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The purpose of this study is to examine corporate disclosure of stakeholder-oriented actions on Twitter in response to COVID-19 during the pandemic outbreak and to empirically investigate whetherfirms’ social performance and their financial resilience impact on their engagement in, and communication of, stakeholder-oriented COVID-19 actions.

This study scrapes a sample of tweets communicated by major global listed firms between March 1, 2020 and April 30, 2020 and identifies disclosures that mention firm engagement in stakeholder-oriented actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cross-sectional regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between firms’ social performance and the number of tweets they post about stakeholder-oriented COVID-19 actions. Further, firms’ financial resilience is examined as a moderating factor of this relationship.

The results show that firms with better social performance are more likely to engage in and, hence, communicate stakeholder-oriented actions for the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter. Moreover, it is evident that firms with better social performance communicate more stakeholder-oriented actions only when they belong to industries that have not been severely impacted by the pandemic.

This study has two important contributions. First, this study provides contemporary evidence of corporate disclosure of firms and their stakeholder-oriented actions on Twitter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic during the initial outbreak period. Second, it reveals insights into what characteristics drive firms to engage in costly corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, and promote them on social media, in a period characterized by high economic uncertainty.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Organizations that managed to weather the financial and economic storms caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made good use of social media, namely Twitter, to engage with stakeholders on specific actions to be taken as part of CSR initiatives.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between environmental disclosure quality (EDQ) and risk and to further examine whether corporate governance (CG) practices moderate this relationship.

This study uses a set of unique, hand collected data (from 2011 to 2016) to measure EDQ for a sample of 762 firm-years Iranian listed companies. Ordinary least squares regression analysis is performed in testing hypotheses after controlling for a variety of firm, industry and year effects. Moreover, several analyses are performed to establish the robustness of the findings.

The results indicate a negative association between EDQ and firm risk. While board independence moderates this relationship, other CG practices such as CEO duality and board size do not show any effects on the relationship between EDQ and risk. The results remain robust after performing sensitivity tests and under various specifications, including the fixed-effects panel data and Heckman two-stage regressions.

Results are from a sample of firms from one country.

The results have implications for policymakers, legislators and corporate executives, as environmental initiatives are gaining more attention worldwide.

Sustainability initiatives in the areas of environmental and social performance and disclosure are gaining global attention. This study addresses the link between firm risk and EDQ.

This study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the relationship between corporate risk-taking and EDQ in the context of a developing economy.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the choice of a firm to spend resources on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities is associated with its actual social impacts as measured by its energy consumption and the quality of its financial reporting. Based on legitimacy theory, the authors argue firms in India use CSR expenditures as mere smoke screens to build a positive public image.

By using energy consumption per unit of sale as a measure of real environmental impact, the authors model firms' CSR investment behavior. Additionally, the authors use earnings management measures to examine whether CSR spenders engage in manipulating reported earnings, a practice socially responsible firms would not engage in. These hypotheses are tested using a panel data set of Indian firms for the period 2012–2014.

Consistent with legitimacy theory, the authors show firms that participate in socially undesirable activities such as heavy energy consumption and accounting manipulation are more likely to pursue CSR voluntarily. Additionally, the authors find evidence suggesting firms that voluntarily engage in CSR tend to have lower firm values.

This study examines the social and environmental concerns of firms that invest in CSR, especially in an emerging market context. The findings help understand the motivation for CSR behavior of corporate firms and may well explain the observed negative relationship between firm value and voluntary CSR spending observed in many emerging market contexts, especially in India.

This paper aims to study the use of photos in corporate sustainability reports (CSRs) as a means to gain legitimacy concerning Colombian post-conflict representations.

From a critical perspective based on legitimacy theory and political economy theory, and using visual semiotics and critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the use of photographs in sustainability reports as a mechanism to account for corporate actions regarding peace in Colombia. This paper relies on 121 pictures from 30 CSRs.

The analysis shows that companies are gaining legitimacy by referring to post-conflict through visual forms. Nonetheless, the structural conditions that caused the Colombian conflict are still present. Sustainability reporting that includes peace action representations becomes a control and subordination mechanism to reproduce existing power relations in the Colombian social order. Indeed, the generation of opportunities for civilians and ex-combatants, victims reparation, security and reconciliation remains unresolved structural issues. Hence, the use of corporate economic resources and their strategic visual representation in reports is just one business way of representing firms as aligned with government initiatives to obtain tax incentives.

This study is centered on Colombian CSRs for the period 2016-2017; however, 2017 reports by some companies have not yet been published. This study also explored the messages contained in the images that include people. Images that do not depict persons were not examined.

This study provides evidence on visual representations of corporate peace actions aimed at gaining corporate legitimacy. Furthermore, this research examines a unique scenario that promoted more significant corporate social participation, following the signing of the peace agreements between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Ejército del Pueblo).

The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and development (CRD) activities done in conjunction with mining activities of multinational companies affecting indigenous peoples and thus help improve relationships between them, despite continuing bad consequences the people continue to endure. It is through such better relationships that these consequences may be redressed and mitigated, and greater sharing of benefits of mining may occur, bearing in mind what constitutes benefits may differ from the perspectives of the indigenous peoples and the miners.

A qualitative approach is taken, including interviews with company officials responsible for CRD activities, elaborated with observations, company and public documents and previous literature about these mining operations and the peoples.

The CRD activities have gradually increased compared with their absence previously. They are officially labelled social investment in community development programmes, and are funded from profits and couched in terms of human development, human rights, preservation of culture and physical development of infrastructure. Dissatisfied with programme quality and relevance, company officials now relate with indigenous people, their leaders and representatives in ways called engagement and partnerships.

The findings can inform policies and practices of the parties to CRD, which in this West Papua case would be the miners and their company, CRD practitioners, the indigenous peoples and the civil authorities at the local and national level and aid industry participants.

The study acknowledges and addresses social initiatives to develop the indigenous peoples affected by mining.

The study extends older studies in the same territory before CRD had matured, and corroborates and elaborates other studies of CRD in different territories.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and financial performance (FP) in Indian firms.

Data for CSRD is collected by conducting content analysis of CSRD in annual reports of the sampled firms. A multidimensional measure of CSRD is constructed based on the stakeholder theory, consisting of six stakeholder groups – employees, customers, investors, community, environment and others. The aggregate CSRD measure is created by combining disclosure of the six CSR dimensions. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the CSRD–FP linkage, controlling for the confounding effects of size, risk, age, industry, ownership and period.

The results of this study indicate that the aggregate CSRD measures, both for quality and quantity, have a positive association with the accounting measures of firms’ FP. However, the market measure of FP is observed to have a statistically insignificant association with aggregate quality and quantity of CSRD of Indian firms.

The results reveal that adopting transparent and extensive CSRD is relevant for the profitability of firms, and that government interventions are required to promote CSR programs, with a specific focus on the CSR dimensions that provide no apparent financial gains.

This study recommends the adoption and reporting of CSR practices by Indian firms for their stakeholders.

This study contributes to the scarce literature on the CSRD–FP linkage in the context of emerging economies by using a more inclusive data set, creating a reliable measure of CSRD applicable to a large universe of firms and including relevant control variables that affect the CSRD–FP relationship.

This paper aims to provide insight into how environmental information is reflected in the market value of listed Italian companies. In particular, it investigates the value relevance of voluntary environmental information disclosed by companies and the influence of environmental policies assurance.

The method used is the accounting-based valuation model used by Cormier and Magnan (2007), analogue to the one developed by Ohlson (1995), which considers market value of equity as a function of book value, accounting earnings and environmental indicators as provided by Bloomberg. The analysis in this paper is based on the environmental disclosure score (i.e. proxy of a company’s transparency in reporting environmental information) and the assurance practice (i.e. whether or not the company’s environmental policies were subject to an independent assessment for the reporting period).

Results partially support initial conjectures, i.e. the environmental voluntary disclosure represents value-relevant information positively correlated with firms’ market value. Furthermore, when such information is subject to an independent assessment for the reporting period, an incremental benefit deriving from the assurance of such information cannot be found. This is similar to the findings of Cho et al. (2014), i.e. the market perceptions on assurance may need to be developed before the environmental report assurance market in Italy can develop.

Limitations are related to the small sample located in a single country, meaning that results may not be generalisable. The implications are that other methods may provide further value, but these may need to be based either on different data or larger samples (i.e. cross-country analysis).

The increasing importance of environmental issues for economic decision-making and the presence of ethical investors create incentives for environmental information disclosure, which is becoming increasingly significant for comprehensive firm valuation. However, for this information to serve its role, disclosure must be credible. Hence, there are many companies that resort to voluntary assurance of environmental policies, motivated by a need to demonstrate credibility with external stakeholders. Notwithstanding, the influence of verification practice over environmental disclosure on a low regulation country has not yet been completely explored. This paper aims to fill this gap.