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The dissemination of misleading and false information through media can jeopardize a company’s reputation, thus posing a threat to its stock and performance. Institutional investors are known to influence capital markets. Therefore, this paper investigates whether institutional investors engage in shaping the media sentiment stock nexus, stabilize company stocks and enhance performance.

We first investigate the effect of media sentiment on market reactions by using panel regression models. To examine the role of institutional investors, we design a quasi-experiment by exploiting the Financial Crisis of 2008 and go further by examining the heterogeneity across levels of institutional ownership. Due to risk-averse, investors may respond asymmetrically to pessimistic and positive sentiment. Accordingly, we split the sample into two sub-types, good news and bad news, based on keywords representing positive or negative content.

We find supportive evidence that institutional investors have impacts on how the markets react to media news, and the impacts are heterogeneous in the face of bad and good news. We conjecture that institutional investors act as a stabilizer of stock prices through media sentiment management.

This paper confirms the distinctive effects of institutional investors on capital markets, and uncovers the behind-the-scenes intervention and possible causal link running from institutional investors to media sentiment management. It contributes to the broad field of institutional investors' behavior, media news involvement in capital markets and market efficiency.

Social procurement (SP) is a complicated and risky innovation, the adoption of which needs to be accompanied by complementary process and organizational change. To date, however, there has been little empirical evidence explaining whether and how different sorts of external pressures affect the level of SP adoption in the construction sector. Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to analyze how three types of isomorphic pressures (i.e. coercive, mimetic and normative pressures) influence the adoption of SP in the construction sector.

The impacts of these pressures are empirically tested with survey data collected from 134 construction firms in the Chinese construction industry.

The findings show that both coercive and mimetic pressures have a considerable impact on the adoption of SP. However, there is little evidence in this study that normative demands had a major impact on SP.

This research is a useful instrument for promoting a favorable social attitude regarding construction procurement. Through socioeconomic regeneration and development, procurement can be considered as a significant route for social transformation, economic development and poverty reduction.

This study addresses the paucity of research into SP in the construction industry by establishing the institutional drivers to procuring services and products from a social enterprise perspective. Findings from this study extend the frontiers of existing knowledge on SP in the construction industry.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

This paper aims to discuss the practical dilemmas of institutional change to tackle the climate crisis in a UK university, identifying key assumptions and issues that block meaningful change. The research was part of an initiative to define a theory of change (ToC) to meet the university’s institutional climate commitments.

The findings are based on interviews with members of an inter-disciplinary ToC working group, a staff–student climate coalition and student representatives at the university. Interviewees were purposively selected to gain insights into assumptions about the nature of the university and its role in tackling the climate crisis, which must be addressed for the university to effectively implement its climate plan.

This paper identified tensions between the university’s role as a public and commercial institution, a lack of clarity over decision-making processes and the difficulties in balancing (and being transparent about) actions with commitments to tackle the climate crisis. A democratic and flexible approach to change is essential to mitigate these issues, providing an opportunity to reflect on the diversity of the university community and openly debate goals and commitments.

In setting out the initial steps of a ToC in a UK university, this paper offers practical insights for higher education institutions looking to change practices. By highlighting assumptions at a particular institution, this paper also contributes a level of granularity to a growing field of research on efforts in higher education institutions to tackle the climate crisis.

President Trump's tenure was accompanied by a series of protectionist measures that intended to reinvigorate US-based production and make manufacturing supply chains more “local”. Amidst these increasing institutional pressures to localise, and the business uncertainty that ensued, this study investigates the extent to which manufacturers reconfigured their supply bases.

Bloomberg's Supply Chain Function (SPLC) is used to manually extract data about the direct suppliers of 30 of the largest American manufacturers in terms of market capitalisation. Overall, the raw data comprise 20,100 quantified buyer–supplier relationships that span seven years (2014–2020). The supply base dimensions of spatial complexity, spend concentration and buyer dependence are operationalised by applying appropriate aggregation functions on the raw data. The final dataset is a firm-year panel that is analysed using a random effect (RE) modelling approach and the conditional means of the three dimensions are plotted over time.

Over the studied timeframe, American manufacturers progressively reduced the spatial complexity of their supply bases and concentrated their purchase spend to fewer suppliers. Contrary to the aims of governmental policies, American manufacturers increased their dependence on foreign suppliers and reduced their dependence on local ones.

The research provides insights into the dynamics of manufacturing supply chains as they adapt to shifting institutional demands.

This study aims to examine how the effect of gender on entrepreneurial growth aspirations is moderated differently by individual resources (human and financial capital) compared to those within the social environment (availability of entrepreneurial knowledge and role models).

A multilevel estimator is used to investigate the determinants of growth aspirations of owners-managers of nascent start-ups. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database is employed, covering the period 2007–2019, with 99,000 useable cases drawn from 95 countries.

The results suggest that individual financial resources and human capital have positive effects on entrepreneurial growth aspirations; yet these effects are weaker for female entrepreneurs relative to males. In contrast, the impact of the availability of entrepreneurial social knowledge and role models on their growth aspirations is more positive than for male entrepreneurs.

This study offers a novel insight into entrepreneurial growth ambition, as it utilises a global perspective to scrutinise whether individual and social resources contribute differently to male versus female growth-aspirations, employing a multilevel approach. It also integrates insights from the resource-based view and from the relevant business literature on entrepreneurs’ gender to develop theoretical explanations.

This study aims to investigate the influence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) on the relationship between internal cash flow and external financing in an emerging market, Saudi Arabia. It also examines the role of asset tangibility and financial crisis in establishing this relationship.

The sample was taken from non-financial sector companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange between 2002 and 2019. The data were analyzed using panel data regression analysis, including ordinary least squares and fixed effects model. The author addresses potential endogeneity through the generalized method of moments.

This study found that both EPU and GPR reduce the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow. This implies that firms depend more on internally generated funds during periods of increased EPU and GPR. Besides, this study found that the influence of EPU and GPR on the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow is more (less) negative for more tangible firms (during the financial crisis period). This result implies that Saudi firms boasting a higher level of tangibility are more flexible when it comes to seeking external financing. However, the presence of uncertainty during the crisis period makes the external financing costly, and therefore, firms will be less likely to raise funds from external sources.

This study has important implications for managers, policymakers and regulators. First, the paper findings provide insights for corporate decision-makers in helping them to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during uncertain times. Second, the findings help managers to understand the role of asset tangibility in raising external funding when firms face financial constraints due to uncertainty. Third, this study also helps corporates to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during the crisis period because EPU and GPR increase the cost of external finance. Finally, the results provide guidelines for policymakers and regulators to make appropriate policy measures to increase the easy availability of external finance during periods of increased EPU and GPR.

This paper is the first to shed light on the impact of internal funds on external financing while paying close attention to the role of EPU and GPR.

This paper aims to examine the question, “How do firm-level, home-country and host-country environmental performance (EP) affect the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs)?”

The authors examine the relationships between EP and OFDI propensity and between EP and OFDI intensity using a sample of 359 Chinese firms in industries with a significant environmental footprint between 2009 and 2019 (2,002 firm-year observations) and a Heckman two-stage model.

This study shows that the propensity for OFDI by Chinese MNEs is significantly and positively related to the firm’s prior EP and the country-level EP of China. However, the amount of FDI invested is significantly and positively related to the firm’s prior EP and negatively related to the EP of the host country.

The findings suggest that FDI in a country by an MNE is determined by a combination of firm-level EP, home-country EP and host-country EP. This study finds that the decision to undertake FDI (propensity) and the decision about how much to invest (intensity) are determined by different factors. The propensity for FDI is determined by the home-country EP and firm-level EP. However, the intensity of FDI is determined by a combination of the host country EP and firm-level EP. A limitation is that this study only examines MNEs in China, so the findings may not apply to other countries.

This paper shows that MNEs’ EP is positively related to the propensity and intensity of their OFDI decisions. However, this paper shows that the home-country and host-country EP may also play an important role in determining the propensity or intensity of OFDI.

The authors revisit the traditional OLI paradigm with the objective to allocate politics within the set of internationalization advantages by building on the political strategy literature. The authors outline the specific role of political advantage that facilitates and propels the international expansion of state-owned multinational enterprises (SOMNEs) from emerging markets.

A conceptual paper which explains the role of political advantage in the internationalization of SOMNEs. The authors expand the scope of the OLI to capture the impact of firms' home governments' policies and relationships with host countries which are leveraged by SOMNEs in their internationalization.

The authors define political advantage as a new type of advantage which depends on and is sourced from external actors. The authors argue that P-advantage is a multifaceted and unstable part of POLI composition, which is contingent on political shifts and may be leveraged by various firms. The authors also assert that political capabilities have limitations in sustaining political advantage, which may be compensated via enhancing the political activity of firms.

The authors conceptualize the POLI-advantages paradigm for the internationalization of SOMNEs by proposing that in addition to the traditional ownership, location, and internalization advantages, firms can capitalize on their political advantage to enter markets where internationalization might have been difficult without their political connections.

The theory of managerial discretion and the direct insights it provides in the understanding of the varying impact strategic and operational actions have on organizational change and business fortunes is an area of research potential underexplored in the UK. This study aims to establish whether the measurement of managerial discretion is constant between the two similar societal corporate frameworks of the UK and the USA listed markets.

The extant managerial discretion ranking model, established in the USA, is empirically assessed for its validity and effectiveness across a sample of high- and low-discretion companies from the FTSE 350.

Using accounting measures, a clear and significant difference is established between UK high and low managerial discretion entities. The results prove to be significant in enabling the differential comparative analysis of the institutional characteristics of corporates.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study of this nature has been conducted previously in the UK context. While the original model developed in the USA is now several decades old, the UK results reflect similar industry rankings as found originally in the USA, subject to some differences considered to be a result of the changing nature of global business since the 1990s. This study opens a new seam of novel research, which has the potential to uncover, at a granular level, the differential mores and character of management ethics, styles and practices in such issues as organizational change, corporate culture, governance and social responsibility.