Resource-based view and sustainable advantage: A framework for smes

As firms struggle to regroup their business efforts after Covid-19, significant focus turns to strategically using their resources to competitively outmanoeuvre their rivals through utilizing their human capital, social capital, and brand reputations in their performance. This research scrutinizes the relationship between the intangible resources of human resources practices, brand reputation and sustainable competitive advantage of SMEs through the lens of the RBV as a tool for strategic marketing management - an underexplored area in marketing research - using SEM model. The analysis of primary data collected from 128 SMEs operating in Lebanon reveals the existence of a positive impact of social capital on competitive advantage and shows that competent human capital has a positive impact on both competitive advantage and reputation of Lebanese SMEs. In addition, findings indicate that reputation leads to enhancing both competitive advantage and performance. Finally, the results show that the competitive advantage has a positive impact on SMEs performance during uncertain periods. These findings provide valuable insights into RBV, supporting the belief that human and social capital resources are key success factors for SMEs during uncertain periods, which can be of great significance for strategic marketing managers to help them strengthen the position of their SMEs in emerging markets during difficult times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Corporate Governance Effects on Bank Profits in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries during the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 lockdown, the typical bank in the Middle East lost liquidity due to deposit drains and experienced increases in nonperforming loans. The loss of liquidity was a supply shock, while the increase in nonperforming loans was a demand shock. Corporate governance increases the board's oversight of top management's implementation of strategies to reduce these shocks. Two corporate governance measures include a political concentration in the ownership and the presence of independent directors on the board of directors. Politically connected shareholders can ensure the continuous flow of deposits through their access to large depositors, thereby reducing supply shocks. Supply shocks may also be overcome by the large deposit balances from oil wealth. Independent directors are not employees of the banks on whose boards they serve, thereby providing objective evaluations of management's performance. Managers who are evaluated by independent directors can reduce nonperforming loans by strictly evaluating the creditworthiness of borrowers and providing incentives for timely repayment. Thus, demand shocks may be overcome by the scrutiny of management by independent directors. These conditions prevail in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC countries). Using a sample of 326 GCC banks, we perform OLS regressions followed by two-stage least squares and GMM estimator robustness checks of ownership's political concentration, independent directors, bank size, and bank liquidity on returns on assets and equity. Ownership political concentration, independent directors, bank size, and liquidity ratio significantly explained the return on assets and on equity. We conclude that large shareholders use political connections to cope with crises and that large banks are able to make new loans due to liquidity from large reserves. Independent directors evaluate management performance objectively, thereby requiring that management reduce nonperforming loans. We close research gaps of bank performance in GCC countries, as opposed to the entire MENA region, the latter being the focus of the literature. The significance of this paper is that it demonstrates the ability of banks to employ corporate governance to cope with crises. This is an original approach, as it seeks the outcome of a positive signal on bank performance of the reduction in the supply shock through ownership political concentration and reduction in the demand shock by independent directors. As corporate governance variables mitigate both shocks, corporate governance may assist banks in coping with liquidity crises.

Resource-based view and sustainable advantage: a framework for SMEs

As firms struggle to regroup their business efforts after Covid-19, significant focus turns to strategically using their resources to competitively outmanoeuvre their rivals through utilizing their human capital, social capital, and brand reputations in their performance. This research scrutinizes the relationship between the intangible resources of human resources practices, brand reputation and sustainable competitive advantage of SMEs through the lens of the RBV as a tool for strategic marketing management - an underexplored area in marketing research - using SEM model. The analysis of primary data collected from 128 SMEs operating in Lebanon reveals the existence of a positive impact of social capital on competitive advantage and shows that competent human capital has a positive impact on both competitive advantage and reputation of Lebanese SMEs. In addition, findings indicate that reputation leads to enhancing both competitive advantage and performance. Finally, the results show that the competitive advantage has a positive impact on SMEs performance during uncertain periods. These findings provide valuable insights into RBV, supporting the belief that human and social capital resources are key success factors for SMEs during uncertain periods, which can be of great significance for strategic marketing managers to help them strengthen the position of their SMEs in emerging markets during difficult times.

An innovative big data framework for exploring the impact on decision-making in the European Mediterranean healthcare sector

Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to propose a new conceptual framework for big data analytics (BDA) in the healthcare sector for the European Mediterranean region. The objective of this new conceptual framework is to improve the health conditions in a dynamic region characterized by the appearance of new diseases.Design/methodology/approach>This study presents a new conceptual framework that could be employed in the European Mediterranean healthcare sector. Practically, this study can enhance medical services, taking smart decisions based on accurate data for healthcare and, finally, reducing the medical treatment costs, thanks to data quality control.Findings>This research proposes a new conceptual framework for BDA in the healthcare sector that could be integrated in the European Mediterranean region. This framework introduces the big data quality (BDQ) module to filter and clean data that are provided from different European data sources. The BDQ module acts in a loop mode where bad data are redirected to their data source (e.g. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, university hospitals) to be corrected to improve the overall data quality in the proposed framework. Finally, clean data are directed to the BDA to take quick efficient decisions involving all the concerned stakeholders.Practical implications>This study proposes a new conceptual framework for executives in the healthcare sector to improve the decision-making process, decrease operational costs, enhance management performance and save human lives.Originality/value>This study focused on big data management and BDQ in the European Mediterranean healthcare sector as a broadly considered fundamental condition for the quality of medical services and conditions.

The Impact of Corporate Governance and Political Connectedness on the Financial Performance of Lebanese Banks during the Financial Crisis of 2019–2021

The Lebanese banking sector has become risky due to political and economic crises. At such times, corporate governance mechanisms ensure objectivity of assessment and rationality in decision making. We examine the impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms on the performance of Lebanese banks, with political involvement in the administration and ownership of the banks. We used linear regression on a sample of 194 bank-year observations from 2016 to 2021. The presence of independent members on boards of directors, and ownership concentration due to family ownership, had positive effects on bank return on assets, return on equity, liquidity levels, and loans issued. Efficient control, along with the presence of audit, and compliance committees reduced risk by increasing capital adequacy and reducing non-performing loans. Both administrative political connections and ownership political connections increased return on assets, increased return on equity, increased liquidity levels, and increased loans to deposits, while increasing non-performing loans. Agency conflicts suggest that granting loans due to political pressure increased non-performing loans.

The Impact of Corporate Governance on the Financial Performance of the Banking Sector in the MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) Region: An Immunity Test of Banks for COVID-19

The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of internal and external corporate governance mechanisms on the financial performance of banks in the under-researched Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Bank annual reports, the Orbis Bank Focus database, and World Bank reports were used to collect both financial and non-financial information on the banking sector, followed by fixed effects regressions and two-stage least squares. Results showed that the corporate governance measures of presence of independent members on the board of directors, high ownership concentration, lack of political pressure on board members, and strong legal protection, had positive effects on bank financial performance. Corporate governance mechanisms, such as performance-based compensation, the presence of women on boards, moderate size of the board, and anti-takeover mechanisms had no significant impact on bank performance during the crisis period. An effective internal and external corporate governance mechanism could improve the financial performance of banks in MENA countries in times of pandemics and crises.

Diversity, entrepreneurial innovation, and performance of healthcare sector in the COVID‐19 pandemic period

This research explores the correlation between diversity, entrepreneurial innovation, and performance of the Lebanese healthcare sector during the COVID‐19 pandemic period. It aims to analyze the nature of the following correlations (a) the impact of workforce diversity on entrepreneurial innovation, (b) the impact of workforce diversity on performance, and (c) the impact of entrepreneurial innovation on performance. Using a cross‐sectional survey design, we collected the primary data from heterogeneous respondents including 870 patients and 261 executives leading 87 major private hospitals and other medical centers in Lebanon. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is employed to predict multivariate causal relationships between latent constructs and measured variables. The results of the SEM model reveal that gender diversity (GD) is a key success factor of workforce performance in the Lebanese healthcare sector since it can increase both process innovation (PI) and organizational innovation (OI) and also enhance organizational performance (OP) and patient satisfaction (PS). The results indicate that age diversity (AD) especially the presence of youth in medical centers has a positive and significant impact on organizational performance and patient satisfaction. Finally, the results of this study show that the presence of women and youth in the Lebanese healthcare sector improves entrepreneurial innovation and thus, leads to enhance the performance level and the quality of healthcare outcomes. This research provides original information that supports executive managers in the healthcare sector during crisis periods. Managerial practices and policies designed to foster diversity can improve workforce performance and the quality of medical outcomes. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Public Affairs (14723891) is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)