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Purpose – This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the role of corporate governance in developing, emerging and transition economies by focusing on the nature and practice of corporate governance in listed companies in Nigeria – a country which has experienced both economic growth and political turbulence over the past three decades and which too has experienced significant corporate failures in particular in the banking and insurance sectors. It does this against a contextual background which discusses issues of ethnicity, gender and power relationships and their relevance to governance in Nigeria.

Methodology – Archival and documentary analysis supported and underpinned by semi-structured interviews with 20 stakeholders in governance processes in Nigeria.

Findings – The analysis of the interviews highlighted the general support of the interviewees for corporate governance procedures and practices in Nigeria to continue to develop in line with those in more developed economies. However, concerns were expressed as to the inadequacies of aspects of the Nigerian governance regulatory infrastructure, in particular in relation to mechanisms for implementation and enforcement within a framework where there was limited confidence that either voluntary adherence to codes of good practice or market-driven regulation and control would be effective.

Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, the majority of the interviewees articulated the perspective that ethnicity, gender and power relationships were not of significance in the determination of the actuality of practice. However, a minority did identify these considerations to be of key importance, albeit frequently not overtly acknowledged or portrayed as such by parties associated with governance practices.

Research limitation(s) – The interviewees were drawn from a cross section of stakeholders from the business, government, regulatory and academic environment in Nigeria but the exigencies of conducting interview research in Nigeria and the difficulties of obtaining agreement from, and access to, interviewees meant that the potential for self-selection bias has to be considered when evaluating the study findings.

Practical Implication(s) – The research paper provides a platform for policy formulation on corporate governance in Nigeria.

Originality and value of paper – The paper builds on a number of previous studies of governance in Nigeria (for example, Oyejide & Soyibo, 2001; Yakasai, 2001; Ahunwan, 2002; Okike, 2007) in particular by means of the use of semi-structured interviews to provide a rich field of insight into the actuality of practice.

In recent years, the use of dating and hook up apps has become an increasingly socially acceptable and commonly used method of seeking romantic and sexual partners. This has seen a corresponding rise in media and crime reports of sexual harms facilitated through these services, including sexual harassment, unsolicited sexual imagery, and sexual assault. Emerging empirical research shows that experiences of sexual harms in this context are common and predominantly impact women and girls. The aim of this chapter is to examine the sociocultural and sexual norms that underpin online dating and which perpetuate a “rape culture” within which sexual harms become both possible and normalized. This chapter also considers how the discourses that minimize and legitimize sexual harms are encoded within the responses undertaken by dating and hook up apps to sexual harms. It is argued that together these norms and discourses may act to facilitate and/or prevent sexual harms, and may normalize and excuse these harms when they occur.

Residents of South Florida have been living with the effects of climate change in the form of flooding due, in part, to sea level rise, for more than a decade. However, previous research has characterized news coverage of climate change impacts as concerning distant events in terms of time and place. In this study, we look at coverage of climate change at The Miami Herald from 2011-2015, a time period significant in terms of increased temperatures and flooding levels on city streets. Through a content analysis of 167 articles, this study argues that news coverage of climate change in The Miami Herald was largely pragmatic, linked to a news peg, locally focused and presented via opinion pieces rather than news articles. Furthermore, Miami Herald coverage links distant hypotheses of climate change with local realities, invokes a network of editorial responses, and emphasizes local impacts, particularly in more affluent areas. Findings from this study contribute to understanding how news coverage of climate change as a local story may provide a useful model for engaging the public in adapting to and mitigating against the impact of climate change, and creating social acceptance of climate change policy.

Many corporations engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities voluntarily, but there is an ongoing debate about whether the government should intervene in CSR, particularly in countries with challenging institutional contexts. While some have argued that CSR should remain a discretionary exercise, as any attempt to make CSR mandatory through any form of state intervention will negate the meaning and objectives of CSR. However, drawing on the institutional theory, this chapter argues for the need to have some form of legislated CSR for banks operating in countries with challenging institutional contexts. The chapter further acknowledges that a universal CSR framework would be difficult to achieve due to differences in institutional contexts between countries; consequently, the nature, scope, and application of CSR legislation would vary significantly amongst countries as CSR is context dependent. Nonetheless, given the crucial role banks plays in society besides acting as the country's payment system, banks also transform illiquid liabilities into liquid assets, therefore making the banks the drivers of national economic developments globally. Governments in developing and emerging markets (DEMs) should ensure that banks' CSR initiatives are not only meaningful but also impactful by implementing a limited legislated CSR framework. This framework would require banks to establish a CSR committee of the board, make mandatory non-financial disclosures on their CSR activities in their Annual Reports, provide mandatory CSR continuous professional development (CPD) training for bankers, and mandate banks to contribute a certain percentage of their yearly profits before tax to agreed CSR initiatives, among other requirements.

The sex work research field has expanded significantly in recent years, and a myriad of studies have highlighted diverse forms of injustice that sex workers endure. Sex workers are a marginalised and criminalised population and thus researchers have an ethical responsibility to undertake research that challenges existing social conditions and can help support sex worker-led campaigns for change. But what does ‘making a difference’ mean in the context of sex work research and what factors may constrain the extent to which this can be achieved? In this chapter, I explore the promise and pitfalls of undertaking politically engaged, activist research on sex work. I do so by reflecting on my experience as a researcher in the New Zealand context. The aim of this chapter is to unpack the challenges of undertaking research for social change and to explore the possibilities for strengthening the impact of research in this ideologically charged area.

Recently, star variables and the post-crisis nature of cyclical fluctuations have attracted a great deal of interest. In this chapter, the authors investigate different methods of assessing business cycles (BCs) for the European Union in general and the euro area in particular. First, the authors conduct a Monte Carlo (MC) experiment using a broad spectrum of univariate trend-cycle decomposition methods. The simulation aims to examine the ability of the analysed methods to find the observed simulated cycle with structural properties similar to actual macroeconomic data. For the simulation, the authors used the structural model’s parameters calibrated to the euro area’s real gross domestic product (GDP) and unemployment rate. The simulation outcomes indicate the sufficient composition of the suite of models (SoM) consisting of popular Hodrick–Prescott, Christiano–Fitzgerald and structural trend-cycle-seasonal filters, then used for the real application. The authors find that: (i) there is a high level of model uncertainty in comparing the estimates; (ii) growth rate (acceleration) cycles have often the worst performances, but they could be useful as early-warning predictors of turning points in growth and BCs; and (iii) the best-performing MC approaches provide a reasonable combination as the SoM. When swings last less time and/or are smaller, it is easier to pick a good alternative method to the suite to capture the BC for real GDP. Second, the authors estimate the BCs for real GDP and unemployment data varying from 1995Q1 to 2020Q4 (GDP) or 2020Q3 (unemployment), ending up with 28 cycles per country. This analysis also confirms that the BCs of euro area members are quite synchronized with the aggregate euro area. Some major differences can be found, however, especially in the case of periphery and new member states, with the latter improving in terms of coherency after the global financial crisis. The German cycles are among the cyclical movements least synchronized with the aggregate euro area.

Agricultural and fishery disasters are rather obscure emergency management research topics. However, the Food and Agriculture Sector is one of only 16 critical infrastructure sectors included in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988, and the sector is a vital component of the United States economy. As climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of agricultural and fishery disasters, the Food and Agricultural Sector must adapt to and cope with unprecedented levels of risk. This chapter provides an overview of federal agricultural and fishery disaster policy and explores whether such policies are consistent with Jerroleman’s (2019)principles of just recovery.

Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014). Much of the research on rape culture focuses on the experiences of heterosexual women, and few studies have explored rape culture in the context of dating apps. This chapter explores how men who have sex with men (MSM) understand and experience rape culture through their use of Grindr and similar dating apps. A thematic analysis of interviews with 25 MSM dating app users revealed problematic user behavior as well as unwanted sexual messages and images as common manifestations of rape culture on dating apps. Participants explained that rape culture extends beyond in-app interactions to in-person encounters, as evident by incidents of sexual violence that several participants had experienced and one participant had committed. Participants were unsure about the extent to which MSM dating apps facilitate rape culture but asserted that some apps enable rape culture more than others. This chapter demonstrates the importance of investigating sexual violence against people of diverse gender and sexual identities to ensure their experiences are not minimized, ignored, or rendered invisible.