The social role of supply chain firms during the pandemic period

Purpose: Social risk management is vital for growth and business continuity. This study investigates the social risk shift in supply chain management during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Data were retrieved from Bloomberg between 2010 and 2021 regarding all supply chain enterprises from nine countries. The authors undertake a confirmatory examination of formulated hypotheses. Social supply chain risk (SSCR) refers to "firms that took the necessary steps to decrease social risks in their supply chain. Social risks involve the child or forced labor, poor working conditions, lack of a living and fair or minimum wage”. The authors complement the analysis and address the endogeneity issue using the dynamic generalized moments method (GMM). Findings: A significant positive relationship between COVID-19 and SSCR was discovered in this study. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain firms faced supply chain social risk. Notably, SSCR policies differ from one country to another during this period. Research limitations/implications: The research has some limitations. The sample data are limited to 9 countries. Furthermore, it was somewhat difficult to determine the country-wise difference using COVID-19 as a dummy variable. Future research may adopt qualitative approaches, such as structural or semi-structural interviews. Practical implications: The results have important implications for supply chain practitioners to consider the critical role of social risk in their operations. COVID-19 has exposed the new political economy and re-centered governments as the key actors in tackling grand challenges to safeguard workers, produce socially useful products and protect their stakeholders. Also, the study highlights the importance of governments and policymakers having a well-structured regulatory framework and environment for firms to comply with the social norms in their supply chain management. Finally, the study's findings should encourage supply chain managers to adopt a proactive mechanism that reduces the social risk impacts of pandemics. Originality/value: Considering the historical backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study is unique in measuring the SSCR of enterprises from a worldwide viewpoint. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Role of ICT for workers' safety at the workplace during pandemics: evidence from global data

Purpose This study contributes to the extant literature on ICT firms by investigating the interrelationship between the health and safety (H&S) measures, market performance, and the coronavirus (COVID-19). Design/methodology/approach To conduct the confirmatory analysis by testing our hypotheses, data have been collected from Bloomberg of all ICT firms from five countries. The authors gathered from 2010 until 2020 as the research sample to examine the pandemic impact on market performance and H&S measures. Findings First, our results reveal a significant and positive relationship between market performance (proxied by Tobin's Q) and the H&S measures of information technology (IT) firms. Second, the authors find that the IT firms have significantly increased the H&S measures during the COVID-19 period and were dynamic in linking employees' adaptive capabilities to positive attributes. This has contributed to business success, resiliency, and sustainability. Research limitations/implications The authors used a quantitative method of testing our hypotheses. Future studies may consider checking the robustness using qualitative methods such as structural or semi-structural interviews. Practical implications The study offers valuable insights to academics, practitioners, stakeholders, policymakers, and international entities by fostering knowledge about responses to crises, integrating digital solutions, and disseminating digital information. The study also has implications on the health, social, business, and economic levels. This study is a call for international and local humanitarian organisations such as United Nations High Commission, Care international and many more to understand the gravity of safety of the workers in the workplace during the pandemic period and introduce a firm-level policy accordingly. Originality/value This paper is novel considering that the paper is unique in evaluating ICT firms' market performance and H&S from a global perspective, considering the context of this historical pandemic.

Does COVID-19 influence the maturity management of industrial sectors? Evidence from global data

Purpose: This study aims to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacts the maturity of all industrial sectors globally. This paper analyses the general patterns of managing maturity in terms of performance and risk-taking of S&P 500 industrial sectors while determining their association with COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: To analyse the immediate response of COVID-19 on maturity management, the authors gather time-series daily index data of S&P sectors from October 2019 until June 2020 from Bloomberg. The authors select this study period to show the immediate effect of COVID-19 on industrial sector maturity management. The performance and volatility of stock are proxies for managing the maturity of each sector. The authors use vector auto-regression (VAR) methodology to determine the impact of global coronavirus. Findings: This study’s findings suggest that the information technology sectors outperform the other sectors;in contrast, the utility sector exhibits the worst performance during a pandemic. Furthermore, the real estate sector depicts a higher level of systematic risk pattern than other sectors. Interestingly, the empirical result of VAR shows that almost every sector is significantly negatively affected by this pandemic;however, the consumer discretionary sector is immune to it. Research limitations/implications: Overall, this study’s findings for individual economic sectors demonstrate that the managing maturity of each sector acts differently to the coronavirus outbreak. This study offers insights to researchers, policymakers, regulators, financial report users, investors, employees, clients and society. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature on managing the maturity of industry sectors in terms of observing their trends during the financial crisis. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector: evidence from China and United States stocks

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has adversely impacted the globally interconnected economy and brought the tourism sector to a temporary standstill. As such, this study aimed to investigate the spillover effect of industrial sectors by emphasizing the tourism sector. The study data was gathered from China and The United States (US) between 2019 and 2020 (pandemic period) using the Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic-Dynamic Conditional Correlation (MGARCH-DCC) and Wavelet Coherence Transform (CWT) techniques to analyse the investment holding period. Country-wise, the sectoral return volatility in China was significantly higher than the US counterpart. Additionally, the intra-sector correlation analyses demonstrated that Chinese sectors successfully mitigated the intra-sector correction in the last quarter of 2019. A short-term holding period was also suggested for investors in China while a long-term counterpart was recommended for investors in the US. Regarding the Chinese and US industrial sectors in the first quarter of 2020, it was mutually concluded that both country stocks reflected high volatility. The tourism sector was also negatively affected throughout the pandemic period (between 2019 and 2020). Essentially, this study offered practical contributions to investors, mutual fund holders, and brokers. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Impact of COVID-19 on financial performance of logistics firms: evidence from G-20 countries

Purpose: This study aims to contribute to the extant literature on logistics by investigating the interrelationship between the financial performance of listed logistics firms and the COVID-19 and compare the logistics firms’ financial performance of G-20 countries during the pandemic period. Design/methodology/approach: To conduct the confirmatory analysis by testing the hypotheses formulated for this study, data have been collected from Bloomberg of all logistics firms from G-20 countries. This paper gathered the first quarter from 2010 until the last quarter of 2020 as the research sample to examine the pandemic impact on financial performance. Findings: The results show that the financial performance of logistic firms was significantly higher during 2020. Overall, the country-wise findings corroborated with the main results and the financial performance of 14 countries’ logistic firms out of 20 ones analysed has been significantly elevated, during the pandemic period. However, this paper has found out a negative financial performance of the logistics firms during the COVID-19 period in six countries (Germany, Korea, Russia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the UK), which support the second proposition. Research limitations/implications: The study’s results were important as they highlighted the role of logistics firms in offering insights to academics, practitioners, policymakers and logistic firms’ stakeholders. For future research, this paper suggests including some other variables that might influence firm performance and that have not been considered in this study, which is a limitation, and going more deeply into the logistics sector by comparing the financial performance of the sub-sectors. Practical implications: As the importance of logistics services during the pandemic period is relevant, this study may provide significant insights because the logistics firms play a crucial role by anticipating to ensure the supply of essential items such as food, medicine, then supporting for the continuity of supply chains. The view of finance impacts during the pandemic may provide insightful perspectives for logistics companies, allowing them to understand those impacts and better prepare for likely disruption events such COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value: This paper is novel considering that it is unique in evaluating logistics firms’ financial performance from a global perspective, considering the context of this historical pandemic. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Understanding the implications of FinTech Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the determinants of FinTech Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending. The issue is significant because P2P lending platforms have attracted borrowers with little to no access to the credit facilities offered by conventional banks during the pandemic. Although many banks and financial institutions have offered online loan application services during the COVID-19 pandemic, few have developed verification of loan applications submitted online. The results of this study show that the COVID-19 has brought a drastic change in the key determinants of P2P lending. The results imply that FinTech P2P lending has become the most viable alternative credit option available to borrowers. The findings are significant and likely to be of interest to borrowers, investors, practitioners, academics, and policymakers because they highlight the usefulness of P2P lending platforms and their potential to augment or replace lending provided by traditional or conventional banking institutions. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.