Full Text Articles
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr - Sep 2021
Wajiha Rasheed, Kanwal Iqbal Khan, Syed Muhammad Waqar Azeem Naqvi and Shahid Mahmood
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr-Sep 2021, pages 1-28, https://doi.org/10.35536/ljb.2021.i1.v10.a1
The debt structure remains an area of indispensable concern for businesses across the globe. The organizations are facing difficulty to achieve an optimal capital structure due to inconsistent debt policy. This study investigates the firm’s debt policy consistency over a period of twenty-two years after its establishment by observing leverage, debt maturity, debt granularity, and debt specialization as important measures. It has employed a unique dataset covering all the non-financial Pakistani firms listing from 1997 to 2018. The results depict that a firm’s debt policy remains remarkably consistent over time, confirming that the initially adopted debt policy is a significant determinant of its future debt policies. However, it is noteworthy that the consistency of the debt policy has shown a declining trend due to the firm’s age and size. Additionally, we have examined the effect of business group affiliation on the consistency of debt policy, with further segregation in terms of the financial firm’s presence in a group or not. The findings show that a group affiliated firm has more access to the debt market than an unaffiliated firm. Further, the existence of a financial firm in a group serves as an extended financial market that help them to survive in a distress situation. This study will assist the managers in understanding the significance of initial debt policy on the continuity of future policies that help them in financial decision-making.
Anam Shahid and Sadia Arshad
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr-Sep 2021, pages 29-56, https://doi.org/10.35536/ljb.2021.i1.v10.a2
Gamification is a trend of the future that primarily influences consumer behavior. This, in turn, triggers loyalty via a game-thinking loop. The multifold application of gamification, however, has remained a buzzword thus far, indicating an infancy of the game mechanics to impact consumer loyalty, and thinking patterns. In this regard, the gamification phenomenon encourages the mental and emotional engagement of the consumers. This subsequently can predict the magnitude, and the span of loyalty of the consumers as well. The current work, therefore, intends to empirically substantiate the impact of gamification on consumer loyalty, via two possible path-ways, i.e., gamification->hedonic benefits->consumer loyalty, and gamification->utilitarian benefits->consumer loyalty. Additionally, reward satisfaction is an aspect that is considered as a contingency variable in specifying the indirect impact of gamification on consumer loyalty. The sample for this study comprises of over 240 students from three private universities of Lahore, where data was collected with respect to the solicitation of gamification in online food applications. Results are shown to be positive and significant, thus supporting both the direct and indirect impacts of gamification on consumer loyalty. Moreover, an interaction term is also significant in ascertaining the positive conditional effects of reward satisfaction, on the direct path between gamification and consumer loyalty. The findings of the study provide valuable insight to consider gamification as an innovatively ambitious online marketing strategy for ensuring consumer loyalty.
Abdul Rashid, Nida Ishfaque and Zainab Jehan
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr – Sep 2021, pages 57-90, https://doi.org/10.35536/ljb.2021.i1.v10.a3
The growing global uncertainty has pushed firms to re-assess their financial strengths, and re-examine their earning management strategies and methods. It is now common knowledge that firms face unexpected variations in several different, firm-specific, and macroeconomic factors at a time. Therefore, this research sets out to examine the role of both idiosyncratic (firm-specific) risk and macroeconomic uncertainty in earnings (discretionary accrual) management, of 400 non-financial listed firms, over the time period spanning from the year 2000-2016. In this regard, this study offers robust empirical evidence that is based on the importance of both idiosyncratic and macroeconomic uncertainties, by considering various indicators of each type of uncertainty that is taken into account. The empirical findings state that there is a negative impact of both types of uncertainties on discretionary accruals. Notably, the findings reveal that compared to the impact of idiosyncratic risk, the uncertainty associated with macroeconomic factors tends to have greater impacts on accrual management of the Pakistani firms. These findings about the earning management effects of uncertainty are useful for different stakeholders including policymakers, customers, suppliers, investors and firm managers in order to formulate appropriate strategies and device relevant policies.
Abdul Qadeer and Ashfaq Ahmad
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr-Sep 2021, pages 91-120, https://doi.org/10.35536/ljb.2021.i1.v10.a4
Using the Fama-French three factor method, the size sorted liquidity-based three factor method, and the Fama-French five factor model, this study explores the dynamics of price discovery and asset pricing in sustainable equity portfolios. Based on the findings of the study, we propose the liquidity based three factor model as a significant explanatory model for the pricing of sustainable equity portfolios in Pakistan. However, all the five factors i.e., market premium, size premium, value premium, operating profitability, and the investment factors from the Fama French five factor regression for small conservative and small stocks with high Book-to-Market were observed to be significant. Furthermore, we found evidence of the price discovery variable in some portfolio classes that were constructed from the asset pricing models. The findings of this study suggest that in Pakistan, liquidity is a critical pricing factor, and should not be overlooked while making investment decisions. Furthermore, portfolios where price discovery were found may be useful for further portfolio optimization and profit maximization.
Barira Bakhtawar, Faiza Latif and Asifa Kamal
The Lahore Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 1, Apr-Sep 2021, pages 121, https://doi.org/10.35536/ljb.2021.i1.v10.a5
The primary objective of this research is to ascertain the relationship between market shares of traditional and digital media in Pakistan by using the theoretical framework of the media niche theory. In order to achieve this objective, the study has tested different relationships between advertising market shares of media forms through various statistical techniques. The researchers have determined the overlaps and variabilities among the advertising market shares of media forms through ANOVA and Tukey’s post hoc. In addition to this, Kendall tau’s correlation has been used in order to analyze the effects of digital media on the advertising market share of traditional media. The simple linear regression method has also been used to find out if a viable relationship exists between media forms and advertising expenditure. The study findings have indicated that media forms are statistically significantly different in spending on advertisements. Tukey’s Post Hoc test reveals that advertising expenditure of radio is significantly different from TV and Print Media, but there is no significant difference between the expenditure of radio and digital media. It is also determined that a significant inverse relationship exists between advertisement spending on digital media and TV, and digital media and radio. However, a significant and positive relationship is found between digital media and print media, but with a very weak value of Kendall tau. Our study implies that traditional media is experiencing a downfall in the advertising media market, primarily due to the widespread advent of digital media in Pakistan.