Competitive Advantages and Values Created and Attained Out of Well-Crafted Customer Value Propositions

To help facilitate the development of a theoretically rigorous and practically useful theory of customer value propositions (CVP), as called for repeatedly by the extant literature, this paper establishes a game-theoretic theorem regarding the dynamics of market competition and potential market entry. On top of this result and by employing logical rigor and analytical reasoning, eight generally true facts are developed without suffering from the constraints of data- and anecdote- based approaches, as widely used in the literature. In particular, these established results reveal how a newly adopted CVP is associated with the three essential processes underlying a company’s operation, how it will be pivotal for the company to attain competitive advantages, how the value added by adopted CVPs can be determined, etc. At the end, recommendations for decision-making managers and entrepreneurs and potential questions for future research are provided.

Improvement Plan for Problems of Franchise Industry in South Korea

In this paper, the various problems of the franchise industry in South Korea are discussed and analyzed, and solutions to these based on the research results are presented and discussed. In this study, hypotheses were formulated for creating a model. Conflict, management, fairness, and performance were designated as variables, and how these variables affect one another was investigated. A research was conducted to verify the research model, reliability analysis was conducted through the Cronbach’s coefficient, and the study hypotheses were verified using factor and regression analyses. The conflicts between and the achievements of franchisors and franchisees were examined, along with the relationships among conflict, management, fairness, and performance. Management was subdivided into the overall management by the franchisor and the franchisee’s self-management and autonomy while fairness was subdivided into distribution, procedure, and interaction fairness between the franchisor and franchisee.

Religiosity and Corporate Social Responsibility: Do they Mix Well Together?

Although research in social norms and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is limited, previous studies show mixed results on the influence of social norms, specifically religiosity of the community, on firms’ CSR activities. Using the CSR scores from KLD database, we merge county- level religious data and other control variables to run multiple regression models. Contrary to existing theories suggesting more religious social norms would entice companies to do better, our results show that community religiosity has a negative impact on firms’ CSR scores. In our discussion, we provide insights that explain this seeming contradiction and provide directions for future studies.

Romania’s SMEs on the Way to EU’s Twin Transition to Digitalization and Sustainability

European Commission’s six priorities for 2019-2024 are all in line with and leverage each other to support Europe’s twin transition to digitalization and sustainability; aiming to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, The Recovery Plan for Europe adds resilience as key dimension of EU’s progress, while reinforcing its commitment to the green and digital transformation. Counting for more than 99% of the enterprises, employing about two of three people, and generating more than a half of the value added - with similar weights as concerns Romania - EU’s SMEs are the engine of Europe's economy, therefore essential contributors to these transformative processes - as emphasized in the SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe. Against this background, the main questions the paper is addressing are: how ready the Romania’s SMEs are for the twin (digital and sustainability) transition the EU has embarked on? What are RO’s SMEs approaches to and performances on digitalization and sustainability against the EU27 SMEs’ average benchmark? How can the RO’s SMEs twin transition process may be speeded up? The analysis was mainly built on data provided by the Flash Eurobarometer 486: SMEs, start-ups, scale-ups and entrepreneurship (released in September 2020). The review of Eurobarometer 486 data on the two topics will then be examined and discussed, in order for the paper to eventually: identify the gaps between RO SMEs and EU27 SMEs in terms of perceptions, attitudes and behaviors related to the twin transition; explore the challenges (in terms of both opportunities and threats) RO’s SMEs face as regards the twin transition; provide some guidelines able to speed up the twin transition of RO’s SMEs.

Comparison of Income Tax Base in Visegrad Countries

The objective of the research was to compare the procedures for the calculation of income tax in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. The statutory income tax calculation procedures are very similar in the V4 countries. Particular systems differ parametrically. Based on a literature review, synthesis of knowledge, comparison and simulation calculations, it can be stated that Hungary has the lowest corporate tax rate, and in the simulative calculations it also produced the lowest tax and highest profit after taxation for a fictitious entity in Hungary. Income tax in the V4 countries differs mainly in the possibility of applying the loss of previous years, in the impact of depreciation on the amount of the tax and in the income tax rebate linked to the employment of the disabled.

Digital Engagement as a Predictor of Financial Capability, Financial Advice, and Financial Satisfaction

This paper investigates direct and indirect impacts of an individual’s digital engagement on their financial satisfaction considering a significant role of an individual’s financial capability and financial advice. The study is administered on the individual level, surveyed the working youth in northern India. PLS-SEM were employed using SMART-PLS version 3 for a confirmatory analysis and structural model assessment. Digital engagement has been established as a vital factor substantially influencing the individual’s financial advice, financial capability and financial satisfaction both directly and indirectly. The outcome of the study strongly favours the role and importance of digital engagement in the individual’s financial satisfaction. What is more, this paper contributes to the current knowledge by clarifying digital engagement as a possible predictor of financial capability, financial advice and financial satisfaction in the context of a low-income, developing country and applies it as a variable with the selected financial constructs. The originality and novelty of the study may be found useful to design effective policies.

Absorption of European Funds by Romania During 2014-2020

The time span between 2014 and 2020 constitutes a new, multi-annual financial framework. During this time, by negotiating with the European Union, Romania received financing through 5 major types of funds which were part of the European Structural Investments Funds (ESIF) and which were structured in six major Operational Programs, the most consistent of which is POIM - The Major Infrastructure Operational Program (MIOP). Within this financial framework, Romania needs to improve its absorption of funds based on the experience gained in the previous framework, with regards to issues like bureaucracy, corruption, lack of qualified personnel for the implementation of projects, the transition from the quantitative side of projects to the qualitative one, and the lack of a strategic vision. The country shouldn’t continue with justifications of powerlessness that are divided between political and economic factors. Romania needs a viable solution in terms of absorption, because otherwise economic and social development projects cannot be carried out in the near future. Romania's problem is that, after 2020, it has to absorb an amount of around 80 billion euros in European Funds coming from both the Recovery and Resilience Program and the 2021-2027 allocation.

The Influence of ES-CSF Profile Configurations and Human Capital on Organizational Performance

Critical Success Factors (CSF) for a successful enterprise system (ES) implementation have been widely studied at the level of individual firms. However, firms may (unintendedly) end up forming groups (clusters) whose members look alike in terms of the CSF that they emphasize during the ES implementation. The objective of this study is to identify such clusters, analyze the differences in organizational performance and ES benefits among them, and explore whether human capital amplifies the effects of the CSF-based cluster membership. Data were collected from a sample of 125 Mexican firms that have implemented ES. The data analysis indicates the presence of three distinct clusters that differ in organizational performance and ES benefits, with performance indicators being greater for high-human-capital-level firms across the clusters. The findings suggest that ES deployments are complex phenomena subject to institutional forces that shape the CSF configurations that firms emphasize. Different CSF configurations, in turn, determine whether firms profit (or not) from their ES investments.

Determinants of Energy Consumption in Egypt: The Wavelet Coherence Approach

Several studies have examined the implications of different macroeconomics variables on energy consumption, but the findings have been mixed, in addition, the study in the context of Egypt have been scant in the literature. Thus, our study investigates economic growth, gross capital formation, urbanization, and import as the determinants of energy consumption in Egypt using a time series from 1971 to 2017, and employed a wavelet coherent technique for the analysis. This study demonstrates a positive correlation between energy consumption and urbanization at different scales, as well as revealing a bidirectional causal relationship between the two variables. Moreover, this study shows a positive correlation between energy consumption and import, and also revealed import as a significant determinant of energy consumption at different frequencies in Egypt. In addition, an evidence of bidirectional causality was found between economic growth and energy consumption, while gross capital formation was also found to cause energy consumption in Egypt during the period of study. Our findings provide empirical rationale for the initiations by the policymakers in Egypt towards formulating policies that will ensure sustainable energy consumption in the country.

Do Cryptocurrencies Offer Diversification Benefits for Equity Portfolios?

Cryptocurrencies are becoming an exciting topic for legislative bodies, practitioners, media, and scholars with diverse academic backgrounds. The work identifies diversification benefits when cryptocurrencies are combined with the equity instruments from Visegrad Stock Exchanges. Furthermore, the results of the study explore financial and economic benefits for the investors of combining cryptocurrencies with equity stocks on the mixed portfolio. Three different independent experiments were conducted to observe diversification benefits generated from cryptocurrencies. Results from the two experiments show that cryptocurrencies employ higher portfolio risk and generate higher returns when they are involved with equity stocks portfolios. The first experiment indicates that cryptocurrencies reduce the risk level of the equity portfolios while increase average returns. Providing the equity portfolios with additional equity stocks lower the portfolio risk which is in line with the theoretical paradigms. Results indicate that cryptocurrencies must be seriously considered by the portfolio managers as an essential aspect of the portfolio diversification benefits. Future studies might raise the samples of selected portfolios with stocks from different stock indexes, to identify the problem from a broader perspective.