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This paper aims to analyse the effect of mandatory corporate social responsibility expenditure (CSRE) on the performance of food and agribusiness firms in India.

This study is based on the firm-level data collected from the Prowess database of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in the year 2019. The data on key characteristics, business performance and CSRE has been compiled from 362 food and agribusiness firms. The descriptive statistics, t-test for equality of means and Spearman correlation analysis have been undertaken to understand the relationship between mandatory CSRE and firm performance across food and agribusiness sectors.

Out of 362 food and agribusiness firms, 52.2% have reported expenditure in the implementation of social initiatives under their corporate social responsibility. The results show a significant difference in the firm’s characteristics vis-à-vis with and without CSRE. Further, the findings highlight a positive and significant correlation and causal impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on return on sales, return on assets and profit after tax.

The study provides insights for implementing strategic CSR in food and agribusiness firms and gives an adequate justification for incurring CSRE.

This paper increases the understanding of CSR in the food and agribusiness sector. Besides, provisioning mandatory CSR seems to be a beneficial proposition for enhancing a firm’s performance.

This study investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on corporate sustainability [environmental, social and governance (ESG)] performance and aims to explore whether uncertainty-induced sustainability performance is influenced by the firm's life cycle (LC).

The study uses data from European non-financial firms listed during the period from 2002 to 2022 to extend the nascent literature regarding EPU and sustainability performance while applying a dynamic panel data regression analysis (Generalized Method of Moments - GMM System) on 11,462 firm-year observations of 1,869 European firms.

The authors find overwhelming evidence that policy uncertainty affects the sustainability performance of European firms. The firms restrict their environmental and governance-related activities and address immediate issues to survive during periods of high EPU. Conversely, the firms increase their social engagements to decrease uncertainty-induced information asymmetry. The authors' results show that the intensity and type of sustainability performance are also influenced by the firm's LC. The results imply that board gender diversity (BGD) increases while power concentration with the chief executive officer (CEO) decreases sustainability performance.

These findings have important implications for policymakers, potential investors, firm management and other stakeholders given the firms' access to resources and preferences to encounter uncertainty vary across different LC stages.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the role of the firm's LC in the relationship between policy uncertainty and sustainability performance in the European context.

This study aims to explore the association between chief executive officer (CEO) tenure and the quality of information disclosed through integrated reporting quality (IRQ), which combines financial and non-financial data. The authors also investigate how formal (e.g. board independence and gender diversity) and informal (e.g. corporate culture) governance mechanisms influence this association. By analysing these factors, the authors expect to provide valuable insights on the impact of CEO tenure and governance structures on the comprehensive nature of integrated reporting.

This study uses a sample of the top 200 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed companies from 2015 to 2019. IRQ is measured through levels of compliance with the integrated reporting (IR) framework proposed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). The hypotheses are tested using multiple regression analyses.

The authors find that CEO tenure is negatively associated with IRQ. Furthermore, CEO tenure has a more positive influence on IRQ in the early CEO tenure years than later ones. The authors' study finds that the association between CEO tenure and IRQ is insignificant when firms have a high level of monitoring, as measured by board independence and gender diversity. The authors also document that competitive corporate culture moderates the negative association between CEO tenure and IRQ.

The authors' study highlights the significant impact of internal formal and informal governance mechanisms on disclosure practices in Australia's voluntary IR environment. By shedding light on these factors, the authors' research enhances understanding of Australian companies' IR practices and offers valuable insights for scholars, policymakers and practitioners in the field.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study investigates how tax planning affects the likelihood of financial default in different stages of the corporate life cycle.

Collecting a large sample of US firms between 1989 and 2016, hypotheses are tested using a hazard model. Several robustness and endogeneity checks corroborate the main findings.

The results show that tax-planning firms are less likely to default in the introduction and decline stages, while they are more likely to default in the growth and maturity stages. The findings suggest that introductory and declining firms use cash resources obtained from tax planning efficiently to meet their needs and acquire other useful resources. In growing and mature firms, tax aggressiveness generates unnecessary slack resources, weakens managerial discipline and increases reputational risks.

The results shed light on the benefits and costs associated with tax planning throughout firms' life cycle, holding great significance for managers, investors, lenders and other stakeholders.

This study contributes to the literature that examines resource management at different life cycle stages by showing that cash resources from tax planning are managed in distinctive ways in each life cycle stage, having a varied impact on the likelihood of default. The authors shed light on underexplored cash resources. Furthermore, this study shows the potential linkages between the agency theory and RBV.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine how the voluntary formation of a specialised investment committee (IC) and IC characteristics affect financial distress risk (FDR) and whether such impact is influenced by the level of investment inefficiency.

The authors use a large sample of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) non-financial companies during 2006–2016. A principal component analysis is done to aggregate and derive a factor score for IC characteristics (i.e. independence, size and meeting) as a proxy for the effectiveness of IC. This study also uses three measurements of FDR to corroborate the findings and partitions sample firms into overinvesting and underinvesting companies to examine the potential impact of investment inefficiency on the IC–FDR nexus.

Using feasible generalised least square estimation method, the authors document that the likelihood of financial distress occurrence decreases for firms with separate ICs. The authors also find that firms with effective ICs enjoy lower FDR. In other words, the probability of financial distress minimises if the IC is large, meets frequently and has a high number of independent directors. However, the authors find neither any moderation nor any mediation effect of investment inefficiency for the impact of IC and IC attributes on FDR. The additional analysis indicates the expected benefits of an actively performing IC are amplified for firms with risk of both over- and underinvestment. These findings are robust to alternative measures of FDR and investment inefficiency, sub-sample analysis and endogeneity concerns.

This study, to the best of researchers’ knowledge, is the first to provide evidence in GCC firms’ perspective, suggesting that the existence of an effective IC is associated with a lower risk of financial distress, and to some extent, the economic benefits of IC are aggrandised for companies with a high probability of over- and underinvestment problems. These results are unique and contribute to a small but growing body of literature documenting the need for effective ICs and their economic consequences on investment efficiency in the FDR environment. The findings of this study carry valuable practical implications for regulatory bodies, policymakers, investors and other interested parties in the GCC region.