Search results

Sustainable development has become a strategic priority for companies. The purpose of this study is to explain what paths a company can take to reconfigure its business model and corporate reporting tools in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The research used a qualitative approach and drew on stakeholder and legitimacy theories to collect primary and secondary data through in-depth interviews, semi-structured questionnaires and observation of corporate documents.

Sustainability and climate change issues’ relevance in the business model and reporting requires improvement so that stakeholders can participate and become aware of the actions put in place to limit the climate challenge.

The results of the case study cannot be subjected to statistical generalisation, as they focus on the Italian context and do not capture the regulatory divergence of different countries.

The results can help managers experiment with, orient, test and implement business model transformations to increase the level of sustainability within an organisation. In addition, disclosure of climate change risks and opportunities for the company and the resulting impacts, including financial impacts, is now recognised as a key urgency to support the achievement of the SDGs and the stakeholder decision-making process.

This study contributes to the literature by focusing on necessary developments for governance and strategy and on climate change disclosure to support investors’ and other stakeholders’ decision-making processes for corporate social responsibility.

Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.

This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.

This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.

This paper aims to provide a thorough and systematic overview of the academic literature focusing on the role of integrated reporting (IR) and integrated thinking (IT) in achieving sustainable business models (SBMs). The paper discusses whether the incorporation of newer IR systems can facilitate the integration of processes, as well as a better allocation of resources and capital to create long-term value, according to a circular approach.

Based on a database containing 60 publications in English with a publication date from 1990 to 2019, a bibliometric analysis is conducted. Data on publications, journals, authors and citations are collected, verified, cross-checked and examined by applying bibliometric measures.

Bibliometric analysis has identified that IR and IT have determined an evolution in the way companies communicate and create value, facilitating the integration of processes and a better allocation of resources and capital. However, market practice still perceives them as simple reporting tools to meet stakeholders’ needs rather than as critical corporate governance tools.

This study highlights key issues in the past literature on IR and IT to meet SDGs, contributing also to the identification of critical difficulties that companies encounter in attempting to attain sustainable goals.

This document contributes to the existing literature on IR, IT and SBMs through a systematic review of the literature on these topics along with the sustainable development goals perspective. The study, furthermore, attempts to assess the role that the relevant literature attributes to IR and IT in the SBMs architecture.

Rooting in the literature on training and laying on Kirkpatrick model, this paper aims to explore key drivers of corporate training to identify how they can be combined into an integrated framework of learning for human capital development.

By adopting the constructivist grounded theory, this contribution analyzes the experience carried out in the last ten years by Virvelle, an Italian corporate training firm.

Results show the rise of five core categories, g1iving rise to an integrated model of Kirkpatrick. Their dynamic interplay led to a new orientation of Kirkpatrick model giving rise to a metalearning ecosystem.

Managerial implications have identified key factors on which building and implementing appropriate corporate training programmes capable of triggering co-generative processes of value creation. Particularly, the essential role of learning quality culture, digital technology and personalization are detected in integrating not only hard but furthermore soft shades of learning. Concerning theoretical implications, the emergence of key structural and systems enabling dimensions for learning, and contextual mechanisms involved in reshaping training effectiveness and achieving integrated learning outcomes are detected. The main limitation of this study lies in the need to generalize results: the conceptualized framework needs to be empirically tested.

The value of this research is built along three main points. The first is the integration among the core categories that an integrated learning system can be built on, promoting learning quality culture through positive feedback loops. The second is represented by the chance to enhance an integrated mutual knowledge development among engaged actors, thereby shaping a more holistic and multidimensional learning model. The third is related to the transversal role that digital technology plays in all phases of the training process as it integrates and enriches them.

The study aims to investigate the influence of corporate governance practices on enhancing firm value in manufacturing industries in Bangladesh.

The study sample consists of 131 companies from 10 manufacturing industries listed in Dhaka stock exchange (DSE). Using the multiple regression method, the study analyzed 1,193 firm-year observations from 2012 to 2021.

The outcome reveals that managerial ownership, foreign ownership, ownership concentration, board size, board independence, board diligence and auditor quality have a significant positive influence on firm value. In contrast, audit committee size has no significant influence on firm value.

The practical implications of the current study demonstrated that good corporate governance creates value and must be invigorated for the interest of all stakeholders. Policymakers should formulate specific guidelines regarding firms' ownership structure and audit quality issues.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by presenting new knowledge about sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) reporting practices through integrated reporting (IR). This paper’s ultimate goal is to dig to light companies’ main approaches to incorporating SDG disclosures into IRs.

This study puts forward both deductive content analysis and an inductive thematic analysis on a sample of worldwide leading IR adopters to assess what SDGs they disclose and how they integrate SDGs into the reports. Meaningful narratives and graphical illustrations are selected, categorised and discussed from a symbolic/substantive legitimacy perspective.

The results of this study highlighted that although a fair number of leading IR adopters addressed SDG issues, their pathways to disclosure were not uniform. In some cases, SDGs inspired substantive changes to internal management and process, communicated through an integrated approach. However, there was a persistent trend of using SDGs as camouflage and symbolic tool to enhance company’s reputation and obtain a licence to operate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study that performed a deductive/inductive thematic analysis to engender insight into the most meaningful patterns followed by leading IR reporters worldwide to disclose their contributions to SDGs and address their legitimacy.

This paper aims to explore how the Italian wine industry discloses corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and quality certifications and the corresponding determinants via websites. The study also aims to investigate the relationship between CSR practices and financial performance. The information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements is also explored. Lastly, the paper investigates how the relationship between the size of wineries and CSR disclosure changes according to firms' geographic location.

This paper analyses CSR corporate communication via the websites of a sample of Italian wineries by adjusting the theoretical framework developed by Amran (2012) to the wine sector's peculiarities. Moreover, a cross-certification analysis and a moderation analysis were performed to fulfil the purpose of the research.

The analysis revealed the extensive use of CSR disclosure via websites. It was found that company size positively affects CSR disclosure and Quality Certification Disclosure (QCD), while geographic location slightly moderates the relationship between the two variables. In addition, a negative relationship between CSR disclosure and corporate financial performance and its reverse causality emerged. Moreover, for most wineries, information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements was observed.

The study's main limitation is that the search process was performed during lockdown. Therefore, the examined issues could change in the near future due to the shift in priorities that the COVID-19 pandemic is determining.

The results can help managers implement CSR disclosure and QCD practices to enhance stakeholder legitimacy and enable their companies to compete in strongly competitive international markets.

The paper represents the first study investigating online QCD and its consistency in the Italian wine sector.

Corporate governance principles are living a positive momentum in light of the megatrends reshaping the world. An effective company based on sound governance principles can prevent issues and corporate scandals as the company ensures greater transparency and accountability. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between shareholder-oriented corporate governance mechanisms, value and performances in the real estate sector.

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, performance and value in a sample of 111 USA real estate firms. After collecting data from 2014 to 2018, this paper tests the research hypothesis using the linear fixed-effect model.

The results demonstrate a positive impact of shareholder-oriented corporate governance mechanisms on performance and value. In particular, firms with no chief executive officer (CEO) duality and staggered board mechanisms and recognizing excess variable compensation to the firms' executive have a significantly higher Tobin's Q, return on assets (ROA) and price-to-book performance.

The implications are twofold: on the one hand, this motivates shareholders to establish new corporate control mechanisms to maximize value, attract more capital and improve operating performance. On the other hand, this allows investors to direct the investors' resources toward real estate firms with effective corporate governance mechanisms that may return higher performance and value.

Focusing on the real estate industry, where governance is expected to have a lower impact due to solid regulation, especially in real estate investment trusts (REITs), the research allows the formulation of industry-specific inferences that may be generalized for the general market.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and the capital structure of Latin American firms.

The sample included companies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The authors collected data from 201 non-financial companies between 2009 and 2018, totalizing 1,716 firm-year observations. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and linear regression models with panel data.

The main results indicated that chief executive officer duality, legal protection system and corporate social responsibility voluntary disclosure impact the firm's total debt ratio, corresponding to a positive effect for the first two variables and a negative for the last.

This study advances in two main ways. Firstly, due to the broad approach in which the authors addressed corporate governance, involving board composition, ownership structure, minority shareholders legal protection system and information disclosure. Secondly, by presenting empirical evidence about the effects of corporate governance on capital structure from an extensive sample of Latin American firms, the authors expect to contribute to the international debate on the capital structure due to the unique characteristics of Latin America in this regard.

The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between bank efficiency in terms of corporate governance guidelines and the extent of practice of earnings management (EM).

Archival data of listed private commercial banks of Dhaka Stock Exchange over the period of 2007–2016 relating to corporate governance and earnings management are collected and analyzed using parametric and non-parametric methods (efficiency analysis) and applying panel regression analysis.

The same distribution pattern and have low degree of the correlation (0.248) among them. It is found that private commercial banks of Bangladesh, on average, display efficiency level of 80.84%. The average value of discretionary loan loss provision (i.e. measure of earnings management) is 0.4249 and this indicates the presence of earnings management. The relation between earnings management and efficiency score in both cases of two-step system generalized methods of moments (GMMs) and difference GMM are found to be negative. The negative coefficients (−0.7969 and −0.57) indicate that as the efficiency increases, the practice of earnings management by the private commercial bank reduces. By estimating efficiency based on corporate governance guidelines and detecting the existence of EM, the major contribution of the study is establishing the relationship between bank efficiency based on compliance with corporate governance guidelines and managerial practice of earnings management in Bangladesh. Empirical results of the study have also established the fact that the more efficient the management of the banks are, the less likely it will practice earnings management under the compliance of corporate governance guidelines in Bangladesh.

This research study has some limitations. Only conventional banks are considered for the study, with the exception of Islamic banks. Comparison between conventional banks and Islamic banks could have been done.

Based on the literature study, the effectiveness of corporate governance aligns with decreasing agency conflict, protection of shareholders' interests and restrain management from self-serving activities (i.e. practice of earnings management). The empirical results of the study established these facts. Regulators should give more emphasis on effective implementation of good governance.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this may be the first to empirically determine the relationship between efficiency estimation based on corporate governance and earnings management in case of listed commercial banks of Bangladesh.