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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000) – which is considered the most important ethical certification standard – and firm performance, building on agency and contingency theories.

The authors analyse secondary longitudinal balance sheet data of listed firms employing a rigorous event-study approach and compare SA8000-certified companies to different control groups based on three matching criteria, i.e., industry, size, and pre-certification performance. The authors then study the moderating effects of the cultural features, the country’s development level, and the labour intensity on the causal relationship through multiple regression methods.

The authors find that SA8000 certification positively affects labour productivity and sales performance but has no effect on profitability. Furthermore, the study supports that the relationship between SA8000 and profitability is moderated by two cultural features of the home country of the firms (i.e. power distance and uncertainty avoidance).

This is the first study, which empirically tests the effects of the ethical certification SA8000 on firm performance using a cross-country sample. In addition, the authors contribute to the wider debate on the effects of corporate social responsibility practices on firm performance.

This study aims at investigating the extent to which Egyptian universities disclose information on social responsibility to different stakeholders, which leads to the enhancement of sustainable development.

An index of social responsibility that fits the Egyptian universities is established, comprising four dimensions: organizational governance, energy and environment resource sustainability, human resource development and community participation and community development. This index has been used to score the disclosure level of social responsibility of Egyptian universities. This study uses information available on websites of Egyptian universities as of the end of December 2018. Frequencies provide the basis for discussion.

The results reveal that the level of disclosure of universities on social responsibility is low, but, in favor of private universities vs public universities. At the university level, only a few numbers of public universities disclosed high volume of information on social responsibility, such as Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Alexandria University and Assiut University. Furthermore, the results manifest that public universities disclose higher level of information related to organizational governance, energy and environment resource sustainability and community participation and community development, whereas, private universities disclose higher level of information related to human resource development.

The results are constrained with the social responsibility dimensions and attributes used to establish a disclosure index that fits Egyptian universities, as well as the information disclosed on universities websites.

This study provides insights to Egyptian higher education regulators and the rectors of Egyptian universities that may help in planning and monitoring social responsibility activities in a way that could lead to sustainable development.

Nearly half of the surveyed SMEs in Poland admitted that there is a very strong competition on the market where they operate. Among the neuralgic factors they point to the lack of qualified employees (PARP, 2021). Companies can use CSR policies to attract competent employees and retain valuable ones. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to find out whether, according to employees working in SME companies, an active CSR policy influences their employment-related decisions.

The data were collected through questionnaires received from 618 employees of 29 SMEs in Poland through questionnaires, which were analyzed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Microsoft Excel 2019.

The survey results provide evidence that CSR activities are an important factor in employees' decisions about potential employment and/or continued employment. In particular, the results show that almost all areas of CSR, except cooperation with the local communities, are important to employees. The survey also provides a clear answer as to which CSR initiatives benefiting employees of SME companies are the most important for them.

The conducted research fills a gap in CSR related studies on the SME sector in Poland. This is important, given the significant share of SME sector companies in the market in Poland and around the world.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards are amongst the most widely adopted instruments for supporting firms in becoming more accountable, firms who adopt them frequently fail to comply. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore to what extent CSR standards are designed for accountability. In the analysis, this paper investigates design characteristics related to accountability across different standard types, namely, principle-based, reporting, certification and process standards.

This study reviews the design characteristics of 50 CSR standards in a systematic and comparative fashion. This paper combines qualitative deductive coding with exploratory quantitative analyses methods to elucidate structural variance and patterns of accountability-related design characteristics across the sample.

This study finds that the prevalence of design characteristics aimed at fostering accountability varies significantly between different types of standards. This paper identifies three factors related to the specific purpose of any given standard that explain this structural variation in design characteristics, namely, implementability, comparability and measurability.

Non-compliance limits the effectiveness and legitimacy of CSR standards. The systematic exploration of patterns and structural variation in design characteristics that promote accountability may provide valuable clues for the design of more effective CSR standards in the future.

Better understanding the role of design characteristics of CSR standards is critical to ensure they contribute to greater corporate accountability.

This study strives to expand the current understanding of the design characteristics of CSR standards beyond individual cases through a systematic exploration of accountability-related design characteristics across a larger sample.

The lack of transparency contributes to the growing corruption problem in various spheres of society. This paper aims to analyse the sustainability report disclosures published by Czech companies in 2021 and registered by the Association of Social Sustainability of the Czech Republic.

Based on three hypotheses, the relationships between the level of disclosed anti-corruption information and selected variables related to the corporate environment are tested using content analysis and the Mann–Whitney test.

This paper reveals that Czech firms provide more information if they operate in a higher-risk environment (energy, materials and financial services) or are state-owned (or with a state ownership stake). It also reveals that companies participating in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives (UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative) increase their credibility and social responsibility with more disclosed information.

A limitation of this paper is the smaller number of selected companies matching the chosen criteria. In addition, a certain degree of subjectivity is likely to have manifested in the process of coding the reports and in the use of the content analysis method.

The paper contributes to research that addresses the fight against corruption and CSR issues with a specific study in a small, Central European country and provides new empirical data on the anti-corruption fight problem.