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The UK government has taken the lead in accelerating the capacity of higher education to engage with sustainability accounting and adopting a novel systematic approach toward a collective implementation of and contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN SDG 16 “Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions” promotes the (re)building of effective and accountable institutions. In line with the institutional logics metatheory, we provide empirical evidence on how the alignment between social mechanisms alongside the reputation of higher education institutions (HEIs) and SDGs on transparent and responsible service (SDG 16) affect the students' overall experience. Using a sample of 142 UK HEIs, interpretative content analysis and ordinary least squares, the results show that integrating HEIs' responsible-oriented research agenda proactively with high sustainability reputation adds significantly to greater student satisfaction.

This study aims to examine the relationship of Indonesia’s Sharia Stock Index (ISSI) firms on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure. This study is interesting because ISSI firms are supposed to comply with Islamic values as this has been reflected in good corporate governance activities, demonstrating responsibility to others and participating in preserving nature/environmental activities.

The authors use sample firms that are listed on the Indonesia Shariah-compliant Stock Index (ISSI) from 2011 to 2020, which also published sustainability reports.

The study found that sharia firms are positively related to ESG disclosure. The authors also found that ESG disclosure of sharia firms is more pronounced in the reporting section of general, economic, environmental and social. Other findings suggest differences in the segments reported in the COVID and pre-COVID periods. This result is also robust by conducting a self-selection bias test with Heckman’s two-stage regression and Coarsened Exact Matching regression.

For policymakers, these results indicate that different characteristics of firms can affect ESG disclosure, and economic conditions will determine which sectors are disclosed the most.

This study provides empirical evidence that Indonesian Shariah-compliant stock index firms carried out their mission to disclose more information about their environmental and social responsibilities and governance issues.

Although the phenomenon of the corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) has derived the interest of several scholars, in recent years, the comparative studies between Islamic banks (IBs) regarding CSRD quantity versus quality have not been the subject matter of studies till now. In this perspective, this chapter aims to investigate the importance given by IBs to the quality and quantity disclosure of CSR. Moreover, it seeks to explore the impact of CSRD quality and quantity on the IBs' financial performance (FP). To meet these objectives, we used a sample of 59 IBs from 2011 to 2016 in the Arab world and non-Arab world. Then, by adopting the content analysis approach, the authors constructed two CSRD indexes (quality and quantity). The empirical results indicated that IBs give more importance to the qualitative disclosure than the quantitative. Our findings will be very helpful for the policymakers and the managers of IBs because maintaining a good CSRD policy increases the capacity of IBs to deal with possible reputational events, thus protecting their profits and financial results. As far as the comparison between the Arabian and non-Arabian IBs, based on financial reports and Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) governance standard N°7 is concerned, our study is among the first studies that provides two new CSRD indexes (quantity and quality).

The purpose of this study is to observe the practice of integrated reporting (IR) and investigate the impact of board characteristics on IR in three South Asian economies: Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

The study uses the content analysis approach to measure the integrated reporting index (IRI) based on a structured checklist. To examine the impact of board characteristics (board size, board independence and gender diversity) on IRI, a multivariate analysis using pooled ordinary least square with panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) model has been conducted.

The content analysis findings show that the disclosure practice of IR is highest in India, followed by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The regression result indicates that all the proxies of board characteristics have a positive and significant impact on IRI.

The study’s outcomes may not be generalised for every region due to the differences in institutional contexts.

The findings of this study will assist the policymakers in understanding the importance of effective boards in enhancing the IR practice in their respective countries where the adoption of IR is still a voluntary requirement.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the field of existing literature to conduct a comparative analysis of IR practice among three South Asian countries. It shows how an effective board improves IR practice using a broader institutional context by underpinning the agency theory and legitimacy theory.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to shed light on the influence of stakeholder pressure on carbon disclosure in an emerging economy.

The present study is based on Bombay Stock Exchange 100 Indian firms for the period of 5 years from 2016–17 to 2020–21. The association between stakeholder pressure and carbon disclosure, along with certain control variables, has been explored through a regression model.

The results of the study suggest that stakeholders exert a significant influence on corporate carbon disclosure. Further results confirm that regulatory and customer pressure have the most significant and positive influence, while shareholders and creditors exert a significant and negative influence on carbon disclosure. The study also finds that employee pressure does not have any association with carbon disclosure.

This study adds to the existing literature on climate change, carbon disclosure and stakeholder pressure.

The present study provides useful insights to corporate managers and policymakers as the study concludes that stakeholders exert a significant influence on carbon disclosure.

Previous studies examining the stakeholder pressure on carbon disclosure ignored emerging economies, while the present study has considered India, which is a developing as well as an emerging economy. Further, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first of its kind to investigate the stakeholder pressure on carbon disclosure in the Indian context. The present study develops a comprehensive index to measure corporate carbon disclosure.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained great attention among regulators, stock market authorities, and firms' stakeholders for many decades. In this chapter, we first review the main regulations, standards, and laws issued by UAE federal authorities namely the Company Commercial Law of 2015, the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX) disclosure guidance of 2019, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, and UAE CSR platform. Second, we present a summary of the empirical research on CSR issues in UAE context, namely in the following four fields: (1) CSR determinants both at the micro and macro levels, (2) CSR measures in the three pillars (environmental, social, and governance), (3) the impact of CSR policy and practices on financial performance/market value, (4) and the role of some mediating/moderating variables such as leadership and board gender diversity. Results show greater compliance to CSR standards among different industries and institutions but heterogenous empirical findings in the four explored fields. While there is crucial alignment with both social and environmental standards as evidenced by numerous empirical studies, additional efforts should be deployed to highlight the governance pillar through firms' discretionary reporting. Our survey provides useful directives and outcomes as it portrays both legal aspects coupled with some empirical evidence of CSR issues in the UAE context. Our study helps corporations to comply with local standards on sustainability reporting and highlights the potential economic benefits and advantages for firms adopting CSR strategy. Furthermore, it can be considered as the cornerstone for regulatory bodies in the United Arab Emirates when issuing/enhancing new standards/rules on CSR practices.

This study aims to investigate whether the extent of corporate disclosure, proxied by COVID-19-related disclosure, affects the dividend policy of listed firms.

The study uses a multinomial logistic regression model to examine the relation between corporate disclosure and the dividend policy of the 100 largest market-cap firms in Vietnam in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its unique impact on business operations, serves as the backdrop for this analysis.

The findings indicate that firms with more extensive COVID-19-related disclosure are more inclined to distribute dividends in the form of stocks or cash instead of omitting them.

This research contributes to the understanding of how corporate disclosure practices influence a firm’s financial decisions, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings hold implications for corporate financial decision-making during times of macroeconomic shock.

The purpose of this study is threefold. The first is to conduct a comprehensive examination of the various board attributes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the Chinese technology industry. The second is to investigate the impact of ownership and board attributes on CSR. The third is to examine the moderating effect of media reporting on the relationship between CSR and company financial performance.

All A-share listed Chinese companies during the years 2011–2019 with 1,573 firm-year observations have been investigated for this study. The data are analysed by CSR metrics in the form of environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores using an ordinary least squares regression analysis and fixed effect regression models.

The results of this longitudinal study reveal that; no matter whether the companies are state-own or non-state-own, there is a significant positive effect of board independence, monetary incentives, director’s age and board size on the CSR disclosure of the Chinese technology industry. Also, the results support the importance of CSR performance in promoting the corporate financial performance (CFP) of the technology sector. Specifically, media reporting has a positive impact on the CSR reporting of both state-own and non-state-own technological companies in China.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study based on the ESG metrics for analysing the CSR and firm performance relationship conducted in the unique setting of the state-own and non-state-own technological companies in China. The study is an attempt to fill the gap in the extant literature, which has a scarce number of studies focused on the influence of media reporting on the relationship between CSR performance and CFP. This paper not only updates the existing understanding of CSR performance by board attributes and company ownership but also explains the significance of media reporting in enhancing the CSR performance of the Chinese technology industry.

This paper aims to meta-analyze the results of the prior studies related to the relationship of human capital and financial performance in Islamic banking.

To examine the relationship between human capital and financial of Islamic banks, 23 empirical studies having sample of 15,607 are considered for the meta-analysis. Moreover, different measures related to financial performance including return on assets (ROA), return of equity (ROE) and Tobin’s Q have been taken as moderating for further subgroup analysis.

The results of meta-analysis reveal a positive correlation between human capital and financial performance with an effect size of 0.268. The subgroup analyses showed significant positive associations of human capital with ROA and ROE, insignificant with Tobin’s Q.

This study suggests Islamic banking should prioritize human capital development, maintain consistency and adopt a long-term perspective. Future research should consider context-specific factors and harmonize human capital and financial performance measurements for consensus.

Today, with the increasing involvement of the environment and human beings business units, paying attention to fulfilling social responsibility obligations while making a profit has become increasingly necessary for achieving sustainable development goals. Attention to profit by organizations should not be without regard to their social and environmental performance. Social responsibility accounting (SRA) is an approach that can pay more attention to the social and environmental performance of companies, but it has many barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify barriers to SRA implementation and provide strategies to overcome these barriers.

In this study, the authors identify barriers to social responsibility accounting implementation and provide strategies to overcome these barriers. By literature review, 12 barriers and seven strategies were identified and approved using the opinions of six academic experts. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) has been used to identify significant barriers and find textual relationships between them. The fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method has been used to identify and rank strategies for overcoming these barriers. This study was undertaken in Iran (an emerging market). The data has been gathered from 18 experts selected using purposive sampling and included CEOs of the organization, senior accountants and active researchers well familiar with the field of social responsibility accounting.

Based on the results of this study, the cultural differences barrier was introduced as the primary and underlying barrier of the social responsibility accounting barriers model. At the next level, barriers such as “lack of public awareness of the importance of social responsibility accounting, lack of social responsibility accounting implementation regulations and organization size” are significant barriers to social responsibility accounting implementation. Removing these barriers will help remove other barriers in this direction. In addition, the results of the TOPSIS method showed that “mandatory regulations, the introduction of guidelines and social responsibility accounting standards,” “regulatory developments and government incentive schemes to implement social responsibility accounting,” as well as “increasing public awareness of the benefits of social responsibility accounting” are some of the essential social responsibility accounting implementation strategies.

The findings of the study have implications for both professional accounting bodies for developing the necessary standards and for policymakers for adopting policies that facilitate the implementation of social responsibility accounting to achieve sustainability.

This paper creates a new perspective on the practical implementation of social responsibility accounting, closely related to improving environmental performance and increasing social welfare through improving sustainability.

Experts believe that the strategies mentioned above will be very effective and helpful in removing the barriers of the lower level of the model. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this study develops a model of social responsibility accounting barriers and ranks the most critical implementation strategies.