• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.67-77
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• 2016

Shareholders solely depend on annual reports to make investment, credit and other decisions. Investors expect that information should be reliable, relevant, comparable, consistent and thus easy to use for decision making. But whether the importance of annual reports to all shareholders is equally significant is a question of research. Thus, this research study tries to find out the importance of reading annual reports to the investors. A questionnaire survey is conducted on investors considering thirty one general shareholders and six brokers. This research based survey finds that most of the shareholders have no knowledge about accounting or finance and they have little knowledge about capital markets due to lack of training. This study also finds that general shareholders read an annual report at least moderately except value added statement, chairman's review, director's report and rumor. This study recommends human resource should be developed through adequate training, and annual reports should provide transparent and quality information which will ultimately increase the confidence of investors.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.73-84
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• 2020

Existing studies disagree over the core predictors of firm-level financial choices in developing countries. The general practice only validates the traditional capital structure model, which leads to inconsistency and a lack of novelty. This study removed overfitting issues among existing factors and presented the most reliable and advanced capital structure model in Pakistani firms. The panel data include 368 Pakistani companies from 19 non-financial sectors over the period 2004 to 2017. We apply Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria to remove overfitting issues among inconsistent proxies in the capital structure model. The fixed effects regression is used for basic results and the Generalized Method of Moments is applied to control the endogeneity. Besides the conventional proxies, we report that credit rating, distance from bankruptcy, managerial concentration, and institutional quality are the most advanced capital structure determinants in Pakistan. These predictors remain significant across firm size and growth levels. Also, the findings confirm that new predictors are reliable to define capital structure dynamics and improve the speed of adjustment in overall and sub-sample analysis. The major findings suggest that managers and policymakers should consider these advanced predictors to design their financial settings in firms.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.433-442
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• 2021

This research examines the financial performance of Village and Urban Community Funds (VFs). The study also explores the beneficial effects of the biggest microfinance programs in the world in the lower and lowest income provinces; specifically, whether VFs change household economic status or not. The data is collected uniquely from the village funds in four provinces of each region in Thailand which considerably reflect the government achievement. Accordingly, several financial ratios have been applied to evaluate the financial efficiency of the village funds, and the ordered logit model has been used to estimate the impact on economic variables of the poor. The findings show that the village funds do not improve the savings, income, consumption, and asset of VFs' members, although such funds have a higher financial performance. Furthermore, the VFs are a good substitute compared to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) credit because the cross-price elasticity of quantity of demand for such loans is positive. In particular, the loans from village funds are insignificantly correlated with the debt, income, asset, and economic status of VF members. This implies that Thai Village Funds do not alleviate definitely the serious problem about the financial situation in rural provinces. Thus, this microfinance does not change the economic well-being of the poor.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.439-451
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• 2020

This study focused on researching the factors affecting retail banking efficiency of Vietcombank branches in the Mekong-Delta region. By collecting data from financial statements from 15 branches of VCB in the Mekong-Delta Region between 2015 and 2018, the paper applies DEA estimation to measure the effectiveness of retail banking activities and uses the Tobit regression model to identify factors affecting retail banking efficiency. The results demonstrate that the retail banking efficiency of branches averaged 52.5% during the period. The rating result shows the branches in An Giang, Can Tho, Dong Thap, Kien Giang, Long An, Phu Quoc and Tra Noc rank at the top technical efficiency. In group of medium efficiency, there are branches in Soc Trang, Tien Giang and Vinh Long. In the category of the poor efficiency are the branches in Bac Lieu, Ben Tre, Ca Mau, Chau Doc and Tra Vinh. The results also show that bank scale-related factors, capital adequacy, credit quality, time specific and region impact significantly the retail banking efficiency. The research not, only contributes to enriching the empirical research method but also is significant for the management activities in business developing strategies, improving the operational efficiency of Vietcombank in the region.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.297-305
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• 2021

The study aims to investigate loyalty rewards programs on customers' satisfaction in Jordanian banks, and to investigate the statistical differences in loyalty rewards programs and customers' satisfaction according to demographics such as age, sex, education level, duration of engagement with bank, and the type of bank. The study is based on the data obtained from the sample. The questionnaire is the tool for collecting data from the respondents. The study materials include website resources, regular books, journals, and articles. The study population consists customers in the banking sector. The figures indicate that number of actual customers reaches 2.06 million. The sample size requirement is 386 items. Customers are split between traditional and Islamic banks, with 231 and 155 customers respectively. The stratified random sampling technique and the structural equations modeling methodology were used. The results show moderated impact of the loyalty rewards programs on customers' satisfaction. The results show statistical differences in the loyalty rewards programs and customers' satisfaction according to the engagement period with the bank only. The findings suggest better managing the loyalty programs and developing one credit card for all banks in Jordan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.97-106
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• 2021

The condition of financial services in Indonesia is unique, based on various characteristics, behaviors, and preferences. Therefore, the study of finance and banking is interesting to study as a recommendation for government policies. This paper aims to analyze the barriers to accessing formal financial services in Indonesia and why informal financial services are preferred. This paper presents a case study of financial inclusion in selected provinces in Indonesia using the SOFIA dataset from the Ministry of National Development Planning. Overall, this data consists of 20,000 individuals from 4 provinces and 93 regions representing the population in eastern Indonesia. The analysis was carried out by processing individual-level cross-sectional data surveyed in 2017 using the probit binary logistic method. The results identify the individual barriers in accessing formal financial services, including account ownership, saving, and credit activities in the formal financial institutions, and amplify the image by analyzing what determinants affect people to choose informal institutions. We found that some individual characteristics such as age, gender, education, income, employment status, residence, and access to technology significantly affect the barrier to formal financial services in East Indonesia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.343-352
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• 2021

This study aims to identify the impact of the audit approach based on business risks (i.e., external environment risk, operations risk, information risk) in reducing unsystematic risks (i.e., operational risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, capital risk, and administrative risk) in Jordanian banks. To reduce the effect of unsystematic risks and, thus, improve banking performance, an audit approach based on business risks has emerged. To achieve the objectives, this study relied on descriptive statistics and the regression approach to study twenty-five Jordanian banks. The researcher used the intentional sampling method represented by employees of the accounting, financial and control departments in Jordanian banks. Seventeen banks contributed to the study, with a percentage of 68%, totaling 356 employees. A questionnaire was designed to obtain the data, and due to homogeneity among the sampling members, a purposive sample was drawn and 300 questionnaires were distributed. The results of the study found a statistically significant effect of the audit approach based on business risks with its combined dimensions on reducing unsystematic risks in Jordanian banks. The results of the study also found a statistically significant effect of the business risk-based audit approach with its combined dimensions on reducing operational risks in Jordanian banks.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.507-517
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• 2021

The research objective was to analyze the effect of work behavior on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and organizational commitment. For this, we analyze the effect of organizational commitment on OCB and analyze organizational commitment as a mediating variable in the relationship between workplace behavior and OCB. This study employed survey data for 80 employees of 12 village credit institutions in the Badung Regency. Observation is one way to obtain primary data. It is done by observing the object, which is the primary source of data, and conducting direct observations of the research location to determine the circumstances and problems. This research uses data collection techniques: 1) interviews conducted with employees working in Badung Regency both in managers and staff positions. 2) Questionnaire, namely, by using several closed questions given to the Badung Regency employees regarding workplace spirituality, organizational commitment, and OCB. The analysis technique used the partial least squares (PLS) approach and the Sobel test. The results show that workplace spirituality does not affect OCB but positively affects organizational commitment. Also, organizational commitment has a positive effect on OCB. The major findings are organizational commitment acts as a mediating variable in the relationship between workplace spirituality and OCB.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.239-247
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• 2021

Conventional banks are often considered more efficient than Islamic banks because they have been operating for decades, but Islamic banks have shown rapid development recently. Therefore, this study mainly aims to compare the level of efficiency of conventional banks and Islamic banks and which ones have the best level of efficiency. This study employs panel data using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) as the data analysis technique. The data used is annual data from 13 conventional banks and 13 Islamic banks in Indonesia during the 2014-2019 period. The result shows no significant difference in the efficiency of conventional banks and Islamic banks. This result is presumably influenced by the small size of the bank and the total number of banks used in the study. The data used in the study is limited to the period from 2014 to 2019. The variables utilized are also limited to the availability of financial report data which is publicly published. This study provides additional empirical evidence regarding conventional banks' and Islamic banks' efficiency in Indonesian banking by using the latest data. While theoretically, Islamic banks are expected to be more efficient than conventional banks, this study did not find any strong support for the case in Indonesia during the observation period.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.73-84
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• 2020

The study aims to investigate the dual effects of corruption control on economic growth in relationship with the stock market and trade openness in developing countries. The study used difference S-GMM method on the dynamic panel data model in the period (2002-2017) with data collected from the World Bank. The study discovers the dominant impacts of corruption control in the relationship with the stock market on economic growth. At the same time, the study also confirms the overwhelming impact of corruption control in the relationship between trade openness and economic growth in the developing countries. In addition, the study shows that inefficient stock markets in developing countries will not promote economic growth. Meanwhile, the long-standing credit market has a positive impact on economic growth. With the strong development of stock market and trade openness in the period (2002-2017), control on corruption in developing countries does not get better in time with the increase in demand. The findings of this study suggest a number of solutions to strengthen corruption control, leading to the increased efficiency on the stock market and as well as encouraging the positive effects of trade openness to contribute to promoting economic growth in developing countries.