The world experienced significant changes in its social and economic lives in 2020–21. Major stock markets experienced an immediate decline. This paper attempts to examine the impact of COVID-19 on stock market performance as well as to identify the differences between the responses of ESG stocks and normal stocks to pandemic conditions in the Arab region. Daily time series for three years between March 2019 and March 2021 were collected for the S&P Pan Arab Composite index and S&P/Hawkamah ESG Pan Arab Index. We used a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to measure market shocks and a non-linear autoregressive distributed lagged (NARDL) regression model to display the relationship between COVID-19 measurements and the performance of stock indexes. The findings suggest that the volatilities of ESG portfolios and conventional ones were equally affected in the pre-COVID period. However, in the post-COVID period, the magnitude of volatility in the ESG stock index was significantly less compared to that of the conventional stock index. The results also revealed that in the ESG market, shock tended to remain for a shorter period. Furthermore, the ESG index was not affected by the number of confirmed cases and deaths. However, evidence of asymmetric long-run cointegration existed between the S&P index and number of cases and deaths. Increases in the numbers of cases and deaths caused a decline in market index, whereas the reverse trends were observed in the retreat of the pandemic.

Analyzing the financial benefit of marketing is still a critical topic for both practitioners and researchers. Companies consider marketing costs as a type of investment and expect this investment to be returned to the company in the form of profit. On the other hand, companies adopt different innovative strategies to increase their value. Therefore, this study aims to test the impact of marketing investment on firm value and systematic risk. To do so, data related to four Arabic emerging markets during the period 2010–2019 are considered, and firm share price and beta share are considered to measure firm value and systematic risk, respectively. Since a firm’s ownership concentration is a determinant factor in firm value and systematic risk, this variable is considered a moderated variable in the relationship between marketing investment and firm value and systematic risk. The findings of the study, using panel data regression, indicate that increasing investment in marketing has a positive effect on the firm value valuation model. It is also found that the ownership concentration variable has a reinforcing role in the relationship between marketing investment and firm value. It is also disclosed that it moderates the systematic risk aligned with the monitoring impact of controlling shareholders. This study provides a logical combination of governance–marketing dimensions to interpret performance indicators in the capital market.

This study aims to estimate the impact of brand as the most important intangible marketing asset on firm value, measured by share return in some Arab emerging market, as well analyze the moderating role of agency costs in the relationship between share return and brand. We use the Ohlson model of valuation with a sample of the most traded companies on four markets under study. The panel data regression results show a significant impact of brand on return as well as agency costs that promote the valuation model power, meaning that good corporate governance increases the degree of marketing investment efficiency in value creation. Our findings support the literature relating to the residual earnings valuation model. Furthermore, the results confirm the informative content of marketing application besides the traditional accounting figures as a promising approach for firm valuation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of company industry, IPO timing, owners’ reputation and marketing efforts in investor's decision in Syrian initial public offering market IPOs Design/Methodology/Approach: A questionnaire survey was administered to 270 investors in Damascus Securities Exchange. Some descriptive statistics and One-Sample tests were used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Findings: The research found that investor's decision is influenced significantly by IPO timing, owner’s reputation and marketing efforts in the Syrian IPOs market. Implications/Originality/Value: This research presents that Syrian companies can use these factors as an approach to increase the quality of their IPO, on another hand, financial regulators can enhance the IPO control process, adding to the results that can contribute to understanding marketing-finance interface and behavioral finance literature.