Demand and Supply Disruptions During the Covid-19 Crisis on Firm Productivity

This paper explores the supply chain (SC) disruption impacts to the performance outcomes of a semiconductor company during the Covid-19 pandemic and proposes appropriate risk mitigation strategies to overcome the crisis. The research uses a single case study methodology and 24 SC employees from Belgium and Germany who take part in the survey. To measure the effect of SC disruptions to the firm's financial performance, some quarterly financial statement data are used from 2018 to 2021. The regression analysis results show that there is no significant impact of SC disruptions to the firm's productivity and non-financial performance. The paired samples t-test suggests that there is no significant change in the firm's financial performance before and during Covid-19 either due to the market's political and economic stability or the semiconductor company develops effective SC risk management strategies.

The effect of global price movements on the energy sector commodity on bitcoin price movement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to determine the effect of global price movements for energy sector commodities, especially Crude Oil and Natural Gas Prices, on cryptocurrency price movements. This study focuses more on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. This study uses quantitative methods, and the data collection used is secondary data with weekly data and the period from January 1, 2020-July 31, 2021. The number of observations used in this study amounted to 79 observations. Secondary data sources are obtained through the website finance.yahoo.com. The data processing technique will be carried out using Stata and SPSS software, the Multiple Linear Regression method, and the Classical Assumption Test. The results of this study show that global prices for energy sector commodities, especially Crude Oil, Natural Gas, have a positive effect on Bitcoin price movements. These results indicate a link between energy and Bitcoin caused by Bitcoin miners who are mining Bitcoin using energy so that when the price of Bitcoin rises, the price of energy will also increase.

The Effect of Transformational Leadership and Remote Working on Employee Performance During COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 outbreak has emphasized the importance of leadership style in achieving organizational performance. It also implies changes in administrative processes to remote working, impacting employee activities, and performance. Employee performance is one of the aspects that might influence a company's success. If employees are productive and provide high-quality work, the company's performance will increase. This study aims to analyze the effect of Transformational Leadership and Remote Working on Employee Performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted by performing a questionnaire distribution survey and acquiring 136 respondents. The research was conducted on a Jakarta area company that had implemented Remote Working. The number of samples in this study was determined using a simple random sampling procedure, in which the sampling was done at random without consideration for the population's existing strata. This study uses a quantitative approach method based on factual data and research data in statistical figures related to concluding research problems. The source of data in this study is primary data that was directly obtained from sources without going through intermediaries. This study shows that Transformational Leadership has no significant impact on Employee Performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Remote Working has a significant impact on Employee Performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

R&D intensity and firms dividend policy: evidence from BRICS countries

Purpose>Given the importance of both research and development (R&D) investments and dividend policy in the growth of firms, this paper examines the moderating effects of investor protection and other country-level governance mechanisms on the relationship between R&D investments and dividend payments in the firms from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS countries).Design/methodology/approach>This empirical study uses a sample of 22,073 firm year observations from the BRICS countries over a period of 2008–2020 and employs both ordinary least squared (OLS) and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation methods. The GMM estimation controls for unobservable heterogeneity and endogeneity and reduces estimation bias.Findings>The findings indicate that although R&D intensity is negatively related with the cash dividend payments, with the interaction of investor protection and other country-level mechanisms the relationship between R&D intensity and dividend payments becomes positive. The results further show that investor protection has stronger impact on the relationship between R&D intensity and firm cash dividend payments than other selected country-level governance factors.Practical implications>The research findings should encourage the policy makers in BRICS countries to strengthen investor protection and enhance quality of their institutions to make a right balance between retaining their growth potential and maintaining the value of the firms.Originality/value>This is the first study to provide evidence of the moderating effects of investor protection and other country-level governance mechanisms on the relationship between R&D investments and dividend payments using the data from BRICS countries.

COVID-19 and Two different Stock Markets: An Event Study Analysis

In this study, we examine two different stock markets’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic using event study methodology and a novel linear regression model. We use LSE (UK) as a proxy for the developed countries stock market and DSE (Bangladesh) as a proxy for the developing countries stock market. Using the daily COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths and stock market returns data from these two countries (UK and Bangladesh) over the period November 01, 2020 to August 07, 2020. Our main research question was, which stock market suffered more during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether developed countries stock market or developing countries stock market. We find that developed countries stock markets (LSE as proxy) responded negatively to the growth in COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths in COVID-19. We further find that developing countries stock markets (DSE as proxy) did not responded to the growth in COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths in COVID-19.