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The purpose of this paper is to develop a multistakeholder scale for assessing an excellent human resource (HR) function to demonstrate the extent to which it is focused on creating value from the perspective of its key internal and external stakeholders.

At the first stage, an in-depth literature review was conducted to extract the best practices for an excellent HR function. Then, to test the validation of the developed framework, it was sent to HR academics and practitioners in different countries. The survey responses were analyzed using the methods of the structural equation modeling (SEM) and confirmatory factorial analysis.

This study proposes an excellent HR multistakeholder assessment scale consisting of ten criteria based on the perceptions of internal and external HR stakeholders.

This study suggests a framework for assessing overall HR excellence based on the perceptions of key internal and external HR stakeholders. In addition, it is recommended that future researchers empirically test the developed scale across various industries and firm sizes.

HR managers, by using this framework, could continuously assess their HR excellence and compare their HR excellence with other companies’ HR excellence in the industry and then plan for continuous improvement in different HR areas to improve their stakeholders’ experiences.

This paper identifies the enablers and results of an excellent HR department and designs a multistakeholder feedback scale to better understand key internal and external HR stakeholders’ perceptions.

The green building (GB) market is maturing after years of practice; therefore, incentives for promoting GB should be adapted to reflect the market transformation. Adapting incentives can positively influence stakeholders' motives, which in turn change stakeholders' behavioural intention towards GBs. Hence, this study aims to examine the parameters influencing the decision to adopt GB and to ascertain how incentive mechanisms promote the uptake of GB in South Africa.

Using a scoping literature review and a sequential mixed research method, primary data were acquired from GB experts in four South African provinces. In analysing the quantitative data, the factors were ranked hierarchically using the mean ranking technique and factor analysis was computed to identify the underlying GB incentives. The qualitative data were analysed using content analysis.

The results indicate that incentive payment from a utility energy efficiency programme, rebates and discounts relating to environmentally friendly materials and products and providing grants to homeowners and developers to go towards certification were the most essential monetary incentives for promoting GB. In the category of non-monetary incentives, recognition of consultant team members and developers and free marketing/good publicity were the most important incentives. The incentive mechanisms were subsequently categorised as “Economic incentives” and “Reward scheme and technical support”.

This study was confined to four metropolitan areas in South Africa. Nevertheless, the outcomes have practical implications for GB projects in general and may serve as a good reference for other provinces in South Africa.

The findings of the study are a valuable resource for stakeholders such as the government, municipal assemblies, professional bodies and the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) in developing effective incentive mechanisms to promote GB adoption. This study adds to the body of knowledge relevant to GB incentivisation in South Africa.

Drawing insights from institutional theory, this paper aims to examine whether and to what extent banks have reconfigured their management control systems (MCSs) in response to growing institutional pressures towards sustainability, understood as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

The authors conducted an exploratory study at the three largest Italian banking groups to shed light on changes made in MCSs to account for ESG issues. The analysis is based on 12 semi-structured interviews with managers from the sustainability and controls areas, as well as from other relevant operational areas particularly concerned with the integration process of ESG issues. Additionally, secondary data sources were used. The Malmi and Brown (2008) MCS framework, consisting of a package of five types of formal and informal control mechanisms, was used to structure and analyse the empirical data.

The examined banks widely implemented numerous changes to their MCSs as a response to the heightened sustainability pressures from regulatory bodies and stakeholders. In particular, with the exception of action planning, the results show an extensive integration of ESG issues into the five control mechanisms of Malmi and Brown’s framework, namely, long-term planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and cultural controls.

By identifying the approaches banks followed in reconfiguring traditional MCSs, this research sheds light on how adequate MCSs can promote banks’ “sustainable behaviours”. The results can, thus, contribute to defining best practices on how MCSs can be redesigned to support the integration of ESG issues into the banks’ way of doing business.

Overall, the findings support the theoretical assertion that institutional pressures influence the design of banks’ MCSs, and that both formal and informal controls are necessary to ensure a real engagement towards sustainability. More specifically, this study reveals that MCSs, by encompassing both formal and informal controls, are central to enabling banks to appropriately understand, plan and control the transition towards business models fully oriented to the integration of ESG issues. Thereby, this allows banks to effectively respond to the increased stakeholder demands around ESG concerns.

Excessive borrowing significantly contributes to pushing businesses towards default and their transition into zombie enterprises. Despite government efforts to implement deleveraging policies and guide bank credit flows, it’s essential to delve into the internal dynamics that steer the borrowing behavior of these zombie enterprises at a micro level. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the issue, this study focuses on examining the incentives that drive corporate executives of zombie enterprises to consistently engage in large-scale borrowing from banks.

In this study, panel data analysis is utilized, incorporating firm-, industry- and year-fixed effects. Drawing from data pertaining to listed companies in China spanning from 2007 to 2020, we employ a one-by-one identification method to pinpoint zombie enterprises. Ultimately, a total of 2,533 samples of zombie enterprises were obtained.

The results indicate that as bank loans to zombie enterprises increase, executive monetary compensation decreases, while on-the-job consumption by executives increases, and they are less likely to be forced into rotation. Mechanism testing reveals that corporate performance partially mediates the relationship between bank loans and executive monetary compensation, but this mediation is ineffective for on-the-job consumption and job rotation. Further investigation suggests that the property rights nature of central enterprises and modified audit opinions can exacerbate the adverse impact of bank loans on the monetary compensation of zombie corporate executives, without significantly affecting on-the-job consumption or job rotation. Conversely, executive power does not enhance the positive effects of bank loans on monetary compensation or on-the-job consumption, but it diminishes the negative impact of bank loans on the forced rotation of zombie executives.

These results indicate that while bank loans may have a negative impact on corporate value, they function as safeguards for the positions and interests of executives. As a result, bank loans serve as incentives for executives of zombie enterprises.

This study holds theoretical significance as it explores the motivations behind non-performing loans in high-borrowing enterprises, sheds light on corporate governance challenges encountered by zombie enterprises and provides policy insights aimed at addressing the underlying causes of persistent non-performing loans in high-borrowing enterprises, including zombie enterprises.

This study investigates theoretical relationships among personality characteristics, preferences for different types of rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing by management-related higher education students. Specifically, the authors consider motivation, locus of control (internal and external) and self-efficacy (SE) as personality characteristics and financial, extrinsic, support and intrinsic as types of rewards.

Data were collected through a questionnaire targeted at management-related higher education students in Portugal. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The full sample results show that different types of motivation, locus of control and SE are related to different reward preferences. The authors also find a positive association between a preference for extrinsic rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing. Moreover, when the authors consider the role of working experience in the model, the authors find that the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing job differ according to that experience.

This study enriches the literature by assessing preferences for different types of rewards, considering multiple personality characteristics and a comprehensive set of rewards. Furthermore, the authors identify the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing career. This knowledge empowers auditing firms to devise recruitment strategies that resonate with candidates’ preferences, which boosts the capacity of these companies to attract new auditors.

The aim of this study is to empirically explore and analyze the concrete tasks of output measurement and the inherent challenges related to these tasks in a traditional and autonomous professional public work setting – the judicial system.

The analysis of the tasks is based on a categorization of general performance measurement motives (control-motivate-learn) and main stakeholder levels (society-organization-professionals). The analysis is exploratory and conducted as an empirical content analysis on materials and reports produced in two performance improvement projects conducted in European justice organizations.

The identified main tasks in the different categories are related to managing resources, controlling performance deviations, and encouraging improvement and development of performance. Based on the results, key improvement areas connected to output measurement in professional public organizations are connected to the improvement of objectivity and fairness in budgeting and work allocation practices, improvement of output measures' versatility and informativeness to highlight motivational and learning purposes, improvement of professional self-management in setting output targets and producing outputs, as well as improvement of organizational learning from the output measurement.

The paper presents empirically founded practical examples of challenges and improvement opportunities related to the tasks of output measurement in professional public organization.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how general performance management motives realize as concrete tasks of output measurement in justice organizations.

Given the serious question raised by the subprime of the 2008 global financial crisis over the rising practices of excessive rewarding of executives in the USA and European firms, the executive pay-performance nexus has emerged as a popular topic of debate in the contemporary corporate finance research. Conducted mostly on the Anglo-Saxon contexts, research outcomes have been inconclusive and dichotomous. Considering this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the endogenous relationship between executive compensation and risk taking in the context of the USA.

Using a large sample of non-financial firms from 2010 to 2020 based on panel data and two-stage least square regression. In this study, the riskier corporate decision is measured as book leverage and ratio of R&D expense to total assets. Chief executive officers’ (CEO) experience and age are used as instrumental variables, and these are expected to influence compensation incentives and, hence, affect firm riskiness indirectly. Firm size, return on assets and CEO turnover are reported to affect compensation and corporate decisions, therefore, included as control variables. Given that higher executive compensation is related to riskier corporate decision in firms, this study incorporates total wealth (i.e. accumulated equity related compensation) as an additional proxy of compensation, and this selection is justifiable by the perfect contracting notion of the agency theory.

The results of this study show a significant positive and increasing nexus among compensation and riskier corporate decisions. Besides, the compensation level proxied through the percentage of each form of compensation in total compensation is very important as greater equity and greater salary diminishes risk taking.

The outcomes of this study have useful implications for firm stakeholders and policymakers.

The level of pay measured by the percentage of each type of compensation in total compensation is of utmost importance as it can increase or decrease risk taking in corporate decisions.

Based on stakeholder, agency and institutional theory, this study aims to examine the role of institutional ownership in the relationship between environmental, social and governance practices and CEO compensation.

Utilizing a fixed-effect panel regression analysis, this research utilized a panel data approach, analyzing data spanning from 2014 to 2021, focusing on US companies listed on the S&P500 stock market index. The dataset encompassed 219 companies, leading to a total of 1,533 observations.

The analysis identified that environmental scores significantly impact CEO equity-linked compensation, unlike social and governance scores. Additionally, it was found that institutional ownership acts as a moderating factor in the relationship between the environmental score and CEO equity-linked compensation, as well as the association between the social score and CEO equity-linked compensation. Interestingly, the direction of these moderating effects varied between the two relationships, suggesting a nuanced role of institutional ownership.

This research makes a unique contribution to the field of corporate governance by exploring the relatively understudied area of institutional ownership's influence on the ESG practices–CEO compensation nexus.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the areas and logic of integration of different stakeholders using different methods and to analyse their applicability and challenges in practical projects. The main aim is to describe how these different methods impact value creation.

Action design research was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the second author acted as an “outside researcher”. Two workshops were organised to evaluate the direct and indirect challenges and benefits of the applied four methods and to explain how different methods enable value creation.

All the studied methods provide good results in terms of usability and commitment to the aims of the project, thus delivering the direct benefits expected. Process, people and tools logic works well in this case project when applying the methods properly. Significant evidence was provided on secondary deliverables of the methods, and all analysed methods had a significant impact in the area of leading people, clarifying what “focus on people” means and how it is enabled.

Focus on people can be achieved through different operative methods if applied in the right way. It is necessary to select the most suitable methods based on all the direct and indirect deliverables.

This case project offered a platform to analyse integration methods in a real-life project using the collaborative contract method. The authors were able to participate in the analysis by taking action from the very beginning of the project in terms of training, learning, continuous development and coaching of these methods and evaluating the applicability.

This study aims to explore how the three types of human resource (HR) practices, encapsulated in the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) model, foster a learning organizational culture (LOC). In doing so, the authors evaluate the centrality of knowledge sharing (KS) in mediating this relationship.

A quantitative survey is undertaken to collect data from managers working in organizations operating in the UK. The authors use several statistical techniques to assess the psychometric properties of the measures and test the hypotheses using multiple regression executed with Preacher and Hayes’ Process macro.

The findings show that the AMO HR practices significantly facilitate the development of a LOC in the workplace, and KS among organizational members amplifies the effects of these HR practices in the process.

A LOC functions as an important source of organizational performance and effectiveness. It enhances the absorptive capacity of the organization to capture, share and transfer knowledge to optimize work. Hence, developing a culture that nurtures organizational learning could be a priority for managing HR. This study, therefore, extends the understanding of the role of AMO HR practices in fostering a learning culture – thus, providing managers with the essential knowledge to improve performance. The study also enriches the literature on HR practices, KS and LOC by integrating these three variables into a unifying framework.