Dr - Abdullah

• Doctorate of Philosophy
• International Senior Lecturer at Universiti Utara Malaysia

The paper examines whether green innovation, ESG performance, and corporate reputation influence the stock market performance of listed firms in China. Initially, a mediated moderation analysis was performed to understand the complex dynamics between the variables using various statistical approaches such as fixed effects, feasible generalized leas...

The ESG paradigm has exerted increasing pressure on Chinese firms to adopt environment-friendly and socially responsible policies as part of their governance framework. Despite its importance, limited attention has been given to the relationship between ESG performance and the cost of debt (COD) and whether board traits influence this relationship....

The ESG paradigm has exerted increasing pressure on firms to adopt environment-friendly and socially responsible policies. Interestingly, less attention has been paid to the drivers of ESG performance. Therefore, we address this gap by analyzing a sample of Chinese non-financial firms. First, we examine if CEO power dimensions influence ESG perform...

The attainment of regional high-quality development necessitates the critical role of the digital economy in facilitating the transformation of industrial structures. This study intends to investigate the effect of the digital economy on industrial structure transformation from the perspective of innovation factor allocation using a panel dataset o...

This study investigates the impact of board characteristics on the relationship between political connections and cash holdings in Asian countries. The findings suggest that Asian firms with political connections, large boards, and gender diversity have lower cash holdings, while firms with CEO duality have higher cash holdings. Further, the study...

This study comprehensively analyzes herding behavior in the cryptocurrency market. First, we conduct an in-depth investigation of herding behavior in the overall cryptocurrency market. Second, we form several groups of cryptocurrencies according to their characteristics and analyze whether each group behaves similarly in volatile market regimes. Th...

Behavioral finance assumes that investors are irrational and several psychological factors, behavioral biases, and personality traits influence their investment decisions. Therefore, this study intends to examine how behavioral factors, such as personality traits and cultural norms, affect Pakistani investors’ decisions while considering the modera...

The increasing dependence of South Asian countries on international remittances (IRM) and international tourism development (ITR) in the presence of political uncertainties has attracted scholars' attention. Although the largest receiver of IRM, South Asia fails to channel these funds to the tourism industry, which continues to operate below its po...

This study examines the moderating effect of judicial efficiency and firm-level governance on the relationship between internal pyramid structure and dividend. The results suggest that the effect of the vertical and horizontal pyramid structure on the dividend is negative and significant. We find that the impact of the pyramid's vertical structure...

Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of family ownership on firm performance. The authors examine whether family ownership in a firm reduces the adverse consequences of political connections on firm performance. Further, the authors analyze whether monitoring benefits of family ownership vary over family generations. Design/methodolog...

Purpose This study aims to analyze whether family ownership and working capital management (WCM) affect firm profitability and liquidity. Further, we also investigate the moderating effect of family ownership on the association between WCM, firm profitability and liquidity. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a sample of 150 nonfinancial c...

This study examines the moderating effect of judicial efficiency and creditor rights on the relationship between internal pyramid structure and leverage. The results suggest that the effect of the vertical and horizontal pyramid structures on leverage is positive and significant. We find that the impact of the pyramid’s vertical structure on levera...

This study analyzes the impact of corporate governance (CG) practices and Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) on the financial performance of Islamic banks (IB). A sample of 20 Islamic banks from Arab and Non-Arab countries i.e. Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Malaysia were used. A CG-index was adopted from the...

This paper compares the performance of Fama-French three-factor and five-factor models using a dataset of 20 Pakistani commercial banks for the period 2011 to 2020. We focus on an emerging economy as the findings from earlier studies on developed countries cannot be generalized in emerging markets. For empirical analysis, twelve portfolios were dev...

The study examines how foreign capital inflows affect stock market development in Pakistan for the period from July 2008 to June 2018. Several components of foreign capital inflows were used for empirical analysis, namely, foreign direct investment, foreign portfolio investment, and remittances. Further, market capitalization was used as a proxy fo...

This study investigates the relationship between internal pyramid structure and performance of Chinese, Pakistani, Malaysian pyramidal firms, the effect of judicial efficiency and minority investor protection on this relationship. The results show that the pyramid structure of Pakistani firms is more complicated than Chinese and Malaysian firms, bo...

This paper examines the effect of characteristics of audit committee on voluntary disclosure levels. This topic has been given much importance by the researchers, because independent audit plays crucial role in protecting minority shareholder’s interest. The study uses a sample of one hundred fifty companies which are listed on Pakistan Stock Excha...

We explore the impact of complex ownership structure, and judicial efficiency on firm leverage at Pakistani pyramid firms. Ratio of controlling to ownership rights is much higher at Pakistani firms than in other economies, which motivates us to study its impact on leverage. Our results reveal that complex internal structure at Pakistani pyramid fir...

We compare operating and market performance of Chinese single- and dual-class firms cross listed on US exchanges. We find evidence in line with researchers who argue that a dual-class structure allows insiders to invest in long-term value-enhancing projects. We find that dual-class firms underperform prior to their initial public offering (IPO) and...

Dual-class firms face great criticism as it is believed that firms choose this structure to expropriate minority shareholders’ wealth. We compare market performance of Chinese dual-class firms with their single-class counterparts by constructing a list of Chinese firms cross-listed on U.S. exchanges. We find, contrary to the literature, that Chines...

We compare Chinese single with dual class firms cross-listed in US. We find dual class firms are larger in terms of assets and sales, possess ownership concentration, have higher institutional ownership. Chinese firms in IT industry are especially likely to use dual class structure. We find contrary to literature, dual class firms underprice 30.42%...