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The study aims to determine whether a relationship exists between the potential significance of corporate controversies for stakeholders and how organisations respond to them in their annual and sustainability reports.

This paper employs content analysis on annual and sustainability reports of 48 listed companies from the Refinitiv database. The logit regression was used to estimate the model.

The study revealed that the main factors increasing the probability of a controversial issue being addressed in a corporate report are the controversy’s potential significance, companies’ financial performance and lawsuits.

Our study has three major limitations. These are a relatively small sample of companies and reports, focusing on disclosures made in corporate reports and omitting other channels of communication, for example, social media, and a certain amount of subjectivity in the process of coding information.

Former studies show that corporations face a serious risk of their hypocritical strategies becoming too evident for stakeholder groups. Our findings suggest that the risk is already materialising and may undermine the idea of CSR and sustainability reporting.

Our research focuses on high-profile adverse incidents widely reported in the media, the omission of which from corporate reports seems to constitute a particular case of organised hypocrite. It also demonstrates that companies use an impression management strategy to defuse adverse publicity and that major controversies cause minor ones to be omitted from their reports.

Appearance is part of a person's non-verbal communication, and looks are often associated with the perceived ‘attractiveness’ of individuals for hiring practices in the workplace. As such, physical attractiveness can be a ‘prized possession’ when it comes to leaving a positive impression on managers who are interviewing candidates. In the twenty-first century environment, our society seems to be more obsessed with physical appearance than ever before because society has conditioned us to associate beauty with other favourable characteristics. Of course, such appearance norms, regarding attractiveness, ‘good looks’ and beauty are linked to years of socialisation in culture, cultural norms and materialistic personality standards.

In a business context, managers and employers often make hiring decisions based on the appearance and attractiveness of the job applicants since outward appearance seems to play a significant role in which candidates eventually might get the job. Physically attractive job applicants and candidates tend to benefit from the unearned privilege, which often comes at a cost to others who are equally qualified. Preferring employees who are deemed to be attractive, and consequently discriminating against those who are perceived as unattractive, can present legal and ethical challenges for employers and managers. In this chapter, we provide a discussion and reflection of appearance-based hiring practices in the United States with relevant legal, ethical and practical implications for employers, human resources professionals and managers. We focus on ‘lookism’ or appearance discrimination, which is discrimination in favour of people who are physically attractive. As such, we examine federal, state and local laws regarding appearance discrimination in the American workplace. We also offer sustainable policy recommendations for employers, HR professionals and managers on how they can be fair to all candidates in order to hire, promote and retain the most qualified professionals in their departments and organisations.

Aesthetic labour explains how employees are required to look and sound the part in many contemporary workplaces. That such corporeality affects workers' employment prospects, including career progression, is now well documented in research. As such, it can result in employment discrimination based on physical features, more commonly known as ‘lookism’. However, very few jurisdictions proscribe lookism, and little is known about the efficacy of those that do. Based on archival research, this chapter examines the procedures and operation of physical features inclusion in an Equal Opportunity Act in one jurisdiction that does proscribe ‘lookism – the state of Victoria in Australia. As the first analysis of such laws, the chapter provides an important opportunity to assess the efficacy of legal attempts to address employment discrimination based on employee appearance. In so doing, it draws out lessons about the legal challenge to lookism.

Buying firms are increasingly exposed to sustainability risk arising from negative conditions or potential events in their supply base that might provoke adverse stakeholder reactions. Procurement managers at these firms can pursue multiple strategies to address this risk with suppliers, including acceptance, monitoring-based mitigation, avoidance and collaboration-based mitigation. This study aims to investigate how perceived risk, supplier dependence and financial slack resources contribute to the strategic preferences of these managers.

A vignette-based experiment with procurement managers is used to examine the factors affecting the managers’ strategic preferences in managing supplier sustainability risk.

The empirical results revealed that the procurement managers’ preference for avoidance or collaboration strategies was stronger when they perceived higher risk, but their preference varied based on the degree of supplier dependence. Specifically, when they perceived a high level of risk, procurement managers were more inclined toward a monitoring strategy with dependent suppliers and preferred an avoidance strategy when they dealt with independent ones. Financial slack was also an influential factor: managers with more slack at their disposal preferred to collaborate with suppliers to address the risk; on the other hand, limited slack shifted their preference toward an acceptance strategy, regardless of the level of risk.

This study helps to develop a more nuanced picture of how procurement managers make challenging and complex trade-offs when responding to supplier sustainability risk.

This chapter examines the world of risk management within fintech. It initiates by emphasizing the crucial role of technology and risk assessment in shaping the fintech landscape. It discusses various risk categories prevalent in fintech operations, elucidating the nuances of technology, operational, compliance, strategic, and reputational risks. A comparative analysis across different fintech sub-sectors unveils their distinct risk profiles. The narrative extends to proactive risk management frameworks, contrasting prominent models like the COSO ERM, FAIR Risk Quantification, and NIST Cybersecurity Frameworks. Integral defense measures are scrutinized, encompassing data encryption, access controls, vulnerability assessments, and incident response plans. This chapter underscores the significance of building operational resilience through robust technology infrastructure, regular system updates, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity measures. Ultimately, this chapter culminates in a comprehensive summary, offering pragmatic recommendations to fortify technology risk management in fintech.

The purpose of this study is to provide a timely synthesis of the empirical literature focusing on the economic consequences of money laundering, as this topic has been gaining momentum among policymakers and academic researchers due to its adverse effects.

Empirical studies are collected by consulting accounting and finance journals in diverse digital sources (e.g. Science Direct, Blackwell, Taylor and Francis, Springer, Sage and Emerald). Key words used to identify relevant papers include “money laundering” and “anti-money laundering regulations,” with specific focus on the economic consequences. Our search strategy includes 24 published papers over the period of 2018–2023.

Findings show that most studies represent cross-country investigations; the main topics investigated focus on accounting field (e.g. audit fees, real and accrual earnings management), tax evasion, financial stability, sustainability, economic indicators (inflation, economic growth, foreign direct investment) and financial inclusion; and the economic consequences of money laundering have been also examined within banking industry (e.g. banking profitability, banking stability). Reported findings of reviewed studies suggest that money laundering has diverse adverse impacts at the country level (e.g. increased tax evasion, higher inflation rate, less sustainability and foreign direct investments), at the firm level (e.g. increased audit risk and aggressive real and accrual earnings management) and within banking industry through negative impact of money laundering on bank’s loan portfolio quality, stability and profitability.

With respect to policymakers, strengthening anti-money laundering regulations may play a critical role in reducing money laundering activities. Furthermore, financial institutions should implement specific rules dealing with anti-money regulations to ensure adequate compliance and disclosure. Finally, policymakers should be aware about the importance of digital transformation to combat money laundering activities since it facilitates the detection of financial crimes due to their traceability.

The summary of the empirical literature focusing on the economic consequence of money laundering represents a historical record and an introduction for accounting researchers. It also urges them to further explore the economic implications of anti-money laundering disclosure within banking industry.

States have intervened with legislation to improve cashflow within construction project supply chains. The operation of the UK’s Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 leads to payment obligations stated either as a contract administrator’s certificate (or equivalent) or an adjudicator’s decision. The purpose of the intervention would be defeated unless there are speedy ways of transforming these pieces of paper into real money. The combination of the legislation, contractual provisions and insolvency law has produced a minefield of complexity concerning enforcement of payment obligations stated in these documents. Unfortunately, the knowledge and understanding required to navigate these complexities have been sorely lacking. The purpose of this paper is to plug this gap.

Legal research methods and case study approaches, using relevant court decisions as data, were adopted.

The enforcement method advised by the court is the summary judgment procedure provided under the Civil Procedure Rules. An overdue payment obligation, either under the terms of a construction contract or an adjudicator’s decision, amounts to a debt that can be the subject of insolvency proceedings. Although the insolvency enforcement method has been successfully used on some occasions, using it purely as a debt collection weapon would be inappropriate and likely to be punished by the court.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two ways: (i) it maps out the factual situations in which these payment challenges arise in language accessible to the construction industry’s professions; and (ii) comparative analysis of payment enforcement methods to aid decision-making by parties to construction industry contracts. It is relevant to the other common-law jurisdictions in which similar statutory interventions have been made.

The purpose of this study is to measure the effect of initiating corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a service-based company (Pasargad Bank in Tehran) on customers' extra-role behaviors, known as customer citizenship behavior (CCB). The mediating roles of perceived service quality (PSQ) and corporate image (CI) are measured in this model to find out whether they foster this relationship or not.

This study has been conducted on Iranian Pasargad Bank customers. This study is an empirical study using the questionnaire survey method. Structural equation modeling is used to measure the research framework.

It is revealed that the PSQ has a partial and positive effect on CCB. Moreover, the variance accounted for index has been used to examine the mediating roles of PSQ and CI in the model of this study. Furthermore, according to the results, CSR positively and directly affects CCB. Among the mediators, PSQ is a partial mediator in the relationship between CSR and CCB. On the other hand, CI was found not to be a mediator in the mentioned relationship in this study.

Studying PSQ would give a broader insight into service providers initiating CSR activities and their outcomes as CCB. Linking the service industry and citizenship behavior would enlighten researchers and service providers to improve their levels of standards.