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Business organizations are evermore expected to behave conscientiously, but a lack of clarity remains regarding this strategy for business-to-business (B2B) brands. This paper aims to develop and validate a B2B brand conscientiousness model that identifies what factors are driving this approach.

The research model is validated through a three-stage study that collects insights from high-level executives, mid-level managers and employees in B2B firms. Whereas the first two exploratory stages follow a qualitative approach to identify what factors motivate B2B firms to be conscientious and develop a model, the third stage empirically tests the proposed model through structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that brand conscientiousness is viewed as an important strategy by B2B stakeholders. Whereas perceived risk discourages, external and internal stakeholder expectations and a firm’s financial commitment to a cause encourage, brands to pursue a conscientious approach. Furthermore, a B2B conscientious strategy must be perceived as authentic. Long-term commitment to the cause, strategic alignment of brand values with the cause and a congruent delivery of the brand’s promise are the drivers of this perceived authenticity.

This paper contributes to the emerging knowledge on B2B conscientious brands by confirming the importance of this approach in a B2B context, identifying the factors that B2B stakeholders – executives, managers and employees – believe are driving it and highlighting the importance and identifying the factors that drive its perceived authenticity.

The authors compare perspectives on external evaluation of health service provision between Norway and the USA. External inspection and accreditation are examples of internationally wide-spread external evaluation methods used to assess the quality of care given to patients. Different countries have different national policy strategies and arrangements set up to do these evaluations. Although there is growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, there is still a gap in knowledge to how structures and processes influence these outcomes. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to describe the structures and processes in external evaluation designed to promote quality improvement in Norway and the USA with attention to comparison of enablers and barriers in external evaluation systems.

Data collection consisted of documentary evidence retrieved from governmental policies, and reviews of the Joint Commission (the US), international guidelines, recommendations and reports from the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and the World Health Organization, and policies and regulations related to Norwegian governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, and the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision . Data were analyzed inspired by a deductive, direct content analytical framework.

The authors found that both accreditation and inspection are strategies put in place to ensure that healthcare providers have adequate quality systems as well as contributing to the wider risk and safety enhancing management and implementation processes in the organizations subjected to evaluation. The US and the Norwegian external regulatory landscapes are complex and include several policymaking and governing institutions. The Norwegian regulatory framework for inspection has replaced an individual blame logic with a model which “blames” the system for inadequate quality and patient harm. This contrasts with the US accreditation system, which focuses on accreditation visits. Although findings indicate an ongoing turning point in accreditation, findings also demonstrate that involving patients and next of kin directly in adverse event inspections is a bigger part of a change in external inspection culture and methods than in processes of accreditation.

The message of this paper is important for policymakers, and bodies of inspection and accreditation because knowledge retrieved from the comparative document study may contribute to better understanding of the implications from the different system designs and in turn contribute to improving external evaluations.

Although there is a growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, the implications of different regulatory strategies and arrangements for evaluation on quality and safety remain unclear.

This study aims to investigate the tendency for firms, exhibiting an entrepreneurial spirit in their growth strategies, to engage in misconduct within the context of China's rapidly developing economy. The authors also examine how this relationship is influenced by governance mechanisms, specifically management shareholding and executive functional diversity. Furthermore, the authors explore the mediating roles of organizational complexity and performance pressure in linking entrepreneurial growth to firm misconduct. This research provides a novel perspective for understanding the impact of entrepreneurial growth on corporate ethical risks, and offers practical insights for maintaining ethical standards in firms during their pursuit of growth.

This study focuses on publicly traded, mature companies that exhibit an entrepreneurial inclination in their growth strategies, demonstrating entrepreneurial vigor through activities such as product innovation and market expansion. This exploration incorporates both theoretical and empirical approaches, scrutinizing A-share listed companies in China from 2008 to 2019. To validate the robustness of this study's findings, the authors have applied diverse methodologies such as propensity score matching, classification regression, and alternative indicator analysis.

This study found that the entrepreneurial growth-oriented strategy is positively related to firm misconduct. It also uncovers that governance mechanisms like management shareholding and executive functional diversity moderate this relationship. Moreover, organizational complexity and performance pressure partially mediate the relationship between an entrepreneurial growth strategy and firm misconduct.

For instance, more detailed categorization of corporate misconduct, based on punishment severity, could be explored. Additional characteristics like age, education, gender, and team/board diversity could help further understand the relationship between entrepreneurial growth strategy and misconduct. By addressing these limitations and exploring further avenues for research, the authors can deepen the understanding of this relationship and provide valuable insights for firms seeking to mitigate potential risks.

First, for regulators, shareholders, creditors and investors, knowing and understanding the relationship between growth-oriented strategies and corporate violations is helpful for them to scientifically evaluate the potential risks that may exist in the company, and can also carry out differentiated supervision on the company based on different types of company-oriented strategies. Second, when designing the corporate governance mechanism, listed companies should fully consider the role of management shareholding. Finally, executives should treat cross-functional experience dialectically, especially in growth oriented strategic companies.

This research provides a novel perspective for understanding the impact of entrepreneurial growth on corporate ethical risks, and offers practical insights for maintaining ethical standards in firms during their pursuit of growth.

This study stands out by examining the influence of entrepreneurial growth strategy on firm misconduct, thus enhancing previous studies that primarily centered on entrepreneurial start-ups. The authors offer a nuanced comprehension of the potential risks intrinsic to corporate entrepreneurship and highlight the crucial role of efficient governance structures in curbing corporate misbehavior while fostering entrepreneurial growth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why multi-tier apparel suppliers integrate social sustainability practices into their supply chains and what barriers these suppliers encounter while embedding social sustainability practices.

This study employs a qualitative research design, drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 46 owners and managers from 33 multi-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, an important outsourcing hub for the global apparel industry. To corroborate research findings, the views of owners and managers were triangulated by further interviewing 11 key representatives of institutional actors such as third-party auditors, a donor agency, industry associations, regulatory agencies and a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

The authors' findings suggest a range of divergent institutional drivers and barriers – coercive, mimetic and normative – that determine the implementation of multi-tier suppliers' social sustainability practices. The key reported drivers were buyers' requirements, external stakeholders' expectations, top management commitment and competition. Conversely, cost and resource concerns and gaps in the regulatory framework were identified as key social sustainability implementation barriers. In particular, owners and managers of second-tier and third-tier supplier firms experienced more internal barriers such as cost and resource concerns than external barriers such as gaps in values, learning and commitment (i.e. compromise for mutual benefit and non-disclosure of non-compliance) that impeded effective social sustainability implementation.

Social sustainability in supply chain management has received significant attention from academics, business practitioners, governments, NGOs and supranational organisations. However, limited attention has been paid to investigating the drivers and barriers for social sustainability implementation from a developing country's multi-tier supplier perspective. The authors' research has addressed this knowledge gap.

The evidence from the authors' study provides robust support for key assumptions of institutional theory and has useful implications for both managers and policy-makers.

The authors' study contributes to the embryonic research stream of socially sustainable multi-tier supply chain management by connecting it to the application of institutional theory in a challenging institutional context.

The purpose of this study is to identify the norms that underlie and condition the decisions made by preparers of financial reports.

This interview-based study illustrates how financial report preparers engage in behaviors linked to the perception of recognition and measurement of internally generated intangible assets by important stakeholders. All of the companies included in the study adhere to International Financial Reporting Standards when creating their consolidated financial statements. The participants selected for the study are involved in accounting decisions related to research and development in accordance with International Accounting Standard (IAS) 38.

The authors identify the normative assumptions underlying the recognition and measurement of internally generated intangibles, which are based on concerns of consistency, credibility and reasonableness. The authors find that the normative basis for legitimacy in financial accounting is primarily related to cognitive legitimacy and is not of a moral or pragmatic nature.

The study reveals that recognition and measurement of internally generated intangibles in financial accounting relate to legitimacy. The authors identify specific norms that form the basis of this legitimacy, namely, consistency, credibility and reasonableness. These identified norms serve as constraints, mitigating the risk of judgment misuse within the IAS 38 framework for earnings management.

Studies that investigate the length of stay as a predictor of consumer post-purchase behavior are rare despite its importance in efficient hotel management. By analyzing online customer reviews, this study aims to fill this gap in the extant literature on the relationship between length of stay and customer satisfaction level.

The authors collected and used online review data on hotels in London for this study. A series of linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the effect of length of stay on customer satisfaction as measured by review ratings. The authors used the Mahalanobis matching approach to confirm the empirical findings.

This analysis shows that length of stay is negatively associated with customer satisfaction. Additionally, the authors find that this negative relationship is stronger in high-end hotels than in low-end hotels.

The research findings contribute to the literature by shedding light on a new stream of research, namely, length of stay. Additionally, the research findings offer novel insights that could help hotel managers understand the trade-off between longer stays and customer satisfaction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first few studies to show the systematic impact of length of stay on the valence of online review ratings, as well as the moderating effect of hotel levels by analyzing customer online reviews on hotel experiences.

This chapter tackles the tension between equity and excellence that critics often highlight in opposition of diversity initiatives and efforts in the higher education employment setting. We present several arguments that respond to the assumptions undergirding these criticisms, by drawing on prior research to emphasize that equity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, we present new evidence from a national sample of Black and Hispanic Engineering Faculty (BHEF) (n = 68) to argue that their racialized work experiences promote exclusive environments that serve to sustain their underrepresentation and marginalize their performance contributions. We conclude with a new direction for how to cultivate inclusive work environments in higher education.

This paper aims to explore the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosure (hereafter CSRD) in Jordan and also examine whether ownership structure, board of directors and audit committee characteristics influence CSRD.

The extent of CSRD is measured by constructing a CSRD index for industrial firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2021. Panel regression analysis is used to examine the potential effect of ownership structure, board of directors and audit committee on the level of CSRD.

This study provides empirical evidence that diverse groups of shareholders have different effects on CSR engagement, and board characteristics (board size, board independence and gender diversity) play a vital role in increasing voluntary disclosure, including CSR information. There is no evidence to support that CSRD is influenced by audit committee characteristics.

This study recommends that corporate regulators and policymakers can improve CSRD practices by expanding the scope of existing disclosure requirements related to CSR and developing a structured CSRD index to measure the degree of CSRD practices for comparative purposes. Encourage firms to actively participate in social responsibility programs by granting tax incentives and government facilities to firms with the best CSR reports. Policymakers should introduce initiatives that support female’s representation on board. Finally, firms should restructure their boards by increasing board size and the percentage of independent directors to enhance their effectiveness to support CSRD.

This paper contributes further insights into the literature on CSRD practices and disclosure by analyzing data from developing market contexts.

This study examines how firm product reputation functions as an internal and external expectations-setting mechanism shaping firm and external stakeholder behavior.

Longitudinal analysis of 17,879 recalls from 15 automobile manufacturers operating in the United States between 1967 and 2016.

Applying the behavioral theory of the firm (BTF) and signaling theory, this study’s findings suggest that product safety reputation creates variability in the likelihood of both voluntary and government-ordered recalls.

Performance expectations set by past product performance influence managerial decision-making such that products with a higher reputation for quality are more likely to be voluntarily recalled than are their less reputable counterparts. Similarly, regulators are more likely to order the recall of higher reputation products, suggesting that past product performance also influences enforcement behavior. Finally, the scope and severity of product defects are shown to interact with product reputation to influence the likelihood of government-ordered recall.

Firms and firm stakeholders make distinct decisions based on performance variations within firm product portfolios.

Overall firm reputation is important, but there are distinct dynamics that result in product performance variability within firm product portfolios that have important implications on issues such as product safety recalls.

This study's findings reveal that as an internal signal, managers' expectations of product performance can change their behavior following product safety defects. Specifically, voluntary product recalls are more likely for higher-reputation products than those with lower reputations for product safety. This suggests that firm behavior regarding product safety recalls is not consistent within their own product lines. Externally, this study’s findings suggest that product reputation also influences relationships with key stakeholders. Product reputation for quality was shown to be associated with an increased likelihood of government sanctions. Regulators will also be more likely to initiate punitive sanctions against higher-reputation products as the severity and scope of safety defects increase. Under such circumstances, higher-reputation products are more likely to face government sanctions than lower-reputation products. Hence, government regulatory behavior is subject to influence from performance signals such as product reputation.

This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.

The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.

The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.