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This study aims to examine whether social initiatives adopted by firms lead to improved financial performance. The authors analyse the impact of different elements of social initiatives on wealth creation for firms in terms of operating and market performance.

The study is based on the social initiative scores of over 4,500 firms collected from Thomson Reuters' ESG database. The study uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) to analyse the relationship between social initiatives and firm performance.

Profitable, mature, capital intensive and firms with high sales growth rate tend to invest more in social initiatives. Firms with high agency costs invest in social initiatives for workforce efficiency, maintaining human rights and product responsibility. The study documents evidence that social investments are value creating mechanism for firms which leads to improved financial performance in terms of operating and stock market performance. Firms with high dividend intensity invest in social initiatives for workforce welfare and human rights initiatives. Investment in employee well-being and community initiatives results in intangible benefits such as improved stock market valuation.

The research model has not considered the impact of intervening variables to understand the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance.

Firms ought to recognize that social investment is beneficial in terms of value creation of firms as stock market perceive such investments favourably. Firms must focus more on community development initiatives and workforce initiatives for the value creation of firms compared to investments directed towards human rights initiatives and product responsibility initiatives.

This study focusses exclusively on the social dimension of the CSR activities. The authors examine the impact of social welfare scores on firm performance by analysing the valuation effects on scores representing workforce, human rights, community and product responsibility. Moreover, the paper also examines the impact of a new dimension of product responsibility on firm performance. They also focus on both aspects of financial performance in terms of operating performance (proxied by ROE) and the joint impact of both operating and market performance (proxied by Tobin’s Q). This paper contributes to the research on the linkage of social performance to financial performance by observing that firms with high agency cost characteristics tend to invest in social initiatives for work force efficiency, maintaining human rights and product responsibility.

This design case serves to identify barriers to implementing a micro-credential initiative and describes how the institution in the case addresses them to provide strategies and lessons learned to practitioners at other institutions of higher education who may be designing a micro-credential initiative.

This design case traces a systems approach to designing a centralized and sustainable university micro-credential initiative. Sources include historical documents from the original working group, email-documented community feedback, current initiative communications, participant report, and frequency counts of micro-credentials awarded. This data is used to recount the design process and key decisions that led to revisions, or iterations, of the initiative's design.

The institution has seen rapid growth in the awarding of micro-credentials. Lessons learned included the need for thoughtful inclusion of stakeholders, selective terminology, a well-communicated attitude of iteration, repurposing of established tools and processes, and on-going support of academic faculty.

Like any design case, this study is not generalizable.

This paper provides a unique empirical account of the design, development, and implementation of a micro-credential initiative that functioned in tandem with, rather than in conflict with, shared governance and academic traditions at a higher education institution.

This paper aims to understand how government support initiatives can enhance the international performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To address the gap of literature, this paper employed three theoretical lenses to examine both of direct and indirect relationships between two main constructs.

This empirical study is based on data collected from Armenian exporter SMEs. The data collection utilized a random sampling approach, resulting in 138 fully completed questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 28.4%, comparable to previous studies in international business research. This sample includes firms from three main sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and services, reflecting the structure of Armenia's international trade. Relationships were examined using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results of this study indicate that government support initiatives lack a direct impact on international performance, while positing instead an indirect connection between the two constructs through strategic capability and institutional pressures.

The results of this study contribute to the international business literature in several ways. First, it surpasses the conventional examination of government support on firm performance by delving into both the direct and indirect relationships between these constructs. Second, it reveals that not all theoretical viewpoints hold equal strategic importance in explaining the internationalization of SMEs. From the practical point of view, findings help policymakers to maximize a country's export capacity by implementing tailored initiatives, considering the unique requirements of SMEs.

While servitization has been recognised for its potential to augment organizational revenue and fortify competitive advantage, the exploration of alternative servitization trajectories to the classical servitization model has been little explored in literature. Recent literature introduces the “service paradox” and presents different trajectories to the classical model, but it does not explain why a company chooses one trajectory instead of another. Therefore, this study aims to provide a model that, based on the contextual factors present, recommends which servitization trajectory the company should choose.

This study uses a combination of design science research (DSR) and context, intervention, mechanisms and outcomes (CIMO) to propose the model. An initial contextual factors list was created based on the literature, refined by the company’s employees and evaluated in three selected initiatives in the focal company. Furthermore, based on the understanding of the CIMO logic elements, four design propositions were elaborated to summarize the main findings of the study.

The study has demonstrated that the choice of a servitisation trajectory is intricately tied to a multitude of contextual factors, prompting organisations to deviate from conventional models towards alternative paths. Furthermore, the research sheds light on the underlying mechanisms and contextual drivers that shape servitisation decisions within the context of a consumer goods manufacturer. The analysis underscores the pivotal role of market dynamics and strategic adaptability in shaping servitisation strategies, underscoring the importance of customized approaches that cater to the distinct circumstances of each organisations.

The research contributes to both theory and practice by offering profound insights into the complex nature of servitisation, advocating for continuous adaptation and strategic alignment with market demands. For practitioners and decision-makers, the study provides valuable guidance on enhancing service offerings and navigating the complexities of servitisation within specific sectors, fostering a culture of learning and adaptation to drive sustainable growth.

This paper examines how firms respond to local government’s environment initiatives through textual analysis of government work reports (GWRs). This study aims to provide insights into how firms strategically respond to government’s environmental initiatives through their disclosure and investment practices.

This study uses a textual analysis of GWRs from China’s provinces. The frequency and change rate of environmental keywords in these reports are used as a measure of the government’s environmental initiatives.

This study finds that environmental disclosure scores in environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports increase with the frequency or change rate of environmental keywords in provincial GWRs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms in highly marketized provinces or those listed in a single capital market. However, there is no significant relationship between firms’ environmental investments and government initiatives, except for cross-listed firms in provinces with consistently high frequency of environmental keywords in their GWRs.

The findings indicate that government environmental initiatives can shape firms’ disclosure behaviors, yet have limited influence on investment decisions, suggesting that environmental disclosure could potentially be opportunistic. This underscores the need for more effective strategies to stimulate firms’ environmental investments.

This study provides valuable insights into the differential impacts of government environmental initiatives on firms’ disclosure and investment behaviors, contributing to the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility in the context of government initiatives.

Despite the acknowledged significance of the relationship between audit fees and corporate philanthropic initiatives, the existing literature has not yet reached the desired level of providing explicit evidence on how this relationship can be moderated by board gender diversity. This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate by using a panel data set comprising 905 Chinese listed firms over a five-year period from 2015 to 2019.

To generate solid findings and overcome the potential endogeneity bias, various econometric estimators, namely, ordinary least squares, two-step generalized method of moments, robust two-stage least squares and subsample analysis, have been carefully used. More interestingly, the study’s results remain consistent across different estimation methods.

The results reveal a statistically significant positive link between audit fees and corporate charitable giving. More interestingly, this connection strengthens with a higher representation of women directors on the board, particularly when there are three or more female directors. Furthermore, the results suggest that nonstate-owned firms exhibit greater motivation to participate in charitable giving initiatives compared to state-owned counterparts.

Stakeholders from various groups should attentively recognize the importance of gender-diverse boards as a dynamic factor impacting the association between audit fees and corporate charitable giving.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the crushing majority of the preceding research has not delved deeply into the critical role of board gender diversity in the relationship between audit fees and corporate charitable donations. Hence, this study provides a profound understanding of how audit fees predict corporate philanthropic initiatives.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what sustainability initiatives are being implemented by Canadian independent restaurants and to determine if the initiatives represent all 10 categories of a sustainable restaurant as established by a sustainability initiative framework.

The study uses a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with 15 small to medium enterprise (SME), independent restaurant owners and operators across Canada. The data was digitally transcribed and thematic analysis was performed.

Results indicated that most initiatives aligned with the categories of “sustainable food/menu” and “waste reduction and disposables” which shows that the operators were inclined to pursue initiatives in customer view. Restaurants put limited focus on water supply, chemicals and pollution reduction, furniture and construction materials. Some of the barriers to implementing, measuring and learning about initiatives were: cost, lack of access to programs, supply chain complications, not having buy-in from owners and lack of time to implement.

The study recommends that governments provide incentives to implement sustainability initiatives that are out of sight to the customer. For example, implementing composting, energy efficient equipment and water saving processes. It is also recommended that third-party restaurant organizations provide more accurate, evidence-based guidance and education on implementing a wide-range of sustainability initiatives.

This research contributes to the literature on sustainability in restaurants and applies a sustainability initiative framework in a practical context. The study provides a unique assessment of the current state of restaurant sustainability and states where restaurants need to improve their efforts.

This study addresses a central research question: Does employees' personal initiative, with a benevolent political will, lead to career growth prospects in a work environment replete with perceived organizational politics? Drawing upon self-determination, signalling, and social cognitive theories, the authors examine how perceptions of organizational politics operate to limit the influence of benevolent political will – induced personal initiative on career growth prospects.

This research adopts a quantitative research design. This multi-wave, multi-sample and multi-source investigation includes 730 subordinate-supervisor dyads from India's information technology, education and manufacturing companies. The sample comprises 236 full-time faculty members from higher educational institutions and 496 mid-level managers from technical and service departments of information technology and manufacturing companies.

The results indicate that benevolent political will is significantly related to career growth prospects. In addition, perceptions of organizational politics shows a crossover interaction effect. The findings reveal that the indirect relationship between benevolent political will and career growth prospects changed significantly from those with a low perception of organizational politics to significantly negative among those perceiving organizational politics as high.

This study provides several implications for practice regarding personal initiative, benevolent political will and perceptions of organizational politics.

The significant contributions of this study are to provide new insights into the relationship between benevolent political will and career growth prospects and to unravel the paradoxical nature of the personal initiative phenomenon.

Customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking may present an effective solution for assisting other customers in avoiding harmful brands. Accordingly, this study aims to propose a model explaining the role of positive psychological capital (self-efficacy and optimism) in influencing customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking. The study additionally provides greater clarity regarding the moderating effect of emotional self-control within the suggested model.

Survey data were collected from 256 respondents in South Africa, who reported on their perceptions and the degree to which they engage in proactive helping behaviours to assist other customers in avoiding harmful brands. Hypotheses were tested using regression analysis.

General self-efficacy and social optimism influence customers’ proactive helping behaviours. Emotional self-control moderates the indirect effect of general self-efficacy on customers’ proactive helping behaviours through social optimism.

Greater insight is obtained into the interplay between factors representing a positive psychological state and self-control of negative emotions and these factors’ effect on customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking.

The research extends knowledge of proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking to assist other customers in avoiding harmful brands and subsequently provides a baseline for further research in this regards. Practically, the research is useful to social agents of society concerned with promoting responsible purchasing practices.

This chapter offers a case study (Yin, 2018) of Super Bowl LIII as a special opportunity for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives for arts organizations. It uses mega-event legacy theory (Preuss, 2015) to frame the outcomes as legacies. The Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee created a specific initiative entitled Legacy 53. The Legacy 53 initiative consists of five pillars: Business Connection, Capital Improvement Project, Civil Rights and Social Justice, Sustainability, and Youth Engagement (Reed, 2018). This study offers a particular perspective on DEI structures because it examines the Civil Rights and Social Justice pillar's public art project that involved community-driven installations across Atlanta with partners including WonderRoot, an arts organization. The project highlights how administrators can prepare for and take advantage of this unique funding opportunity during future Super Bowls. By reviewing literature on mega-events, urban development, the Olympics, and Super Bowls, I examine the funding structure of the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee and investigate how arts organizations relate to DEI initiatives. This work addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting funding with a focus related to systemic justice because it is a unique approach that does not reflect historical Super Bowl funding trends.