Modelling COVID-19 effect on the performance of MENA Health-care sector

PurposeThis study models the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of the private health-care sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. This paper aims to address the economic, societal and sustainability of the health-care sector.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from Bloomberg and the sample consists of 534 firm-year observations from 55 firms listed over 2010–2020. The authors apply panel data and control for the country and governance effects.FindingsThe authors found heterogeneous results regarding the three sub-sectors. The pandemic has a negative effect on the accounting and market performances of the "Pharmaceutical companies” and an insignificant impact on "Healthcare Management and Facilities Services.” Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 on health-care firms' performance depends on the country's economic classification and the degree of regulatory and governance frameworks.Research limitations/implicationsFurther studies may consider a larger sample and other regions. It is recommended to address the health-care sector's challenges to invest in new technologies such as "digital twin” and predictive and personalized medicine. It is worth testing model development theory and its effects on speeding up and designing models to ensure the proper functioning and developing mathematics to determine uncertainties in patient data and model predictions.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is novel as it is unique in modeling the impact of COVID-19 on the health-care public companies in the MENA region. The findings pinpoint firms' and countries' heterogeneous impacts on financial and market performances.

Exploring the performance of responsible companies in G20 during the COVID-19 outbreak.

An uphill question of whether Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) directly impact firms' financial performance (FP) continues to vacillate between two opponent streams. In the present study, we argue that COVID-19 is an extreme event where the effect of ESG sharply manifests. We rely on cross-sectional data in the context of G20 countries for the year 2020. To avoid biased results due to governments support, we integrate four novel metrics provided by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT). We run sequential regressions (OLS; and quartiles to account for the Ingrained Income Bias (IIB) and ESG scores). We also perform robustness tests and account for the interaction between ESG and cash level. Our models were subsequently replicated for each ESG pillar. Findings indicate that ESG is beneficial during COVID-19, but the reward appears to be closely tied up to specific aspects of ESG, income level, and firm-specific variables. Results contribute to the burgeoning literature on ESG during COVID-19 by reflecting on firms' key attributes and the preponderance of government support.

Thirteen years of Operations Management Research (OMR) journal: a bibliometric analysis and future research directions

The journal of Operations Management Research (OMR) is a rigorous journal that started its publication in 2008. It publishes short, focused research studies that advance both the theory and practice of operations management. Considering the relevant OMR’s contribution to the field of Operations Management in the last years, this study provides an overall assessment of the journal performance by conducting a retrospective review. To elaborate on OMR's temporal development in terms of publications, authors, affiliated institutions and countries, citation patterns, and conceptual structure, we extract publications from Scopus database for the period 2008–2020. We rely on bibliometric techniques in addition to bibliographic coupling, keyword analysis, and content analysis. 166 documents were analyzed using RStudio, VOSviewer, and Microsoft Excel. Findings emphasize OMR’s steady productivity growth (3.24%). Narrowly, Olhager J. is the most productive authors while Kalchschmidt M. and Stentoft J. are the most influential authors (H-index of 4). Furthermore, USA contributes to the highest number of publications while UK is the most influential country in terms of citations. Cranfield School of Management, UK stands as the top cited university. The analysis of the thematic evolution concludes to three main clusters: "Manufacturing and Supply chain Performance", "Six Sigma and Lean Management", and "Reshoring, Backshoring and Offshoring". This study recommends to further investigate the implications of the fourth industrial revolution and the sequels of COVID-19.