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This paper aims to explore the relationship between the readability of sustainability reports and chief executive officer (CEO) attributes, comprising monetary, non-monetary incentives and personal characteristics.

The study is based on an international sample of companies operating in sustainability-sensitive industries during 2016–2018.

The results prove that CEO monetary incentives, as well as CEO non-monetary incentives, negatively influence the readability of sustainability reports, revealed in a positive relationship with readability indexes, by providing reports with greater reading difficulty. Additionally, this study shows evidence about the relation of complementarity between these incentives. Other CEO characteristics have no significant effect on the readability of sustainability reports.

This research sheds the light on the role of CEO incentives in obfuscating sustainability information to portray the company, operating in sustainability-sensitive industries, in a favorable image.

This paper aims to analyze the determinants of the readability non-financial disclosure prepared under the Directive 2014/95/EU in the agrifood and beverage sector.

To reach this goal, an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model is proposed employing readability and governance variables. The sample is based on European agrifood and beverage listed firms that exceeding 500 employees and are considered public interest entities, including 744 firm-year-observations from 2017, first year after the Directive entered in force, to 2020, last year available.

The authors' results suggest the importance of corporate governance mechanisms as drivers in reaching more readability of non-financial information.

This study provides useful suggestions to policy makers and managers for a better understanding of the role played by some factors on non-financial information (NFI) readability. Moreover, findings may help regulators in confirming that the establishment of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee is a step in the right direction to strengthening firms' NFI readability. Lastly, this is beneficial for auditors and preparers who will pay more attention to the internal factors that can push for more (or less) understandability of NFI.

This research contributes to the academic and practical debate because it adds new insights into the literature on NFI readability and represents fertile area for future researches.

This paper aims to investigate how organization capital influences different forms of corporate risk. It also explores how the relationship between organization capital and risks varies in the cross-section of firms.

To test the hypothesis, this study employs the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model using a large sample of the United States (US) data over the 1981–2019 period. It also uses an instrumental variable approach and an errors-in-variables panel regression approach to mitigate endogeneity problems.

The empirical results show that organization capital is positively related to both idiosyncratic risk and total risk but negatively related to systematic risk. The cross-sectional analysis shows that the positive relationship between organization capital and idiosyncratic risk is significantly more pronounced for the subsample of firms with high information asymmetry and human capital. Moreover, the negative relationship between organization capital and systematic risk is significantly more pronounced for firms with greater efficiency and firms facing higher industry- and economy-wide risks.

The findings have important implications for investors and policymakers. For example, since organization capital increases idiosyncratic risk and total risk but reduces systematic risk, investors should take organization capital into account in portfolio formation and risk management. Moreover, the findings lend support to the argument on the recognition of intangible assets in financial statements. In particular, the study suggests that standard-setting bodies should consider corporate reporting frameworks to incorporate the disclosure of intangible assets into financial statements, particularly given the recent surge of corporate intangible assets and their critical impact on corporate risks.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to adopt a large sample to provide systematic evidence on the relationship between organization capital and a wide range of risks at the firm level. The authors show that the effect of organization capital on firm risks differs remarkably depending on the kind of firm risk a particular risk measure captures. This study thus makes an original contribution to resolving competing views on the effect of organization capital on firm risks.

To cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing mobile apps (CTMAs) have been developed to trace contact among infected individuals and alert people at risk of infection. To disrupt virus transmission until the majority of the population has been vaccinated, achieving the herd immunity threshold, CTMA continuance usage is essential in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to examine what motivates individuals to continue using CTMAs.

Following the coping theory, this study proposes a research model to examine CTMA continuance usage, conceptualizing opportunity appraisals (perceived usefulness and perceived distress relief), threat appraisals (privacy concerns) and secondary appraisals (perceived response efficacy) as the predictors of individuals' CTMA continuance usage during the pandemic. In the United States, an online survey was administered to 551 respondents.

The results revealed that perceived usefulness and response efficacy motivate CTMA continuance usage, while privacy concerns do not.

This study enriches the understanding of CTMA continuance usage during a public health crisis, and it offers practical recommendations for authorities.