Capital structure and performance of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) banks: an assessment of credit rating

The firm’s credit rating is an important communication tool and previous research has shown that many companies consider it important in capital structure decisions. This study examines the determinants of capital structure in MENA banks. In addition, it investigates the determinants of credit rating. Further, the impact of credit rating and capital structure on banks’ performance is examined. Therefore, this study is an attempt to answer the following questions: 1) what are the main determinants of capital structure? 2) how does credit rating affect capital structure? 3) what are the main determinants of credit rating? and 4) what is the effect of capital structure and credit rating on bank performance? The sample covers 169 banks and is divided into two sub-samples: rated (79) and non-rated banks (90). The results indicate that credit rating directly affects the capital structure decisions as rated banks use more debts than non-rated banks. Banks’ performance is positively associated with credit rating and negatively with the capital structure. This study has an implication on investors in their decisions to invest in the banking industry. It also helpful for policy makers to understand how bank’s capital structure behaves so they could take it into consideration when issuing new regulations such as Base

Effect of Ownership Structure on Firm Stock Return Performance: Evidence from the Egyptian Stock Market

We investigate the impact of institutional ownership and ownership concentration on firm stock return performance using panel data model. Our main ownership measures include; percentage of institutional ownership held by different institutions in a firm and percentage of a firm’s outstanding stocks held by the largest three block holders. We find that there is no significant relationship between either institutional ownership or ownership concentration and both ex post and ex ante return. Also, we find that there is negative and significant relationship between institutional ownership represented by some institutions and ex post risk, while the relationship is negative and significant only between institutional ownership by employee associations and ex ante risk. Ownership concentration has no effect on ex post risk but it has a positive and significant effect on ex ante risk. The results are consistent with some past studies from the literature

Understanding the determinants of hotel booking intentions and moderating role of habit

When there are more and more online hotel consumers, it is important for industry players to know why consumers prefer one online booking channel among others. Grounded in the commitment–trust theory (KMV) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this paper seeks to develop and empirically test a comprehensive framework to examine which factors influence consumer intentions to book hotel online. Using SEM to analyse the data collected from a sample of 1431 Internet users, the results indicate that consumers’ intentions to book hotel online are determined by commitment, trust, attitude, and their antecedents. Finally, commitment, trust and attitude have higher influence on intention to book hotel online for low-habit customers. Implications were offered for practitioners based on the results

Cultural and religiosity drivers and satisfaction outcomes of consumer perceived deception in online shopping

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model that focuses on the cultural and religiosity drivers and satisfaction outcomes of consumer perceptions about online retailers’ deceptive practices. It specifically investigates: the role of cultural orientation and religiosity in forming consumer ethical ideology; the link between the consumer’s ethical ideology and his/her perceptions regarding the deceptive practices of online retailers; and the effect of perceived deception on consumer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a quantitative survey conducted among 468 Egyptian consumers aged 18 and above. These were measured on a five-point Likert scale. To test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs of the model, structural equation modelling was employed. Findings – The study confirmed that power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and religiosity are important in forming idealistic attitudes, while both individualism and masculinity lead to an egoistic attitude. Idealism was observed to have a positive association with consumer perceived deception, while egoism was found to negatively affect consumer perceived deception. Finally, it was revealed that the perceptions of consumer about the deceptive practices of online retailing decrease consumer satisfaction. Originality/value – This research puts together in a single model both antecedents and outcomes of the perceptions of consumer about the deceptive practices of online retailing; concurrently examines the role of cultural orientation, religiosity, and ethical ideology of the consumer in forming ethical attitudes and responses; focuses on the instrumental role of cultural characteristics on consumer ethical perceptions from the perspective of the individual, rather than the society as a whole; and provides useful examination of the effects of perceived deception on consumer satisfaction

Perceived barriers to organizational creativity: a cross-cultural study of British and Egyptian future marketing managers

Purpose The overall purpose of this research is to further the understanding of how future marketing managers in Egypt and the UK perceive creativity barriers. The paper also examines the construct validity of the barriers to creativity scale in an Arab non‐Western context. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 125 respondents was used to achieve the research purpose. Respondents completed a 17‐item instrument designed to assess barriers to creativity in business organizations. Findings Discriminant analysis results showed that Egyptians differ from British with respect to their attitudes towards organizational creativity barriers. t‐test procedure confirmed also that gender and age have significant effects on the attitudes towards creativity barriers. Originality/value This study has provided some insights into the factors associated with organizational creativity barriers in Egypt and the UK. The more is known of how future managers perceive creativity barriers, the more quickly and efficiently creativity can be stimulated

Oil price forecasting using gene expression programming and artificial neural networks

This study aims to forecast oil prices using evolutionary techniques such as gene expression programming (GEP) and artificial neural network (NN) models to predict oil prices over the period from January 2, 1986 to June 12, 2012. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models are employed to benchmark evolutionary models. The results reveal that the GEP technique outperforms traditional statistical techniques in predicting oil prices. Further, the GEP model outperforms the NN and the ARIMA models in terms of the mean squared error, the root mean squared error and the mean absolute error. Finally, the GEP model also has the highest explanatory power as measured by the R-squared statistic. The results of this study have important implications for both theory and practice

The exposure of shipping firms’ stock returns to financial risks and oil prices: a global perspective

Shipping is an industry that is highly geared towards international trade and therefore, would seem to be highly susceptible to fluctuations in macroeconomic factors. This article investigates the impact of exchange rates, interest rates and oil prices on stock returns of 143 shipping companies from 16 countries. We also investigate the factors which determine the extent to which firm are sensitive to macroeconomic variables. Our results indicate that the low incidence of significant exposure to exchange rate and interest rates suggests that most shipping firms have utilised reasonably successful hedging strategies to reduce the impact of these macroeconomic risks. Finally, we find that, for the minority of shipping firms significantly affected by oil price increases, the effects have usually been beneficial

Corporate governance, firm characteristics and internet financial reporting: evidence from Egyptian listed companies

This study investigates the effect of corporate governance and firm characteristics on the Internet financial reporting (IFR) of the Egyptian listed companies. We develop a disclosure index to measure the three components of the IFR for the Egyptian listed corporations by using an un-weighted checklist. The results find a significant relationship between the three components of IFR (TOTAL, CONTENT and PRESENTATION) and firm size, ownership diffusion, type of business, profitability, audit type, institutional ownership and board size. The results indicate that large non-financial companies that are audited by the big four auditing companies with high diffusion in their ownership and lower presentation of institutions in the ownership structure are more likely to be related to TOTAL and CONTENT. In addition, large profitable companies with high diffusion in their ownership are more likely to be related to TOTAL and PRESENTATION. Finally, companies with a large board size are associated only with PRESENTATION

Corporate governance and risk management in GCC Banks

Purpose - The current study examines the relationship between corporate governance and risk management in GCC banks. It aims to contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence from the GCC’s banking industry of the association between risk management and corporate governance characteristics such as role duality, board size and percentage of nonexecutives. Design/Methodology - Using sample of 900 observations from banks in the Gulf countries, non- parametric regression, Quantile and panel data analysis have been used to test the hypotheses and the proposed model. The study uses data from financial institutions in the Gulf countries over the period from 2003 till 2012. Findings - Findings suggest that role duality and board size are negatively associated with the risk management. On other hand the percentage of non-executive members on the board was found to be insignificant. Moreover, findings indicate a positive significant relationship between governmental ownership and risk management. Research Implications - The results suggest that Islamic banks have a positive significant association with risk management measured by capital adequacy ratio. The results suggest future research to explore the relationship between risk management and other types of ownership structure such as institutional ownership. Future research can focus on risk management framework and practices in Islamic banks as such banks have its own risk