D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical AnalysisReturn

The appearance of coronavirus in the spring of 2020 has significantly revalued risk exposures in the business environment, which required new approaches in the measurement of financial risks. This paper defines and explains a new approach to the measurement of liquidity risk in companies in a time of an economic crisis. This approach is more responsive to stressful circumstances in the business environment and measures the time in an economic crisis when a company can still pay maturing liabilities out of its own inventory of liquid assets, where sales of a company on the market are limited or completely prohibited, as this was the case for some industries during the first wave of Covid -19 in spring 2020. The objective of this paper was to define a new metric for the measurement of corporate liquidity, which is sensitive to this environment and shows the propensity of a company to the risk of illiquidity if an economic crisis appears. This paper, in the next step, leverages the newly defined metric of corporate liquidity and calculates the average liquidity of all companies, as well as the average liquidity by business sectors in the Serbian economy, to discuss corporate liquidity in a crisis. The results show that the average liquidity of the Serbian economy in crisis at the end of 3Q 2020 was 78,02 days, i.e., the average company in the Serbian economy was able to survive 78,02 days in stress by the end of 3Q 2020 if its sales on the market were prohibited.
Implications for Central European audience: The model in this paper is in the interest of every company and bank to measure the liquidity risk of business partners in times of an economic crisis and to predict which business partners may have liquidity problems in crisis and may therefore not be able to pay their open liabilities. The contribution of this paper to liquidity risk measurement in companies in times of stress is high as the currently available literature does not offer an alternative approach.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of MNCs' crisis-driven cost-cutting and organizational restructuring actions on their local subsidiaries in Hungary. We hypothesize that much of the cost-cutting minded and efficiency-focused organizational transformation prompted by the global crisis of 2008 can actually be beneficial to some subsidiaries. Drawing on interviews carried out at 13 manufacturing subsidiaries, we find that upgrading occurs partly as a consequence of MNCs' pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency, partly as an outcome of organizational restructuring and resources reallocation, and partly as a result of an increasing delegation of advanced functions to production subsidiaries. Although the Hungarian subsidiaries were on the receiving end: they hosted some of the relocated production activities, the main managerial implication is that caution is needed, success often breeds failure. The resulting overconfidence may prevent local managers and policy-makers from monitoring and analyzing industry-specific technological and market trends to detect opportunities and threats as early as possible.

Due to multi-dimension viewpoints, since decision-making and purchase process are emerging based on the human spirit or internal value of customers, this research seeks to introduce and analyze a model in this regard. In this research, the effects model of ethicality on brand personality dimensions and creation of brand equity were studied, aiming on raising awareness and highlighting the role of ethical values in branding. The population includes all the customers within Iranian chain stores (as a developing country). The results show that "perceived business ethicality" has a positive effect on responsibility, activity and emotionality. Moreover, responsibility and activity have a positive effect on "overall brand equity". According to total effect, "responsibility" and "perceived business ethicality" have the highest effect on brand equity.

The success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is crucial for the development of the Czech economy. Czech SMEs contribute to innovation and economic growth; they provide employment opportunities and stimulate economic growth. The aim of this research is to determine the key elements of growth and innovation in Czech SMEs. A questionnaire survey of innovation in SMEs in the Czech Republic was used; the research was held in the second quarter of 2013. The research results show that innovation has a positive impact on the growth of Czech SMEs and hence it should become a top priority for the Government strategies and policies that aim to promote economic growth and business development in the Czech Republic.