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.
Emilija Beker Pucar and Olgica Glavaški
The paper reviews the monetary stages and frameworks towards the eurozone (EZ) for emerging EU members. At the first pre-EU stage, three monetary frameworks were identified, whereas at the second pre-EZ stage, the emerging EU members combined ER targeting with the rigid/fixed exchange rate regimes (ERRs), on the one hand, and inflation targeting (IT) with the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II), on the other. The last stage of monetary convergence assumes monetary nonautonomy within the monetary union as a rigid ERR, where the ER and monetary policies are sacrificed as countercyclical instruments. Countries with rigid ERRs are more prone to macroeconomic overheating, performing worse under a crisis impact compared to the floaters. The difficulties to maintain stability under a rigid ER environment, such as the monetary union, as well as the inherent vulnerabilities of the EZ, are crucial for the delayed entry of some EU members into the ERM II.
Temitope Olamide Fagbemi1, Taiwo Azeez Olaniyi1 and Ayobolawole Adewale Ogundipe2
Due to the multiplicity and overburdening of Nigeria’s tax system, the economic units in which systemically important banks (SIBs) are included implement the corporate strategies that identify the loophole which minimizes, postpones, or entirely avoids tax payments so as to reduce its negative effect on financial performance. Therefore, this study examined the corporate tax planning and financial performance of systemically important banks in Nigeria. Ex-post facto was adopted as the research design in this study, while Pooled OLS was used to analyze the data. This study has shown that the effective tax rate has a negative and significant impact on financial performance. Thin capitalization has a positive significant impact on the financial performance of SIBs in Nigeria, whereas capital intensity and the lease option have demonstrated an insignificant impact on the financial performance of SIBs in the country. The study concluded that corporate tax planning affects financial performance depending on the adopted tax planning strategies. Likewise, the study recommended, among other things, that the tax authorities should engage in the tax reforms whereby the corporate tax rate is to be adjusted, and that banks should engage in the activities that can reduce the effective tax rate.
Mathew Olasehinde Fashagba1 and Emmanuel Olaniyi Dunmade2
This study is aimed at examining the difference between the retirement benefit of the old, pay-as-you-go pension scheme, and the new, contributory pension scheme (CPS). The data used in the study were obtained indirectly from secondary sources. In the study, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the Pearson Correlation methods are employed, aided by the SPSS for the purpose of data analysis. The study finds that the financial value of the retirement benefit of the old pension scheme is significantly higher than that of the new pension scheme. The study also finds that the benefits of the two pension schemes significantly follow the same trend. The study concludes that the new pension scheme pays out a lesser amount of the retirement benefit than the old. The study provides the recommendations for the efficient management of the investments in the pension fund so as to achieve a sufficient return in order to bridge the gap with respect to the retirement benefit between the two pension plans.
Şakir Sakarya1, Feyyaz Zeren2 and Hilmi Tunahan Akkuş1
Affecting a significant portion of the world economy, the commodity market is the world’s largest “nonfinancial” market. In addition to the other macroeconomic variables, commodity prices have a special importance for Islamic stock indices, which have improved in recent years because Islamic finance is a financial system based on the profit/loss sharing principle and supports the real sector’s activities. In this study, cointegration and the causality relationship between commodity markets (the Gold ounce and Brent oil) and the Participation-30 Index established by taking Islamic criteria into account were investigated in Turkey. As a result of the analysis, no cointegration relation was found between the Participation-30 Index and the commodity markets. According to these results, an investor investing in gold or oil will, in addition to the Participation-30 Index, diversify its portfolio with this commodity investment and minimize its risk. The fact that there is no relation between the variables according to the causality results indicates that the Participation-30 Islamic Indices’ structure is independent of commodity markets and conventional stock markets.
Vladimir Obradović
The paper is devoted to the review of the position of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) in the financial reporting regulation and practice in the Republic of Serbia. After considering the global importance of this standard, its position in the regulatory framework for financial reporting in the Republic of Serbia, in which it was included in 2013, is analyzed, while a deeper insight into the position of the standard in practice is achieved by the empirical research on a sample of 175 enterprises. Since it has the potential to facilitate financial reporting to many companies that had previously had to apply the full IFRSs, its adoption in the Republic of Serbia is useful, but the potential problem arises from the fact that it is not adopted at the European Union (EU) level. The research in the paper reveals that the enterprises in the Republic of Serbia that can choose between the IFRS for SMEs and the full IFRSs, however, are more likely to choose the full IFRSs. This finding should be considered in the context of the long-term application of the full IFRS before the implementation of the IFRS for SMEs. Subsidiary enterprises less often choose the IFRS for SMEs than the enterprises that do not have this characteristic.