International Journal of Accounting, Business and Finance

Government Employees' Mutual Fund Moves: Understanding Decision Drivers with the Theory of Planned Behavior

Krishna Kumar Dubey — 2024-12-19

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior model (TPB), this study examined the variables affecting government employees' intention of mutual funds investment. Convenience sampling was used to gather data from the Shahdol division of Madhya Pradesh State of India for the study, incorporating secondary data. Responses have been collected through structured, closed-ended questionnaires using a 5-point Likert scale. Out of 164 responses gathered, only 143 data were found suitable for further study. The researchers applied descriptive and regression tests using SPSS AMOS version 23 to do the analysis. They found that the intention of government employees to invest in a mutual fund is affected only by their disposition. Subjective norms and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) do not significantly affect their investment intention. It is necessary to increase their awareness of and familiarity with mutual funds to encourage investment.

Impact of Country-level Environmental, Social and Governance Pillars on Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from G20 Countries

Muskan Sahu — 2024-12-19

Due to current economic ambiguities, achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has become increasingly significant. This study investigates how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators impact SDG achievements in G20 countries. The study uses renewable energy consumption as the environmental pillar, primary education as the social pillar, and governance effectiveness as the governance pillar. Control variables include gross domestic product and foreign direct investments. The random effect estimation was applied to 16 G20 countries spanning from 2000 to 2020, and the findings revealed a significant negative impact of renewable energy consumption on SDG scores. Similarly, a significant negative impact of primary education on SDG scores and a significant positive impact of governance effectiveness on SDG scores. We also employed Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) and Cross-Sectional Time-Series FGLS Regression to check the robustness of the results. The study offers valuable insights for policymakers and regulators focused on SDG achievement.

Do ESG Initiatives Improve the Performance of Saudi-listed Banks? The Moderating Effect of Bank Size

May Abdulaziz Alamoudi — 2024-12-19

This study investigates the influence of bank size on the connection between ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) initiatives and banks' financial performance in Saudi Arabia. Using data from 10 Saudi Arabian banks spanning 2014 to 2023, we analyze the influence of ESG initiatives by considering various indicators. Specifically, we used social responsibility (SR) initiatives to measure social aspects, environmental initiatives to measure the environmental aspect, and governance mechanisms to measure the governance aspect. Our observations indicate that environmental initiatives, social responsibility initiatives, and gender diversity have notable adverse effects on the return on assets (ROA). Additionally, social initiatives, board gender diversity, board independence, and audit committee activities have a negative impact on return on equity (ROE), whereas the number of board members had a positive impact on ROE. Bank size negatively moderates the relationship between board gender diversity and financial performance and positively moderates the relationship between audit members and ROA. These findings indicate that the impact of ESG initiatives on financial performance may depend on bank size.

Navigating Biodiversity and Climate Risk: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

Akanksha Chaurasia — 2024-12-19

This study employs bibliometric analysis on a corpus of 162 Scopus-indexed documents, offering a comprehensive examination of the literature on biodiversity and climate risk. The analysis reveals significant growth in publications from 2006 to 2024, with a notable peak in 2023. The highest citation count was recorded in 2020, with 1,231 citations. Irene Monasterolo and Ulrich Volz are among the most productive authors. Ulrich Volz ranks first among the most cited authors. The Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment stands out as the most productive and Ecological Economics Journal is most cited journal. German Development Institute, Germany and Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria are the top productive institutions. Keyword analysis highlights Sustainable Finance, Climate Change, and Climate Risk as a central theme, with emerging markets prominently featured. Christopher P.O. Reyer, Ulrich Volz, and Irene Monasterolo leads collaborative research activities, indicating strong interrelation in Biodiversity and Climate Risk.

A Compilation of Relationships between Climate Change and Finance

Sanjeev Kumar — 2024-12-19

Climate change is not a short-term process. It is a consequence of prolonged environmental damage by human beings. Results of climate change have been seen as the rise in the global average temperature, consequently raising the sea level, melting the glaciers, raising the degree of heat waves, droughts, and changes in the timing of monsoons, further impacting agriculture and ultimately impacting human lives and the whole ecological system. However, nowadays, researchers and investors are more concerned about the impact of climate change on the financial markets because it has been seen that climate change may impact them. In this paper, we adopted a bibliometric analysis approach. We used the analysis provided by Scopus based on the input keywords. Initially, we used three words: 'Environment,' 'Climate,' and 'Stock Market.' After further filtration of keywords, we limited the analysis to journal articles from 2013 to 2023 and obtained 510 documents. We found an upward trend in the number of publications. Further, authors from developed countries dominate this field. Our aim in compiling the essential papers that link the finance field to climate change is to provide a comprehensive view of the domain. This comprehensive view will help researchers, regulators, and investors to understand this emerging and crucial phenomenon.

Exploring Multidimensional Perspectives on Finance, Sustainability, and Risk Management

Anurag Singh — 2024-12-19

With the extended support of the editorial board members, authors, reviewers, section editors, technical editors, and production editor, we hereby publish the December 2023 issue of the International Journal of Accounting, Business and Finance (IJABF). The IJABF Volume 3 Issue 1 contains five articles exploring thought-provoking contributions exploring finance, sustainability, and global challenges. I thank all the contributors to this issue.