Search results

So far, sustainability reporting in higher education is in a very early stage – partly, because of the lack of an established and widely recognized sustainability reporting framework for higher education institutions (HEIs). Therefore, a modification of the sustainability code for the use in the higher education context was recently developed in Germany. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this modification from an academic point of view.

The evaluation of the sustainability code is based on selected reporting principles drawn from frameworks of sustainability and financial reporting.

The evaluation shows that to a large extent, the modification of the sustainability code for HEIs contributes to the fulfillment of the selected reporting principles. However, it also became evident that there is still room for improvement, especially in terms of clarity and the inclusion of material aspects.

The need for an implementation manual regarding the modified HEI-specific sustainability code is emphasized, as the sustainability code requires further clarification to be manageable for HEIs.

This paper provides suggestions for the further development of a sustainability reporting guideline for HEIs to enhance its alignment with both sustainability reporting principles and the needs of HEIs.

This empirical study aims to examine the association between gender-diverse boards and corporate carbon emissions and estimates the effect of board gender diversity on stock price reactions to climate activism. This study contributes to the inconclusive literature on the link between gender-diverse boards and firms' financial performance by examining a single and plausibly isolated channel of association (i.e. attention to climate change).

The authors use parametric and non-parametric panel data techniques to examine the association between gender-diverse boards to corporate carbon emission. The system generalized methods of moments (SYS-GMM) estimator is used to address endogeneity concerns. The authors use the event study methodology to examine difference in stock price reactions to climate activism.

The results show that high board gender diversity is associated with lower corporate carbon emissions and higher stock returns to climate activism.

This is the first study to isolate public attention to climate change as a relevant channel through which gender-diverse boards have an impact of firms' financial performance. This study is timely and important due to the immediate threat of global warming and the recent introduction of mandatory board gender quotas in many countries around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to systematise the current state of research on the association between companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement and financial analysts’ company assessment. Additionally, it aims to identify fruitful directions for future research that contribute to a further exploration of the link between CSR and financial analysts.

This study reviews and synthesises existing research on CSR and financial analysts. Based on the research question, “What is the relationship between CSR engagement and financial analysts’ metrics?,” the authors conduct a systematic literature review. The authors search three major databases and use an extensive search term to ensure exhaustive coverage of the field. The paper then systemises the current state of research and identifies knowledge gaps and potential directions for future research.

The review of existing research shows that several studies confirm a positive link between CSR performance and analyst coverage, suggesting that external monitoring through analysts incentivises companies to enhance their CSR engagement. Further, results indicate that a company’s involvement in “sin” industries is linked to lower analyst coverage. Besides, a higher level of CSR disclosure is positively associated with analyst forecast accuracy, thus indicating that the provision of CSR-related information is linked to an enhanced information environment. High levels of CSR performance are associated with more positive recommendations from analysts. However, recent surveys and interview studies on analysts’ perceptions of CSR fail to uniformly support an increasing interest in CSR.

For a better understanding of the link between CSR engagement and financial analysts, two fruitful directions for future research are observed. First, future research designs should clearly differentiate between CSR disclosure and CSR performance and take account of interdependencies between them. Second, studies should address behavioural insights into how analysts process information and the influence of individual analyst characteristics on the link between CSR engagement and an analyst’s assessment of a company.

This study is the first to review the literature on the relationship between CSR and financial analysts. The association between CSR and financial analysts is particularly interesting given the pivotal role financial analysts play as information intermediaries in financial markets. This study delivers an in-depth understanding of existing studies and their theoretical underpinnings. Based on the existing literature, this paper develops innovative directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive, interdisciplinary review of international investor relations (IR) research published since 1990. It highlights the development of IR research, its disciplinary foundations and key areas of inquiry. Research is shown to reflect the rising importance of IR as a corporate communications function, its interdisciplinary character, and the recognition of its contribution to strategic management.

Findings are based on an interdisciplinary systematic literature review focusing on peer-reviewed journal articles published in English since 1990.

The authors differentiate five strands of research focusing on the organization, strategy, instruments, content and effects of IR. IR research is shown to have strong roots in the business and management, accounting and communications literature. The authors document a rising interest in the topic and a steady development beyond descriptive accounts of the function to distinctive lines of inquiry. The authors summarize the state of the field and derive a number of suggestions for future research.

The review is limited in scope to the applied research process, including the choice of keywords, databases as well as peer-reviewed journal publications published in English since 1990.

This study contributes to the necessary structuration and consolidation of the emergent field of IR research by identify salient perspectives and common subfields. It provides both a comprehensive overview of the state of research and specific suggestions for future endeavors.

This chapter discusses and investigates the sustainability reporting across different sectors. The first section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and primary sector's performance (Agriculture and Food Industries Sector and Energy Sector). The second section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and secondary sector's performance (Manufacturing Sector). The final section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and tertiary sector's performance (Banks and Financial Services Sector, Retail Sector, Telecommunication and Information Technology Sector, and Tourism Sector).

This paper aims to investigate the effect of total and each individual component of environmental, social and governance score (ESG) on financial performance (FP) of healthcare companies.

Data for 468 health-care firms for the business year 2020 is sourced from Thomson Reuters to obtain ESG data. Correlation and multivariate regression analysis are done to investigate the relation between ESG activities and firm performance. The analysis has been done on overall data and subsample data to examine the relation across developing vs developed markets.

The results of the study suggest that relation between ESG score and FP cannot be generalized. The results show that performing ESG activities positively impact firm performance of healthcare companies in developed economies; however, this relationship would be negative or insignificant in the case of developing economies.

The results of this study have implications for both practitioners and policymakers. The authors suggest the specific setups in which the relationship between ESG activities and firm performance will be negative or insignificant. These results are beneficial to policymakers who seek to increase the active participation of firms in ESG activities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the relationship of ESG score on FP through the lens of country-level development variables for health-care sector companies.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance from the bi-directional perspective.

The final sample for this study are 79 companies listed in the national stock exchange for a period of eight-years (2008–2015). Random effect panel regression was performed to examine the possible link.

The result shows that CSR has a positive impact on the contemporaneous and future financial performance of the selected companies. Further, the study shows that only social dimension has a positive and significant impact on concurrent and future financial performance. The results further validate slack resource theory as lagged financial performance has a positive and significant impact on CSR.

The strategic value of CSR indicates that it should be seen as a value-enhancing strategy, and therefore, incorporated with the broader corporate strategy of the company. Companies should not trade-off between CSR and financial performance, rather a strategic synchronization of CSR with corporate functioning is essential. This will pave a way to build a stakeholder-sense in the corporate entities.

The study comprehensively examines the relationship between CSR and financial performance from both “prospective” and “retrospective” framework. This bi-directional approach has received minimal attention in the Indian context.

This paper explores stakeholder perceptions on the nature and extent of sustainability reporting on the websites of technical universities (TUs) in Ghana.

The authors collected data from the websites of the 10 TUs in Ghana and interviewed the stakeholders of the TUs. In analyzing the data, the authors used thematic analysis for the interview responses. The authors also adopted the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines and campus sustainability assessment tools for the presentation and analysis of the sustainability disclosures on the websites of the TUs.

The authors found that due to weak institutional coercions, there were limited disclosures on the websites of the TUs, which aimed at gaining stakeholders' legitimacy; the disclosures were more focused on organizational profile, governance and educational aspects of sustainability. To a large extent, while some external stakeholders such as parents, regulators and alumni appear to be less interested in the disclosures on the TU's websites, internal stakeholders such as employees (teaching and non-teaching staff) and students who frequently visited the TU's websites perceived limited reporting and were not impressed with the extent of sustainability disclosures on these websites.

The findings of this study are intended to assist policy-makers in the educational sector to appreciate the importance of sustainability reporting on their websites. The results of this study will assist higher educational institutions (HEIs) in increasing the success rate of sustainability implementation by overcoming the lack of sustainability disclosures on their websites. Thus, the results of this study have implications for sustainability implementations, particularly those in emerging economies and policy-makers of universities worldwide.

This study could provide two significant values. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has explored stakeholder perceptions of sustainability reporting in implementing sustainability within the education sector. Second, the results were arrived at by combining stakeholder consultations with content analyses, which could be a good guideline for sustainability implementation in the educational sector of developing countries.