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The study aims to provide a critical review of the extent to which digital technologies are likely to replace human labour, the exponential rise in the amount of work to be done…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to provide a critical review of the extent to which digital technologies are likely to replace human labour, the exponential rise in the amount of work to be done and how far distinctively human skills are future-proofed and therefore likely to be in short supply. It reviews the evidence for a permanent switch to home and remote working enabled by emerging technologies. It assesses the business, digital and labour strategies of work organisations and the promise and challenges from a dominant trend towards a digitally enabled flexible labour model.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical review of 1020 plus case studies and the extant literature was carried out.
Findings
The relationship between emerging technologies and work is widely misunderstood, and there are major qualifiers to the idea of an overwhelming tsunami of technology drastically reducing headcounts globally. Distinctive human skills remain valuable, the amount of work to be done is increasing exponentially and automation is becoming more a coping than a labour replacement mechanism. Moves to a hybrid digitalised flexible labour model are promising but not if short-term, and if the challenges they represent are not managed well.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is that we are making projections into the future, though we are drawing on a lot of different sources and evidence and past data projected into the future.
Practical implications
The problem is not labour displacement but large skills shortages that will slow down the speed of technology adoption. Skills development is vital, as is the taking of long-term perspectives towards the management of hybrid, flexible working based on human-machine interactions.
Social implications
Organisations need to revitalise their training and development and labour management models. Governments and intermediary institutions need to manage transition states if the skills required to gain economic growth are to be available, and to ensure that large labour pools do not get bypassed from not having requisite skills.
Originality/value
The study offers a more subtle and complex perspective on the emerging evidence about the future of technology and work.
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Ali Uyar, Nouha Ben Arfa, Cemil Kuzey and Abdullah S. Karaman
This study investigates CSR reporting’s role in debt access and cost of debt with the moderating role of external assurance and GRI adoption in emerging markets. Such an…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates CSR reporting’s role in debt access and cost of debt with the moderating role of external assurance and GRI adoption in emerging markets. Such an investigation will help facilitate external fund flow to firms in better terms.
Design/methodology/approach
We collected data from 16 emerging markets between 2008 and 2019 from the Thomson Reuters Eikon and ran fixed effects regression analysis and robustness tests by addressing endogeneity concerns, adopting alternative sample and integrating additional control variables.
Findings
The results show that CSR reporting has a positive association with access to debt and a negative association with the cost of debt. Furthermore, both external assurance and GRI adoption do not significantly moderate between CSR reporting and access to debt and cost of debt. Hence, creditors in emerging markets are not interested in CSR report assurance and GRI framework adoption and do not integrate them into their lending decisions.
Originality/value
Emerging markets are unique settings characterized by high growth rates, limited capital availability, high debt costs and weak institutional environments. Thus, reaching debt with convenient conditions is critical for emerging market firms to finance their growth. Hence, our study will help emerging market firms reach external funding more easily and in better terms via CSR transparency. Besides, our investigation is based on a broad sample of emerging markets, and hence updates prior emerging market studies conducted in single-country settings. Lastly, we test the complementarity of third-party assurance and GRI adoption to CSR reporting in loan contracting.
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Ali Uyar, Ali Meftah Gerged, Cemil Kuzey and Abdullah S. Karaman
This study aims to guide firms in emerging markets on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement facilitates their access to debt with the moderation of asset…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to guide firms in emerging markets on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement facilitates their access to debt with the moderation of asset structure and firm performance. Considering the moderating effect analysis, this study explores the substitutive or complementary effect of these two contingencies on CSR-oriented firms in accessing debt financing.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on data collected for 16 emerging markets between 2008 and 2019, this study runs country–industry–year fixed-effects regression.
Findings
This study finds that CSR performance and reporting facilitate access to debt in emerging markets. However, CSR performance does not have an inverted U-shaped influence on firms’ access to debt financing. The moderation analysis of this study shows that asset tangibility has a negative moderating effect on the link between CSR engagements (i.e. both CSR performance and reporting) and access to debt, confirming a substitutive relationship between asset tangibility and CSR engagements in accessing debt. In contrast, firm performance is positively moderating the nexus between CSR engagement proxies and access to debt, which confirms a complementary type of relationship between firm performance and CSR engagements in accessing debt.
Practical implications
The empirical evidence of this study implies that creditors critically consider CSR engagements of firms in the loan-granting decision process. Similarly, the inverted U-shaped relationship between CSR and access to debt implies that there is an optimal level of CSR engagement creditors might consider in their decision. Likewise, the moderating effects analysis highlights that asset tangibility and firm performance are two conditions under which CSR performance and reporting are linked to access to debt.
Originality/value
Emerging countries are a different set of countries than developed ones; they have high growth rates and hence need financing, have a weaker institutional environment and have weaker stakeholder power. These particularities motivated the authors to conduct a separate study focusing on CSR and debt financing links drawing on a wide range of emerging countries. Thus, this study adds to the ongoing debate by examining the conditions under which CSR-oriented firms can access debt financing in emerging economies.
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Alessandro Inversini, Lionel Saul, Sarah Balet and Roland Schegg
The concept of “regenerative business” is thriving in current business literature. The present study seeks to contribute to the current academic debate by investigating the nature…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of “regenerative business” is thriving in current business literature. The present study seeks to contribute to the current academic debate by investigating the nature and scope of regenerative hospitality, here seen as a steppingstone of regenerative tourism.
Design/methodology/approach
Exploratory in nature and with the goal of understating the nature and scope of regenerative hospitality, nineteen semi-structured interviews with academics, consultants and self-proclaimed regenerative hoteliers were conducted.
Findings
Results provide a regenerative hospitality framework to move from the current sustainability paradigm towards local and systemic regenerative approaches in hospitality by applying place and people intelligence.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the current academic debate about the future of travel, particularly focussing on the future of hospitality in relation to the multidisciplinary field of regenerative economy. Particularly, the paper has been designed to contribute to the current discussion in the Journal of Tourism Futures about the transformation and regenerative future of tourism.
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