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This study aims to investigate the role of negative media coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in deterring tax avoidance. Inspired by media agenda-setting theory and legitimacy theory, this study hypothesises that an increase in ESG negative media coverage should cause a reputational drawback, leading companies to reduce tax avoidance to regain their legitimacy. Hence, this study examines a novel channel that links ESG and taxation.

This study uses panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between negative media coverage of ESG issues and tax avoidance among the largest European entities. This study considers different measures of tax avoidance and negative media coverage.

The results show that negative media coverage of ESG issues is negatively associated with tax avoidance, suggesting that media can act as an external monitor for corporate taxation.

The findings have implications for policymakers and regulators, which should consider tax transparency when dealing with ESG disclosure requirements. Tax disclosure should be integrated into ESG reporting.

The study has social implications related to the media, which act as watchdogs for firms’ irresponsible practices. According to this study’s findings, increased media pressure has the power to induce a better alignment between declared ESG policies and tax strategies.

This study contributes to the literature on the mechanisms that discourage tax avoidance and the literature on the relationship between ESG and taxation by shedding light on the role of media coverage.

This study presents a systematic framework for maintenance strategy development of manufacturing process machinery. The framework is developed based on the reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) approach to minimise the high downtime of a production line, thus increasing its reliability and availability. A case study of a production line from the ghee and soap manufacturing industry in Taiz, Yemen, is presented for framework validation purposes. The framework provides a systematic process to identify the critical system(s) and guide further investigation for functional significant items (FSIs) based on quantitative and qualitative analyses before recommending appropriate maintenance strategies and specific tasks.

The proposed framework integrates conventional RCM procedure with the fuzzy computational process to improve FSIs criticality estimation, which is the main part of failure mode effect criticality analysis (FMECA) applications. The framework consists of four main implementation stages: identification of the critical system(s), technical analysis, Fuzzy-FMECA application for FSIs criticality estimation and maintenance strategy selection. Each stage has its objective(s) and related scientific techniques that are applied to systematically guide the framework implementation.

The proposed framework validation is summarised as follows. The first stage results demonstrate that the seaming system (top and bottom systems) caused 50% of the total production line downtime, indicating it is a critical system that requires further analysis. The outcomes of the second stage provide significant technical information on the subject (seaming system), helping team members to identify and understand the structure and functional complexities of the seaming system. This stage also provides a better understanding of how the seaming system functions and how it can fail. In stage 3, the application of FMECA with the fuzzy computation integration process presents a systematic way to analyse the failure mode, effect and cause of items (components of the seaming system). This stage also includes items’ criticality estimation and ranking assessment. Finally, stage four guides team members in recommending the appropriate countermeasures (maintenance strategies and task selection) based on their priority level.

This paper proposes an original maintenance strategies development framework based on the RCM approach for production system equipment. Specifically, it considers a fuzzy computational process based on the Gaussian function in the third stage of the proposed framework. Adopting the fuzzy computational process improves the risk priority number (RPN) estimation, resulting in better criticality ranking determination. Another significant contribution is introducing an extended item criticality ranking assessment process to provide maximum levels of criticality item ranking. Finally, the proposed RCM framework also provides detailed guidance on maintenance strategy selection based on criticality levels, unique functionality and failure characteristics of each FSI.

Supply chains need to be made viable in this volatile and competitive market, which could be possible through digitalization. This study is an attempt to explore the role of Industry 4.0, smart supply chain, supply chain agility and supply chain resilience on sustainable business performance from the lens of natural resource-based view.

The study tests the proposed model using a covariance-based structural equation modelling and further investigates the ranking of each construct using the artificial neural networks approach in AMOS and SPSS respectively. A total of 234 respondents selected using purposive sampling aided in capturing the industry practices across supply chains in the UK. The full collinearity test was carried out to study the common method bias and the content validity was carried out using the item content validity index and scale content validity index. The convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs and mediation study was carried out in SPSS and AMOS V.23.

The results are overtly inferring the significant impact of Industry 4.0 practices on creating smart and ultimately sustainable supply chains. A partial relationship is established between Industry 4.0 and supply chain agility through a smart supply chain. This work empirically reinstates the combined significance of green practices, Industry 4.0, smart supply chain, supply chain agility and supply chain resilience on sustainable business value. The study also uses the ANN approach to determine the relative importance of each significant variable found in SEM analysis. ANN determines the ranking among the significant variables, i.e. supply chain resilience > green practices > Industry 4.0> smart supply chain > supply chain agility presented in descending order.

This study is a novel attempt to establish the role of digitalization in SCs for attaining sustainable business value, providing empirical support to the mediating role of supply chain agility, supply chain resilience and smart supply chain and manifests a significant integrated framework. This work reinforces the integrated model that combines all the constructs dealt with in silos so far in prior literature.

This study aims to assess the efficiency of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) countries in achieving sustainable development by analyzing their ability to convert resources and technological innovations into sustainable outcomes.

Using data envelopment analysis (DEA), the study evaluates the economic, environmental and social efficiency of BRICS countries over the period 2010–2018. It ranks these countries based on their sustainable development performance and compares them to the period 2000–2007.

The study reveals varied efficiency levels among BRICS countries. Russia and South Africa lead in certain sustainable development aspects. South Africa excels in environmental sustainability, whereas Brazil is efficient in resource utilization for sustainable growth. China and India, despite economic growth, face challenges such as pollution and lower quality of life.

The study’s findings are constrained by the DEA methodology and the selection of variables. It highlights the need for more nuanced research incorporating recent global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical shifts.

Insights from this study can inform targeted and effective sustainability strategies in BRICS nations, focusing on areas such as industrial quality improvement, employment conditions and environmental policies.

The study underscores the importance of balancing economic growth with social and environmental considerations, highlighting the need for policies addressing inequality, poverty and environmental degradation.

This research provides a unique comparative analysis of BRICS countries’ sustainable development efficiency, challenging conventional perceptions and offering a new perspective on their progress.

This study aims to investigate the connections between the adoption of technology, user experience (UX), financial transparency and accountability, specifically focusing on the moderating influence of cultural sensitivity in the Jordanian context.

This study gathered data from 272 participants who are working in the operational Islamic banks in Jordan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used for the hypotheses testing.

The results indicate that cultural sensitivity plays a significant role in shaping the UX, consequently influencing perceptions of financial transparency and accountability in e-Islamic finance within the metaverse. This study underscores the intricate interplay between technological advancements, adherence to Sharia principles and diverse cultural expectations, forming the crux of the research.

This research brings a novel perspective by examining the complex connections among technology adoption, UX, financial transparency and accountability, specifically within the distinctive context of Jordan. This research study innovates by checking out how social sensitivity moderates these partnerships, specifically in the context of e-Islamic finance in the metaverse. It adds value to the academic area by shedding light on the intricate interaction between technological development, adherence to Sharia concepts and differing cultural expectations. Ultimately, this adds to a much deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of this domain.

The purpose of the study is to research the current state of fathers' involvement in childcare during parental leave and to assess attitudes of Russian population towards possible measures that can expand the use of parental leave by fathers in Russia.

The authors conducted a survey of Russian parents with children under the age of 18 months in 2022. The sample accounts for 1,000 people; the survey covered almost all Russian regions.

The authors found that the ideal workload of fathers is not expected to exceed a third of the total parental workload. Russian parents are not ready to admit dissatisfaction with the existing distribution of workload during parental leave. However, an egalitarian demand for greater involvement of fathers in parental responsibilities is forming, and an interest in transforming the parental leave policy is emerging.

The value of the study consists of assessing the effectiveness of measures that may have a beneficial effect on the use of parental leave by fathers, as well as identifying consequences of the possible introduction of mandatory parental leave for fathers.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate if, given personal, supply-related features, and labour demand-related variables, there is a difference in the share of women finding more stable jobs with respect to men, in an eight-year time span.

Fragmentation leads to a lower probability of transitioning into more certain, full-time work positions. The authors analyse a rich cohort of dependent workers in Emilia-Romagna to investigate whether part-time jobs lead to full-time jobs in a “stepping-stone” fashion and whether this happens with the same probability for men and women. The focus is on the cost of part-time jobs rather than the contrast between permanent and temporary jobs, as often observed in the literature. The authors also evaluate the transition between part-time job formulae and open-ended work arrangements to determine whether women's transition to full-fledged, stable work positions is slightly rarer than their male counterparts. Even if the authors allow for the fact that part-time contracts can be a choice and not an obligation, these contracts generate more flexibility in managing the equilibrium between private and work life and create more uncertainty than full-time contracts because of the fragmentation associated with these arrangements.

The authors find that women have a more fragmented working career than men, in that they hold more contracts than men in the same time span; moreover, the authors find that part-time jobs act more as bottlenecks for women than for men.

The authors use a large administrative dataset with over 600,000 workers observed in the 2008–2015 time span, in Emilia Romagna, Italy. The authors can disentangle the number of contracts per worker and observe individual, anonymise personal features, that the authors consider in the authors' propensity score estimate. The authors ran a robustness check of the PSM estimates through coarsened exact matching (CEM).

One of the significant components of a firm's overall sustainability is establishing and nurturing governance. This study attempts to understand how politically connected firms maintain sustainability measures in terms of risk-taking strategies. This paper has two purposes. The first purpose is to provide empirical evidence on the politically connected (PC) firms' corporate risk-taking and performance. The second purpose is to investigate the moderating impact of PC firms' risk on corporate performance.

To conduct the analysis to test our hypothesis efficiently, data has been collected from Bloomberg and annual reports of all Malaysian PC and non-PC companies. The final sample comprises 561 firms over the investigation period 2010–2019. The methodology entails Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions of the impact of the PC firms on corporate risk-taking and performance. The authors also conduct t-tests of the equality of means of corporate risk-taking and performance between PC and non-PC companies.

The authors’ results show that politically connected firms undertake significant less corporate risk and relish higher financial performance than their counterparts. It implicatively insinuates that the presence of a politician on the board enables the management to mitigate the risk-taking, which makes the firms more profitable. The authors’ results corroborate network theory, suggesting that political ties alleviate the agency issue and safeguard the shareholders' interest.

The study's results were important as they highlighted the sustainable development of PC and non-PC companies, offering insights to researchers, policymakers, regulators, financial report users, investors, environmental unions, employees, clients and society.

This paper is novel since it is unique in evaluating sustainable practice in PC and non-PC firms.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between market pricing and design quality within the development industry. Currently, there is a lack of research that examines real estate at the property level. Development quality is widely believed to have diminished over the past decades, while many investors seem uninterested in the design process. The study aims to address these issues through a pricing model that integrates design attributes. It is hoped that empirical findings will invite broader stakeholder interest in the design process.

The research establishes a framework for assessing spatial compliance across residential developments within London. Compliance is assessed across ten boroughs, with technical space guidelines used as a proxy for design quality. Transaction prices and spatial assessments are aligned within a hedonic pricing model. Empirical findings are used to establish whether undermining spatial standards presents a significant development risk.

Findings suggest a relationship between sale time and unit size, with “compliant” units typically transacting earlier than “non-compliant” units. Almost half of the 1,600 apartments surveyed appear to undermine technical guidelines.

It is suggested that an array of design attributes be explored that extend beyond unit size. Additionally, future studies may consider the long-term implications of design quality via secondary transaction prices.

Practical implications include the development of a more scientific approach to design valuation. This may enhance the position of product design management within the development industry and architectural services.

Social implications may include improvement in residential design.

An innovative approach combines a thorough understanding of both design and economic principles.