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This chapter examines the association between corporate governance and environmental performance. The purpose of governance mechanisms is to build trust by ensuring that corporate responsibilities, including environmental responsibilities, are met. We obtain corporate governance data from the Investor Responsibility Research Center, Inc’s (IRRC’s) governance and director database and additional corporate governance and environmental performance data from Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini’s (KLD’s) database. Our analyses document a significant positive association between corporate governance and environmental performance. Moreover, we find that corporate governance is positively related to environmental strengths, and negatively related to environmental concerns. Our findings contribute to and extend our understanding of the relationship between governance and performance and have important implications for policy makers, managers, investors, and others.

The objective of this chapter is twofold. It first introduces the theme of the book. There are many ways of looking at socially responsible investment (SRI). It can be viewed as a financial product where the financial performance is the outmost important aspect and cannot be compromised. Or it can be regarded as a force for change to promote and stimulate a more sustainable development. In this chapter we provide a literature review on SRI especially on the notion of the impact and how it has been addressed so far in the literature. The second objective of the chapter is to provide an overview of the volume by introducing each chapter.

This chapter reviews the literature on SRI as well as the chapters included in this volume.

If SRI is about making a change toward sustainability, we ought to study its societal and environmental impacts. Although scholar articles on SRI have gained importance in the two last decades, very little is known on its impact. Research has developed from a narrow concern with negative screening and divestment in isolated cases to a rigorous analysis of its financial performance across a range of ethical and ESG issues. While we have identified some studies that are beginning to explore the potential impact of SRI for society, this remains a crucial area to explore.

The chapter contributes to the debates on the societal impact of SRI, a debate that needs to be continued even if or just because it raises some fundamental questions that are complex and difficult but also necessary to advance SRI.

Despite the relevance of firm size in the analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement, there is still much to know about the specific impact of firm size on CSR formalisation. Moreover, in order to better understand such a relation, the interaction effects of development strategies on which companies may base its growth, namely diversification and internationalisation, will be also taken into account. Specifically, this work contributes to shed light on these issues by combining theories related to external and internal drivers of CSR. Using a sample of Spanish listed firms, the results show that firm size affects positively CSR formalisation, and that this effect is stronger in the case of adopting a diversification strategy, while no evidence was found for the moderating effect of internationalisation strategy.

This study investigates the relationship between financial inclusion (FI) and banks’ performance in the economy of Jordan using annual data of 13 commercial banks from 2009 to 2014. Performance is measured by gross income and return on assets (ROA) of these banks. To ensure the robustness of our results, we used six different measures of FI. These include credits for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), deposits for SMEs, number of ATMs, number of ATM services, number of credit cards, and new services. We found a significant impact of FI on ‘ performance when measured by gross income, and ROA, although our study displays different results when considering the effect of FI variables separately. Thus, FI contributes to enhance the banks’ performance. Therefore, the banks should devote more resources to increase FI as it benefits their profitability.

Entrepreneurship education has been largely treated as a pedagogical “black box.” Despite the emergence of popular entrepreneurship models such as business planning, the lean startup, or business model canvas, neither theoretical nor pedagogical foundations are typically evident. This limits the accumulation of useful evidence that could inform better teaching practices. In this chapter, we develop a set of conceptual models anchored in learning theory regarding how entrepreneurship education should be taught to students. These conceptual models are built on the techniques of entrepreneurship pedagogy such as experiential education. They are developed for three groups of students: students without any entrepreneurship experience, students with previous entrepreneurship experience, and students who are currently running their start-ups. A set of potential variables that could be used for course evaluation purposes is also included. The proposed models meet the needs of students with different levels of entrepreneurship experience. Theoretically, we demonstrate that entrepreneurship students should not be treated as a homogeneous group, as they have different levels of startup experience and different educational needs. Lecturers of entrepreneurship programs could choose the suitable model proposed in this chapter in teaching based on the characteristics of their students. The chapter provides novel insights with regard to how entrepreneurship programs should be designed for students with different levels of entrepreneurship experience.

Traditional fire practices are explored so as to understand transformative relationships to Country and as an analogy for developments in Indigenous Health. Stories of fire encompass the resistance of Indigenous Australians to colonial dispossession. Stories of fire engage Indigenous communities with law and culture and from this with health. Transformative knowledges can be built upon re-kindling Indigenous land and law practices through fire practices. Building relationships with fire and burning practices corresponds with the developing sustainable health and cultural practices across Indigenous communities.