among the first that focused on the various factors affecting the banks' performance in Pakistan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.91-97
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• 2021

The disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important part of the company. CSR disclosure (CSRD) is interesting to study because CSRD in the annual reports is very important in terms of attaining company objectives to satisfy the interests of stakeholders; protect employee's interests; clarify the extent of contribution of the company in both CSR activities and CSRD; assist appropriate investment decisions. This study examines the structure of share ownership and company size as determinants of CSRD in the banking industry. We use a quantitative approach in this approach, in which researchers start with hypotheses and then collect data that can be used to determine whether empirical evidence to support that hypothesis exists. The sampling technique used is purposive sampling so that the research sample was 14 banking companies that are listed on the Indonesian Capital Market Directory from 2015-2017. Data analysis techniques using multiple linear regression determined the relationship between research variables. The results of the study state that managerial ownership, institutional ownership, foreign ownership, and company size affect CSRD. This demonstrates that the role of managerial ownership, institutional ownership, and foreign ownership have an impact on CSRD and are deemed necessary for the corporate environment. Besides, company size determines the activities of CSRD so that it can increase public confidence in the company's operational activities.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.399-409
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• 2021

This study examines whether oil and gas companies comply with the requirements of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 6 on Exploration and Evaluation (E&E) of Mineral Resources. For this purpose, a comprehensive checklist divided into eight different parameters was prepared by including every requirement of IFRS 6. While building on the previous studies, the annual reports of the top five Indian and top five Global companies engaged in this business have been investigated in detail against the checklist using content analysis as the research method. Results show that a majority of the companies (both Indian as well as global companies) have not been complying with the requirements of IFRS 6. In five out of eight parameters the companies have not complied with even half of the requirements. The overall compliance ratio is as low as 41.54 percent and 43.68 percent for Indian and Global companies respectively. While analyzing the non-compliance, it has been observed that despite having distinct accounting standards, different kinds of companies are reporting differently. Thus, it is not in line or consistent with the goal of IFRS i.e., to establish a universal language for the companies to prepare the accounting statements. The research findings identify the exact area of non-compliance while citing the relevant paragraph number of IFRS 6.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.317-328
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• 2021

This study examines the impact of bank competition and efficiency in the financial stability of the banking sector in Bangladesh. The study used the Lerner index and the Boone indicator to represent the bank competition, while the non-performing loan (NPL) and Z-score are used to represent financial stability. The secondary data were collected from the annual reports of 28 DSE listed commercial banks of Bangladesh over the period from 2011 to 2018. Using a dynamic panel GMM model, the study found the Lerner index is significantly negatively related with Z-score, which means that higher bank competition results in higher bank stability. It is also seen that higher cost efficiency results in higher bank stability. The Lerner index has negative, but insignificant impact on NPL. Similarly, using the Boone indicator, this study found that lower competition increases NPL. In terms of the Z-score, the Boone indicator found that 1 unit of increment results in decrease of the Z-score by 6.15 units. The study suggests that, as more competition results in more financial soundness, the banking industry competition should be ensured by policymakers or regulators. Banks could enhance financial stability by cost control to achieve cost efficiency as well as by improving loan-to-asset ratio.