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This paper explores how the disclosure quality, measured by the abnormal tone of environmental and social report, may determine the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance of the firm. This study also investigates the impact of the moderator “board of directors” to explore the extent to which a well-balanced board of directors may affect this association within an impression management strategy.

This work uses a sample of 616 firm-year observations using a sample of French firms indexed on SBF120 index from 2010 to 2017. To test the developed hypotheses, the GLS regression is applied and to control for endogeneity issue and sample selection bias, the authors used, respectively, the two stage least square (2SLS) procedure and the Heckman model.

Findings suggest that a well-balanced board of directors moderates the relationship between the ESG performance and the disclosure quality. The positive effect of abnormal tone management on ESG is weakened by the presence of a good structure of the board, attenuating impression management initiatives.

The research provides evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting quality, in particular disclosure tone management, on the level of ESG performance in the French context. As the board of directors may have a major impact on weakening impression management strategies in particular tone management practices, in order to improve CSR report quality, the authors recommend French companies to ensure a well-balanced board of directors.

This study helps investors to comprehensively evaluate the information disclosed on CSR reports. It unveils that a strong board composition induces better quality of CSR report and brings better ESG performance. Thus, the study results point to the importance of a well-balanced board of directors and the regulation of the narrative disclosure of CSR information.

This study aims to investigate the impact of green marketing strategy (GMS) and firms’ decision to invest in or divest from green marketing activities during a crisis on business performance.

The study collected survey data from 245 Greek firms during the 2015 Eurozone crisis to investigate the impact of GMS and green marketing investments on firm resilience during crisis. Time-lagged, objective performance data for a subset of these firms helped examine the impact of GMS on postcrisis financial performance.

Pursuing a GMS builds resilience, especially for companies that decided not to reduce resources allocated to green marketing activities during a recession. Beyond resilience, firms investing in GMS during the crisis experienced improved financial performance in the long run. Finally, this research proposes a typology of GMS responses during a crisis.

This study does not specify which types of green marketing activities lead to more investment or divestment during a crisis.

The study offers insights for allocating resources to green marketing during recessions. Supporting GMSs during unpredictable times is important to successfully navigate performance both during and after a crisis. Six crisis response profiles are offered: green-nonbelievers, dis-investors, reluctants and cautious-, opportunistic- and strategic-green investors.

The study proposes a balanced approach to environmental sustainability, marketing strategy and firm performance during a crisis.

The study argues that GMSs enable firms to survive a crisis and recover from financial shocks.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores are becoming increasingly relevant in academic literature and the corporate world. This is partly because the themes covered by ESG scores are intended to resolve multiple major social and environmental issues. However, there is little consensus among academics about the definition of ESG scores and their measures. Many scholars have used ESG scores to represent various issues. The purpose of this study is to gather all definitions that were used by scholar when using ESG scores in their research.

This systematic literature review aims to identify how ESG scores are presented in the academic literature. A total of 4,145 articles were identified, of which 342 articles from influential peer-reviewed journals were retained.

In the articles, five different thematic definitions emerged in terms of how scholars have used ESG scores in their research: sustainability, corporate social responsibility, disclosure, finance and the analysis of ESG scores. Although some definitions are consistent with the methodologies of the agencies that produce ESG scores, others raise further questions. Caution is required when using ESG scores as a metric. They represent financial adjusted risk-return for some and are used to express business sustainability for others.

Only top-ranked journals were analyzed. In addition, only the key terms “ESG Score” and “ESG Scores” were used to gather all research papers.

Researchers could improve the accuracy of their results by developing specific methodologies that are closely related to the issues intended to be measured. The underlying variables composing the ESG scores could be used instead of the final score for more accurate environmental or social issues measurements.

This research shows that scholars use ESG scores to represent multiple issues that are not always captured by ESG scores’ official methodologies. ESG scores can express the overall performance of environmental and social issues, but they cannot be used to track specific underlying issues.

In the course of worldwide COVID-19, the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility (CSR) gained more importance and publicity. Many organizations made a significant contribution in dealing with the crisis situation and even increased their spending on the welfare activities. This study aims to evaluate the attitude of community, especially young generation, towards the CSR undertaken by the organization during the pandemic period.

Descriptive research design has been employed using purposive sampling for data collection through a structured questionnaire. A sample of 550 was taken, and pilot survey was conducted among 100 respondents before administering it at full scale. A model has been proposed and tested by using structural equation modelling in AMOS.

The results of the study show that compulsory provisions of CSR have enhanced the trust of community and made the organizations more responsive towards philanthropic, legal, ethical and economic responsibility. The respondents were found to be aware about the welfare activities carried out by the organizations and developed a positive attitude towards them.

First, the study is limited to examining the attitude of community towards CSR, especially young generation. Second, it is difficult to say whether outcomes of this study can be generalized for such other potential global crisis. Third, the study is based on the Carroll’s “CSR Pyramid” framework when other such frameworks and approaches could be available to analyse the impact of COVID-19-related CSR initiatives. Last, this study has been conducted only in the state of Maharashtra, and results may not be applicable to other states as well other countries.

The findings of the study may help the organizations to plan their activities in line with the amendments made time to time. This shall also help the regulating agencies to monitor and catch the wrongdoers and take appropriate action. Findings of such studies, based on public opinion, can also help the governments to make further amendments, time to time, in related acts. It can also be said that with the involvement of public/society, more transparency can be brought in the functioning of the organizations, especially in the context of CSR.

Earlier, most of the organizations were falsely recording the CSR expenditure in their balance sheets without actually spending it, but the amendment in act has made it compulsory for the organizations to follow it honestly. The pandemic period gave an opportunity to the society to evaluate the organizations on these parameters and to make their opinion about them in real time. Therefore, it is concluded that pandemic has created awareness in the society and significantly influenced their attitude about CSR activities. This shall also help the organizations feel a pressure in future while planning and implementing the activities under CSR.

The results of the study show contribution of the corporate towards social welfare during pandemic. The results would help the policymakers to monitor the execution of practices more closely and organizations to execute their strategies in a more effective manner.

Recent literature in the field of knowledge management (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 2021) asks for new, future-oriented approaches to strategy that allow us to deal with an increasingly complex world. Thus, this paper aims to build an approach to exploit aesthetics (human’s sensory perceptions and their felt meanings) to sense an organizations purpose and realize it by means of organizational strategy.

Conceptual paper, providing a new perspective on the perception of Organizational Purpose. The abductive argument follows Weick’s notion of Disciplined Imagination (Weick, 1989).

The main argument of this paper is that aesthetics contribute to the identification of organizational purpose. Thus, aesthetic perceptions can inform strategy to implement a stakeholders’ sense of purpose into strategy.

The argument presented is grounded in recent literature on the concepts of purpose and aesthetics and abductive in nature. Thus, empirical research to validate the argument would be beneficial and worthwhile to be undertaken.

The paper presents the idea to integrate the sense of organizational purpose into a corporate strategy to address stakeholders’ value expectations and build more sustainable organizations. By emphasizing aesthetics, the study takes a stand for the inclusion of nonrational knowledge in organizational decision-making.

As far as the author’s knowledge goes, the concepts of aesthetics and organizational purpose have not theoretically been connected to each other. However, due to the implicit nature of purpose, aesthetics may serve as the matching knowledge tool to work with organizational purpose.

This research aims to investigate how absorptive capacity impacts artisan businesses' innovation performance in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Additionally, the study examines the role of strategic orientation (customer and technological orientation) as a mediator.

The study analysed data from 408 artisan entrepreneurs using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The research model was built on the “Dynamic-Capability Theory” of absorptive capacity and the “Resource-Based Theory” of performance.

The study’s findings suggest that both realised and potential absorptive capacity positively and significantly impact innovation performance. Moreover, customer and technology orientations positively and strongly influence innovation performance. Additionally, potential and realised absorptive capacity has a favourable impact on customer and technology orientation. The mediation analysis results indicate that customer and technological orientation have complementary partial mediation between potential absorptive capacity and innovation performance. Finally, mediating variables like customer and technological orientation show complementary partial mediation for realised absorptive capacity.

The research model would enrich the existing literature and offer an improved understanding of how absorptive capacity enhances the innovation performance among artisan entrepreneurs and concurrently validates the theory of “Dynamic-Capability Theory” of absorptive capacity and the “Resource Based Theory” of innovation performance of a firm.

This study aims to understand the association between employee emotional capital, organizational commitment and implementation of the targeted sustainable development goals (SDGs) by businesses. It explores how the various emotional competencies possessed by employees of an organization and accumulated in the form of a capital, can be utilized to ensure effective pursuit of SDG implementation by businesses.

This study is based on extensive literature exploration to identify competencies crucial for SDG attainment by a business. The conceptual model built on the same is then tested by conducting a survey on working professionals. Subsequent statistical analysis is conducted to establish the relationship as defined in the theoretical model.

The results of our analysis indicate a relationship between organizational commitment and emotional capital of the employees. In line with our conceptual framework, the statistical analysis also corroborates to the idea that emotional capital can improve the SDG attainment by an organization by influencing the organizational commitment. This study also identifies the specific emotional competencies which can play an important role in this direction.

This study connects the dots to establish a micro-meso-macro framework which can facilitate active participation of individuals and the businesses in achieving the SDGs. This study presents strong managerial and academic implications by identifying specific intervention areas which can and be focused upon by managers and academicians to focus on SDG implementation.

This paper aims to clarify how business education has and should incorporate more resources, policies and stakeholder engagement towards the incorporation of sustainability, by conducting a literature review on sustainability in business and international business education and proposing future opportunities for researchers and practitioners.

The authors take a systematic, qualitative analysis approach to evaluate multidisciplinary literatures on sustainability in business education. The authors identify 192 qualifying papers published in 68 journals between 2015 and 2023.

The authors propose five categories of education solutions. Four of them are integrated, in two macro–micro levels: university (stakeholders and shared-mindset change) and student (pedagogical methods and curriculum); and one at meso level: international business (holistic integration) serving to unify the university and student levels.

The review highlights the value of applying a holistic approach and interdisciplinary pedagogical methods in future research on sustainability education in business school to effectively prepare future business leaders to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Insights from this review can usefully guide scholars and programme directors in their future research and administrative efforts towards business curriculum design, stakeholder management and policy-making.

The findings highlight how by embracing holistic perspectives, proper policies and self-awareness, business education shapes the mindsets and skill sets of the next generation of socially conscious practitioners.

The review stands out as one of the few that offers a forward-looking trajectory for the adaptation of international business education in response to sustainability challenges, through a holistic perspective.

This paper aims to document international evidence of the impact of a board-level governance bundle [size, independence, CEO duality, gender diversity and sustainability committee (SC)] on sustainability reporting (SR) and, separately, on its three dimensions (economic, environmental and social).

The sample includes 370 listed firms from 50 countries. A GRI standards-based disclosure index was constructed to quantify SR across various reporting media.

The baseline findings show that SC positively affects SR and its three dimensions. Board size also has a significant and positive impact on SR and two of its dimensions (economic and social). Similarly, board independence and CEO duality have a significant but negative association with SR and the same two dimensions. Finally, board gender diversity has no significant impact on SR and all its three dimensions.

The findings that only SC significantly influences SR, and its three dimensions, have important implications for corporate governance reforms internationally to improve SR in countries where such committees are not yet part of the board of directors’ sub-committees.

Overall, this study contributes to board characteristics–SR literature and holds significant theoretical and practical implications.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework that jointly considers Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and organisational resilience (OR) components to ameliorate organisations' understanding of sustainability’s overall requirements and related decision-making processes.

This paper combines ESG and OR through a 3x3 conceptual matrix, where ESG factors are listed along the vertical axis and OR components along the horizontal axis. This results in nine quadrants, which have been read according to two arrangements: (1) static, looking at the specific characteristics of each single quadrant, and (2) dynamic, investigating the relationships between the different quadrants according to the system theory (ST) lens.

The integration between ESG and OR results in nine organisational typologies, each characterised by a specific focus: (1) green visioning, (2) eco ethos, (3) climate guard, (4) inclusive strategy, (5) empathy ethos, (6) community shield, (7) ethical blueprint, (8) integrity ethos and (9) compliance guard. These typologies and related focuses determine the different strategic options of organisations, the decision-making emphasis concerning ESG factors and OR components and the organisation’s behaviour concerning its internal and external environment. According to ST, the nine typologies interact with each other, emphasising the existence of interconnectedness, interdependence and cascading effects between ESG and OR.

The paper represents a unique attempt to interrelate ESG factors and OR components according to a ST lens, emphasising the dynamic nature of their interactions and organisations’ need for continuous adaptation and learning to make decisions that create sustainable long-term value.