• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.119-130
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• 2021

This study investigated the effects of the chatbot's level of anthropomorphism - closeness to the human form - and its self-disclosure - delivery of emotional exchange with the chatbot through its facial expressions and chatting message on the user's intention to accept the service. A 2 (anthropomorphism: High vs. Low) × 2 (self-disclosure through facial expressions: High vs. Low) × 2 (self-disclosure through conversation: High vs. Low) between-subject factorial design was employed for this study. An online survey was conducted and a total of 234 questionnaires were used in the analysis. The results showed that consumers used chatbot service more when emotions were disclosed through facial expressions, than when it disclosed fewer facial expressions. There was statistically significant interaction effect, indicating the relationship between chatbot's self-disclosure through facial expression and the consumers' intention to use chatbot service differs depending on the extent of anthropomorphism. In the case of "robot chatbots" with low anthropomorphism levels, there was no difference in intention to use chatbot service depending on the level of self-disclosure through facial expression. When the "human-like chatbot" with high anthropomorphism levels discloses itself more through facial expressions, consumer's intention to use the chatbot service increased much more than when the human-like chatbot disclosed fewer facial expressions. The findings suggest that chatbots' self-disclosure plays an important role in the formation of consumer perception.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.71-86
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• 2019

Transnational exchange has been an inseparable part of both the ancient and modern Silk Road. This paper shows how Rumi (1207-1273), a famous Persian Sufi poet, travels along the Silk Road in the $21^{st}$ century. With the birth of a Rumi phenomenon in the West, Silk Road artists have rediscovered and adapted him for different purposes. Elif Shafak, the Turkish-British novelist and women's rights activist, espouses feminist beliefs in her bestseller, The Forty Rules of Love (2010). Benefiting from the views of feminist theorists like Woolf, de Beauvoir and Friedan, this paper reveals how Shafak appropriates Rumi for her feminist purposes. Forty Rules of Love's protagonist, Ella Rubinstein is analyzed, compared and contrasted with her former literary counterparts Pinhan and Zeliha, heroines of Shafak's previous novels. By adapting Rumi's definition of equality, Shafak shows how egalitarianism must pervade the relationship between women and men. The adaptation of Rumi's ideas regarding the equality of sexes finds a different dimension when Shafak reveals that all humanity possesses femininity and masculinity at the same time. By means of ideas prevalent in the ancient Silk Road, the five classical elements theory, and the yin and yang principle, Shafak portrays unity within contradictions. It is concluded that although individuals might belong to different typologies of the five symbolic elements of nature, they can at the same time complement one another's inharmonious personalities peacefully. The process of integration of female and male sexes can be expedited by opening up one's heart to a universal love.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.623-635
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• 2021

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of information risk on the Cost of Equity (COE) and whether the risk of a stock price crash mediates the relation between information risk and COE. To test the dynamic nature of the proposed model, the two-step system GMM dynamic panel estimators are applied to all the non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from 2007- 2018. The results of this study show that all three types of information risk, as well as the risk of the share price crash, increases the COE. The crash risk strengthens the impact of information risk on the COE. Moreover, these three information risks are correlated with each other and an increase in information quality reduces the effect of asymmetric information and improves the investor interpreting ability, while an increase in private information decreases the transparency. The finding is crucial for asset pricing, portfolio management, and information disclosure. This study contributes to the literature by providing novel findings on the impact of three different types of information risk, i.e. private information, quality of information, and transparency of information on the COE as well as whether crash risk mediates the relationship.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2021

This study aimed to examine the effect of corporate characteristics, including the industrial sector and scale of operation, financial leverage, profitability, operating period, and social reputation, on socio-ecological responsibility based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. The study was conducted in the Indonesian context. A total of 90 public companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange were selected as samples, with an observation period of 10 years. A univariate regression analysis was applied to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the industrial sector, scale of operation, financial leverage, profitability, operating period, and social reputation of the corporate had a positive effect on socio-ecological responsibility. This study also obtained evidence that there were differences in the level of socio-ecological responsibility among the industrial sectors. The higher the relationship between the industrial sector and the possibility of the emergence of social and environmental issues, the higher the level of corporate socio-ecological responsibility. From a policy perspective, the implication of the results of this study was that it could be used as a consideration by the authorities or regulators in Indonesia, particularly the Financial Services Authority (OJK), in determining specific indicators of socio-ecological responsibility that must be carried out by corporates.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.257-269
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• 2021

Intellectual capital is becoming a crucial factor for a firm's long-term profit and performance in the knowledge-based economy as more firms identify their core competence as invisible assets rather than visible assets (Itami, 1987). The company was encouraged to measure financial and non-financial factors, including the customer perspective groups, the internal business process, learning and growth perspective, then to link all these measurements in a coherent system. This paper seeks to investigate the influence of intellectual capital elements on company performance, as well as the relationship among intellectual capital elements from a cause-effect perspective. Resource-Based View (RBV) considers intellectual capital as resource and capability to sustain competitive advantage on company performance. The partial least squares approach is used to examine listed banks in Indonesia Stock Exchange for year 2017-2019. Results show that human capital directly has positive influences on innovation capital, customer capital, and process capital. Innovation capital has positive, but less significant influence on process capital, which in turn influences customer capital. Human capital and process capital also influence customer capital. Finally, customer capital contributes to performance. This study helps management to identify relevant intellectual capital elements as competitive advantage and their indicators to enhance business performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.893-902
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• 2021

The paper examines the impact of corporate governance (CG), on dividend policy (DP) of enterprises in Vietnam. The paper studies the impact of CG on DP of businesses listed on Vietnam's stock exchange in the period 2008-2018 with 2,937 observations. The data of these companies is collected from the financial statements of businesses and Vietstock data sets, as well as aggregated from the data published on some reputable securities websites. The study used GLS regression method for data collected at listed companies in Vietnam in the period of 2008-2018. The research results have found that CG, the chairman of the board of directors (BOD), and the managing director have a negative effect on the DP. Specifically, companies with strong BODs tend to pay low dividends. At the same time, research shows that factors such as profitability, financial leverage, firm size, and investment opportunities affect DP. This result underscores the importance of corporate governance (both internal and external) to the income distribution decision and provides policy implications for investors and company executives. The study finds solid evidence that alternative theory explains better the relationship between corporate governance and dividend policy. Accordingly, companies with weak corporate governance will pay more dividends.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.123-133
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• 2021

This research aims to examine the effect of carbon emission disclosure on firm value and to reveal environmental performance and industrial type as the moderating variables. This study used 82 samples of companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) and receiving awards in the Indonesian Sustainability Reporting Award (ISRA) in 2014-2018. This study used a multiple linear regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The results showed that carbon emission disclosure had a positive and significant effect on firm value as carbon emission disclosure is a form of corporate concern on environment positively responded by the market and becomes the basis for investors to make their considerations in assessing the company sustainability. Besides, environmental performance and industrial type can strengthen the influence relationship of carbon emission disclosure on firm value since environmental performance was assessed based on ISO 14001 certification ensuring that the company has tried to preserve the environmental sustainability by creating a good environmental management system. Moreover, companies categorized into high profile industrial type have tried to change their unfavorable image and avoid lawsuits by performing carbon emission disclosure to gain positive responses from the market.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.733-739
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• 2021

This study investigates the relationships of energy firm-level characteristics, namely; firm size, firm leverage, and firm performance with board diligence among companies listed in Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the periods ranging from 2012 to 2019. The final sample of this study consists of 32 firm-year observations. A quantitative approach was adopted to test 3 specific hypotheses developed for the board diligence model. Using the Pooled OLS regression, this study finds that firm size and firm performance are negatively associated with board diligence. The results of this study indicate an insignificant association of firm leverage with board diligence. Besides, firm performance is related negatively to board diligence. This indicates that the board of companies with poor performance increases the number of its meetings because of the increased pressure on the board to improve its oversight operations and address the severe performance challenges. The increased number of board meetings observe the daily management of the company, increase the chances for discussions concerning the performance challenges, and come up with solutions faster. The directors are also likely to encounter heightened pressure to appear more engaged during a company's financial distress since lenders require a meeting of the board or with the board.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.201-211
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze the determinants of macroeconomic and institutional stability on the development of the global sukuk market by controlling the effects of population. This study uses panel data namely GDP per-capita, exchange rate, and inflation as the proxies for macroeconomic stability sourced from the World Development Index, and six dimensions of Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) as institutional proxies sourced from WGI-World Bank. To make robust the relationship between macroeconomics and institutional on the global sukuk market, the population (POP) variable was included as a control variable. The development of sukuk uses a proxy for sukuk issuance in the International Islamic Financial Market, for the annual period from 2002-2017. The data was analyzed using the General Method of Moment, and the results show that by controlling the population effects that proved to be significant, GDP per-capita and the rule of law have a significant impact on the development of sukuk, especially when incorporating population effects as control variables, whereby further ascertaining the effect of each macroeconomic-stability variable and institutional stability on sukuk development, especially inflation, found not to affect sukuk development. These results also confirm the previous findings, whereby inflation remains controllable at a certain level for economic development.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1041-1050
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• 2021

Employee engagement plays an important role in the development as well as the success of a company. The manner in which employees are committed to their work and be more innovative seems to drive people's curiosity. This study aims to analyze the impacts of job demands-resources, personal resources, and coworker support on work engagement. Also, whether there is a relationship between work engagement and creativity of employees is tested through this research. The data served for the research was collected in the context of Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors used structural equation modeling (SEM) (software Smart PLS), to test the proposed hypotheses by using the data of 602 employees. Results of the study point out that proposed antecedents influence work engagement and creativity. Such findings have shed light on both theory and practice implications. In theory, it supports the social exchange theory and the job demands and resources model. In practice, leaders should assist subordinates in various aspects and build and promote a corporate culture where employees help others with great enthusiasm to increase the level of work engagement and spirit of innovation of employees.