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The primary objective of this research is to chronicle how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other United States Federal Government Agencies (USFGA) agencies have played a role in shaping the trajectory of financial reporting for sustainability, with a particular emphasis on triple bottom line (TBL). This exploration extends to other indexes reporting sustainability data encompassed within financial, social and environmental reporting.

This study adopts an illustrative methodology, utilizing data sourced from governmental, business and international organizational documents.

Sustainability accounting predominantly finds its place within the framework of TBL. However, it is crucial to note that sustainability reporting remains voluntary rather than mandatory. Nevertheless, accounting firms and professional accounting societies have embraced it as a supplementary facet of financial accounting reporting.

The research highlights the historical evolution of sustainability within the USFGA and corporate entities. Corporations’ interest in accounting for sustainability performances has significantly contributed to the emergence of voluntary sustainability accounting rules, as embodied by the TBL.

The aim of the paper is to ethnographically detail the poverty-shame nexus in contemporary Spain, and to highlight the contradictions of the newly adopted consumption-based models of inclusion led by charities.

Drawing on 39 cases out of a sample of 78 gathered through two long-term research projects, the paper employs a mixed-methods approach that mainly draws on a multi-sited ethnographic approach and interviews.

The paper ethnographically documents major contradictions that shed light on the complex relationships between poverty, shame, work and consumption in modern societies.

This paper analyses the sources of shame in the experience of poverty and downward mobility, but also it opens new ground for understanding the complex poverty–shame nexus and lets some questions unanswered.

The contradictions highlighted shed light on the complex relationships between poverty, shame, work and consumption that may inform modern policies to fight poverty. Ethnography gives voice to these individuals that currently experience an increasingly precarious and unequal modern world.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of the processes that underlie modern poverty and downward social mobility and points out the contradictions generated by consumption-based models of inclusion.

While the poverty-shame nexus has been already analyzed from the point of view of stigma and exclusion from the labor market, the links between a growing consumerism and the neo-liberal values that underlie our modern societies are largely unexplored. The ethnographic contribution and the detailed case studies are also original in the case of Spain.

The purpose of this study is to examine gender and rural economic relations of the Nrobo of Southeastern Nigeria. Specifically, the study was designed to examine the subsistence strategies, gendered role patterns and gender gaps in economic relations of the Nrobo.

This study used ethnographic methods of participant observation – adopting chitchatting and semi-structured interviews. Also, focus group discussion (FGD) was used to cross-check the validity of data from the other instrument.

This study found among other things, that although there is still verbal expression of gendered roles division, it does not mirror what actually obtains in society, except bio-social roles. Ideological superiority of men reflects the patrilineal kinship arrangement of society. Theoretically, some of the hypotheses of gender inequality theory were disputed for lack of adequate explanation of gender and economic relations in an egalitarian-reflected society such as Nrobo.

This study, to the best of my knowledge, is the first attempt to ethnographically examine gender and economic relations among this group. As such it adds to the corpus of ethnographies on the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria.

A global crisis like that caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the survival of any business, but especially of nascent entrepreneurs, due to their vulnerable situation. At this stage of entrepreneurship, information and communication technology capabilities (ICTCs) are critical skills that help entrepreneurs develop their new businesses, fostering economic adaptability to counteract adverse effects. This study advances knowledge of how nascent entrepreneurs react in an environment of global crisis.

The study analyzes a sample of 331 Spanish nascent entrepreneurs to determine the mediating effect of ICTCs on the relationship between the impact of a global crisis (e.g. COVID-19) and the firm’s strategic response.

The results suggest that crises influence adaptation and compensation strategies significantly and that ICTCs exert a total mediating effect on this relationship. The results do not, however, establish a clear relationship between the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and disengagement response, but rather a negative relationship, possibly influenced by government attempts to mitigate the pandemic’s economic consequences (economic aid to maintain the workforce, financial support for business model survival).

The COVID-19 crisis revealed ICT as a key technology for continuing business operations. This study analyzes how ICTCs affect nascent entrepreneurs’ strategies in crisis environments. Our analysis is important because these entrepreneurs have invested resources in their new project. We must determine their strategic response to crisis environments: adaptation, compensation or disengagement. The sample itself, collected during the pandemic, provides unique insights into the impact of the crisis on nascent business decisions.

像2019冠狀病毒病大流行等的全球危機一旦發生，各工商企業能否繼續生存必會受到威脅和影響。這影響以剛開始發展的創業者為甚，因為他們處於脆弱的處境。在這個創業階段，創業者必須擁有資訊與通訊科技能力，才能發展他們的新業務，他們亦需培養經濟上的適應能力，以能抵銷各種不利的影響。本研究擬就剛開始發展的創業者在全球危機發生時應如何應對進行探討，以增進我們對這課題的知識。

本研究分析一個涵蓋331名西班牙新生創業者的樣本，來鑒定資訊與通訊科技能力對全球危機 (如2019冠狀病毒病) 帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯所起的中介效應。

研究結果似顯示，危機會顯著地影響企業的適應和賠償策略; 研究結果似乎也顯示，資訊與通訊科技能力會對這關聯 (全球危機所帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯) 發揮極大的中介效應。但研究結果並沒有就2019冠狀病毒病危機的影響與脫離反應、建立明確的關聯。反之，研究結果似顯示兩者有一個負相關的關係，這可能是因為政府施行應對方法，以減輕大流行所帶來的經濟後果所致 (這些應對方法包括用以維持勞動力隊伍的經濟援助、和使商業模式能繼續生存的財政支援) 。

2019冠狀病毒病危機揭示了資訊與通訊科技是讓商業運作能繼續進行的關鍵技術。本研究分析資訊與通訊科技能力如何於危機發生時影響新生創業者的策略。我們的分析有其重要性，這是因為這些創業者把資源投入他們的新項目; 我們必須鑒定他們對危機所採取的戰略對策: 適應、賠償和脫離。取自大流行期間有關的樣本本身已能就危機如何影響新生創業者的商務決策、提供獨特的啟示。

Mainland Tanzania has seen two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in its social and economic structures, whilst the country continues to grapple with persisting gender inequalities. This article examines Tanzania's social policy developments from a gender perspective. The authors analyse the level, reach and quality of social policy delivery to working-age women across the areas of health policy, social protection and employment policy during 2000–2021.

The article draws on qualitative research deploying the scoping review method. The data consist of diverse secondary materials, including academic publications, government policy documents, relevant statistics and other types of “grey” literature.

Tanzania has made significant advancements in the legal frameworks around welfare provision and has instituted increasingly gender-responsive government policy plans. The health and social protection sectors, in particular, have witnessed the introduction of large-scale measures expanding social policy implementation. However, social policy delivery remains two-tiered, with differences in provisions for women in the formal and informal sectors.

Social policy delivery and implementation have increased and diversified in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the new millennium, with a growing integration of gender-specific policy objectives. However, limited social policy scholarship has focused on the gendered effects of broader social policy models in SSA. The article remedies the concomitant knowledge gaps by examining various social policies and their impacts on working-age women in Mainland Tanzania. The authors also engage with the theoretical welfare regime literature and present an analytical framework for gender-sensitive assessment of emerging social policy models in the Global South.

The study explores experiences of African immigrants in their self-employment journey. South Africa has been receiving many African immigrants seeking for socio-economic survival. This presents a gap to understand the self-employment journey of such immigrants post-settlement.

A qualitative inquiry is used with semi-structured interviews using a sample of African immigrants based in South Africa. Narrative enquiry was utilised in trying to understand the African immigrant self-employment journey.

The findings show strategies used by African immigrant entrepreneurs in their self-employment journey. These include immigrant relying on established relationships to respond to contextual challenges. Further, immigrant entrepreneurs turned to borrowing from family, including personal savings and using fronts as a capital generation strategy.

Based on the findings strategies are suggested as a useful precursor in advancing understanding of the African immigrant self-employment journey. This becomes useful especially considering ideals for assisting post-settlement of migrants.

Busan (Pusan), Korea’s second largest city (population 3.6 million) and fifth busiest port in the world, is experiencing rapidly increasing trade, global connections, events, and resulting infrastructural projects. What should Busan do to better handle the social, political, and economic complexities brought by these changes?

To answer this question, this paper explores the relationship of globalization and culture, as treated by cultural anthropology. It also considers how the tools of applied social science and anthropology can be mobilized to help Busan and the southeast region of Korea deal with these challenges.

After introducing anthropological treatments of culture, globalization and global problems, I discuss how applied social science/anthropology is used in international business/trade, tourism, and transport/logistics, especially the third area. To show how applied social science can help transportation and logistics projects in Busan and Korea, I present lessons from case studies and examples in Denver, Colorado Springs, Chuuk (Truk, South Pacific), and Korea.

Applied social science and applied anthropology present a wealth of helpful methods and insights to help Busan and Korea improve planning, public participation, political, social and environmental issues in transport and logistics projects, and to help prevent ethical and budgetary lapses. Finally, I offer suggestions for initial training programs and future studies to help expedite these goals.

Asset pricing revolves around the core aspects of risk and expected return. The main objective of the study is to test different asset pricing models for the Indian securities market. This paper aims to analyse whether leverage and liquidity augmented five-factor model performs better than Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Fama and French three-factor model, leverage augmented four-factor model and liquidity augmented four-factor model.

The data for the current study comprises records on prices of securities that are part of the Nifty 500 index for a time frame of 14 years, that is, from October 2004 to September 2017 consisting of 183 companies using time series regression.

The results indicate that the five-factor model performs better than CAPM and the three-factor model. The model outperforms leverage augmented and liquidity augmented four-factor models. The empirical evidence shows that the five-factor model has the highest explanatory power among the entire asset pricing models considered.

The present study bears certain useful implications for various stakeholders including fund managers, investors and academicians.

This study presents a five-factor model containing two additional factors, that is, leverage and liquidity risk along with the Fama-French three-factor model. These factors are expected to give more value to the model in comparison to the Fama-French three-factor model.

The purpose of this paper is to show the impact that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have on the evolution of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). GRI is a sustainability report disclosed by business organizations to meet the demands and interests of various stakeholders. These stakeholders’ needs have influenced GRI and its guidelines.

The methodology for this paper is library-based archival research. It is qualitatively and analytically descriptive of prior academic research and published literature on the subject.

Sustainability accounting rulemaking has evolved overtime resulting in proliferation of reporting rules. These rules have improved the extent and scope of environmental and economic performances that businesses disclose in GRI.

GRI has provided the foundation for integrated reporting (IR). Both GRI and IR have ecological and functional dimensions. Sustainability is functionally inherent in the accounting principle of materiality, when disclosed in external reporting. The ongoing concern of business assumes an organization is systemic and operates as a living entity only when it can provide sustainable performance that benefits stakeholders and society.

The authors’ goal is to provide an overview and historical context for the various alternatives to the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) that have emerged over time. The authors found eight current alternatives that have emerged to address the EMH's flaws. Each of the proposed alternatives improves some of the assumptions made by the EMH, such as investor homogeneity, the immediate incorporation of information into asset values and the inadequacy of rationality to explain asset prices.

To come up with the list of studies relevant to this review article, the authors used three databases, namely Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The first two were mostly used to get peer-reviewed articles while Google Scholar was used to extract articles that are still work in progress. The following words were used as the search queries; “efficient market hypothesis” and “alternatives to the efficient market hypothesis”.

The alternatives to the EMH presented in this article demonstrate that market efficiency is a dynamic concept that can be best understood with a multidisciplinary approach. To better comprehend how financial markets work, it is crucial to draw on concepts, theories and ideas from a variety of disciplines, including physics, economics, anthropology, sociology and others.

The authors comprehensively summarise the current state of the behavioural finance literature on alternatives to the EMH.