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1 – 10 of over 1000Enrique Bonsón, Michaela Bednarova and Tomás Escobar-Rodríguez
The current study extends the investigation into online relationship building by examining how Eurozone companies belonging to the EURO STOXX 600 index use the popular video…
Abstract
Purpose
The current study extends the investigation into online relationship building by examining how Eurozone companies belonging to the EURO STOXX 600 index use the popular video platform YouTube to facilitate dialogic communication with their stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent and main purposes of the channel's usage, the companies’ activities and online practices, as well as the factors on this platform influencing the channel's activity, the audience, and the stakeholders’ engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this goal a sample of 306 Eurozone companies listed in the STOXX Europe 600 index, including 19 subsectors and 12 countries, have been analysed. Stakeholder and dialogic theory were applied as a theoretical background for this study.
Findings
The results indicated that 44 per cent of companies studied have an official YouTube channel, which is mostly used for promotional purposes. It was found that the size of the company, the sector, and its country of origin determine YouTube channel activity, and that higher activity leads to a higher number of subscribers, thus fostering an initial step to better stakeholder engagement.
Originality/value
Given that this is the first study of its kind to provide this type of analysis, the resulting unique contributions may provide value to the information systems field and also contribute to the advancement of information systems research.
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Enrique Bonsón and Michaela Bednárová
The aim of this study is to analyse the extent to which Eurozone companies use the social network LinkedIn, how they manage their online practices, what is their typical audience…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to analyse the extent to which Eurozone companies use the social network LinkedIn, how they manage their online practices, what is their typical audience, and which are the potential factors influencing both extent and audience.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine how stakeholder engagement is managed by using LinkedIn, a sample of 306 companies listed in the STOXX Europe 600 index, including 19 subsectors and 12 countries, is analysed. To measure the extent of LinkedIn usage, an index was defined and calculated on a scale from 0 to 5.
Findings
Although the majority of the companies (79 per cent) do use LinkedIn, they mainly focus on a particular group of stakeholders: current and potential employees. Their focus is thus mostly related to professional purposes such as providing information about employees and career opportunities. Just a few of them engage in blogging or updating statuses. Only a very small number of companies are using this platform for marketing or other purposes. The findings also show that the audience of a corporate LinkedIn channel is influenced by the extent of usage of that channel as well as by the size of the company.
Originality/value
This study is the first one providing an overview of Eurozone companies' practices on LinkedIn. Hence both academics and professionals can benefit from this research.
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Nurul Mozumder, Glauco De Vita, Charles Larkin and Khine S. Kyaw
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of firm value to exchange rate (ER) movements, and the determinants of such exposure for 100 European blue chip…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of firm value to exchange rate (ER) movements, and the determinants of such exposure for 100 European blue chip companies over 2001-2012.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopt a disaggregated framework that distinguishes between Eurozone and non-Eurozone firms, and between financial and non-financial firms across the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods of the recent financial crisis.
Findings
The authors find no significant difference between Eurozone and non-Eurozone, and financial and non-financial firms. Exposure is found to be higher during the financial crisis, across all sub-samples of firms. In the majority of cases the exposure coefficient is significantly positive, indicating that European firms’ stock returns are positively (negatively) affected by depreciation (appreciation) of ERs (indirect quotation).
Practical implications
It is recommended that firms’ financial plans budget for higher liquidity levels in order to build up, during “good times”, a natural hedge for the higher exposure likely to be faced during periods characterized by greater financial distress.
Originality/value
The main novelty lies in the adoption of a disaggregated framework that discriminates between pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods in order to ascertain the extent to which the recent financial crisis affected the relationship in question.
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Antoine Vion, François-Xavier Dudouet and Eric Grémont
The paper examines the degree of interlocking directorships across the major Eurozone economies. It uses the major stock market indices in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands…
Abstract
The paper examines the degree of interlocking directorships across the major Eurozone economies. It uses the major stock market indices in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium to identify the top of the corporate elite in each country. For the period of 2005–2008, it studies transnational links between European companies. The paper draws attention to a number of features of these interlocks. Firstly transnational interlocks remain relatively low but secondly they do vary considerably. An important issue here is the degree of bilateral integration which is occurring between some countries within the Eurozone, for example France and Belgium, and the degree to which other countries, most notably, Italy are increasingly disconnected, whilst the two most powerful economies, France and Germany, are very weakly connected. This variability reflects a series of structural divides between big business in the Eurozone that makes it difficult for this corporate elites to be cohesive at the European level.
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Mohamad Hassan Shahrour, Isabelle Girerd-Potin and Ollivier Taramasco
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the default risk level of firms operating in the Eurozone and how CSR…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the default risk level of firms operating in the Eurozone and how CSR can provide insurance-like protection during financial/economic downturns.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on prior empirical studies and by integrating the insights of different theories, this study proposes a framework linking CSR, firm default risk and corporate financial performance to explain firms' social behavior that can trigger default risk determinants (e.g. cost of capital, leverage, sales level) directly or indirectly. The authors use a panel regression approach.
Findings
The results support the mitigating effect of CSR on firm default risk. This effect is higher during a financial crisis, suggesting that CSR could provide insurance-like protection during economic downturns. These results hold even after using an alternative risk measure. Granger causality test results strongly suggest that reverse causality is not a concern. An instrumental variable approach is proposed to deal with potential endogeneity issues.
Originality/value
While other studies examine the CSR–firm default risk relationship in US samples, this study focuses on the Eurozone. The novelty of this work is based on its sample and how financial crises are addressed within this relationship. Insurance-like protection concerns both negative announcements and periods (e.g. financial crises, recessions). The study's results are useful for investors and risk managers who intend to manage default risk in their portfolios or firms.
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Esteban Romero‐Frías and Liwen Vaughan
The paper seeks to extend co‐link analysis to web sites of heterogeneous companies belonging to different industries and countries, and to cluster companies by industries and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to extend co‐link analysis to web sites of heterogeneous companies belonging to different industries and countries, and to cluster companies by industries and compare results from different countries.
Design/methodology/approach
Web sites of 255 companies that belong to five stock exchange indexes were included in the study. Data on co‐links pointing to these web sites were gathered using Yahoo!. Co‐link data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) to generate MDS maps that would position companies based on their co‐link counts.
Findings
Comparisons of results across different countries and economies showed the following overall pattern: companies whose businesses are information‐based tend to form well‐defined clusters, while companies operating on a more traditional business model tend not to form clear groups. A comparison between the EU zone and the USA suggests that the EU economy is not well integrated yet.
Practical implications
The findings from the study suggest the possibility of using co‐link analysis to distinguish information‐based industries from traditional industries.
Originality/value
The paper extends co‐link analysis from a single industry to heterogeneous industries with global and complex business phenomena.
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Enrique Bonsón and Melinda Ratkai
This study aims to propose a set of metrics in order to assess reactivity, dialogic communication and stakeholder engagement (popularity, commitment and virality): stakeholders'…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to propose a set of metrics in order to assess reactivity, dialogic communication and stakeholder engagement (popularity, commitment and virality): stakeholders' mood and social legitimacy on corporate Facebook pages. These metrics can offer a better understanding and measurability of this social media/social network/online communication management tool.
Design/methodology/approach
Three theories (dialogic, stakeholders and legitimacy) were considered in the development of these metrics. Empirical evidence was collected from a sample of 314 European companies. Then ten active companies were used to validate the proposed metrics on Facebook.
Findings
The constructed set of metrics was found to be valid and efficiently usable according to the principles of the applied theories. Moreover all the proposed metrics could be adapted for such sites as Google+.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations can only be identified within the validation process as the metrics were only applied to ten representative companies from the Eurozone.
Practical implications
The proposed metrics will help users, marketing/PR/communication professionals and company managers to measure their and their competitors' popularity, commitment, virality (metrics which reflect stakeholder engagement), and the mood of stakeholders, and use content analysis in order to measure social legitimacy via CSR information disclosure on Facebook. Thus the online reputation of a company can be practically measured.
Originality/value
This paper is the first proposing metrics to assess stakeholder engagement and social legitimacy on a corporate Facebook page that can be used in both academic and professional circles to a gain a better understanding of corporate online communication via Facebook.
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Simone Terzani and Teresa Turzo
This paper aims to investigate whether religiosity and religious diversity affect the adoption of sustainability reporting assurance (SRA) by companies based in predominantly…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether religiosity and religious diversity affect the adoption of sustainability reporting assurance (SRA) by companies based in predominantly Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. To this aim, a theoretical framework is developed using the social norm, signalling and agency theories.
Design/methodology/approach
A pooled logit regression model is applied on a sample of 2,541 firm-year observations collected from the most sustainable companies in Europe in the period between 2004 and 2015 to test the effect of religiosity on SRA adoption. Different analyses are used to check for the robustness of the findings and a generalized method of moments (GMM) is used to address potential endogeneity issues.
Findings
The results of this study show that companies based in highly religious countries are more likely to adopt SRA practices to show compliance with the religious social norms of their stakeholders. The results also show that companies based in predominantly Roman Catholic countries are more likely to adopt SRA practices than those operating in Protestant countries. This may be due to the fact that the structural organization of Catholicism is based on a vertical, top-down control system, which does not foster trust and requires constant assurance. This explains the emphasis placed on SRA by stakeholders adhering to Catholicism. Stakeholders from Protestant countries, on the other hand, tend to rely more on the principles of social ethics and social mutual control that characterize their doctrine and, therefore, do not need any additional, external assurance of corporate commitment to sustainability.
Originality/value
This paper provides new insights into the influence that religiosity and religious diversity have on SRA. This study also provides evidence on the usefulness of social norm theory for conducting empirical research into corporate practices and could set an example for future studies in this field.
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