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A report is given on the above Congress which was attended by approximately 550 delegates from twenty‐seven countries. The sixty papers presented embraced the subjects of aerodynamics, materials, structures, propulsion, air transport, aerospace medicine, space Hight and re‐entry; a selection of these papers are summarized below.

WHEN talking about airbreathing engines it is now generally understood that they are either turbine engines when the maximum flight Mach number is subsonic or moderately supersonic, or ramjets when the Mach number is definitely high. When trying to meet the propulsion requirements from take‐off to a high enough speed the joint use of both engine types has to be considered. In such case most people would think of the ramjet as taking over the propulsion task from the turbine engine when reaching a certain value of the flight Mach number, or more precisely of the air stagnation temperature, above which the turbine engine is no longer able to operate. The most elementary view is that of presenting it as a limitation in the engine structure, with improvements calling for the use of better materials. Bringing thermo‐dynamics into the picture shows that increased air stagnation temperature results in a deterioration in the cycle efficiency of the turbine engine proper and this may result in the specific fuel consumption of the turbojet becoming higher than that of the ramjet. Such a performance limitation can be shifted to higher Mach numbers while using increased turbine intake temperatures. The consideration of the aerodynamics of the internal flow brings out another type of limitation due to the difficulty of keeping the operating line of the turbojet over the flight profile far enough from the surge limit though within the range of good compresser efficiency. Variable geometry in the compressor and turbine stators may produce some improvement in this respect.

There is emerging evidence in the accounting literature that investors react negatively to corporate greenwashing. But does that hold for all investors, or do different types of investors react differently? This paper aims to study retail investors’ responses to media reports on corporate greenwashing and how these responses depend upon the investors’ social value orientation. The authors argue that media reporting on corporate greenwashing negatively affects the rationale for allocating funds to firms engaging in greenwashing. The authors also expect this reaction to be stronger for prosocial investors compared to proself investors.

The authors conduct an online experiment with 229 participants representing retail investors in the German-speaking countries.

The results show that retail investors who received media reports on deceptive disclosure invest more funds in the company that does not engage in greenwashing (and less in the firm that engages in greenwashing) than investors who did not receive these reports. The authors’ results provide novel evidence that this effect primarily holds for investors with a prosocial value orientation. Finally, the authors’ data show that lower trust in the firm that engages in greenwashing partially mediates the effect of media reports on investor choices.

The authors provide unique evidence how different types of investors react to media reports on greenwashing. The authors find that moral motives, rather than risk-return considerations, drive investor responses to greenwashing. Overall, these findings support the important function of the media as an intermediary in stock market participation and highlight the pivotal role of individual traits in investors’ responses to greenwashing.

THE industry has now entered the post‐Plowden era, and at first sight there is little difference to discern, except that we are no longer waiting for Plowden. There has been the usual spate of rumours about what will be done, and, with the ink scarcely dry on the report, Mr Jenkins has moved on to pursue his career in new and perhaps more profitable pastures. We extend our good wishes to Mr Mulley, who comes to the Ministry of Aviation at one of the most critical times in the history of the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of the communication of the five major categories of risk (business, strategy, market and credit risk disclosure) over the volatile 2007-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) time period between Indonesia and Malaysia manufacturing listed companies.

A total of 300 firm years data are collected consisting of a random sample of 100 manufacturing listed companies’ annual reports for fiscal year-ends from 2007 to 2009. The reports include 50 annual reports of manufacturing companies per country, listed in the stock exchanges of Indonesia and Malaysia for this three-year GFC time period. This research adopts a researcher-constructed risk disclosure index (RDI) to create an index measuring the extent of risk disclosure by listed firms.

Key findings from statistical analysis are that country of incorporation and size help predict risk disclosure levels. Malaysian companies have significantly higher levels of business risk in 2007 and operating risk communication in 2007, 2008 and 2009 than Indonesian companies. These two countries have similar economic scenarios as developing countries which often have higher “business” risk for companies, but Malaysian companies disclose more risk information than Indonesia. The overall low disclosure levels (27.46-32.92 per cent for Indonesian companies and 35.20-39.04 per cent for Malaysian companies) highlight the potential for far higher communication of key risk factors in these two countries.

This study is important as it contributes to the literature by providing comparative insights into the voluntary risk disclosure practices of manufacturing companies in the two important Asian countries (Indonesia and Malaysia) over the GFC time period. There is lack of risk disclosure studies in manufacturing companies, especially in these two sample countries.

This paper aims to answer whether board attributes affect corporate social responsibility disclosure quality (CSRDQ) and whether these findings are sensitive to CSRDQ measurement.

The authors use the content analysis method to measure CSRDQ in annual report narratives of 41 Mauritian-listed companies for 2008–2019. System-generalized method of moments is used to test research hypotheses.

The analysis shows that board attributes affect CSRDQ. It also shows that the impact of CSRDQ is sensitive to CSRDQ measurement.

This study informs stakeholders on the drivers of CSRDQ. Mauritius authorities could revise the corporate governance code to enhance CSRDQ, and the Stock Exchange of Mauritius could also provide regulations/guidance to listed companies to improve their CSRDQ.

This study brings new insights by viewing CSRDQ based on verifiability, as verifiable CSR reporting improves the fairness of information disclosed by management.

This paper aims to propose and apply a novel risk-based approach to explore whether socio-political theories explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures given inconclusive evidence on the relation between environmental disclosure and environmental performance.

Based on content analysis of corporate risk reporting, the paper develops measures of environmental risk to proxy for a firm’s exposure to public pressure in regard to environmental concerns that should be positively associated with the level of corporate environmental disclosures according to socio-political theories. Multiple regressions are used to test the predictions of socio-political theories for US Standards and Poor’s 500 constituents from polluting sectors.

The level of environmental disclosures is found to be positively associated with a firm’s environmental risk while unrelated to its environmental performance. The findings suggest that firms tend to provide higher levels of environmental disclosures in response to greater exposure to public pressure as depicted by broad environmental indicators. The results are robust to alternative measures of environmental disclosures, environmental risk and environmental performance, alternative specifications of the economic model and additional sensitivity checks.

This study is limited to US firms in polluting sectors. The risk-based approach proposed may not be appropriate to cover sectors where corporate risk reporting is less likely to address environmental risk, but it could potentially be adopted in other countries with advanced risk reporting regulation or practice.

Findings are important to understand a firm’s incentives to disclose environmental information. Cross-sectional differences found in environmental disclosures, risk and performance, highlight the importance of considering industry affiliation when analyzing environmental data.

This paper is the first to use firm-level environmental risk variables to explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures. The risk-based approach taken suggests opportunities for research at the multi-country level and in countries where corporate environmental performance data are not publicly available.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between business ethics practices disclosure and corporate governance characteristics in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The study uses multiple regression to investigate the association between business ethics disclosure (BED) and corporate governance characteristics in SAA. The study sample is based on 573 non-financial corporations listed on the national stock exchanges of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe as of 31 December 2015.

The findings show that corporate governance characteristics (including the proportion of government ownership, board independence and board gender diversity) are positively and significantly related to BED.

The study contributes to the limited literature by analyzing the relationship between BED practices and corporate governance characteristics in the sub-Sahara African context, which is significantly different from the Anglo-Saxon world.

The purpose of this paper is to examine voluntary risk disclosures within annual reports in four key South‐East Asian countries' (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia) manufacturing listed companies over the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) 2007‐2009 financial years.

Longitudinal and cross‐country analyses test the veracity of agency theory to predict the level of firms' risk disclosures. A comprehensive risk disclosure index (RDI) checklist is created with key predictor variables (country, company size, managerial ownership and board independence) tested to explain the dissemination of CSR information over time.

The findings show that the communication of risk data stays relatively consistent (26‐29 per cent across the three GFC “crisis” years). This is arguably a low level of communication from a social responsibility corporate lens. Multiple regression analysis provides evidence that country, size and board independence are positively significantly associated and leverage is negatively significantly associated with the extent of voluntary risk disclosure. Interestingly, Indonesia, the least developed country with arguably the highest business risk factors, consistently has statistically lower levels of risk disclosure compared with their three neighbours.

The sample frame is selected from the stock exchange population of manufacturing companies in key South‐East Asian countries. However, for complete generalization the findings should be tested in other countries and other industries.

The study findings are useful for firm self‐evaluation and benchmarking of risk communication by other corporations across countries.

The study shows relatively low levels of risk disclosure over the GFC crisis time period. Communication of these items are influenced by key firm characteristics and economic drivers. Arguably, higher risk disclosure leads to better understanding of a company's social responsibility stance.

This is a critically important time span to investigate risk disclosures as it encompasses those years most directly impacted by the global financial crisis (GFC).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of internal variables, such as strategic governance and operational controls, along with external variables that influence sustainability reporting.

Building on the corporate governance and sustainability reporting literature, the authors develop a model to integrate external motivators and internal facilitators to determine their impact on sustainability reporting. The authors also control for a number of financial and non-financial variables that may influence sustainability reporting. The authors limit their sample to the companies in extractive industries that report their greenhouse gas emission to the Government of Canada. The authors collected the data from several data sources including secondary archival databases, newspapers, Web sites and annual reports.

Using a sample of companies in high-polluting industries, the authors found that variables representing both external pressures that act as motivators and internal controls that act as facilitators are significantly associated with enhanced sustainability reporting.

Considering the formation of several international initiatives such as International Integrated Reporting Council to improve sustainability reporting for decision-making, the authors’ research provides interesting insights both to policymakers and managers about organizational characteristics that are important to make reporting useful and relevant.

Little academic research has investigated the role of internal variables in facilitating sustainability reporting. The authors use a robust model that combines external and internal variables to more thoroughly understand the reporting process.