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This study aims to identify and examine the antecedents of attitude toward entrepreneurial behaviors (ATEB) of firms. Additionally, this study also identifies and examines the antecedents of innovativeness and proactiveness. Furthermore, this study explains how factors within and outside the organization affect ATEB, innovativeness and proactiveness.

This study uses the attention-based view (ABV) and examines the effects of long-term focus and industry clockspeed on attitude toward firms’ entrepreneurial behaviors (EB). This study measures ATEB by analyzing the top management team’s words in the earnings conference calls. It applies the two-stage least squares regression with fixed effects and instrumental variables to conduct the empirical analysis.

The results indicate that the direct effects of long-term focus and industry clockspeed on ATEB are not significant. However, the moderating effect of industry clockspeed on the relationship between long-term focus and EB is significant and positive. The results indicate that firms that are operating in fast clockspeed industries exhibiting long-term focus exhibit EB. Furthermore, the results also indicate that long-term focus and industry clockspeed collectively affect innovativeness and proactiveness.

This research helps firms to develop entrepreneurial behavior operating under various task environment conditions.

This study applies the ABV of the firm and contributes to the area of firm-level EB, while prior studies have not implemented this perspective in investigating firm-level EB. Past studies have not applied the ABV of the firm to study EB, innovativeness and proactiveness either independently or collectively.

The purpose of our paper is to empirically examine the conjectures, which prior literature suggests, that employees work more productively in socially responsible companies and employees are willing to work for less when they work for these companies.

This study uses ordinary least squares regression to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee performance and between CSR and employee cost. Further, 2SLS is used to address the endogeneity issue.

The results indicate a positive relation between CSR and employee performance, suggesting that employees in socially responsible companies generate better operating performance than their peers in less socially responsible companies. Findings also reveal that socially responsible companies incur higher labor cost.

First, the CSR ratings constructed by KLD Inc. are an approximate measure of CSR performance. Better CSR measures may yield stronger results. Additionally, the sample firms in our study are relatively large firms. Caution needs be exercised when readers generalize these conclusions. Finally, this sample only consists of public firms. Whether these conclusions hold in private firms remains unknown. The above issues can be investigated in future studies.

The findings of our study should interest managers who contemplate engaging in socially responsible activities, investors and financial analysts who assess firm performance and policymakers who design and implement guidelines on CSR programs.

This is the first paper that directly tests the association between CSR and employee performance and cost. Thus, this study contributes to the CSR literature by offering evidence to show a positive effect of CSR on employee performance. It also contributes to the management accounting literature.

There has been little empirical research focused on the effect of lean on hospital performance in the form of a consolidated methodology. This paper aims to apply a more sophisticated approach to examine whether hospitals’ decision for lean implementation is endogenous and test the effects of lean on hospital performance.

This study uses a publicly available data set of hospitals across the USA from 2002 to 2019 and performs two-stage least squares (2SLS) analysis. In the first stage, a probit model is used to estimate hospitals’ decision to implement lean. The fitted probability values from the first stage are used in the second stage to test the relationship between lean and hospital performance. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results are compared with those of the 2SLS approach.

The decision to implement lean is significantly associated with hospital-specific characteristics (the complexity of care, size and cost-to-charge ratio), indicating hospitals’ decision for lean implementation is endogenous. Moreover, there is strong evidence that lean implementation is positively associated with hospital financial and operational performance. The Hausman F-tests confirm the presence of endogeneity and this, in turn, suggests that OLS regressions result in unreliable estimates.

The findings of this study can help hospital managers benchmark performance and explore opportunities for profit and efficiency improvement. The findings are also relevant to policymakers who strive to lower health-care spending.

This study is motivated by the challenges facing the health-care industry. This study is among the first to investigate endogeneity in lean implementation and the association between lean and hospital performance using large-scale archival panel data. The use of the 2SLS approach provides more confidence in statistical findings.

This study aims mainly to test the effect of audit committee independence and expertise attributes on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, assurance and global reporting initiative (GRI) framework adoption and to investigate how CSR committee existence moderates this main relationship.

The study uses a large global sample that includes all (59,172) firm-year observations having CSR-related data in the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for a period between 2002 and 2019. The empirical analyses are based on random-effects logistic panel regression and Hayes methodology for the moderation analysis.

The study finds that audit committee independence and expertise are significantly associated with CSR reporting, CSR report assurance and GRI framework adoption. Moderation analysis largely supports the existence of a substitution role between audit and CSR committees and implies that audit committees are significant predictors of CSR reporting, assurance and GRI framework adoption mostly in the absence of the CSR committee.

The findings propose audit committee members be extra-vigilant in CSR reporting and assurance practices arising from undertaking substitution roles with the CSR committee. Hence, firms may configure their corporate structure in line with the results such as augmenting the audit committee with independent and expert members if they do not constitute a CSR committee. If firms establish a CSR committee, audit committee members may allocate less time to CSR reporting and assurance and more time to financial reporting quality.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate the direct and indirect effect of audit committees’ attributes not only on CSR disclosure but also on GRI implementation and CSR reporting external assurance, considering the CSR committee’s possible substitutability or complementarity moderating role. This research develops a deeper understanding of audit committees’ non-financial role.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of women on board moderated by firms’ competitive advantage on firms’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures.

The sample consists of 332 firm-year observations from the year 2012 to 2017 of 65 firms listed in Bursa Malaysia. To improve the robustness of this analysis, the authors adopt clustering techniques in the regression analysis. Sensitivity analysis is also conducted using two-stage least square regression and robust standard errors for panel regression with a cross-sectional dependence approach.

The findings of this research indicate that women on board encourage ESG and environmental disclosures. Nonetheless, in competitively advantaged firms, the authors find that the interaction between WOMENPER and COMADVANTAGE is negatively influencing ESG scores. However, no evidence is found to indicate that women on board in a competitively advantaged firm have an effect on the environmental scores of a firm.

The findings urge regulators to ensure the appointment of qualified and competent women on board, particularly in competitively advantage firms.

Though firms with more women on board are associated with better ESG disclosures and environmental disclosures, the author’s additional analysis found that this is less pronounced in competitively advantage firms. Since a number of the competitive firms are owned by family firms as well as government-linked firms, the appointment of women should not be based on directors’ affiliation, network and family relationships.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies which seek to investigate women’s appointment in competitive advantage firms.

This paper aims to investigate auditors’ pricing of excess cash holdings and the variation in their pricing decisions in light of the precautionary motives of cash holdings and certain firm-specific conditions and during periods of crisis.

The authors conduct the two-stage-least-squares multivariate analysis using a sample of publicly listed non-financial US firms for the period 2003 to 2021 (42,413 firm-year observations).

The findings show a significant positive relationship between excess cash and audit fee. Next, the authors find that audit pricing of excess cash is significantly higher for firms with lower financial constraints. However, the authors do not find evidence to suggest that auditors price excess cash significantly higher for firms with lower hedging needs. In additional analysis, the authors find evidence to suggest that auditors charge significantly less for excess cash in firms that report financial loss and firms operating in industries with high litigation risk. The additional analysis also reveals excess cash is not positively and significantly priced by auditors as a result of the global financial crisis and Covid-19 pandemic.

Most researchers have analyzed excess cash holding from the perspective of managers, i.e. agency conflict or managerial prudence, while somewhat neglecting auditors’ perception of the embedded risk of excess cash holdings. The authors provide new insights on auditors’ perspective of excess cash holding and identify certain factors/situation/conditions that cause variation in the audit fee premium. The findings offer useful insights for managers and shareholders who are interested in assessing the effects of excess cash holdings policies on the audit fee premium.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of different categories of ownership concentration on corporate voluntary disclosure practices in New Zealand.

The study applies panel data regression analysis to a sample of New Zealand listed companies from 2001 to 2005. Two‐stage least squares analysis (2SLS) is conducted. Ownership concentration is categorised into four mutually exclusive ownership structures.

The paper finds that firm‐year observations characterised by financial institution‐controlled ownership structure tends to make significantly fewer (more) disclosures at high (low) concentration levels supporting expropriation. In contrast, firm‐year observations in the high (low) concentration group with government‐ and management‐controlled ownership structures exhibit considerably higher (lower) voluntary disclosure scores, suggesting a positive monitoring effect at high ownership concentration level.

The results provide evidence for the proposition that the efficiency of large block holders' monitoring varies with the level of ownership concentration.

To promote transparency in capital markets, regulators can encourage or discourage certain types of large shareholding, while monitoring the level of ownership concentration by means of regulation. Investors, especially less sophisticated retail investors, will benefit from the findings that different ownership groups affect disclosure policies differently.

The findings strengthen the importance of differentiating ownership structures into various classes to infer the real impact of differential controlling properties on managerial disclosure decisions. Furthermore, the results reveal that the relationship between ownership concentration and voluntary disclosure practices has a non‐linear pattern.

Organizational networks are generally considered major antecedents of mutual influence in adopting similar practices, typically via a structure of dense ties, or closure. We propose that under conditions of competitive interdependence, closure may be associated with links established to access resources and knowledge and become a possible source of differentiation rather than imitation. We test these and other antecedents of imitative behavior and performance in the Italian TV industry with 12 years of data on 501 productions. We find that network closure is associated with lower imitation, centrality, but not status, leads to imitation, and that imitation lowers performance.

This study examines the value implications of oil price uncertainty for investors in diversified firms using a sample of 922 USA firms from 2001 to 2019.

Our study employs a panel dataset to examine the value implications of oil price uncertainty for diversified firm investors. We consider several alternative specifications to account for unobserved factors and measurement errors that could potentially bias our results. In particular, we use alternative measures of the excess value of diversified firms and oil price uncertainty, additional control variables, fixed-effects models, the Oster test, impact threshold for confounding variable (ITCV) analysis, two-stage least square instrumental variable (2SLS-IV) analysis and the system-GMM model.

We find that the excess value of diversified firms, relative to a benchmark portfolio of single-segment firms, increases with high oil price uncertainty. The impact of oil price uncertainty is asymmetric, as corporate diversification is value-increasing for diversified firm investors only when the volatility is due to positive oil price changes and amidst supply-driven oil price shocks. The excess value increases irrespective of diversified firms’ financial constraints and oil usage. Diversified firms become conservative in their internal capital allocations with high oil price uncertainty. Such conservatism is value-increasing for diversified firm investors, as it supports higher performance in response to oil price uncertainty.

Our study has three important implications: first, they are relevant to investors in understanding the portfolio value implications of oil price uncertainty. Second, they are helpful for firm managers while comprehending the value-relevant implications of internal capital allocations. Finally, our findings are policy relevant in the context of the future of diversified firms in developed markets.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of institutional quality on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in South America.

The study uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) and fixed effect ordinary least squares regression analyses to examine the relationship between institutional quality and FDI in South America.

The study finds a significant positive relationship between institutional quality index and FDI. This implies that improvements in the institutional quality relate to increases in the flow of FDI to South America. Domestic capital, GDP per capita growth, and trade positively relate to FDI. However, the coefficient of trade is not significant. This implies that increases in these variables relate to increases in FDI flows to South America.

The study recommends that quality of institutions matter to the flow of FDI and therefore, efficient institutional reforms should be a priority for policymakers as this creates a conducive investment environment to attract FDI in South America. Further, policies that are focused on promoting competition, open market, and effective non-corrupt public institution as well as open and transparent legal and regulatory regimes, and effective delivery of government services should be the priority of policymakers in South America (Mishra and Daly, 2007).

The study uses a single measure of institutional quality based on a broad set of institutional indicators. This broad measure of institutional quality differs from the available studies that mainly focused on single aspects of institutional quality, that is, either corruption, governance, or political risk.