Search results

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting has been widely accepted as a vital tool for communicating with stakeholders on a range of social, environmental, and governance issues, but how companies define, interpret, apply, integrate, and communicate their CSR efforts and impacts in corporate reporting is anything but a straightforward task. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the concept of materiality in CSR reporting and demonstrate practical examples of good CSR and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting practices. We chose the aviation industry because of its economic relevance, constant growth, and future expected changes in the aftermath of COVID-19. In addition, airlines affect many of the SDGs directly and indirectly with contending results. This chapter is timely because of the growing willingness by companies to integrate CSR and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) thinking into the corporate strategy and business operations using materiality assessment and enhancing their competitive advantage and ability to maintain long-term value and because ESG and ethical investing have become part of the mainstream investing. Thus, this chapter contributes to an understanding of the wide range of existing and new reporting frameworks and regulations and reinforces the importance of discussing how this diversity of approaches can affect the work toward worldwide comparability of CSR and sustainability reporting.

Traditional sports have seen declining participation at many levels, with football being no different. This is occurring at a time when emergent technologies present new challenges, particularly to the crucial yet ignored cohort of millennials. Without meeting the needs of millennials, football cannot be successful in the future. This research seeks to understand how millennial football fandom (sport, not team) in Australia impacts football participation, whilst empirically examining the impact of football video games (FVGs).

Survey data are collected from online groups, forums and social media pages of Australian football (soccer) fans. Quantitative analysis of millennial fandom and its influence on football participation (for the first time demarcated into play and engagement) is undertaken, including the moderating influence of time spent playing FVGs, amidst covariate influences of age and number of children.

Results highlight the multi-dimensionality of millennial football fandom in Australia, reveal the typical hours spent playing football across a range of participation types (including play and engagement), support fan involvement’s influence on engagement with football, establish that a desire to interact with other football fans manifests in playing more football, specify how playing FVGs moderates these relationships, supports the covariate influences of age and evidences that playing FVGs does not hamper football play.

This is the first study to examine millennial fans of football (the sport, not tied to a club) and the influence of fandom on football participation. By separating football participation into two forms, play and engagement, we highlight discrete influences, whilst evaluating for the first time the moderating influence of the time millennials spend playing FVGs. For sport managers and administrators, these are important findings to facilitate better segmentation, recruitment, retention and participation, each with broader societal health benefits. This is undertaken in Australia where football is not a dominant code, relegating fandom to a niche, thus revealing important findings for sports and business management.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between uncertainty and corporate cash holdings with the moderating role of political connections.

We employ fixed effects estimation on a panel dataset of 669 Vietnamese listed firms over the 2010–2020 period, with one- and two-way standard error clustering. We conduct various robustness tests, including two-stage least squares/instrumental variable and generalized method of moments regressions, alternative cash holding measure, and additional controls for macroeconomic conditions and ownership types.

The effect of uncertainty on cash holdings is weakened for firms with political connections relative to those without the connections. Although general firms depend on cash flows to adjust their cash holding behavior when uncertainty increases, our findings suggest that politically connected firms do not rely on internal cash flows to accumulate cash when confronted high uncertainty.

Our findings on the role of political connections in moderating the relationship between cash holding and economic policy uncertainty have practical implications for policymaking. Since political connections serve as a buffer for a firm’s liquidity, firms may want to seek those connections, which can, in turn, lead to increasing informal costs and unfair business environment.

This is the first study investigating the role of political connections to the nexus of cash, cash flow and uncertainty, providing novel evidence regarding the less dependence on internal cash flows to save cash by politically connected firms. Second, the paper enriches the literature on the motives of cash holdings by proposing a modified agency view in the context of weak investor protection. Therefore, our findings strengthen the explanation for the positive effect of uncertainty on firms’ cash holdings in emerging markets.

Considering that corporate social responsibility (CSR) addresses a wide range of claims from multiple stakeholders, companies must determine their CSR scope. This paper aims to examine what factors influence a firm’s decision in its scope of CSR. In exploring what factors influence CSR scope, the authors examine the relationship between a firm’s prosocial orientation and CSR and further examine its boundary conditions by the existence of CSR department.

This study uses a data set – the Social Value Survey – administered by the Center for Social Value Enhancement Studies based in the context of Korean firms. Based on 86 firm responses, statistical models were performed to test hypotheses.

The findings show that a firm’s prosocial orientation is positively associated with CSR scope. Further, this study shows that there is a negative moderating effect of the CSR department for the relationship between the prosocial orientation and CSR scope.

This study attempts to contribute to the extensive line of work on the antecedents of CSR by exploring the simultaneous existence of various drivers of CSR and the interplay between the drivers. And this study enhances the understanding on what factors influence the decision of CSR scope within a complex system of diverse stakeholder relationships. Additionally, this study has potentially shed light on the role of CSR departments to determine CSR scope.

This study aims to investigate how a French multinational enterprise (MNE) is developing employee stock ownership (ESO) in its subsidiaries in Peru and Mexico, both Latin American countries with deep social and economic inequalities.

This is a qualitative case study which conducted interviews with representatives of the French MNE and its subsidiaries in Peru and Mexico.

The employee stock purchase plans offered by the company to its employees support the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) 1, 8 and 10 in these countries.

The authors argue that MNEs could become flagships in the SDG achievement in emerging economies.

By contributing to better workplace outcomes and enhanced corporate performance, ESO is in line with SDG 8. ESO also fulfills SDGs 1 and 10 by allowing employees to build up savings and wealth, whose lack is the main source of inequality and poverty. Reciprocity and binary economics theories explain these relationships.

Using a multilevel model, this study examined how paternalistic leadership behaviors, including authoritarianism, morality and benevolence, influence followers' performance.

A sample of 556 leader–follower dyads from 66 groups in a manufacturing firm in China was collected for analysis. Descriptive statistics and multi-level regression analyses were used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that group efficacy mediates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and followers' performance and that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between benevolent leadership and followers' performance. In addition, the positive relationship between self-efficacy and followers' performance is weaker when followers exhibit higher levels of group efficacy.

The data were collected in a manufacturing firm in China, it is difficult to generalize the results to other settings.

Managers should use their abilities and skills to interpret which paternalistic leadership styles their followers prefer, so as to improve their performance.

This study developed a multilevel model to examine the mediating processes of group efficacy and self-efficacy in the effect of PL behaviors, including authoritarianism, benevolence and morality, on followers' performance.

This study aims to empirically examine the influence of financial constraints on firm carbon emissions. In addition to the role of financial constraints in firm-level carbon emissions, this study also examines this influence in the presence of governance, environmental orientation and firm-level attributes.

Using pooled ordinary least square, this study examines the impact of financial constraints on firm-level carbon emissions using a panel of 1,536 US firm-year observations from 2008 to 2019. This study also used two-step generalized method of moment–based dynamic panel data and two-stage least square approaches to address potential endogeneity. The results are robust to endogeneity and collinearity issues.

The results suggest that financial constraints enhance the carbon emissions of the firms. The economic significance of financial constraints on carbon emissions is more pronounced for the firms that do not report environment-related expenditure investment and those that are highly leveraged. The authors further document that firms with a nondiverse gender board signify a statistically significant impact of financial constraints on carbon emissions. These results are also economically significant, as one standard deviation increase in financial constraints is associated with a 3.340% increase in carbon emissions at the firm level.

Some implicit and explicit factors like corporate emissions policy and culture may condition the relationship of financial constraints with carbon emissions. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to consider these factors for future research. In addition, it is beneficial to identify the thresholds and/or quantiles at which financial constraints may significantly make a difference in enhancing carbon emissions.

The findings offer policy implications for investment in stakeholder engagement for capital acquisitions, thereby effectively enforcing environmental innovation and leading to a reduction in carbon emissions.

This study integrated governance and environment-oriented variables in the model to empirically examine the role of financial constraints on the carbon emissions of the firms in the USA over and above what has already been documented in the earlier literature.

Charitable giving in China has moved from being subjected to government attention and public skepticism to receiving government encouragement and public support. The role played by political connections in philanthropy is indisputable, although very few studies have explored their association from the perspective of the country’s first Charity Law of 2016. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the 2016 Charity Law and offers an understanding of the future trends in corporate charitable giving.

Using empirical analysis of data collected from listed companies in China, this study analyzes the impact of political connections on corporate charitable giving before and after the 2016 Charity Law. The study adopts three leading theories from previous research into corporate charitable giving and political connections: corporate social responsibility, resource dependence theory and stakeholder theory. A conceptual framework is outlined, and hypotheses are formulated accordingly.

The results show that political connections have a substantial positive impact on corporate charitable giving, both before and after the implementation of the 2016 Charity Law, which has significantly promoted and increased the amount and proportion of charitable giving. Although the 2016 Charity Law attempted to weaken the political connections of enterprises, the influence of political connections on corporate charitable giving has proved difficult to diminish or eliminate, as charity is dominated by the state.

This study explores the association between political connections and corporate charitable giving from the perspective of China’s Charity Law of 2016.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether banks’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives increase or decrease banks’ efficiency.

The sample used includes all listed banks in Saudi Arabia over the years 2016–2021. The authors performed different methods, including data envelopment analysis (DEA), ordinary least squares (OLS) and quantile regressions.

The OLS regression results show a negative linkage between ESG and banks’ efficiency. Further, the quantile regression analysis indicates that the ESG effect on banks' efficiency is negative across different quantiles. However, the DEA method shows that the DEA-generated scores for Banks’ efficiency are higher for ESG-adjusted scores in comparison to efficiency scores without incorporating ESG. Further, the comparison of the DEA-generated efficiency scores, over the sample period, of adjusted ESG banks still suffers from decreasing in their efficiency over the years. Concerning existing theory, the results are consistent with the stakeholders and the resource-based theories postulating that banks' ESG practices are ethical commitments and enable firms to gain competitive advantage and increase their reputation among stakeholders.

The findings of this study offer important implications for regulators and bankers. Policymakers and bank regulators should make collective efforts to encourage financial institutions to adopt green finance initiatives to create an efficient financial system capable of counteracting risks from the external environment and stimulating economic growth. Banks’ managers should be aware that ESG initiatives serve society and the environment and offer a positive influence on banks’ efficiency.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the influence of ESG activities on banks' efficiency using DEA for banks in Saudi Arabia.

This paper reviews the literature on disability inclusion (DI) in supply and demand chains of hospitality and tourism (H&T) organisations. The purpose of this study is to assess disability support and interventions within H&T organisations. Through the assessment, we identified gaps to recommend H&T scholars’ and practitioners’ knowledge of DI from new perspectives.

An integrative review was conducted to examine the published evidence on DI in H&T organisations. This study used high-ranking H&T journals from the Scopus and Web of Science databases between 2001 and 2023. In total, 101 empirical papers met the criteria for the review analysis.

DI focuses heavily on customer disabilities, with scant research on DI in H&T employment. The review emphasises the critical need for empirical research into the varied disability employment ecosystem within H&T organisations, focusing on social integration for inclusive workplaces.

This study contributes to the H&T literature, which previously overlooked the disability context in diversity. The research offers strategies for creating inclusive environments in the H&T industry for disabled consumers and producers.