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This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate sustainable development goals (SDGs) disclosure and analyst forecast quality.

The study focuses on a sample of 95 Italian-listed companies preparing the mandatory non-financial declaration (NFD) according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards over a five-year period (2017–2021), corresponding to an unbalanced sample of 438 observations. Analyst forecast quality was proxied by earnings forecast accuracy (FA) and earnings forecast dispersion (FD), built on data retrieved from the Refinitiv database. A manual content analysis was performed on NFDs to derive an SDG disclosure score (SDGD) for each sampled company.

This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that voluntary SDG disclosure matters to the capital market in that it helps enhance the information environment of companies, evidenced by improved analyst forecast quality. In particular, this study highlighted that SDG disclosure positively influences analyst FA while negatively affecting analyst FD.

This study focuses on the Italian context, which has idiosyncratic characteristics regarding the structure of the financial market, the composition of corporate ownership and experience in non-financial reporting practices.

This study indicates to corporate managers that following GRI standards may represent the right way to better integrate SDG disclosure in corporate non-financial reports and increase the relevance of such information for investors and other capital market participants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examines the association between SDG disclosure and analyst forecast quality.

To predict the future of the business and implement successful changes, a credit analyst must make quick decisions about the economics and assets of their clients. Because the marketplace is constantly changing, companies that lack the interpersonal skills necessary to communicate with their customers run the risk of falling behind the competition and becoming obsolete. The objective of this research was to assess whether credit analysts in Peruvian banks that used digital resources also improved their communication and interpersonal skills. The study was quantitative in nature, with an applied and correlational design that lacked an experimental component. The sample consisted of 109 credit analysts from four different Peruvian banks (Interbank, Scotiabank, BBVA, and BCP). Two questionnaires were used in this survey; both were submitted to expert review for validation before being submitted for use, and their reliability was determined using Cronbach's alpha. In terms of use of digital resources (59.5%) and mastery of interpersonal skills (61.3%), credit analysts were at the average. Conclusions the p-value for the correlation between credit analysts' use of digital resources and their soft skills in Peruvian banks was less than 0.05, indicating a direct and strong link between these two factors. The Rho correlation coefficient was 0.738.

Unlike other types of corporate disclosure, corporate political disclosure (CPD), which is the disclosure of corporate political contributions and the related governing policies and oversight mechanisms, does not provide completely new information to stakeholders. Some of the information disclosed in CPD is available from other public records (e.g. the Federal Election Committee website or OpenSecrets website). Given this unique feature of CPD, it is interesting to investigate the cost and benefit tradeoff for firms of altering their CPD practice in response to policy and political uncertainty.

This study employs recently developed indexes of aggregate economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and a novel dataset of CPD transparency to examine the impact of EPU on CPD transparency and how the proprietary cost of corporate political activities moderates this association. The sample consists of S&P 500 companies from the 2012 to 2019 period.

The authors document that firms mitigate the heightened information asymmetry associated with higher aggregate EPU by increasing CPD transparency. The positive association between EPU and CPD is less pronounced for firms that are more sensitive to EPU, for firms that more actively manage EPU through corporate political contributions or lobbying activities and for firms that are followed by more analysts. The authors also find that more transparent CPD helps to mitigate the information asymmetry caused by heightened EPU. This study’s results hold when the authors control for other types of voluntary corporate disclosure.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on the determinants of CPD transparency by identifying EPU's positive impact on CPD transparency. This study also provides empirical evidence that the proprietary costs arising from the controversial nature of corporate political activities dampen firms' incentives to provide transparent CPD in response to heightened EPU, and that information on corporate political activities gathered and processed by financial analysts seems to lower the marginal benefit to companies of publicizing CPD on their own website.

The purpose of the study is to examine the relation between board structure and firm performance variability in an international setting. The authors further explore the effect of national culture in shaping such relations.

The authors’ international sample contains 4,911 firms across 49 countries over the 2002–2017 period. The authors use national culture values on individualism and power distance developed by Hofstede (1980, 2001, 2011). The authors focus on within-firm, over-time variability of firm performance and estimate multivariate linear regressions with fixed effects. The authors address the endogeneity concern using the instrumental variable approach, and the authors’ results are robust to alternative measures of variables and different subsamples.

The authors find that firms with larger board size, greater board independence and less powerful CEOs have less variable performance. Individualism has a magnifying effect while power distance has a mitigating effect in shaping such relations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to answer the call of Adams, Hermalin and Weisbach (2010) for research on corporate boards in an international setting. It is also one of the few studies which examine the variability of firm performance, while the majority of existing literature focuses on the level of firm performance. Most importantly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the role of national culture in shaping boardroom interactions that affect the decision-making process of corporate boards, which, in turn, affects firm performance variability.

This paper aims to examine the determinants of the dividend distribution policy in a banking setting.

Using a sample of 48 Islamic banks and 94 conventional banks from 15 Islamic countries over a period spanning from 2012 to 2019, we document the effect of board gender diversity, executive director profile and governance mechanisms on dividend payment decisions. We also analyze the moderating effect of Islamic banks on the relationship between gender diversity and dividend policy.

We find new evidence on the role of women directors in determining dividend distribution policy and confirm the risk aversion hypothesis, hence contributing to the ongoing debate on gender diversity literature. Our results show that the moderating role of Islamic banks is effective only for small banks.

Our findings have practical implications for shareholders, managers and financial analysts as they suggest rationalizing dividend distribution strategies.

Our study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on dividend policy, gender diversity and Islamic banks.

Despite the extensive body of research on absolute corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, limited attention has been given to the distinct concepts of optimal and aggressive CSR engagement, as well as their associations with CSR awarding. This study aims to differentiate between optimal and aggressive CSR engagement and examine their relationship with CSR awarding while considering the moderating influence of board characteristics from the perspectives of stakeholder and agency theories.

This empirical analysis draws on an international dataset comprising 43,803 observations from nine sectors across 41 countries. We employ a least squares dummy variable regression approach that accounts for country, industry and year effects to conduct the analysis.

The results reveal that engagement in aggressive CSR activities beyond the optimal level leads to the generation of a social reputation through CSR awarding. However, the influence of board characteristics on this relationship is significant. Specifically, the presence of a dedicated CSR committee encourages CSR awarding in the context of aggressive CSR engagement. Conversely, board independence constrains the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and CSR awarding. Notably, board gender diversity does not have a discernible impact on this connection.

Our evidence provides valuable insights to help firms seeking to enhance their social reputation through CSR activities better allocate their resources and avoid unnecessary financial commitments.

This study advances the current understanding by exploring the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and the recognition of CSR awards. Furthermore, it scrutinises the factors that dictate when such aggressive CSR engagement translates into enhanced social reputation, as evidenced by the attainment of CSR awards.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of new sustainability reporting (SDG) and external assurance (EXTA) practices. This study also examines the relationship between sustainability reporting activity and corporate economic performance for a sample of 99 companies in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries that addressed SDGs in their sustainability reports published in 2019.

Using a two-stage analysis, this study examines how firms’ characteristics and corporate governance variables affect SDG and economic performance, as well as the firm’s decision to adopt EXTA statements for a sample of companies in that addressed SDGs in their sustainability reports published in 2019. The authors collected data from the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Sustainability Disclosure database and the Bureau van Dijk for Orbis database.

The results show that the variables firm size, profitability, big 4 auditors and government ownership significantly affect SDG and economic performance. The results also reveal that firms operating in the manufacturing sector are positively correlated with SDG and the firm’s decision to adopt EXTA statements. Furthermore, the results indicate that board independence positively affects SDGs and EXTA.

The results can be particularly relevant and timely in helping large GCC companies promote their engagement to sustainable development practices by adopting more sustainable long-term strategies and policies. The findings could also guide managers in the strategic direction to identify firms’ characteristics and corporate governance features essential to promote sustainability reporting, an increasingly important performance indicator for investors and to enhance their confidence in the capital market. The results may also have practical implications to policymakers and other regulators in GCC countries to define effective frameworks that promote sustainable development reports and the use of EXTA.

The results make significant contributions by providing new insights to the existing literature on sustainability reporting in emerging markets by examining a unique perspective on the influence of firms’ characteristics and corporate governance features on the adoption of new sustainability reporting practices. The authors further add to the previous literature on the relationship between a firm’s economic performance and sustainable reporting by providing evidence from large companies in GCC countries, which might benefit from the adoption of multiple conceptual lenses, in this case, legitimacy and stakeholder theories. Lastly, through the empirical findings, this study provides economic validity to the 2018 joint initiative of the GRI and the United Nations Global Compact to strengthen corporate actions to achieve the United Nations SDGs.

The aim of this paper is to document the effect of analyst coverage on the ex ante probability of stock price crash and the ex ante probability stock price jump.

This paper uses the data of non-financial firms from France to test the arguments presented in this paper during the period between 1997 and 2019. The paper also uses flexible quadrants copulas to compute the ex ante probabilities of crashes and jumps.

The results show that the extent of analyst coverage is positively associated with the ex ante probability of crash and negatively associated with the ex ante probability of jump. The results remain qualitatively the same after several sensitivity checks. The results also show that the relationship between the extent of analyst coverage and the probability of cash and the probability of jump holds when ex post probability of stock price crash and stock price jump is used.

Unlike most of the earlier papers on this topic, this paper uses the ex ante probability of crash and jump. This proxy is better suited than the ones used in the prior literature because it is a forward-looking measure.

This study aims to theoretically investigate the effect of activating corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on the association between adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance (TA). Based on the analyzing of the previous studies, the authors support the results of studies that found a positive effect for activating CG on the adoption of CSR. Also, they found that there is a negative impact of activating CG mechanisms on TA, as CG includes controls and procedures that contribute to limiting opportunistic behaviors of management and ensures making decisions that maximize value for shareholders. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is the only chapter that examines the effect of activating CG mechanisms on the association between CSR and TA.

This paper aims to examine the options available to arbitrators when they suspect money laundering during arbitration proceedings, considering their compatibility with fundamental principles and concepts of arbitration.

Using a doctrinal analysis approach, the paper draws on legal principles, antimoney laundering regulations and relevant literature to explore the topic. It considers relevant international treaties, standards set by the financial action task force on money laundering, cases and arguments from legal analysts and experts.

The paper identifies three options for arbitrators: disregarding suspicions, initiating an investigation or terminating the proceedings. Disregarding suspicions is deemed inappropriate, as it may facilitate the concealment of financial crimes. Initiating an investigation is seen as a preferable option, aligning with the arbitrator’s role and the public interest in nullifying contracts linked to criminal conduct. Terminating the proceedings is not recommended, as it contradicts the principle of natural justice. The paper emphasizes the importance of reasonable grounds for suspicions, notifying the parties, and allowing them to address the concerns.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by comprehensively analyzing the compatibility of these options with arbitration principles and concepts. It underscores the need for clear laws and directives to guide arbitrators in addressing financial crimes within the arbitration process, maintaining a balance between party autonomy and preventing the misuse of arbitration for illicit activities.