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Islamic finance is a growing industry with global distribution in all continents including Europe and America. The aim of the current study was to examine how popular is Islamic finance in the USA during the period 2014-2019 using Google Trends. In addition, the interest in Islamic finance across different US states was also investigated. Using “Islamic finance” and “Islamic bank” as search terms in Goggle Trends, the trend curve showed decreases in search volumes, suggesting a decline in the popularity of Islamic finance in the USA with years. Search volumes were detected in seven out of 50 states, suggesting low interest in Islamic finance in the majority of US states. The order of the popularity in the seven states was: Virginia > New York > New Jersey > Illinois > Texas > California > Pennsylvania > Georgia > Florida > Massachusetts. Longitudinal survey studies are needed to confirm the present findings.

The purpose of this study is to determine major indicators of the Greek crisis that started in 2009 and the effects of which can still be observed. In this regard, 8 independent variables were applied so as to fulfill the objective. Besides, the annual data between the years 1984 and 2016 was analyzed with Probit model. As a consequence of this study, it was concluded that inflation and gross savings are the leading meters of Greek crisis based on probit method. On the other hand, according to the MARS results, 3 different variables are identified as the indicators of the debt crisis in Greece. It is concluded that there is a negative relation between financial crisis with saving ratio and current account balance. Additionally, it is also identified that high unemployment ratio leads to financial crisis. While comparisng the results of these two approaches, it is concluded that MARS is much more successful than the probit method to predict the debt crisis in Greece. It is strongly recommended that saving ratio should be increased in Greece. For this purpose, governments should take some actions in order to increase this ratio more than 15.5%. Within this framework, media channels can be used by the government to tell the people about the importance of the savings to have sustainable economic development.

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of audit committee independence (ACI) on the financial performance of insurance firms in Kenya. The study analyzed data from the 55 insurance firms licensed by the Insurance Regularity Authority (IRA) in Kenya. ACI was operationalized by the number of independent directors serving in the boards of insurance firms operating in Kenya. Primary data was collected from a sample of 412 board directors, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Finance Officers (CFOs), Audit Committee members (AUDIND) and Internal Auditors (INAUD) using a questionnaire instrument while secondary data was retrieved from audited financial reports of year 2017. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Firm performance was measured by the two accounting-based measures Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). The findings from the regression analysis indicate that audit committee independence significantly and positively affects the financial performance of insurance firms in Kenya.

Sub-Saharan Africa lags other regions in the adoption of both Patient-Centered (PC) and Facility Centered (FC) mobile health (m-health) applications. Transformational Leadership Style (TLS) of Hospital Management Boards (HMBs) is catalytic for the adoption of disruptive technologies such as m-health by hospitals. There is limited evidence on the effect of TLS of HMBs in the adoption of innovations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICS). This study investigated the moderating role of TLS of HMBs on the adoption of PC and FC m-health by hospitals in Kenya. It used the Logit Regression Model to test null hypotheses that the four constructs of TLS (Idealized Influence (II), Individualized Consideration (IC), Inspirational Motivation (IM), Intellectual Stimulation (IS)) individually or combined had no significant moderating effect on adoption of PC and FC m-health applications.  Primary data was collected from a representative sample size of 211 Top Executives (TEs) of level 4 to 6 hospitals who evaluated the TLS of their HMBs on m-health adoption. At a 5% level of significance, the study found that only the combined application of the four constructs (II, IC, IM, IS) significantly moderated the adoption of PC m-health (p=0.046) but did not moderate FC m-health (p=0.345). Each incremental application of TLS would increase the odds of adopting PC m-health by 1.002 but not for FC. Therefore, this study recommends the capacity strengthening of HMBs in TLS to scale up PC m-health adoption in Kenya and other LMICs. It also recommends a differentiated approach to policies, practices, and theories of adoption of innovations using the PC-FC models.

A positive relationship between pageview and visit duration has been identified for several types of websites, including retail. However, pornography websites offer such explicitly sexual content that viewers might stay on one page so long that it could distort the positivity. Yet, no empirical work has investigated this matter and little has focused on visit behavior to adult websites. Based on 473,840 visit sessions to pornography websites targeting both (1) the public and (2) the homosexual viewers, the 0.771 correlation coefficient between the pageview and the visit duration is statistically significant. It confirms that these two variables are positively related in the online pornography context. We also found that the viewer’s sexual orientation may have a moderating effect on the relationship between them. In addition to extending the theoretical insights into online visit behavior to pornography websites, online practitioners may apply the findings in order to retain visitors to their websites.

This research aims to describe the process and reveal the origin of social conflict in the incoming oil palm investment. Twelve Subjects are involved in this research, located in Laman Satong Village, Ketapang District, Kalimantan Barat Province, Indonesia in February-May 2019. The results showed that a threat to society's identity meaning which depends on the forest was an origin of social conflict. The incoming of oil palm investment was considered as a threat because of the limited formal communication channel, through socialization meetings This limitation indicated to slow down their stock of knowledge renewal, that related to their future fate. Thus, it creates worries that caused resistance and internal community conflict itself. Academically this research contributes to establishing the social conflict theory and stock of knowledge concept in terms of conflict in the incoming of oil palm investment.

The study examined the dynamic responses of profitability indexes to capital adequacy ratios of authorized internationalized deposit money banks in Nigeria. The data were sourced from the financial year books of the deposit money banks and analyzed with static and dynamic panel estimators. The static estimator shows that the banks have differences in managerial style, size and profitability. Also, it was revealed that return on asset and return on equity responded positively to asset size, efficiency of the use of asset and current ratio in the static models and they were highly significant. However, they were insignificant in the dynamic specifications except asset size that was significant in the return on asset model showing a weak dynamic response of profitability to capital adequacy ratios. Hence the study recommended that Banks should improve their share based as to increase the asset as this will improve profitability.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of indirect investment on the performance of real estate in Nairobi County Kenya. The independent variables for indirect investment were: investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, commingled funds, and infrastructure funds. The dependent variable was the performance of real estate in Nairobi County Kenya. Secondary data was collected from the real estate’s online sources and some from the company offices and analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were determined. The study was only able to collect secondary data from 45 real estate companies out of the target population of 69 registered by KPDA in 2015 as it was hard to get data of the rest either from online sources or from the company offices. With the aid of STATA 12.0 software and Excel software, quantitative results were tabulated and presented in the form of charts, bar graphs, and narratives. The study found an existing relationship between the performance of the real estate sector and the Investment Trust Fund, the Exchange Trust Fund, the Commingled Fund, Infrastructure Fund. The study concludes that most of the coefficients were significant. The study also concludes that there is a relationship between the performance of the real estate sector and the Investment Trust Fund, Exchange Trust Fund, Commingled Fund, Infrastructure Fund when these components are considered together, they affect Performance.

This paper investigated the impact of tax revenue on private domestic investment in Nigeria from 1980 to 2018 using the modified ordinary least squares- Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL). The paper used oil revenue, non-oil revenue, and Corporate Income Tax (CIT) as the independent variables while Private Domestic Investment (PDI) is the dependent variable. Oil revenue and non-oil revenue were used as a proxy for oil and non-oil tax. These data were obtained from secondary sources- central Bank of Nigeria, World Bank database and Federal Inland Revenue service statistical bulletin. The result showed that a long-run relationship exists between the aforementioned variables. Also, the paper revealed that oil and non-oil do not have a significant impact on PDI but CIT has a positive and significant impact on PDI. The paper recommends that proper measures/reforms should be put in place in order to reduce the impact of tax on private domestic investment in Nigeria.

MSMEs contribute more than 60% of economic growth. 99% of business operators in Indonesia are MSMEs. However, the contribution of MSMEs in tax revenue is still low. The government has sought to improve tax compliance for the MSME sector by the existence of an Account Representative position (AR) and an online reporting system, namely E Filling. This study aims to determine whether the role of Account representative (AR) and the use of E Filling can affect the compliance of MSMEs in reporting tax. The data used are MSMEs in the area of the Primary Tax Office in Duren Sawit. The number of questionnaires distributed was 120 and could be processed was 95 questionnaires. The analytical tool used is the Structure Equation Model (SEM). The results conclude that the value of the role of AR and the use of E-Filling affect the compliance of MSMEs in reporting taxes partially and simultaneously.