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This study aims to examine the association between mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) regulations (CSR mandate) and social disclosures (SOCDS) in India. It also investigates whether CSR committees mediate the relationship between CSR mandate and SOCDS. Furthermore, this paper explores how business group (BG) affiliation moderates CSR committee quality and SOCDS.

This study uses a data set of 5,345 observations from the Bombay stock exchange (BSE)-listed firms over 10 years (2011–2020) to examine the research questions. Baron and Kenny’s (1986) three-step model is estimated to examine the mediating role of CSR committees on the relationship between CSR mandate and SOCDS.

The study reveals that the CSR mandate positively impacts SOCDS in India due to coercive pressures. CSR committees mediate this relationship, with higher CSR committee quality leading to increased SOCDS. Furthermore, the authors report that SOCDS in India is positively related to CSR committee quality, and this relationship is stronger for BG firms. Finally, the supplementary analysis reveals that promoting CSR committee quality enhances firms’ likelihood of meeting CSR mandatory spending and actual CSR spending in India.

This research contributes to the academic literature by shedding light on the intricate dynamics of CSR mandates, CSR committees and SOCDS in emerging economies. Notably, the authors identify the previously unexplored mediation role of CSR committees in the link between CSR mandates and SOCDS. The creation of a composite index that measures complementary CSR committee attributes allows us to undertake a novel assessment of CSR committee quality. An examination of the moderating influence of BG affiliation documents the importance of CSR committee quality, particularly in governance, for enhancing SOCDS transparency within BG firms.

Organizational theorists and strategy scholars are both interested in how organizations deal with ambiguity, especially in relation to implementation. This chapter examines one source of ambiguity that organizations face, which is based on their efforts to implement moral mandates. These mandates, which are related to areas such as environmental sustainability and diversity, are inherently ambiguous, as they lack a shared understanding regarding their scope and associated practices. They are also often broad and systemic and may be unclearly aligned with an organization's strategy. Due to these challenges, in this chapter, we theorize that collective action at the field level is necessary for organizations to advance and concretize moral mandates. We examine this theorizing through the case of the implementation of sustainability in higher education. We hypothesize and find support for the idea that when an organization's members engage in collective action at the field level, those organizations have an increased likelihood of achieving sustainability implementation. To gain insight into this field-to-organization relationship, we qualitatively examine 18 years of conversations from an online forum to develop a process model of moral mandate implementation. We theorize that collective action functions as a field-configuring space, in which actors from a variety of organizations come together to (1) refine the scope of the mandate and (2) create an implementation repertoire that actors can draw on when seeking to bring sustainability to their own organizations. Overall, our study provides a model of how ambiguous moral mandates can be implemented by highlighting the important role of collective action across organizations in concretizing those mandates and providing actors with the tools for their implementation.

The study examines the impact of a recent mandate (Section 149 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013, where firms of a certain size are mandated to appoint at least one woman director on the board) on the earnings quality of firms. The study also examines the role of financial expertise and the presence of a woman director in the audit committee on the association between mandate and earnings quality.

Taking leverage of a quasi-natural experiment in India, the authors employ the ‘Difference-in-Difference’ (DiD) technique. DiD enables the author to filter out the impact of concurrent exogenous shocks while examining the issue. The propensity score matching and entropy balancing techniques have been employed to overcome the problem of endogeneity and self-selection bias.

Based on the sample of 538 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed firms, the author finds that magnitude of discretionary accruals has decreased among test firms (firms mandated to comply with Section 149) relative to benchmark marks (firms not mandated to comply with Section 149) during the post-legislation period, indicating the improved earning quality after the mandate. This finding is consistent with the notion of social role theory that women are less likely to be engaged in risky activities such as earnings management. Further, the author find that the financial expertise of the woman and presence of the woman on the audit committee strengthen the positive impact of the mandate on earnings quality. These results are robust to alternative measurements of discretionary accruals.

The study is among the pioneering attempts to make use of a quasi-natural experiment and investigate the impact of a woman director on earnings quality. The study is also one of the few studies to focus on a developing country like India having a culture dominated by men.

To investigate, compare and document the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure to sustainability disclosure during a transition from a voluntary to mandated “comply or explain” sustainability reporting regime. And to empirically test if, during the regime transition period, changes in the magnitude (extent) of sustainability disclosure is a significant determinant of changes in the magnitude (extent) of intellectual capital disclosure.

Content analysis of 1,744 annual reports drawn from 436 Singapore listed firms spanning a four-year observation window (i.e. April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2018). The magnitude (number of sentences) and extent (number of items) of (1) intellectual capital disclosure measured using a 38-item index; (2) sustainability disclosure of a 105-item index; and (3) 15-item index to measure the magnitude and extent of joint sustainability/intellectual capital disclosure.

The average magnitude and extent of sustainability and the joint sustainability/intellectual capital disclosure increased whilst the average magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure increased when regulatory discussion of a change to mandated sustainability reporting emerged. However, in the annual period the mandated sustainability reporting became effective while the average magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure declined. Regression tests indicate a significant (insignificant) association between the change in the magnitude (extent) of sustainability disclosure and intellectual capital disclosure.

From a research perspective, the analysis implies researchers investigating the consequences of mandated sustainability disclosure should consider impact on alternative non-financial disclosure themes and develop theoretical frameworks to derive why and how management may shift non-financial reporting strategies and practices.

For regulators, findings suggest there may be a need to weigh spillover costs of reductions in transparency related to intellectual capital. For investors, declines in the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure following a transition to mandated sustainability reporting may limit future firm valuation particularly of heavy intangible asset-oriented firms.

Initial study empirically investigating the impact of the transition from a voluntary to mandated sustainability reporting regime on the magnitude and extent of intellectual capital disclosure.

How organisations interact with and respond to environmental pressures has been a long-term interest of organisational scholars. Still, it remains an under-theorised phenomenon from a project perspective. So far, there is limited understanding of how projects, which are composed by a constellation of organisations, “respond” to institutional pressures that are exerted on them. This research takes the perspective of projects as adopters/implementers of institutional pressures and analyses how they interact with, and respond to, such pressures. More specifically, this research explores how construction projects respond to the pressure of a Building Information Modelling (BIM) mandate.

Multiple in-depth case studies were conducted to explore the practical implementation of a BIM mandate in the UK and understand how the construction projects responded to the coercive pressures to implement a new policy mandate for process digitalisation. Multiple sources were employed for data collection and the data were analysed inductively. The findings identify a hybrid response comprising four distinct ways that projects might respond to an institutional pressure.

We find that projects decouple both from the content and from the intended purpose of a policy, i.e. there are two variance of a policy-practice decoupling phenomenon in projects. The findings also reveal the underlying conditions leading to decoupling.

We advance decoupling literature so that it better applies to the temporary, distributed and interdependent work conducted via projects. Second, we define decoupling in projects as a provisional and fragmented process of wayfinding through heterogeneous institutional spaces, and discuss the potential policy-practice assemblages in projects, influenced by how, if and when project members' activities decouple from the many and often contradicting institutional pressures they face. Third, we discuss how the qualitatively different forms of decoupling that we identified in our work may act as part of a legitimation process in ambiguous situations whereby projects might share a resemblance of conformity with institutional pressures when they are de facto only partially conforming to them.

The aim of this study is to analyze the differences between non-standard forms of employment (FoE) (i.e. dependent self-employment/business-to-business/B2B contract and contract of mandate) in terms of investing in the development of future competencies by employees and employers. This study also examined additional factors which influence these investments.

To collect data, the computer-assisted telephone interview technique was used. 200 employees from different companies located in Poland participated in this study, wherein each of the above-mentioned FoEs (i.e. dependent self-employment and contract of mandate) was represented by 100 people. The Chi-Square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used in the statistical analyses.

In the case of only 2 out of 14 competencies, there were statistically significant differences between the two groups of respondents: the employers financed training courses for B2B employees more frequently than for mandate contract workers. Moreover, in only one case there was a statistically significant difference: the self-employed financed training courses themselves more often than mandate contract workers. This study revealed an important impact of other variables such as respondents’ age, education level, parental status and industry on the training activities undertaken by employers and employees.

Although the issue of developing future competencies is important, there is little research examining this problem in the context of people who work in non-standard FoE. Moreover, previous research primarily focused on identifying differences between people working under employment contracts and the self-employed. This article fills these research gaps as well as shows that more factors should be considered in the research models to get a deeper insight into the problem of non-standard FoEs.

This paper explores the patterns of the current needs of users' social characteristics in post occupancy evaluation (POE) associated with the environmental performance of green buildings using systematic literature review (SLR). This paper aims to establish a conceptual nexus between environmental performance mandates and the current needs of the users' social characteristics.

This paper adopts a SLR approach designed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for 21 articles that were selected as qualitative synthesis in this study. The search parameter for the selected articles in this review was limited to publications in three databases, Scopus, Web of Science and Emerald, between January 2016 and January 2023, with the help of qualitative software ATLAS.ti 9© in the presentation of the network codes. The initial literature search has retrieved 99 papers which sequentially excluded 42 papers due to exclusion criteria, and the researcher was left with 57 papers. Out of 57, 14 papers were then removed due to duplication of records found in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, and 43 articles were further screened for qualitative synthesis. A thorough critical appraisal was applied to ensure that only selected papers were included, consensus was achieved among the authors and 22 papers were excluded. The qualitative synthesis has finalized 21 studies, and they are selected as confirmative findings.

Using network codes presentation of ATLAS.ti 9©, the result shows that the social characteristics are influenced by the evaluated building category and the users' category – the stakeholders (owners, designers) and the occupants. New-fangled elements in environmental performance mandates are legitimacy and accessibility. The users’ social characteristics are derived from the category of users, where the stakeholders (designers, owners) are relatively a novel benchmark in meeting the POE objectives towards environmental performance. The least attention on the users’ social characteristics based on the findings shows that image, experiential (conjoint), happiness, interactive behaviour, morale and values are depicted as the social current needs in the environmental performance using POE. However, all stakeholders and the building occupants’ social characteristics must have a confirmative relation to the performance mandates, especially for newly performance mandates elements: legitimacy and accessibility.

The research limits the literature search between the recent January 2016 and January 2023 in Scopus, Web of Science and Emerald databases. Limiting the year of publication to the recent years is important to select and rank relevant scientific papers which encompass the reviewed subject. Other limitations include the selection of papers focusing on the POE approach and environmental performance as the main subject of evaluation. Other evaluation purposes that are not related to environmental objectives are excluded in this study.

The characteristics of the social elements become a challenging subject in meeting the environmental performance needs as they lean more towards intangible elements. The novelty of the findings is drawn from the new pattern and current needs of users' social characteristics in POE for environmental performance.

This paper aims to analyze open access (OA) scholarly publishing patterns as well as OA policies and mandates across European countries.

The study is based on a descriptive research approach using data from Web resources, directories and bibliographic and citation databases, namely, DOAJ, OpenDOAR, SCImago journal and Country Ranking portal, ROARMAP and Web of Science.

The findings indicate that the initiatives and measures in Europe that promote OA are adequate. OA journals and digital repositories have progressively increased over the past two decades. Of the total journals (n = 25,231) published worldwide and indexed in Scopus, 53% are published in European countries, with 23.7% being OA journals. In total, 34% of the OA repositories (n = 5,714) are in European countries. The proportion of OA journal papers has grown significantly in all European countries, with a 14.3% annual growth rate. The average proportion of OA publications in European countries is significantly higher (39.07%) than the world average (30.16%), with a clear inclination for making research literature openly accessible via the green OA route (79.41%) compared to the gold OA route (52.30%). Most European research funders and institutions have required researchers to make OA available for their research findings, either by publishing them in OA journals or depositing accepted manuscripts in repositories.

The study analyzed OA trends in Europe; other continents and countries were not included in the analysis. The study only described OA policies and mandates; the extent to which the OA policies and mandates were implemented was not studied. However, the results of the study may be helpful to policymakers, funders, research institutions and universities in other countries in adopting and implementing OA policies and mandates.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first that used multiple data sources for investigating different facets of OA publishing in European countries, including OA journals, digital repositories, research output, mandates and policies for publicly funded research. The findings will be helpful for researchers and policymakers interested in promoting OA adoption among researchers worldwide.

This study aims to analyze Open Access (OA) publishing trends and policy perspectives in India. Different aspects, such as the growth of OA journals digital repositories, the proportion of OA availability to research literature and the status of OA mandates and policies are studied.

Data for analyzing OA trends were gathered from multiple data sources, including Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), OpenDOAR, SCImago and Web of Science (WoS) databases. DOAJ and OpenDOAR were used for extracting OA journals and digital repository data. SCImago Journal and Country ranking portal and WoS database were used to obtain Indian publication data for assessing the proportion of OA to research literature. ROARMAP was used to study OA mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders in India. OA mandates and policies of major regulatory bodies and funding agencies were also reviewed using secondary sources of information and related websites.

India ranks number 15 and 17 globally for OA journals and OA repositories, with 317 journals and 98 repositories. Although India’s proportion to OA publications is 23% (7% below the world average of 30%), the annual growth rate of OA publications is around 18%. Although the governing bodies and institutions have made efforts to mandate researchers to adopt OA publishing and self-archiving, its implementation is quite low among Indian researchers, as only three institutions (out of 18 listed in the ROARMAP) are defined the embargo period. Funding agencies in India do not provide financial assistance to authors for the payment of Article Processing Charges despite mandates that research is deposited in OA repositories. India lacks a national OA policy but plans to implement a “one nation one subscription” formula to provide OA to scientific literature to all its citizens.

The study has certain limitations. Because much of India’s research output is published in local journals that are not indexed in WoS, the study recommends conducting further analyses of publications using Scopus and other databases to understand the country’s OA publishing proportion better. A further study based on feedback from different stakeholders through a survey may be conducted for formulating a national OA policy.

The study is the first that used multiple data sources for investigating different facets of OA publishing in India, including OA journals, digital repositories, OA research output and OA mandates and policies for publicly funded research. The findings will be helpful for researchers and policymakers interested in promoting OA adoption among researchers worldwide.

This paper aims to examine the relation between promoter ownership (PO) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditure in India, the first country to legally mandate the CSR spending.

This paper applies panel regression to examine the impact of PO on actual and excess CSR expenditure because panel regression has lesser multicollinearity problems and has the benefit of controlling for individual or time heterogeneity mostly present in cross-section or time series data. The results are robust to testing the CSR expenditure decision (to engage or not to engage in CSR) by using the binary choice logit model.

Based on the agency theory, this study shows a nonlinear relation between PO and CSR expenditure, which suggests that promoters start extracting private benefits of control at the expense of outside shareholders and engage in lesser CSR expenditure only when their ownership crosses a threshold level of 52% approximately. This study further shows that the nonlinear relation between PO and CSR expenditure is more pronounced for firms that are more prone to agency problems, for business group firms than standalone firms and for firms not following the Companies Act 2013 CSR mandate.

The findings shed light at the idea of how promoters’ incentive alignment should be proposed and followed to encourage a firm’s social investment activities.

First, this study argues that the relation between PO and CSR expenditure is nonlinear in nature, by showing that the impact of PO on CSR expenditure is adverse only at higher level of PO. Second, this study’s richer data set on CSR expenditure not only allows the authors to analyze the relation for actual CSR spending by the firms but also helps to examine the excess spending made over and above the mandatory spending, as directed by the Companies Act, 2013.