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Article
Publication date: 10 November 2023

Abby Yaqing Zhang and Joseph H. Zhang

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have become increasingly important in investment decisions, leading to a surge in ESG investing and the rise of sustainable…

Abstract

Purpose

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have become increasingly important in investment decisions, leading to a surge in ESG investing and the rise of sustainable investment assets. Nevertheless, challenges in ESG disclosure, such as quantifying unstructured data, lack of guidelines and comparability, rampantly exist. ESG rating agencies play a crucial role in assessing corporate ESG performance, but concerns over their credibility and reliability persist. To address these issues, researchers are increasingly utilizing machine learning (ML) tools to enhance ESG reporting and evaluation. By leveraging ML, accounting practitioners and researchers gain deeper insights into the relationship between ESG practices and financial performance, offering a more data-driven understanding of ESG impacts on business communities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors review the current research on ESG disclosure and ESG performance disagreement, followed by the review of current ESG research with ML tools in three areas: connecting ML with ESG disclosures, integrating ML with ESG rating disagreement and employing ML with ESG in other settings. By comparing different research's ML applications in ESG research, the authors conclude the positive and negative sides of those research studies.

Findings

The practice of ESG reporting and assurance is on the rise, but still in its technical infancy. ML methods offer advantages over traditional approaches in accounting, efficiently handling large, unstructured data and capturing complex patterns, contributing to their superiority. ML methods excel in prediction accuracy, making them ideal for tasks like fraud detection and financial forecasting. Their adaptability and feature interaction capabilities make them well-suited for addressing diverse and evolving accounting problems, surpassing traditional methods in accuracy and insight.

Originality/value

The authors broadly review the accounting research with the ML method in ESG-related issues. By emphasizing the advantages of ML compared to traditional methods, the authors offer suggestions for future research in ML applications in ESG-related fields.

Details

Asian Review of Accounting, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1321-7348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Ying Chen, Hing Kai Chan and Zhao Cai

Using perspectives from the technology affordance and social capital theories, this study aims to unpack the process through which platform-enabled co-development unfolds in…

Abstract

Purpose

Using perspectives from the technology affordance and social capital theories, this study aims to unpack the process through which platform-enabled co-development unfolds in supply chain contexts. Specifically, it explores how innovation outcomes can be fostered through platform affordances and supply chain relationship (SCR) capital.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper integrates literature on digital platforms, SCRs and co-development to produce an integrative framework, developing propositions on the relationships among digital platforms, SCR capital and innovation outcomes.

Findings

The authors identify affordances for distinctive strategic use of platforms: value co-creation, relationship building and strategic learning. The authors discuss ways in which each affordance contributes to the advances in SCR capital, thus altogether enabling focal firms to orchestrate and integrate internal and external resources to attain incremental and radical innovation.

Research limitations/implications

Based on the proposed research framework, further empirical studies can use quantitative data to measure the relationship between affordances and SCR capital and use longitudinal case studies to explore how affordances and SCR capital evolve to provide more fine-grained and contextualised information in different research settings.

Originality/value

This paper sheds light on how the relation between the adoption of digital platforms and SCR capital shapes digitally enabled service co-development. The authors provide an alternative explanation of resource integration in platform-mediated supply chain contexts and enrich the related literature on how digital platforms can maximise value from introducing ambidextrous innovation by leveraging internal and external resources.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2024

Joseph K. Nwankpa and Yazan F. Roumani

This study aims to explore the effects of remote work on employee productivity and innovation and how these effects are moderated by knowledge sharing and digital business…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the effects of remote work on employee productivity and innovation and how these effects are moderated by knowledge sharing and digital business intensity.

Design/methodology/approach

The study draws on survey data from a random sample of 231 remote workers across the USA. The analysis and empirical validation of the research model used partial least square.

Findings

The results demonstrate a positive association between remote work and employee productivity. In addition, the findings present empirical support for hitherto anecdotal evidence regarding the impact of remote work on innovation. In particular, the study notes that knowledge sharing and digital business intensity amplified the positive relationship between remote work and employee productivity. The results further revealed that the positive link between remote work and innovation was stronger in the presence of knowledge sharing.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the ongoing inquiry into remote work by drawing on the knowledge-based view as an underlying lens to understand the consequence of remote work. Identifying knowledge sharing and digital business intensity as moderators of the linkage between remote work and employee productivity is an important contribution, especially when researchers and practitioners are trying to understand the business value of working remotely. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to identify knowledge sharing as a key mechanism that strengthens innovation outcomes in a remote work environment.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2024

Tony Yan and Michael R. Hyman

This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business…

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business network that thrived in pre-1949 China, are analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach

The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) undergirds a study of Shangbangs’ historicity (i.e. their socio-historically embedded multiplicity, including organizational forms, activities and connotations.

Findings

As informal regional, professional, project-based, special-product-based or mixed marketing networks, Shangbangs relied on “flexible specialization” and coupled multiple business needs to market goods and services, business organizations, specific social values and, when necessary, to debrand business rivals.

Research limitations/implications

This analysis extends theories about marketing networks by probing their subtypes, diverse marketing activities, multipronged channels and relationship building with social entities (including underground societies, business associations and guilds) in response to pre-1949 China’s market uncertainties. Substantiating an alternative approach to “flexible specialization” and marketing innovations within the pre-1949 Chinese economy shows how a parallel theoretical framework can complement western-based marketing theories.

Originality/value

This first comprehensive analysis of Shangbangs, an innovative historical Chinese marketing network outside the conventional market-corporate dichotomy, can inform theory building for marketing strategy-making and management conditioned by social contexts.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 November 2023

Mohamed Esmail Elmaghrabi and Ahmed Diab

This study aims to examine the association between anti-corruption corporate disclosure and earnings management practices by bringing evidence from a developed market.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the association between anti-corruption corporate disclosure and earnings management practices by bringing evidence from a developed market.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses data from non-financial FTSE 100 Shares in 2016 and 2017. This study develops a disclosure index to capture the anti-corruption disclosures and run pooled, fixed effects and generalized methods of moments regression models to explore the anti-corruption disclosure–earnings management association. This study also disentangles discretionary accruals into positive and negative, use adjusted discretionary accrual computation and take a more conservative view on discretionary accruals computation as an additional analysis.

Findings

The results show a negative and significant association between anti-corruption disclosure and earnings management practices. When disentangling discretionary accruals (overvalued/positive and undervalued/negative), the authors found that higher anti-corruption disclosures were negatively associated with positive discretionary accruals, but not associated with negative discretionary accruals. The additional analysis confirmed the previous results, showing that anti-corruption disclosures are perceived as a substantive practice, rather than a mere disclosure practice for legitimacy reasons.

Originality/value

This study contributes to debate on the symbolic versus the substantive uses of anti-corruption disclosures in the UK context.

Details

Journal of Financial Crime, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1359-0790

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 February 2024

Donia Waseem, Shijiao (Joseph) Chen, Zhenhua (Raymond) Xia, Nripendra P. Rana, Balkrushna Potdar and Khai Trieu Tran

In the online environment, consumers increasingly feel vulnerable due to firms’ expanding capabilities of collecting and using their data in an unsanctioned manner. Drawing from…

Abstract

Purpose

In the online environment, consumers increasingly feel vulnerable due to firms’ expanding capabilities of collecting and using their data in an unsanctioned manner. Drawing from gossip theory, this research focuses on two key suppressors of consumer vulnerability: transparency and control. Previous studies conceptualize transparency and control from rationalistic approaches that overlook individual experiences and present a unidimensional conceptualization. This research aims to understand how individuals interpret transparency and control concerning privacy vulnerability in the online environment. Additionally, it explores strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

Design/methodology/approach

An interpretivism paradigm and phenomenology were adopted in the research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 41 participants, including consumers and experts, and analyzed through thematic analysis.

Findings

The findings identify key conceptual dimensions of transparency and control by adapting justice theory. They also reveal that firms can communicate assurance, functional, technical and social values of transparency and control to address consumer vulnerability.

Originality/value

This research makes the following contributions to the data privacy literature. The findings exhibit multidimensional and comprehensive conceptualizations of transparency and control, including user, firm and information perspectives. Additionally, the conceptual framework combines empirical insights from both experiencers and observers to offer an understanding of how transparency and control serve as justice mechanisms to effectively tackle the issue of unsanctioned transmission of personal information and subsequently address vulnerability. Lastly, the findings provide strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

Details

Internet Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Gideon Kimaiyo

This article examines the effect of China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa on the African audiences' perception of China's national image through a case…

Abstract

Purpose

This article examines the effect of China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa on the African audiences' perception of China's national image through a case study of the residents of Nairobi. It adopted Joseph Nye's soft power model and sought to address three fundamental questions : What is the extent and objective of China's media diplomacy in Africa? How has China's media “offensive” in Africa impacted African audiences' imagery of China? What are the implications, if any, of China's media diplomacy on the Kenyan public view of China?

Design/methodology/approach

This article used a mixed-methods research design, which deployed elements of positivism and interpretivism. It used a deductive approach and deployed the survey strategy, which entailed the collection of data from Nairobi city residents. The secondary data were collected from relevant academic literature sources. The primary data were analyzed empirically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), while the secondary data were analyzed using discourse analysis.

Findings

China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa is aimed at addressing the “misinformation” about China. China seeks its share of representation among the African public to correct negative perceptions of China. Kenyans had a generally positive attitude toward China. South Africa and Angola have “Fairly” positive perceptions of the Chinese media. However, this study did not reveal whether the perception was due to the influence of Chinese media. These findings implied that the African public's positive imagery of China cannot be fully attributed to Chinese media's influence.

Originality/value

This study is groundbreaking in that it is one of the few studies that have focused on China's public diplomacy in Africa and assessed the impact of Chinese media on the African public’s perception of China.

Details

Review of Economics and Political Science, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2356-9980

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 November 2023

Dayana Amala Jothi Antony, Savarimuthu Arulandu and Satyanarayana Parayitam

This study aims to investigate the relationship between talent management, organizational commitment and turnover intention. The moderating role of gender and experience in…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the relationship between talent management, organizational commitment and turnover intention. The moderating role of gender and experience in relationships was explored.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual model was developed, and relationships were studied by collecting data from 392 faculty members working in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in southern India. After checking the instrument’s psychometric properties using the LISREL package of structural equation modeling, data were analyzed using Hayes’s PROCESS macros.

Findings

The results revealed that talent recruitment strategies positively predict organizational commitment and negatively predict turnover intention; organizational commitment mediates the relationship between talent management and turnover intention. Further, the results documented that experience (first moderator) and gender of faculty members (second moderator) influenced the relationship between talent management and organizational commitment and organizational commitment and turnover intention.

Practical implications

The outcomes of this research are helpful for the administrators of HEIs to strategize to attract and retain talented faculty to maintain sustained competitive advantage. This research also helps to understand gender differences that exist in talent management and retention and organizational commitment in HEIs.

Originality/value

The three-way interactions between talent management, gender and experience in influencing organizational commitment and turnover intentions is a novel idea that contributes to the talent management literature – the relationship between talent recruitment strategies and talent engagement. The implications for talent management theory and practice are discussed.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 March 2023

Huiying (Cynthia) Hou, Joseph H.K. Lai, Hao Wu and Tong Wang

This paper aims to investigate the theoretical and practical links between digital twin (DT) application in heritage facilities management (HFM) from a life cycle management…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the theoretical and practical links between digital twin (DT) application in heritage facilities management (HFM) from a life cycle management perspective and to signpost the future development directions of DT in HFM.

Design/methodology/approach

This state-of-the-art review was conducted using a systematic literature review method. Inclusive and exclusive criteria were identified and used to retrieve relevant literature from renowned literature databases. Shortlisted publications were analysed using the VOSviewer software and then critically reviewed to reveal the status quo of research in the subject area.

Findings

The review results show that DT has been mainly adopted to support decision-making on conservation approach and method selection, performance monitoring and prediction, maintenance strategies design and development, and energy evaluation and management. Although many researchers attempted to develop DT models for part of a heritage building at component or system level and test the models using real-life cases, their works were constrained by availability of empirical data. Furthermore, data capture approaches, data acquisition methods and modelling with multi-source data are found to be the existing challenges of DT application in HFM.

Originality/value

In a broader sense, this study contributes to the field of engineering, construction and architectural management by providing an overview of how DT has been applied to support management activities throughout the building life cycle. For the HFM practice, a DT-cum-heritage building information modelling (HBIM) framework was developed to illustrate how DT can be integrated with HBIM to facilitate future DT application in HFM. The overall implication of this study is that it reveals the potential of heritage DT in facilitating HFM in the urban development context.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 October 2023

Junjie Li, Jiaying Zhang, Chunlu Liu and Xiangyun Luo

This research paper aims to establish a comprehensive framework for the barriers to CER in the construction industry, assesses the barriers' relative degrees of hindrance and…

Abstract

Purpose

This research paper aims to establish a comprehensive framework for the barriers to CER in the construction industry, assesses the barriers' relative degrees of hindrance and causal mechanisms.

Design/methodology/approach

Firstly, 26 carbon emission reduction (CER) barriers in the construction industry were identified based on a systematic literature review (SLR) and categorized into five dimensions: policy, economy, society, technology and organization (PEST + O model). Secondly, the Best–Worst Method (BWM) was used to clarify the degrees of hindrance of the CER barriers. Then, the Grey-Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (Grey-DEMATEL) was used to visualize the directional cause–result relationship network among prominent barriers. Finally, the Boston matrix model was used to propose differentiated strategies to address CER barriers in the construction industry.

Findings

The calculated centrality and causality of the prominent barriers indicated that the lack of relevant legal policies and normative guidelines, the poor binding force and enforcement of existing relevant policies, the lack of effective economic subsidies and incentives and the difficulty in the operation, transformation and upgrading of existing construction CER are the key barriers that CER needs to address first in the construction industry. Considering the order of priority and the optimal path, differentiated countermeasures are proposed to address key, driving, independent and effect barriers.

Originality/value

This study develops a BWM–Grey-DEMATEL integrated multi-criteria decision-making model. An innovative C-shaped strategic map for addressing CER barriers in the construction industry is proposed by integrating the dual dimensions of time and space. This will guide practitioners, policymakers and decision-makers in developing CER strategies.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

1 – 10 of 246