Purpose: – The purpose of present study is to explore the linkages among Intellectual Capital (IC), Corporate Governance (CG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through direct and indirect empirical inquiry.Design/methodology/approach: – The main setting is designed for exploring the relationship among IC, CG and CSR. Therefore, these three constructs are examined directly in which their statistical relation is evaluated among themselves and indirectly in which their possible effects are examined onto firms’ unsystematic factors such as cash flow, short-term solvency, long-term solvency, profitability and asset utilization.Findings: – Empirical investigation is conducted on manufacturing firms listed in Istanbul Stock Exchange from 2007 to 2011. Empirical results do support a positive relationship among these important constructs.Research limitations/implications: – The empirical research is carried out in manufacturing firms only.Originality/value: – IC, CG and CSR are three demanding research areas to study. This is the first attempt here to examine their possible linkages based on so-called direct and indirect empirical inquiries. The primary reason behind this attempt is that these concepts are assumed to be important for all stakeholders.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of real credit ratings change on capital structure decisions. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses three models to examine the impact of credit rating on capital structure decisions within the framework of credit rating-capital structure hypotheses (broad rating, notch rating and investment or speculative grade). These hypotheses are tested by multiple linear regression models. Findings: The results demonstrate that firms issue less net debt relative to equity post a change in the broad credit ratings level (e.g. a change from A- to BBB+). The findings also show that firms are less concerned by notch ratings change as long the firms remain the same broad credit rating level. Moreover, the paper indicates that firms issue less net debt relative to equity after an upgrade to investment grade. Research limitations/implications: The study covers the periods of 2009 to 2016; therefore, the research result may be affected by the period specific events such as the European debt crisis. Moreover, studying listed non-financial firms only in the Tadawul Stock Exchange has resulted in small sample which may not be adequate enough to reach concrete generalization. Despite the close proximity between the GCC countries, there could be jurisdictional difference due to country specific regulations, policies or financial development. Therefore, it will be interesting to conduct a cross country study on the GCC to see if the conclusions can be generalized to the region. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the literature by testing previous researches on new context (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA) which lack sophisticated comparable studies to the one conducted on other regions of the world. The results highlight the importance of credit ratings for the decision makers who are required to make essential decisions in areas such as financing, structuring or operating firms and regulating markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that has been applied on the GCC region.

Bu çalışmada doğrudan yabancı yatırımlar ile ekonomik büyümenin arasındaki ilişki BRICT( Brezilya, Rusya, Hindistan, Çin, Türkiye) ülkelerinin 1998-2016 dönemi için panel birim kök ve nedensellik testleri ile araştırılmıştır. Öncelikle, serilerin yatay kesit bağımlılığı incelenmiş ve sonrasında birim kök testleri uygulanmıştır. Dumitrescu ve Hurlin (2012) nedensellik testi sonuçlarına göre, doğrudan yabancı yatırımlardan ekonomik büyümeye doğru nedensellik ilişkisinin olmadığı fakat ekonomik büyümeden doğrudan yabancı yatırımlara doğru bir nedensellik ilişkisinin bulunduğu görülmüştür. Bu çalışmada bulunan sonuçlar Hansen vd. (2003) ve Kahveci ve Terzi (2017) çalışmalarında bulunan sonuçlar ile paralellik göstermektedir. Ayrıca, 2008 yılının verilerinin kullanılmadığı analizde doğrudan yabancı yatırımlar ve ekonomik büyüme arasında çift yönlü nedensellik ilişkisi görülmüştür. Bu çalışmada olduğu gibi, Duarte vd. (2017) çalışmasında da değişkenler arasında çift yönlü ilişki bulunmuştur.

The factors affecting environmental quality are examined in this chapter. Along with the support of relevant literature, Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is explained in detail to examine the impact of economic growth. In order to understand the linkage between foreign direct investments (FDI) and environmental degradation, pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) and pollution halo hypothesis (P-HH) are scrutinized. Using data of Sweden for the period 1971-2015, impacts of economic growth, FDI inflows, and energy consumption on the ecological footprint are measured. Results show that there exists a U-shaped relationship between gross domestic product per capita and ecological footprint. In the long run, the EKC hypothesis is contradicted. Additionally, FDI inflows are found to affect ecological footprint negatively, meaning that it decreases the environmental deterioration, in the long run, affirming P-HH. This study could be extended by using different econometric models, countries, and larger datasets.