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Based on a set of complementary theories, namely, the legitimacy, stakeholder and signaling theories, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the visibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures on bank websites. In particular, we explored the accessibility, placement, reporting format, extent and content of online CSR information. This paper also examined the effect of size, being listed, ownership structure and the internationalization of banks on online CSR reporting.

A sample consisting of 20 banks was used where the data were manually collected from the websites of various banks during the fourth quarter of 2017. Three reporting formats were explored: information posted directly on the website, information contained in a separate CSR report and information within a management commentary or annual report or integrated report. Content analysis was used to measure the level of online CSR disclosures in four sub-dimensions: environment, human resources, products and customers and community involvement. The sample was grouped according to the criteria of size, being listed, ownership structure and internationality. Non-parametric statistics were used to analyze some factors that influence CSR disclosure, namely, size, public ownership, internationalization and foreign ownership.

The results indicate that accessibility to CSR information is relatively good. The placement of CSR information on websites varies among banks. Moreover, community involvement was the most disclosed dimension on the banks’ websites. There was a lack of disclosure on items regarding the environment. Furthermore, the findings of this paper showed that significant determinants for explaining online CSR disclosure level were size and being listed.

This study contributes to the literature by examining the online CSR disclosure practices of banks from an emerging market with a different socio-economic context and regulations compared to the developed market.

This research paper aims to investigate the internationalization and visibility of Iranian scientific journals covered by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) between 2000 and 2006.

A total of 1,298 articles published in seven Iranian ISI journals and a random sample of 1,298 articles written by Iranians and published in non‐Iranian ISI journals between 2000 and 2006 were selected. Impact factor (IF), total citation (TC), citation rates, self‐citation, foreign citation, international citation (IC), international authorship, and subject distribution were analyzes for the collections.

Results indicated that: the visibility rate of Iranian journals is low compared to their international counterparts; the international visibility of Iranian journals differs among disciplines; the increasing citation rate is less than the increase in publication rate; and the majority of authors who published in these journals were Iranian.

Mere inclusion of scientific journals in the ISI does not necessarily lead to an increase in international visibility. The study highlights the need for more studies on the techniques to increase the visibility of scientific journals of the developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to review a synthesis of theories and empirical studies dealing with the adoption of and compliance with IFRS in developing countries in an attempt to provide directions for future research.

The review focusses on four main streams including: first, the motives for IFRS adoption; second, corporate characteristics and the degree of compliance with IFRS; third, the economic consequences of IFRS adoption and finally; fourth, the use of regulation as an enforcement mechanism to monitor compliance with IFRS. The authors review empirical studies specifically devoted to developing countries.

Regarding the first stream relating to IFRS adoption, the macroeconomic decision of adopting IFRS in developing countries can be justified by two main theories which are: the economic theory of network (Katz and Shapiro, 1985) and isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991), however, empirical evidence in developing countries to confirm these theories is limited. Regarding the second stream relating to corporate characteristics and the degree of compliance with IFRS, the authors find that the results are mixed. Regarding the third stream relating to the economic consequences of IFRS adoption, it seems that the evidence is still limited in developing countries especially with respect to the impact of IFRS adoption on foreign direct investment, cost of equity capital and earnings management. Regarding the fourth and final stream in relation to regulation, enforcement and compliance with IFRS, the authors find that research is very limited. It was evidenced in the very few research studies conducted, that global disclosure standards are optimal only if compliance is monitored and enforced by efficient institutions.

The author’s study attempts to provide a foundational knowledge resource that will inform practitioners, researchers and regulators in developing countries about the relevance of the different theories that exist in the accounting literature to explain the adoption of and compliance with IFRS.

Compared to developed countries, the four streams outlined remain under-researched in developing countries. Therefore, researchers should examine these topics in developing countries to inform practitioners, regulators and the capital market about the effects of adopting IFRS and their relevance to developing countries. In addition, researchers should embark on identifying new theories to explain the adoption of and compliance with IFRS in developing countries that take into consideration the socioeconomic culture of these settings.

The purpose of this paper is to present a vision for the future development of Kybernetes under a new editorship.

The new Editors are introduced, the strengths and history of the journal reviewed, and plans for its future development described.

The future of Kybernetes will build on its long and distinguished heritage, noting especially the strengths of interdisplinarity, internationality, and strong links with major cybernetic societies across the world. While maintaining these strengths, the new Editors will seek to develop further the conversations between diverse fields contributing to the journal and to bring a new emphasis to the interdisciplinary study of information, to studies of the social implications of cybernetics and related fields, and to profiles of thinkers in cybernetics, systems and management science.

This is only the second time that there has been a change of editor in the more than 40 years that Kybernetes has been published. The journal (and the whole field of cybernetics and systems) owes the past editors a great debt of thanks for their outstanding work, but the time has come for change. This paper starts to identify new directions under the new Editors.

Scholars from developing countries have limited access to research publications due to expensive subscription costs. However, the open access movement is challenging the constraint to access. Consequently, researchers in developing countries are often mentioned as major recipients of the benefits when advocating open access (OA). One of the implications of that argument is that authors from developing countries are more likely to perceive open access positively than authors from developed countries. The present study aims to investigate the use of open access by researchers from developing countries and is thus a supplement to the existing author surveys and interviews.

Bibliometric analyses of both publishing behaviour and citing behaviour in relation to OA publishing provides evidence of the impact of open access on developing countries.

The results of the multivariate linear regression show that open access journals are not characterised by a different composition of authors from the traditional toll access journals. Furthermore, the results show that authors from developing countries do not cite open access more than authors from developed countries.

The paper argues that authors from developing countries are not attracted to open access more than authors from developed countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and quality of online intellectual capital (IC) disclosure released via websites and social media in relation to university stakeholders’ information needs in Spanish public universities. In addition, this paper examines whether there are differences in the online IC disclosure according to the type of university.

The study applies content analysis and a survey. The content analysis was used to analyse the websites and social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram) of all Spanish public universities in the year 2019, whereas the survey was submitted to all members of the Social Councils of Spanish public universities.

The findings indicate that university stakeholders attach great importance to online disclosure of specific information about IC. However, the findings emphasise that Spanish universities’ website and social media content are still in their infancy. Specifically, this study found that the quality of disclosed information on IC in public universities’ websites is of low level, particularly with regard to the disclosure of relational capital. The study found that the information provided by Spanish public universities via social media mainly concerns the structural and relational capital. Likewise, the results of this paper evidence that the larger and more internationally focused universities reveal more online information on IC.

The results of the research may be beneficial for managers of higher education institutions as a basis for developing adequate strategies addressing IC disclosure through the websites. In order to satisfy the information needs of university stakeholders, Spanish universities can be recommended to focus on reporting higher-quality information on financial relations, students’ satisfaction, quality standard, work-related knowledge/know-how and collaboration between universities and other organisations such as firms, local government and society as a whole.

This study explores two innovative tools to provide IC disclosure in the higher education institutions context, namely, websites and social media, whereas previous studies focused on traditional tools as annual report. Likewise, this study considers the quality of this information.

For many companies their most valuable assets are their brands, but until recently no reliable, objective methodology has existed for the analysis, evaluation and measurement of a brand and its performance. The last few years, however, have seen a burgeoning interest in brands and branding, as evidenced by the vast premiums which are being paid for brand portfolios and the current high level of interest in brand evaluation for strategic planning purposes. The phenomenon of brand evaluation is examined and the many different uses to which brand evaluation is now being put are reviewed.

This research investigates the effect of mergers and acquisition (M&A) transactions in the pharmaceutical sector. The study assesses the short-term value creation or destruction for shareholders of pharmaceutical companies involved in M&A activities on the acquiring side.

The empirical analysis is carried out by applying the event study methodology in order to define the cumulative abnormal return for each transaction observed. Then, the correlations between abnormal returns and economic metrics are determined building a multiple regression model. These metrics refers to the acquirer, target or to the deal itself.

Evidence show a short-term value creation for shareholders of pharmaceutical companies involved in M&A transactions on the acquiring side. On the one hand, the analysis suggests a negative correlation between the value creation and the acquiring firm's level of indebtedness. On the other hand, the value creation is positively correlated with target's metrics such as Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Assets (ROA) and Research and Development (R&D) intensity. Value creation is also tied to deal-specific characteristics regarding the cash used in the transaction and the comparative extent of the deal.

This analysis allows to predict returns around an announcement day considering the described indicators of value creation or destruction. M&As play a key role in the strategy implementation as reaction to exogenous shocks and endogenous needs.

This study enriches the literature of corporate finance applied to the pharmaceutical sector. Indeed, this industry is gaining increasing relevance in the M&A panorama. Thus, the related dynamics need to be assessed considering the uniqueness of the pharmaceutical sector in terms of regulation, stakeholders and social impact.