Inertia to the adoption of crowdfunding in Bangladesh: A study on start-up entrepreneurs

Islam, Mohammad Tariqul; Khan, Muhammad Tahir Abbas Article Inertia to the adoption of crowdfunding in Bangladesh: A study on start-up entrepreneurs Cogent Business & Management Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Islam, Mohammad Tariqul; Khan, Muhammad Tahir Abbas (2020) : Inertia to the adoption of crowdfunding in Bangladesh: A study on start-up entrepreneurs, Cogent Business & Management, ISSN 2331-1975, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, Vol. 7, Iss. 1, pp. 1-14, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/244933 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Published online: 31 Aug 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1429 View related articles View Crossmark data OPERATIONS, INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY | RESEARCH ARTICLE Inertia to the adoption of crowdfunding in Bangladesh: A study on start-up entrepreneurs Mohammad Tariqul Islam 1 * and Muhammad Tahir Abbas Khan 2 Abstract: Crowdfunding is an internet-based process of soliciting and accumulation of funds from people to finance business or non-business projects. When many innovative start-ups fail to get capitals from conventional financing sources due to lack of prior credit history and collateral assets, crowdfunding has become panacea for start-ups’ financing difficulty. Despite this huge potentiality, start-ups’ entrepreneurs still reluctant to crowdfunding, especially, in developing countries. However, a little research has been performed to investigate the reasons behind this inertia of start-ups’ entrepreneurs toward crowdfunding. This study intended to unearth the barriers responsible behind the inertia of the entrepreneurs using grounded theory (GT) approach. The research data were collected from 23 start-ups entrepreneurs through semi-structured interview and these entrepreneurs are sampled because of their decision-making authorities in their start-ups. The results indicated that five barriers responsible for the crowdfunding inertia, particularly, absence of crowdfunding know-how, scarcity of government support, vulnerability ABOUT THE AUTHORS Mohammad Tariqul Islam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Information Systems (MIS), University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received second MBA degree major in Innovation Management from Ristumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan and first MBA in MIS from the University of Dhaka. Besides, he completed Research Studentship in Innovation Science from Tokyo Institute Technology, Japan. His teaching and research interests include Innovation Adoption and Diffusion, Management of Technology, Technology Acceptance, Qualitative Research Techniques and Multivariate Data Analysis. He has published research articles in renowned national and international journals. Muhammad Tahir Abbas Khan is a Professor of Innovation Management at Ristumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Communication Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan. His research fields are in Innovation Management, Application of ICT, Spread Spectrum Communications and Digital Signal Processing. His research has been published in many reputed journals and he presented in many international conferences. He serves as a reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals. PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT Crowdfunding, a process of internet-based funds collection through open call, is getting popular all over the world. But developing countries especially Bangladesh is lagging behind in adopting this open innovation. Although start-ups are booming in this area, start-up entrepreneurs are not using this innovative source of funding for capital raising. So, this is a demand of time to explore the reasons responsible behind their inertia. Thus, this paper intended to unearth the barriers toward non-adopting crowdfunding. After systematic investigation, five barriers such as absence of crowdfunding know-how, scarcity of government support, vulnerability of security, risk of reputation and unfavorable nature of crowdfunding were identified. Now, these obstacles needed to be overcome as soon as possible through structured and collective efforts. The outcomes of this paper can be used by policy makers, academicians, and crowdfunding platforms in designing strategies for fostering crowdfunding and start-ups in Bangladesh. Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 1 of 14 Received: 10 June 2020 Accepted: 12 August 2020 *Corresponding author: Mohammad Tariqul Islam, Management Information Systems, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh Email: [email protected] Reviewing editor: Albert W. K. Tan, Education, Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation, Malaysia Additional information is available at the end of the article © 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. of security, risk of reputation and unfavorable nature of crowdfunding. Among these, the absence of crowdfunding know-how is most significant concern for the entrepreneurs. The outcome of this study offers a rich conceptualization of inhibitors for crowdfunding, which can be utilized as the guide to effectively design crowdfunding and start-ups fostering strategies. Subjects: Management of IT; Information & Communication Technology (ICT); Information Technology Keywords: crowdfunding; adoption barriers; start-up entrepreneurs; grounded theory; Bangladesh 1. Introduction Start-up is an early-stage innovative solutions based entrepreneurial venture with business model as the panacea for real-life social problems. Thus, Robehmed (2013) identified start-up as a problem-solving company in uncertain environment of success. Capital raising is considered one of the utmost challenging jobs for innovative start-ups (N. Lee & Brown, 2017). Start-ups face difficulties in raising capitals from traditional financing sources like stock markets and banks because of not having collateral assets and credit operation history to show (S.-G. Kim & Lee, 2014). So, start-ups entrepreneurs are dependent on the available financing options such as friends and families, angel inventors, venture capitalists, and seed funding (StartupExplore, 2014). With the blessing of financial technology or Fintech, some unconventional technology-supported financing sources have been emerged to solve the funding difficulties of start-ups and open call-based crowdfunding is considered well known amongst them (Ahlers et al., 2015; Paschen, 2017). Only innovative idea backed business models of start-up entrepreneurs are sufficient in crowdfunding to raise funds from backers or investors (Stemler, 2013). Furthermore, there are some specific merits of raising capitals through crowdfunding. First, entrepreneurs can publicize their ideas to the greater number of targeted audiences and get feedback along with funds from those crowds (Belleflamme, 2012). Second, entrepreneurs can enjoy more freedom of using collected funds through crowdfunding than from other conventional financing sources (Adhikary, Kutsuna, Hoda et al., 2018). Third, it explores innovative usage of Web 2.0 like social media marketing and viral networking to pool capital from online crowds (Hemer, 2011). Fourth, fundraising becomes free from geographical limitations and entrepreneurs can raise funds from all over the world. Finally, it is a mean for early-stage financing because majority of the crowdfunding projects are initiated for funding before marketing or commercialization of complete products or services (Belleflamme, 2012). In the World Bank’s reports (infoDev, 2013; Raymond, 2015), it was identified that crowdfunding is an emerging funds collection options for developing nations. Bangladesh is a developing nation with rising economy with GDP growth 8.13 % for the year of 2018–2019 and per capita income of USD 1,909 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Almost 91.818 million people which is about 56% of total population of Bangladesh are internet subscribers (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, 2019). In line with ensuring supportive technological infrastructure for start-up, the Bangladesh government is launchings many prospective initiatives to promote start-ups underneath the umbrella of Innovation, Design & Entrepreneurship Academy (iDEA) project which is helping startups by providing guidelines, motivations, and small-scale funds through competitions (Startup Bangladesh, 2018). There are some groups like Startup Dhaka, Startup DU (University of Dhaka), Future Startup, GP (Grameenphone) Accelerator, Microsoft for Startups and IT Incubator by Banglalink, etc. It is identified that Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are facing challenges in raising capitals for start-ups (Reaz, 2015a; Shams, 2017). For Bangladesh, crowdfunding is identified an ideal financing options for start-ups after assessing all conventional financing alternatives like stock markets, banks, and non-government organizations (Adhikary & Kutsuna, 2016). But, there are only two local crowdfunding platforms available in Bangladesh; which are Projekt.co (Reaz, 2015b) and Oporajoy.org (Islam, 2018). In addition, some social media grounded crowdfunding groups such as Crowdfunding Association of Bangladesh (CAB), Crowdfunding Soft and Crowdfunding Bangladesh are available Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 2 of 14 there. As a consequence of monetary restrictions on remittance exchange and absence of previous credit history of transactions, entrepreneurs are facing difficulties in raising capitals from global crowdfunding rooms like Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and GoFundMe. However, only 5% of 270 studied entrepreneurs in Bangladesh know about how to fund from crowdfunding (Adhikary, Kutsuna, Hoda et al., 2018a) and no mentionable number of entrepreneurs are found to use crowdfunding platforms. Besides, in another study, 281 (88.6%) out of 317 start-up entrepreneurs expressed that they did not have crowdfunding use experiences (Islam & Khan, 2019). But, there is scarcity of research to find out the barriers or demotivating factors that discourage the entrepreneurs in Bangladesh to accept crowdfunding. 2. Research background Crowdfunding is an internet-based pooled financing idea combining the concepts of microfinance and crowdsourcing (Morduch, 1999). It is identified as better financing options for start-ups trying to emerge and exist in the competitive business market with innovative concepts (Stemler, 2013). Psychological and economic factors are considered as better predictors for adopting any new technology and these factors are needed to be assessed for understanding the acceptance and diffusion of crowdfunding (Steinberg & DeMaria, 2012). Indeed, assessment study on the acceptance as well as rejection of a new information system or technology is challenging work in IS research (AlAwadhi & Morris, 2008). In reality, crowdfunding is not well used for fund raising in developing countries because of scarcity in financial regulations, supporting tools and promotional campaigns (Jegeleviciute & Valenciene, 2015; Turan, 2015). But these developing nations has high potentiality in crowdfunding success (infoDev, 2013). Besides, this World Bank report (infoDev, 2013) suggests that the behavioral and cultural readiness for the adoption of crowdfunding are needed to be assessed in consort with technology, regulations, and capital readiness before crowdfunding implementations in these developing countries. This informative background urges more investigative study for enhancing knowledge about the acceptance and/or rejection of crowdfunding in developing countries like Bangladesh. Crowdfunding is blessing for early funding of start-ups by entrepreneurs (Hemer, 2011). Some previous empirical studies pointed out some motives and reasons for crowdfunding adoption. Gerber et al. (2012) identified financing, product awareness, networking, self-affirmation and replication of success story as the incentives to adopt crowdfunding. Likewise, fund collection, receiving feedback and getting public attention are the reasons for crowdfunding (Belleflamme et al., 2013). On the other hand, Gleasure (2015) recognized risk of information disclosure, opportunity cost, and uncertainty the demotivating factors for crowdfunding by entrepreneurs. Besides, complexity, operational cost and reputation risk are found inhibitors for crowdfunding (Y. C. Lee & Yang, 2019). Limited knowledge is mentioned as main barriers of crowdfunding (Bruton et al., 2015). For these types of barriers entrepreneurs show their resistance toward crowdfunding and these barriers should be revealed properly (Chunlei & Liyun, 2016). In the previous literature, most of the crowdfunding studies were done on investors’ or backers’ perspective and few studies on start-up entrepreneurs’ viewpoint. Besides, most of these crowdfunding studies are done in developed countries, such as China (Lee, 2016; Li et al., 2018), Australia (Ley & Weaven, 2011), Germany (Koch & Siering, 2015), Korea (Moon & Hwang, 2018; S.-D. Kim & Jeon, 2017). Notable, all these researches were done focusing only motivating or enabling factors toward crowdfunding. According to Cenfetelli (2004), user intentions toward any new technology can be assessed using two-factor theory of information systems, specifically, enablers (motivators, encouraging, satisfiers) and inhibitors (demotivators, discouraging, constraints). So, these suggest more empirical exploration for unveiling the barriers or inhibitors for crowdfunding by the start-up entrepreneurs. A few number of crowdfunding researches have conducted in the context of Bangladesh. Among those, Adhikary and Kutsuna (2016) first pointed out crowdfunding as a possible alternative soft financing source for start-ups and small businesses in Bangladesh after examining other financing Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 3 of 14 sources like stock market, banks, microcredits, etc. In 2018, the crowdfunding readiness of Bangladesh was assessed in case of citizens’ willingness and economic advances (Adhikary, Kutsuna, Hoda et al., 2018). Hasan et al. (2017) first attempted to evaluate the psychological and behavioral readiness of possible crowdfunding participants considering a few factors such as technology awareness, perceived expectations, perceived costs, availability of resources, etc. Moreover, Islam and Khan (2019) found performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitation conditions and perceived trust as the motivating factors for crowdfunding by start-up entrepreneurs. But the inhibitors or barriers toward crowdfunding by the start-up entrepreneurs are remained unexplored in Bangladesh. The barriers of any innovation adoption must be overcome before the expected diffusion of that innovation (Laukkanen et al., 2007). Thus, the objective of this study is to fill research gap by exploring and ranking inhibitors or barriers for crowdfunding adoption by start-up entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. This targeted study is distinguished from other previous researches on crowdfunding by three aspects. Foremost, this is first attempt to apply grounded theory approach to crowdfunding research. Next, this is one of the limited research on identifying the barriers of crowdfunding adoption. Last, the start-up entrepreneurs’ viewpoints were first considered to unearth the barriers toward crowdfunding adoption because the value of any crowdsourcing idea will be limited if the view of different stakeholders are not considered (Majchrzak & Malhotra, 2013). 3. Research methodology As crowdfunding is new phenomenon and now at the initial stage of adoption in Bangladesh (Hasan et al., 2017), doing survey-based empirical study through gathering quantitative data is not suitable and easy. In early stage of research, qualitative approach based on in-depth interview is well suited for finding out the answers of how and why questions (Creswell, 1998). We carried out this study on the basis of Grounded Theory (GT) which is a qualitative research method developed by Glaser and Strauss (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The aim of GT study is to generate a theory based on grounded data instead of testing the existing developed theories (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The prime objective of this study is to develop a new theory of barriers responsible for entrepreneurs’ inertias for crowdfunding adoption and this is first attempt to develop this type of theory in the context of crowdfunding. So, we found GT approach is more appropriate way to find the answers of our research questions. Noteworthy, GT is a powerful and popular tool in pioneer IS research (Birks et al., 2013) for developing new theory in the IS research area (Taylor et al., 2010). 3.1. Sampling and data collection The start-up entrepreneurs of Bangladesh is targeted population of this study. In order to get responses merely from those entrepreneurs, we followed non-probability purposive sampling technique. The list of possible participants was developed from various platforms like startupdhaka.org and startupbangladesh.gov.bd etc. Formal request for participating in the interview was sent through email to 45 start-up entrepreneurs. Moreover, emails for reminding were sent the entrepreneurs from whom we failed to get responses within 4 weeks of first mail. Lastly, 23 of the entrepreneurs willingly joined in the face to face interviews at their workplaces (Table 1). Interview is considered key component in collecting data in qualitative research (Creswell, 2014) for collecting actual perceptions of participants. Besides, the observations in time of direct interactions with interviewees allowed interviewers to capture and confirm more in-depth opinions of participants. The mode of interview was semi-structured which is mostly preferred to eliminate biasness (Creswell, 2014) and capture only information related the objectives of interview. The final written scripts of interview were checked and confirmed by the interviewees. Information related to personal identification was not collected to ensure the ethical guidelines of research. 3.2. Data analysis Since GT investigation is better suited when there is lack of prior research and information (Kopanitsa, 2017), we followed GT approach for our study. Data analysis in a qualitative research involves data coding, determining and differentiating the identified variables, and estimating the relative significance of identified variables on the basis of frequencies Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 4 of 14 (Creswell, 2014). For this study, we followed the Grounded Theory building process recommended (see Figure 1) by Rodon and Pastor (2007). Data collection is the first step of GT-based data analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). So, firstly, we did the data coding after the data collection according the GT instructions (Glaser, 1992). Data coding process started by identifying key points in the data after systematic line-by-line reading of interview written scripts (Glaser, 1978) and recognized key points were assigned by open codes following open coding process (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Memos were used to keep records of analysis and support the further relationships development among the coded variables. Second, Following the GT guidelines of Glaser and Strauss (1967), we did constant comparison technique among discovered open codes in term of comparing with prior codes in same interviews scripts and codes in different scripts. This helped us to do the data reduction by grouping similar emerged codes and discover concepts or higher abstractions. Moreover, repetitive application of constant comparison helped us in determining sufficient categories as the barriers to adopt crowdfunding by the start-up entrepreneurs. This type of axial coding process allowed us to relate categories to sub-categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and reassemble the initial coded data for emerging analysis (Charmaz, 2006). Table 1. Demographic information of participants Number of Interviewees 23 Start-up entrepreneurs Method of Data Collection Semi-structured interviews Setting of Interviews Face to face interactions Duration of Interview 20–30 minutes Recording of Interviews Paper based writing by interviewers Range of Age 28–40 Years Educational Qualifications ●Honors Degree (7) ●Master’s Degree (14) ●Doctorate Degree (2) Business Experience ●1–5 Years (9) ●6–10 Years (12) ●More than 10 Years (2) Experience of Using Crowdfunding ●Yes (2) ●No (21) Figure 1. Grounded theory building process (Rodon & Pastor, 2007). Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 5 of 14 In the third coding stage, we did selective coding to integrate and refine the theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and explore only core variables to develop a parsimonious theory (Glaser, 1978). Lastly, we stopped coding procedure when the theoretical saturation was achieved. Categories through three-step coding process are illustrated in Table 2. The reliability and validity of qualitative study can be promoted by triangulation (Creswell, 1998) which involves checking the data with different sources. In this study, we achieved data triangulation by examining various documents such as websites, journal papers, books, and field notes of observation in time of interviews. 4. Results After systematic data analysis using GT approach, five categories of crowdfunding barriers have been derived, namely: (1) Absence of Crowdfunding Know-how, (2) Scarcity of Government Support, (3) Vulnerability of Security, (4) Risk of Reputation, and (5) Unfavorable Nature of Crowdfunding (see Table 2). Each barrier is explained below following the order of significances of identified barriers. The significances are ranked according to the frequency of codes revealed by start-up entrepreneurs. Excerpts from interviewees are mentioned as exemplars of categories of the barriers. Table 2. Emerging categories of crowdfunding barriers through coding process Initial Categories (Open Coding) Sub-categories (Axial Coding) Super-categories (Selective Coding) Don’t know how to use CF (3) Lack of Knowledge (4) Absence of Crowdfunding Know-how (17) Never hear about CF (1) Never use CF (4) Lack of Experience (7) Never visited CF websites (2) Not seen other to use CF (1) Not have skill of using CF (2) Lack of Training (3) Don’t have training of using CF (1) Inadequate CF platforms (3) Lack of CF Platforms (3) No financial policy for CF (2) Lack of Regulatory Policy (5) Scarcity of Government Support (11) Unclear financial laws related to CF (3) Can’t do global money transfer through CF (3) Restrictions in Money Transfer (5) Complexity of local money transfer using CF (2) Failure to meet audit requirements (1) Managing Audit Compliances (1) Business model will be publicly available (2) Fear of Privacy Break (4) Vulnerability of Security (8) Privacy break of financial information (2) CF is not trustable (1) Lack of Trust (3) Open to online attacks (2) Less confidence in secured sharing with crowdfunders (1) Fear of Solving Information Asymmetry (1) May not collect fund (2) Fear of Failure (3) Risk of Reputation (5) Risk of losing other financing sources (1) Possibilities of lawsuits (2) Fear of Lawsuits (2) Need more time to collect fund (2) Slow Funding (2) Unfavorable Nature of Crowdfunding (3) Publicize more business information (1) Disclosure of Information (1) Note: Frequency of codes is mentioned in the parentheses. Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 6 of 14 4.1. Absence of crowdfunding know-how The most mentioned reasons for not using crowdfunding by start-up entrepreneurs interviewed in this study are lack of knowledge, experience, training, and platforms of crowdfunding. As crowdfunding is a new concept in Bangladesh, a number of entrepreneurs complained about not having enough opportunity to get knowledge and experience of using crowdfunding platforms. Sufficient knowledge and experience can change the mindsets and increase the crowdfunding intentions of the entrepreneurs. Any financial activities are coupled with risk concern which can be lessened through proper knowledge and experience. One entrepreneur stated: “I don’t have any knowledge about crowdfunding because I never get opportunity to collect capitals using crowdfunding. So, crowdfunding is actually an unexplored thing to me. Unfortunately, most of my staffs don’t have used crowdfunding.” [Interviewee 7] Moreover, some entrepreneurs revealed training issue for making crowdfunding popular and well accepted. The step-by-step crowdfunding training can increase the confidence and technological readiness of entrepreneurs. One entrepreneur with crowdfunding experience disclosed: “I learn how to raise funds through crowdfunding from one of friends. Although that was for donation purpose. I believe there should be available training programs at national and organizational levels. Besides, these training programs should be free of cost and updated regularly for coping with the changes in technical issues of crowdfunding.” [Interviewee 13] 4.2. Scarcity of government support The second-most derived barrier for crowdfunding is scarcity of government support in terms of financial and monetary regulations as well as legal framework of auditing. Bangladesh does not have any crowdfunding supporting legal and financial policies. On the other hand, there are restrictions on inbound-outbound money transfer which disallows entrepreneurs to experience fundraising through crowdfunding. An entrepreneur commented with depressed emotion: “Although there is a vision 2021 of ‘Digital Bangladesh’, still there is no crowdfunding supporting legal financial policies. Even we can’t invest and collect money through international crowdfunding sites because of strict money transfer regulations.” [Interviewee 2] In addition, the required supporting financial documents and process for auditing keep entrepreneurs far from crowdfunding. Besides, the unavailability of proper accounting and auditing guidelines, entrepreneurs believe there are problems in maintaining audit compliances to manage the gathered funds from crowdfunding. Without audit policy change, it is much more difficult to go through the audit process with crowdfunded capitals because crowdfunding does not offer all the needed documents for auditing. One entrepreneur, who did crowdfunding, has shared: “Lots of manual documents demanded by audit process inhibits us from raising funds for our start-ups through crowdfunding.” [Interviewee 15] 4.3. Vulnerability of security Notable number of entrepreneurs concern about security vulnerability of crowdfunding and this concern is the product of fear of privacy break, lack of trust, fear of solving information asymmetry. They think that the intellectual properties or copyrights of their ideas have risk of imitation in the open crowdfunding platforms. Furthermore, they are afraid of inside and outside attacks to hack the sensitive financial information in time of uploading and/or performing financial transactions through crowdfunding platforms. According to one entrepreneur: “Although we discussed about to adopt crowdfunding in our last monthly meeting. Before moving to crowdfunding, we had serious concerns about the security issues of our business ideas. Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 7 of 14 intermediary and we pay for our own cost. https://www. justgiving.com/crowdfunding/insaaf2017 Turan, S. S. (2015). Financial innovation crowdfunding: Friend or foe? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195(1), 353–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. sbspro.2015.06.334 UNDP Asia and the Pacific. (2016, November 28). http:// www.asia-pacific.undp.org/content/rbap/en/home/ blog/2016/11/28/UNDP-Bangladesh-launches-YESCrowdfunding-Campaign.html Yunus, M. (2007, January). Credit for the Poor. Harvard International Review, 29(3), 20–24. © 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. 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Publishing with Cogent OA ensures: • Immediate, universal access to your article on publication • High visibility and discoverability via the Cogent OA website as well as Taylor & Francis Online • Download and citation statistics for your article • Rapid online publication • Input from, and dialog with, expert editors and editorial boards • Retention of full copyright of your article • Guaranteed legacy preservation of your article • Discounts and waivers for authors in developing regions Submit your manuscript to a Cogent OA journal at www.CogentOA.com Islam & Khan, Cogent Business & Management (2020), 7: 1811597 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1811597 Page 14 of 14