Search results

Material extrusion technology is considered to be an effective way to realize the accurate and integrated manufacturing of high-performance metal diamond tools with complex structures. The present work aims to report the G4 binder that can be used to create metal composite filament loading high concentrations of large diamond particles through comparative experiments.

The quality of filaments was evaluated by surface topography observation and porosity measurement. And the printability of filaments was further studied by the tensile test, rheological test, shear analysis and printing test.

The results show that the G4 binder exhibits the best capacity for loading diamonds among G1–G4. The L4 filament created with G4 has no defects such as pores, cracks and patterns on the surface and section, and has the lowest porosity, which is about 1/3 of the L1. Therefore, the diamond-containing composite filament based on G4 binder exhibits the best quality. On the other hand, the results of the tensile test of L5–L8 filaments reveal that as the diamond content increases from 10% to 30%, the tensile strength of the filament decreases by 29.52%, and the retention force coefficient decreases by 15.74%. This can be attributed to the formation of inefficient bonding areas of the clustered diamond particles inside the composite filament, which also leads to a weakening of the shear strength. Despite this, the results of the printing test show that the diamond-containing composite filament based on the G4 binder has reliable printability.

Therefore, the G4 binder is considered to solve the most critical first challenge in the development of diamond-containing filament.

Investors aim for returns when investing in stocks, making return volatility a crucial concern. This study compares symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models to forecast volatility in emerging nations like the G4 countries. Accurate volatility forecasting is vital for investors to make well-informed investment decisions, forming the core purpose of this study.

From January 1993 to May 2021, the study spans four periods, focusing on the global economic crisis of 2008, the Russian crisis of 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Standard generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), exponential GARCH (E-GARCH) and Glosten-Jagannathan-Runkle GARCH models were employed to analyse the data. Robustness was assessed using the Akaike information criterion, Schwarz information criterion and maximum log-likelihood criteria.

The study's findings show that the E-GARCH model is the best model for forecasting volatility in emerging nations. This is because the E-GARCH model is able to capture the asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks on volatility.

This unique study compares symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models for forecasting volatility in emerging nations, a novel approach not explored in prior research. The insights gained can aid investors in constructing more effective risk-adjusted international portfolios, offering a better understanding of stock market volatility to inform strategic investment decisions.

While in the past companies have voluntarily disclosed information beyond the financial bottom line, there is now a trend toward mandatory reporting in many countries. With the adoption of Directive 2014/95/EU, the European Union has taken a decisive step in this direction. However, research on the effects of these obligations is still at an early stage, particularly regarding Directive 2014/95/EU. Therefore, this paper aims to pursue the question of whether the directive has led to an improvement in reporting.

The authors analyzed the reporting of the EURO STOXX 50 companies before and after the directive entered into force. To evaluate the improvement, the authors assigned the individual Global Reporting Initiative indicators to the different information requirements of the directive.

Overall, the authors’ study revealed an improvement in reporting. However, this does not apply to all information categories. A significant improvement can be seen regarding the information on policies and due diligence, principal risk and non-financial key performance indicators. Institutional theory suggests that the observed improvements among these reporting-experienced companies can be understood as the result of coercive pressure triggered by the directive’s requirements.

The authors’ study contributes to the debate on the impact of non-financial reporting obligations by providing empirical insights into the effects of Directive 2014/95/EU. These insights can inform political and managerial decision-making, particularly in view of increasing reporting obligations.

Integrated reporting enhances the meaningfulness of non-financial information, but whether this enhancement is progressive or regressive from a sustainability perspective is unknown. This study aims to examine the influence of the Integrated Reporting (<IR>) Framework on the disclosure of financial- and impact-material sustainability-related information in integrated reports.

Using a disclosure index constructed from the Global Reporting Initiative’s G4 Guidelines and UN Sustainable Development Goals, the authors content analysed integrated reports of 40 companies from the International Integrated Reporting Council’s Pilot Programme Business Network published between 2015 and 2017. The content analysis distinguished between financial- and impact-material sustainability-related information.

The extent of sustainability-related disclosures in integrated reports remained more or less constant over the study period. Impact-material disclosures were more prominent than financial material ones. Impact-material disclosures mainly related to environmental aspects, while labour practices-related disclosures were predominantly financially material. The balance between financially- and impact-material sustainability-related disclosures varied based on factors such as industry environmental sensitivity and country-specific characteristics, such as the country’s legal system and development status.

The paper presents a unique disclosure index to distinguish between financially- and impact-material sustainability-related disclosures. Researchers can use this disclosure index to critically examine the nature of sustainability-related disclosure in corporate reports.

This study offers an in-depth understanding of the influence of non-financial reporting frameworks, such as the <IR> Framework that uses a financial materiality perspective, on sustainability reporting. The findings reveal that the practical implementation of the <IR> Framework resulted in sustainability reporting outcomes that deviated from theoretical expectations. Exploring the materiality concept that underscores sustainability-related disclosures by companies using the <IR> Framework is useful for predicting the effects of adopting the Sustainability Disclosure Standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board, which also emphasises financial materiality.

Despite an emphasis on financial materiality in the <IR> Framework, companies continue to offer substantial impact-material information, implying the potential for companies to balance both financial and broader societal concerns in their reporting.

While prior research has delved into the practices of regulated integrated reporting, especially in the unique context of South Africa, this study focuses on voluntary adoption, attributing observed practices to intrinsic company motivations. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to explicitly explore the nature of materiality in sustainability-related disclosure. The research also introduces a nuanced understanding of contextual factors influencing sustainability reporting.

This paper aims to evaluate the outcome effectiveness of the global reporting initiatives (GRI) transitions by understanding how companies have responded to the changes from G3.1 to G4 and finally to the GRI Standards.

A quality disclosure score is developed that incorporates assessments of both the quality of disclosures and the materiality of Australian companies. To analyse materiality, survey data were collected from 187 companies. Disclosure scores are based on a content analysis of the sustainability reports of 12 mining and metals companies and 12 financial services companies that used the GRI Standards from 2011 to 2019 (a total of 213 reports).

The study found that the GRI transitions have not led to companies improving the quality of their disclosures on areas considered important for them to achieve their social and environmental goals. Instead, the companies tended to use a greenwashing strategy, where the quality of disclosure of material issues declined or fluctuated over time.

From a practical perspective, the disclosure score developed in this paper enables managers of companies to recognize a threshold of completeness and to summarize the areas that are not materially relevant to their business.

The results are potentially helpful for investors, shareholders and other stakeholders, enabling them to better understand sustainability reports.

This study contributes to the body of research in sustainability reporting by providing evidence on the outcome effectiveness of the latest updates in the GRI framework.

This paper aims to comprehensively analyse the sustainability reporting practices of Australian electricity retailers in comparison with global sustainability reporting indicators outlined in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework.

Based on the GRI G4 sector-specific guidelines, the paper investigated Australian electricity retailers’ reporting in three broad areas of sustainability, namely, economic, environmental and social. The 2018/2019 annual reports along with websites, corporate social responsibility reports and standalone sustainability reports of the major electricity retailers listed on the Australian Energy Regulator were analysed and coded using a content-based technique.

The findings inform that electricity retailers’ disclosures are substantially varied between and within the three categories of sustainability reporting, and the majority of the retailers have failed to address over two-third of the GRI indicators. This study also shows that positive information is the dominant form of the disclosures, and reporting with declarative information without providing any quantifiable data is a common practice of the retailers who fail to address an indicator that requires information in numerical terms.

Electric utilities provide essential services to society and have a significant influence on sustainable development. This study contributes to the social disclosure literature, in particular in a developed countries energy sector context, and captures insights about the sustainability reporting and accountability behaviour of the major electricity retailers operating in Australia.

This paper aims to offer an overview of key aspects of the journey to develop the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Framework and Guidelines, focusing on the Materiality construct. It provides a practitioner’s perspective of several issues related to this construct.

This commentary is mainly based on publicly available technical documents, the analysis of papers related to the Materiality construct and a contextual review of the evolution of the main features of the GRI Guidelines and Standards.

This paper discusses the conundrum currently surrounding the Materiality construct and offers some reflections and suggestions about the challenges facing GRI.

Clarification of the Materiality construct could reduce confusion and eventually allow for clear identification and differentiation of the financial and sustainability accounting fields at their interface.

Language creates reality; an opportunity has arisen to bring appropriate and distinctive terminology to the sustainability reporting field, bridging the gap between competing logics.

This viewpoint is timely. It contributes a practitioner’s perspective to the current debate on the development of the Materiality construct.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability dimensions reported on the websites of public and private universities in Ghana, an emerging economy.

The universities in Ghana were categorized under public and private universities. The top five under each category were chosen (by Edu Rank’s ratings), and data was gathered from the websites of the sampled universities. Data analysis was conducted using Global Reporting Initiative (GRI-G4) framework and sustainability tools for campus assessment. Findings were then analyzed through stakeholder theory’s lens and organizational characteristics such as ownership, students’ acceptance ratios, performance, size and age.

This study’s results show that the key aspects of sustainability disclosed on the websites of the sampled private and public universities in Ghana are more of economic and campus sustainability assessment indicators than the social and environmental dimensions. Contrary to the popular notion that private sector organizations do more sustainability reporting than those in the public sector, in the case of Ghana, the sampled public universities reported more than the privately owned universities. This study attributes the extent and variations of sustainability reporting among the public and private Ghanaian universities to the universities’ characteristics such as students’ acceptance ratios, performance, size, ownership and age.

The findings from this study indicate that in improving the value of sustainability reporting, stakeholders of the educational sector in emerging economies should encourage universities to adopt the GRI-G4 framework and campus sustainability assessment indicators in disclosing their sustainability initiatives.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study to compare the extent and variations in sustainability reporting between public and private universities in an emerging economy.

Growing concern over sustainability adoption has presented an array of challenges to businesses. While vital to an economy's success, banking is not immune to societal, environmental and economic consequences of business practices. The study has examined the sustainable performance of banking institutions on the suggested multidimensional framework comprising economic, environmental, social, governance and financial dimensions and 52 sustainability indicators. The study benchmarks the significant performance indicators of leading banks indispensable to sustainable banking performance. The findings attempt to address research questions concerning the extent of sustainable banking performance, ranking the sustainability dimensions and indicators and standardizing sustainability adoption metrics.

To determine the responsiveness of the banking industry to sustainability dimensions, content analysis was conducted using NVivo software for the year 2021–2022. Furthermore, a hybrid multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is used by integrating entropy, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) to provide relative weights to performance indicators and prioritize banks based on their sustainable performance. Sensitivity analysis is used to ensure the robustness of results.

In the context of the Indian banking industry, the pattern of sustainability reporting is inconsistent and concentrated on addressing environmental and social concerns. The results of the entropy methodology prioritized “Environmental” sustainability over other selected dimensions while “Financial” dimension has been assigned the least priority in the ranking order. The significant sustainable performance indicators delineated in this study should be used as standards to ensure the accountability and credibility of the sustainable banking industry. Additionally, the research findings will provide valuable inputs to policymakers and regulators to assure better contribution of the banking sector in meeting sustainability goals.

Considering the paucity of studies on sustainable banking performance, this study makes two significant contributions to the literature. First, the suggested multidimensional disclosure model integrating financial and nonfinancial indicators would facilitate banking institutions in addressing the five aspects of sustainability. As one of the first studies in the context of the Indian banking industry, the findings would pave the way for better diffusion of sustainability practices. Second, the inclusion of MCDM techniques prioritizes the significance of sustainability indicators and benchmarks the performance of leading banks to achieve better profits and more substantial growth.

During the evaluation of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Aarhus 2017, the evaluation organisation rethinkIMPACTS 2017 formulated a set of “dilemmas” capturing the main challenges arising during the design of the ECoC evaluation. This functioned as a framework for the evaluation process. This paper aims to present and discuss the relevance of the “Evaluation Dilemmas Model” as subsequently applied to the Galway 2020 ECoC programme evaluation.

The paper takes an empirical approach including auto-ethnography and interview data to document and map the dilemmas involved in undertaking an evaluation in two different European cities. Evolved via a process of practice-based research, the article addresses the development of and the arguments for the dilemmas model and considers its potential for wider applicability in the evaluation of large-scale cultural projects.

The authors conclude that the “Evaluation Dilemmas Model” is a valuable heuristic for considering the endogenous and exogenous issues in cultural evaluation.

The model developed is useful for a wide range of cultural evaluation processes including – but not limited to – European Capitals of Culture.

What has not been addressed in the academic literature is the process of evaluating ECoCs; especially how evaluators often take part in an overall process that is not just about the evaluation but also planning and delivering a project that includes stakeholder management and the development of evaluation criteria, design and methods.