Taiwo Azeez Olaniyi and Babatunde Akinola
Traditional theories ignored the power of culture with respect to tax performance, even though culture does have an impact on everything that people do or decide not to do. This study examines the impact of the national culture dimensions: the power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation and indulgence on tax performance in ten African countries. A quantitative research design was adopted and a panel dataset from 2010 to 2016 was analyzed using the Panel-Corrected Standard Error estimator. The results show that indulgence indicates a significant positive impact on tax performance, the power distance, individualism and long-term orientation have a significant negative impact on tax performance, whereas masculinity and uncertainty avoidance have an insignificant impact. Thus, high tax performance is associated with a low power distance, low individualism, low short-term orientation, moderate uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and high indulgence. This study recommends that tax policymakers should consider cultural values when designing tax compliance legislation or when investigating possible behavioral irregularities.
Milena Nedeljković Knežević1, Maja Mijatov1 and Slađana Nedeljković2
The subject matter of this research study is the importance of the sociodemographic characteristics and the personality dimensions of employees for communication satisfaction. This study is aimed at determining the significant influences and correlations between the main constructs within the research study conducted on a sample of 119 employees. The obtained results have shown that, except for the gender structure of the respondents, the other examined sociodemographic characteristics have an influence on certain dimensions of communication satisfaction. Correlations were also identified between certain personality dimensions and the dimensions of communication satisfaction. The research results have numerous practical implications. The quality of the interpersonal relationships between highly-educated employees and their supervisors needs to be improved by providing a greater autonomy and complex working tasks. It is also necessary to improve the bottom-up communication process for the purpose of enabling subordinates to express their ideas without barriers. Finally, it is recommended that employees with a high level of the personality dimensions ‘Openness to new experiences’ and ‘Extraversion’ should be in the positions in which they could achieve the best results.
Danijela Martinovic
The break-even point model is a well-known instrument for determining target production, income and costs for the purpose of gaining a zero profit. Although it is a concept that was present in the literature as early as in the late XIX century, the break-even point is applied in the contemporary business practice even today. This paper aims to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of the traditional (linear) and contemporary (nonlinear) break-even models. Particular attention is paid to the assumptions needed for a successful application of both models. The frequency of the use of the break-even point, limitations and assumptions were studied on a sample of 100 manufacturing enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research study has revealed management’s awareness of the potentials for applying the break-even point concept and the need to use the modern models that include assumptions pertaining to change in the key variables in the model. This results in the need to design such nonlinear, dynamic and stochastic models that best represent the dynamic conditions of contemporary business.
Ebiaghan Orits Frank
This study empirically investigates the nexus between the moral hazard hypothesis and the adoption of the Deposit Insurance Scheme (DIS) in Nigeria. Using the secondary data sourced from the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (NDIC) annual reports and accounts, a multiple regression model was formulated, comprising a deposit insurance fund as a proxy for moral hazard (the dependent variable), whereas the asset quality indicators of Nigerian banks were the independent variables. The estimation technique according to the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) was used to test the relationships between the variables. The study revealed a significant positive relationship between the asset quality indicators of Nigerian banks and the deposit insurance fund, which supports the moral hazard hypothesis. It is recommended that governments should strengthen their banking regulatory systems in order to mitigate the unintended risks which the adoption of the DIS portends.
Violeta Todorović, Jasmina Bogićević and Stefan Vržina
Income tax management includes a set of activities aimed at the legal minimization of income tax liabilities. Due to the tax law flexibility and cross-country differences in income taxation, banks may be in a position to significantly reduce their tax burden. An objective of the paper is to calculate the effective income tax burden of banks in the Republic of Serbia and examine the impact of income tax on banks’ operations. A research study conducted on a sample of banks between 2010 and 2016 shows that the effective income tax rate in banks is well below the statutory rate, mostly due to the use of government tax incentives. Furthermore, 25% of the observations have an effective tax rate of 0% despite the reported pre-tax income. The latest increase in the statutory tax rate in the Republic of Serbia has not had an impact on bank leverage, either in the short or long term. This may be an indicator that tax shield effects are not considered when the statutory tax rate is relatively low. The paper also finds that the effective tax rate is not correlated with bank profitability.
Joshua Solomon Adeyele1, Gbenga Michael Ogungbenle1 and Ogorchukwu Augustine Isimoya2
Access to quality healthcare is the primary purpose for which the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Nigeria was introduced. It is believed that the introduction of the NHIS for workers will reduce their engagement in health-risk behavior. Despite the existence of the NHIS, its enrollees (i.e. insured workers) are still complaining of the poor healthcare delivery by the service providers. As a result, some of them are still engaging themselves in a detrimental health-risk behavior due to public health workers’ moral hazard and a short supply of drugs in public hospitals. This study was undertaken in Jos metropolis so as to ascertain the extent to which moral hazard and the disclosure of partial information about the NHIS lead to a health-risk behavior among civil servants. The research has shown a moderate level of the moral hazard demonstrated by the NHIS service providers since, within the measurement range from 1 to 7, the overall average significantly falls to 4. Contrary to the moderate moral hazard demonstrated by the NHIS service providers, the majority of the NHIS enrollees were found to averagely demonstrate a low health-risk behavior.
Biljana Jovković
Without the existence of a internal control system in today’s conditions of business operations, managing a company would be unthinkable. The presence of control allows the performance of business activities according to a plan through the preventive suppression of the deviant phenomena that could jeopardize the realization of defined objectives. If the system were not established, the company would potentially be exposed to significant losses, whose final result could be the failure and disappearance of the company. This paper is aimed at indicating the ranking and significance of the individual objectives of the internal control system in our companies’ business operations practice and, in this regard, the need for the establishment of appropriate control activities as an additional measure for securing the achievement of the proclaimed business objectives of the company. The research has shown that the best-ranked objective of internal control is the improvement of the accuracy and reliability of bookkeeping and operational data, which indicates that companies see regulators’ external responsibility as a priority in their business operations. The lowest-ranked objective – the evaluation of business efficiency, speaks in favor of the secondary position of the needs of internal informing in relation to external report demands. In the paper, an attempt was made to comprehensively analyze the way in which internal control is implemented in a company’s most important functions, namely the functions of sales, supply, production, human resources, and the financial function.
Mustafa Kevser and Bilge Leyli Elitaş
The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of the ownership structures of banks on their financial performance. The quarterly data of the 13 banks listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) were used for the period from 2005 to 2017. In the study, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), Tobin’s Q ratio (TOBIN), earnings per share (EPS) and the price/earnings ratio (P/E) were used for the financial performance indicators. Family ownership, corporate ownership, managerial ownership, foreign ownership, the largest shareholder’s ownership, the ownership of the three largest shareholders, and the free-float rate were selected as the independent variables for the study. The leverage ratio, the total assets and the age of the banks were benefited from as the control variables. There are five models formed to analyze the relationship between the variables, and a regression analysis was carried out. The analyses point out the fact that the ownership structures of the banks have an effect on their financial performance. Besides, the results obtained by these analyses are suggested to be coherent for the agency theory as one of the fundamental theories of this subject.
Anh Thu Nguyen, Thanh Huong Vu, Thi Thanh Mai Nguyen, Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen and Thi Vu Ha Nguyen
The formation and development of border economic zones (BEZ) and cross-border economic zones (CBEZ) is not only an opportunity for the border regions, but also an engine for developing the supply chain and the production network as a result of border connectivity. The paper focuses on analyzing the conditions for the CBEZ in the border areas in the North of Vietnam, including Cao Bang, Lao Cai, Lang Son and Quang Ninh. There is a big difference in readiness for the establishment of the CBEZ among the four studied sites. However, connectivity needs the most improvement on all the sites, which includes both infrastructure connectivity and policy harmonization.
Milan Kocić and Katarina Radaković
In the conditions of the dynamic development of information and communications technology, the traditional way of establishing communication among consumers has significantly changed. As one of several extremely important marketing instruments, word-of-mouth communication has been assuming a new dimension via digital forms of communicating. Having in mind the significance of social media for the formation of consumer attitudes and intentions concerning the purchasing process, the paper is aimed at obtaining relevant findings on the effect of electronic word-of-mouth communication on consumer behavior. More precisely, by using a correlation and multiple regression analysis, whether the quantity, quality and timeliness of information, and the source credibility of electronic word-of-mouth communication affect consumer trust in the area of a wellness offer was examined. A simple regression analysis was applied in order to determine whether consumer trust contributed to purchase intention. The results of the conducted empirical research show that there is a statistically significant impact of electronic word-of-mouth communication on consumer trust and that consumer trust positively affects purchase intention when choosing a wellness package in the Republic of Serbia is concerned.