The value chain and the target cost play significant role in achieving competitive advantage in many areas where both concepts are complement to each other. The two concepts also aim to reduce cost and maintain product quality. The current research aims to establish a framework of complementary association between value chain analysis and target costing system to achieve competitive advantage in manufacturing companies of Saudi Arabia. The study uses exploratory research to study the problem with the help of a structured questionnaire. The reported results show that target costing aids the manufacturing firms of Saudi Arabia in achieving the competitive advantage, and similar type of result holds with the value chain analysis. However, the target costing method is having an insignificant relationship with competitive advantage when combined with value chain analysis method, even after controlling for difficulties.

Word of mouth (WOM) is the oldest, yet still a very common form of marketing. Over the years, it has undergone under significant transformation as a result of the changing business strategies and rapid improvement in technology. Today, WOM has gained traction as a very effective and economic form of advertisement. With the increase in the use of internet technology and use of social media for marketing, online word of mouth (OWoM) is significantly changing the sphere. Today, many marketers prefer to use OWoM through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for marketing their products. However, consumer’s behaviors and attitudes are found to strongly influence OWoM. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the study explored the factors that predict the use of the OWoM marketing among youths in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 440 samples using structured questionnaires and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results have succeeded in showing the complex relationship between attitude, behavioral control and subjective norms; the underlying beliefs, and the intention towards the OWoM.

During the past few years, many studies associated with sustainability of the organizations have primarily analyzed the financial and performance related implications of sustainability of an organization, and perception of these practices by neglecting the role of the employees who might play a vital role through taking part in pro-environmental behavior in the workstation. Thus, this study focuses on the individual’s pro-environmental workplace (PEW) intention to determine its mediating effect between the factors in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the PEW behavior context among public workers in Malaysia. Random sampling on a list of ministries situated in Federal Territory of Putrajaya was used in the first stage followed by systematic sampling based on officer’s list of the directory in those ministries. Cleaned data resulted in 460 questionnaires gathered on demographic characteristics, PEW intention, attitude towards environmental practice in the workplace, subjective norms, perceived environmental workplace control, and PEW behavior of public sector context in Malaysia. The results reveal significant influences of PEW subjective norms, and perceived PEW control on the PEW behavior. While a series of regression analyses show that the PEW intention mediated only the two relationships between PEW subjective norms, and perceived PEW control on PEW behavior.

This research aims to examine bank specific, market and regulatory determinants of leverage and capital structure based on a panel data of publicly listed Islamic banks in 12 countries over the peri-od 2008-2017. Apart from testing standard corporate finance parameters using both OLS and M-Estimators, this study adds several idiosyncratic and regulatory environment related determinants of leverage unique to Islamic banks. The significance of potential determinants is tested for market and book leverage as well as newly introduced ‘Islamic banking leverage’. Overall, the results show that Islamic banks with higher growth opportunities, tangibility, low profitability and low risk are likely to have a high leverage. Similarly, the findings suggest important role played by debt market conditions, share of investment accounts and regulatory environment in such decisions, providing an evidence of the significance of trade-off and pecking order theory in capital structure in Islamic banks. The results are more robust for market and Islamic banking leverage, rather than book leverage. The findings offer insights to regulators, standard setters and especially Islamic banks regarding parameters to strengthen their capital, enhance resilience and thus contribute to the stability of relevant financial. This paper is among the few extant studies that focus on listed Islamic banks and tests de-terminants based on stock market data.

This study is conducted to investigate the levels of factors influencing audit fees for clients of Vietnamese garment and textile firms. Data are collected from 186 auditors in independent audit firms in Vietnam. We use PLS analysis on Smart PLS 3.0 and test the scale’s reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha index and the total correlation on the software of SPSS 22.0. The results show that the characteristics of audit firm, customers, auditors, characteristics of the audit and the relationship between the audit firm and customers had positive effects on the audit fee. The moderate role of auditor's age, qualification in the relationship between the auditor's characteristics on the audit fee are also verified. The findings reveal that the higher level the auditors are, and the more experiences the auditors are, the higher the cost of audit fee is. The results of multi-group analysis between auditors and customers group show that auditors believed that the characteristics of customers had the strongest impact on audit fees, whereas the audited clients claim that the characteristics of audits had the strongest impact on audit fees.

The main trends of the development of the world postal communication market are examined. Com-parative analogies of mail marketing are conducted including in Arab and ex-USSR countries. The growing gaps between the development of the real economy and e-commerce in developing countries are confirmed and some basic directions for development of mail business are determined. The marketing strategies of postal operators are analyzed and the possible options for their adjustment are proposed. Mail services are in demand in a modern society and consequently postal operators should be constantly improved. The world has developed a set of rules for international postal items and recommendations for conducting mail business for developing countries. The purpose of the study is to clarify the marketing concept for postal operators in developing countries in modern conditions. The result of the study identifies the main trends for the development of the postal communication market in the world, namely: direct mail services, financial sector services and logistics. On the basis of the development of modern postal operators, e-entrepreneurship is actively developing, which creates the prerequisites for creating fundamentally new types of structures that combine the characteristics of a financial institution, a post office, an entrepreneurial and logistics center. Comparative analogies of mail marketing are conducted, which allowed the development of recommendations for adjusting marketing strategies in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationship between the determinants of internationalisation and innovation on balanced scorecard (BSC) among Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Internationalisation covers the dimensions of knowledge, trust, commitment and opportunity development, which can benefit the firm performance in Malaysia by increasing the involvement of SMEs in international business activities. A sample of 202 firms was considered for this study and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used. The dimensions of knowledge, trust, commitment and opportunity development were observed to examine the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that internationalisation as a whole; such as knowledge, trust, commitment and opportunity development played an important role in innovation and balanced scorecard among Ma-laysian SMEs. However, this also can solve the existing myth of a role in the internationalisation on innovation towards a balanced scorecard of SMEs in Malaysia because family businesses are a critical pillar of many Malaysian enterprises. Therefore, this research conveys an understanding to the owners and managers to quickly achieve innovation and balanced scorecard results. Finally, this study brings some conclusions to the policy makers and regulators as well.

Industry 4.0 drives enterprises to transform their capabilities especially in innovation and their capabilities to adapt with dynamic market. The capabilities can be fostered when the leader is oriented towards digital technology and market orientation. The role of digital leadership has gained attention for studies to develop innovation and dynamic capabilities based on market orientation. Studies have been conducted on dynamic capabilities with focus on the strategy, management and economic literature including the understanding of its driving key to success. However, the study on the role of digital leadership on the development of dynamic capability based on innovation capability and market orientation has not been intensively discussed. It is argued that the development of dynamic capability and innovation capability is strongly driven from a combination of digital leadership and market orientation. Data in this study is taken from a survey conducted on 88 Indonesian telecom-munication firms as a unit for analyses. The results show that digital leadership had a strong direct and indirect relationship with dynamic capability, however the strong path in developing capability is determined from the development of innovation capability that is driven from digital leadership based on market orientation. The finding reinforces the role of digital leadership as a critical influence on development of dynamic capability. Future studies are suggested to extend the research by exploring the research model to elaborate more on the impact of collaboration, leveraging a larger sample size and better statistical tools. A longitudinal study on the companies that implement the transformation based on dynamic capabilities is also recommended for future studies.

This research aims to analyze the relationship between interpersonal intelligence and prosocial behavior among students of elementary school. As a case study, it takes 156 students of an elementary school in Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia as participants aged 10-12 years old. The result shows positive and significant correlation between interpersonal intelligence and prosocial behavior among participants, as shown by coefficient of correlation r=0.722 and p=0.000. Three aspects of interpersonal intelligence also show significant correlation with prosocial behavior. The finding suggests the need of school endeavor to improve environment that enhance interpersonal intelligence and prosocial behavior. Furthermore, the finding also suggests the importance of counseling teachers to develop students’ interpersonal relation skills to enhance their interpersonal intelligence. As interpersonal intelligence was enhanced in school environment, prosocial behavior is expected to be improved in students’ daily life.

The research paper deals with the formation of new scientific solutions regarding the assessment of the impact of stimulating innovation activity on ensuring the strategic development of enterprises in the motor transport sector of transport industries in key countries of the post-Soviet economic space (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan). The study reveals the relationship between the strategic development of a motor transport enterprise and its innovative activity, where the latter is the tool for such development. An assessment of the development of the transport industry and its motor transport sector in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan indicates that there is a crisis both in the industry and in the sector, and that there is a need to improve the competitiveness of transport enterprises, especially given the growing influence of motor transport on national economies under research. It is proved that the effective functioning of road transport enterprises in domestic and foreign service markets is possible only by ensuring their own strategic development, which is based on increasing innovation activity, which requires the use of appropriate incentives. Significant prob-lems of stimulating innovative activity at Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Kazakhstan motor transport enterprises have been revealed, and ways of solving the identified problems have been de-veloped, taking into account the use of mathematical tools for evaluating the developed improvements.