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Considering the sectoral balance approach of Godley, and focusing only on the two main components of the private sector balance for the US economy (household and non‐financial corporate balance), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between these two sectors, the financial variables, and economic cycle. In particular, the paper considers all these relationships endogenously.

The authors estimate a structural VAR model between household and (non‐financial) corporate financial balances, financial markets, and economic cycle and the authors perform an impulse response analysis. All the variables are expressed as cyclical components applying the Hodrick‐Prescott filter.

The main result is that: household and corporate balances react to financial markets in the way the authors expected and discussed; the economic cycle influences the two financial balances; the corporate balance has a positive impact on the cycle; the economic cycle and financial balances influence the financial variables. In particular, the point that shows that the corporate balance has a positive impact on the cycle shows that the corporate balance is a leading component of the cycle as suggested by Casadio and Paradiso and accords with Minsky's theory of financial instability.

The analysis does not include the foreign sector (current‐account balance).

This study is an important step forward with respect to the two main contributions in literature which use this approach: the Levy Institute macroeconomic team and Goldman Sachs. Methodologically their models are based on assumptions (such as exogeneity or market clearing price mechanism for the financial markets) that the authors overcome considering all the relationships studied in an endogenous manner.

The article provides a comparative critique of the financial underpinnings of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the recent wave of financial crises. The collapse of the financial systems in many developing nations, the bankruptcies in the Anglo-Saxon corporate sectors and a threat of more sovereign defaults on behalf of emerging markets suggest that the current wave of global financial fragility and recession rivals that of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The paper examines key elements that account for the crisis-prone nature of global capitalism: the political discipline of neo-liberalism, debt-driven expansion of the privatised financial markets, and the profound disarticulation of the financial and real economies. These factors suggests that the risk of a global depression is by no means hypothetical, and unless effective and collaborative efforts are made to tame the inherently unstable regime of global finance, even major world economies are faced with a prolonged period of financial turbulence and economic stagnation. The paper concludes by pondering the possibility of a paradigmatic shift in the transnational political consensus that can prevent a global repetition of the 1930s. While the increased awareness of financial instability and crisis may indeed prompt some ad hoc adjustments in national and foreign economic policies of major capitalist powers, in the long run these measures will be insufficient to prevent a major financial and economic disaster.

This paper presents a new method for measuring facility performance that encompasses financial and non‐financial indicators. This method is the outcome of a pilot study conducted with a local government authority (LGA) in Melbourne, Australia. The service balanced scorecard takes a stakeholder approach to the setting of performance objectives in relation to the LGA’s key result areas, and then assesses facility performance balancing financial and non‐financial indicators. The service balanced scorecard takes into account four different perspectives of facility performance – the community, services, building and financial perspectives – resulting in a facility performance profile. While in this particular instance the service balanced scorecard was used in local government, the method may also be adapted for use in a corporate environment.

This study aims to explore the set of corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee attributes that may enhance CSR performance and CSR strategy formation and reduce CSR controversies.[AQ1] Towards this end, the study also explores the differences between companies with and without CSR committees in terms of these three CSR performance facets.

The study uses a sample of financial times stock exchange (FTSE) 100 non-financial companies in 2015–2017. Kruskal-Wallis test is conducted to test the differences in CSR performance in firms with CSR board-level committee, CSR management committee and no committees. Additionally, a regression model is used to explore the attributes of CSR committees that lead to better/less CSR performance and CSR strategy/CSR controversies. A two-stage least squares regression model was used as a robustness check.

Firms with board CSR committee have better CSR performance and CSR strategy and lower CSR controversies than both firms with no CSR committees and firms with a CSR management committee. Regression results show that CSR committees that are predominantly consisting of independent board members, chaired by a female director and setting more meetings have better CSR performance. Additionally, CSR committees were found to have lower CSR controversies when having more independent directors and a chair with CSR expertise. CSR strategy was better with the CSR committee represented by a larger group of members.

This study makes several contributions to the sustainability governance literature and regulatory/guidance interfaces. There is extant literature examining audit committee attributes and their effects on various firm outcomes. The same can be said on the regulations of the audit committee. CSR committees’ composition and benefits are, by far, less regulated and largely under-researched. Hence, this paper is considered an early attempt to explore the CSR performance improvements a CSR committee may bring and the composition that would bring better CSR performance.

This paper aims to identify the corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of Indian manufacturing firms using a CSR index based on ISO26000 and India’s National Voluntary CSR Guidelines.

A total of 121 manufacturing enterprises in the national capital region (NCR) were surveyed. The questions related to the involvement of CSR in business strategy, involvement in CSR planning, involvement in environmental activities, involvement in social activities, monitoring, evaluation and involvement in CSR, reporting and policy and deployment of CSR. A two-step cluster analysis using log-likelihood measures was used to identify groupings in the data set based on their performance across the seven issues.

The two distinctive segments identified adopted intermediate CSR activities, and one undertook advanced CSR activities.

This study has several limitations. First, the survey data were drawn exclusively from medium-sized enterprises in the NCR. Second, all the indicators in the CSR index were equally weighted.

This paper contributes to the literature by grouping manufacturers’ CSR activities based on seven dimensions suggested in ISO26000 and India’s National Voluntary Guidelines. The results of this study can help managers, boards and regulators better understand CSR and identify ways to improve it further.

This chapter sheds new light on the linkages between stock market fluctuations and business cycles in Asia. It shows that at cyclical frequencies stock markets lead business cycles by six months on average. China, Korea, and Taiwan constitute exceptions, as their real and stock market cycles are contemporaneously synchronized. The low level of maturity of these markets offers a potential explanation of this outcome. Furthermore, we find that the linkage also holds during phases of cyclical upswing and downturn, with the exception of China, where the financial market lags behind industrial production during expansions. Finally, for most of the countries (except Thailand and Malaysia), the linkage is also robust to the presence of financial crises.

Considering corporate governance (CG hereinafter) practices' variety across Anglo-American and European countries, this study relies on contingency and complexity theories to investigate the effect of environmental sustainability performance (ESP hereinafter) on shareholder value under various configurations of board of directors (BoD hereinafter), firm and country characteristics.

The author used the Thomson Reuters Environment Pillar Score (ASSET4) and the Total Shareholder Return to assess ESP and shareholder value respectively. The author applied a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA hereinafter) to an unbalanced panel of 2,284 observations from 486 European and Anglo-American non-financial listed firms over the period 2016–2020.

The author found a positive association between ESP and shareholder value and he displayed notable differences between Anglo-American and European economies regarding causal predictors of this positive association. Within European firms operating under civil law code where investor protection is low and family ownership is widespread, ESP creates shareholder value under configurations of causal predictors that significantly differ from those of their Anglo-American peers. The author's findings are robust to different identification strategies.

This study assists researchers, practitioners, shareholders and policymakers the significant roles that BoD diversity, organisational and institutional traits are jointly playing as determinants of the ESP-shareholder value relationship.

The author's study offers a more encompassing, complete and theoretically richer picture of the key drivers and outcomes of ESP.

The purposes of this paper are: to examine the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies related to environment protection by Chinese state oil companies; and to analyze the effects of global competitions and cooperation on the CSR adoption processes.

Based on a content analysis of 58 corporate reports and three interviews with senior managers from Chinese-Western joint ventures, the authors analyzed the environmentally-related CSR adoption strategies and the effects of global competition and cooperation in Chinese state oil companies.

The findings suggest that more cooperative CSR strategies related to environment protection have been adopted by Chinese state oil companies in the past decade. The main reasons are: the force of international and local environmental regulations; the pressures from partners of western oil companies and the desire to increase the global competitive advantage of the Chinese state oil companies.

Given that this study is based only on the analysis of corporate reports and three interviews, the authors' conclusions should be considered preliminary and inconclusive. Future studies should be done to collect more primary data by interviewing and surveying by questionnaire a significant number of managers from these companies to validate these conclusions.

This paper highlights the adoption of CSR strategies by three Chinese state oil companies and the effects of global operations which have been little studied academically so far.

This paper aims to explore the benefits of intellectual capital assessment for facing current challenges of human resources work and organizational development.

The paper takes findings of studies on challenges in HR work and maps them with features of intellectual capital assessment methods. It is thus a theoretical paper, based on practical experience, and findings of practice‐oriented studies. It can serve as the basis for formulating new hypotheses to be further investigated and discussed.

There is a considerable overlap of HR challenges and potential benefits of IC assessment in several areas of human resources' work, closely interlinked with organizational development.

The findings of this paper may stimulate research on organizations as social systems and in applied research on human resources. It provides a starting point for further investigation of psychological, social and organisational success factors and to the practical challenge of building intelligent and sustainable organisations in a continuously changing environment.

Using participatory IC assessment approaches may change practices in HR work and enrich the portfolio of methods used and enlarge the application of IC assessment.

The paper fosters the value of expertise and experience of people in organizations. This may lead, in the long run, to changes in organizational cultures.

In research and practice, IC assessment and HR work are mostly disconnected. This paper proposes to establish a link and explore synergies. This may have considerable impact on research and practice in these areas.