Charbel Salloum

Corporate governance and firms in financial distress: evidence from a Middle Eastern country

The objective of this paper is to determine the managerial governance characteristics related to financially distress companies. The failure of boards to accomplish their monitoring duties seemed to be one of the main reasons behind the actual financial distress and bankruptcy that swept companies across the planet. Through the analysis of a sample of 178 Lebanese non-listed and family owned firms, the results showed that the boards (that have a higher proportion of outside directors) are less inclined to face financial distress than the boards with a lower proportion. In addition, a different conclusion proves that the boards size and financial distress are directly linked. The paper highlights the extent to which financial distress is associated with corporate governance from a Euro Mediterranean country. It would be a source of education to Lebanese investors, who excessively go for short-term returns, and of help to regulatory authorities in the framework of making policies on corporate governance reformation.

Détresse Financière et Gouvernance d'Entreprise

Resume Cet article examine la relation entre la gouvernance d’entreprise au Liban et les performances des entreprises en situation de detresse financiere. Selon la litterature financiere, la dette est percue comme etant un mecanisme disciplinaire permettant de resoudre les conflits nes de l’asymetrie informationnelle. Elle se presenterait ainsi en tant que creatrice de valeur. Toutefois, l’exces de cette derniere pourrait etre aussi a l’origine de difficultes financieres et dans le pire des cas, generatrice de faillite, voire meme destructrice de valeur. Ceci aurait donc un impact significatif sur la serenite et perennite de l’entite. Or, un role majeur du systeme de gouvernance contribuerait selon certaines etudes a la detresse organisationnelle. Dans une telle situation, un des premiers reflexes consiste a focaliser l’attention sur les caracteristiques et compositions de la gouvernance d’entreprise, lorsque les performances de celles-ci sont en plein declin et que ces dernieres se retrouvent en detresse financiere.

Ethical and Political Marketing in the Middle East

Arab countries are today undergoing a process of political change that expresses some distrust of new arrangements of power. This situation is leading to changes in the geopolitical map of the Middle East that are already on the international agenda. It would be absurd to overlook the main explanations for the conflict of interest and lobbying of Western countries. In fact, politicians seem to be driven more by dogmatic interests nature than by humanistic interests. It is in this spirit that it appears vital and crucial for countries to promote the integration of ethics in order to identify, first, a place of adapted reflection, and second, promote dialogue that gives meaning to the attributes of social and political life. In this framework, political marketing plays a vital role in the ethics of integrity in thinking. Political marketing via Web 2.0 is currently the main power driving political action on which ethics is based. It is therefore necessary to consider the influence of marketing on countries’ ethics and politics, in order to prevent their disintegration in the Middle East, as this could threaten world peace.

Effectiveness of female nudity in e-advertising

This paper attempts to study the effectiveness of female nudity in advertising, specifically among Lebanese youth in universities. To validate our hypotheses, we carried out a self-administered survey in four different universities, exposing 189 students to an experimental smartphone advertisement showing either a models face or her partially nude body. Our results suggest that better attention toward the ad, brand recall, and favourable attitude toward the ad are dependent on the presence of nudity in the ad. The theoretical implication of our study is that the use of sexual appeal and sexual information is positively affecting the attention and attitude toward the ad, the brand recall, the consumers buying decision, and consequently the sales rate.