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The USA has long been known to provide a competitive environment in which religions compete for believers. The data clearly show winners and losers in this marketplace. Major Christian denominations are generally experiencing a decline in membership while religious “nones” are growing in number. Of note, the recent Pew studies of the US Religious Landscape (2008 and 2015a) indicate that measures of spirituality are rising in this environment. This paper empirically investigates how the demand for spirituality in religion may better understand these trends.

This paper applies ordinary least squares to survey data from the 2015 Pew study to empirically investigate how belonging to a major Christian faith and attending religious services impacts feeling of spirituality, while conditioning on a host of other demographic variables, in order to better understand these trends.

The author finds that being a member of a Christian denomination generally reduces the measure of spirituality relative to religious “nones.” However, this effect is almost always offset by a measure of attendance at religious services suggesting spirituality is positively associated with social interaction.

The results have implications for religious leaders concerned about maintaining and growing the church's membership. The results suggest that Church leaders may benefit from de-emphasizing hierarchical top-down rules and emphasizing community.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2022-0342

This study aims to articulate the conceptual foundations of the role of accounting infrastructure (calculative practice and the communicative dimension of accounting) in extractive industries (EIs) towards a sustainable orientation from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective.

This study is a literature-based analysis of the calculative property and communicative dimension of accounting in EIs, using the concepts of calculability, assemblage and other related concepts from ANT to identify potentialities and limits of the roles of accounting in this sector.

While accounting infrastructure can influence social and environmental outcomes, it has not, as yet, led to ecologically and socially sustainable practices in EIs. Calculative properties and the communicative dimension of accounting infrastructure have capabilities to foster the phenomenon of “sustainability” in EIs by valuing, disclosing (reporting) and governing EIs towards a sustainable orientation. Conceptualizing sustainable EIs as a promissory economy, accounting infrastructure serves as a tool not only to represent past performance but also to enact the future: it helps to shape a sustainable future for the industry by informing and triggering behavioural decisions of EIs firms towards sustainable practices.

This conceptual paper is anticipated to stimulate future sustainability accounting research. The research agenda discussed in this paper can be used to enrich our understanding of the role of accounting in sustainability.

This paper charts a direction for future research by interpreting the role of sustainability accounting within networks of sociotechnical relations, using ANT concepts which attach importance to the dualism of nature and society. Conceptualizing sustainability accounting and reporting as an infrastructure, which draws more attention to the relationality characteristic of accounting, the study goes beyond the traditional interpretation of accounting as a mediation device and draws on a contemporary view of accounting by invoking the dynamic relation between accounting and society, in the context of EIs.

This study aims to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate sustainable performance (CSP) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by looking into the significance of mediating factors, namely, brand image (BI) and brand loyalty (BL), within the context of an emerging economy.

The authors conduct an extensive literature study on the subjects of CSR, BI and BL to assess their influence on the sustainable performance of SMEs in an emerging market. The study adopts a quantitative methodology. A total of 438 answers were obtained from a sample size of 513. The data of the SMEs in Vietnam was analyzed using the smart partial least squares structural equation modeling software, specifically version 3.3.2.

The results of the authors demonstrate notable and favorable correlations between CSR and CSP, CSR and BI and CSR and BL. Importantly, the findings contribute to existing knowledge by looking into the mediating influence of BI and BL in the relationship between CSR and CSP.

According to the authors’ understanding, a number of research have investigated the correlation between CSR and CSP within the realm of SMEs. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of scholarly research examining the mediating function of BI and BL in this association. The study’s findings have important implications for entrepreneurs and senior management in effectively guiding their enterprises and improving their business strategies with an emphasis on sustainability in emerging markets. The outcome of this study has the potential to significantly contribute to SMEs in Vietnam as well as other emerging countries.

This paper explores the relationship between earnings management and firms' value through the moderating effect of the missing elements – corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and state ownership in Russian companies. The main argument of the paper is that CSR disclosure can be used as a mitigating mechanism to weaken the negative relationship between earnings manipulation and market value. Additionally test whether state ownership is an important moderating factor in this relationship are conducted as state has always played an important role in the emerging Russian market.

The hypotheses are tested on panel data for 223 publicly listed Russian firms for the period 2012–2018. A number of robustness tests are used to check the obtained results for consistency. Following previous research GMM method is employed to address endogeneity concerns.

Supported by stakeholder theory, it is observed that firms that disclosed more CSR information experience a weaker negative relationship between earnings management and market value because investors and other stakeholders positively evaluate a positive CSR image. This negative effect of earnings management on market value is even weaker for state-owned companies as market participants appreciate involvement of state-owned companies in CSR activities and place greater expectations on these firms to be responsible without clear understanding whether these actions are “window dressing” for this type of companies or not.

The study results provide new insights into the relation between earnings management, firm's value, CSR disclosure and state ownership in emerging-market firms. The paper highlight the importance of considering country-specific factors, such as state ownership, while analysing the market reaction on CSR disclosure and earnings management since the institutional peculiarities may help to explain differences in the obtained results.

Corporate governance and its training in universities have become an essential addition to the educational curriculum. Despite its expansion, students still need help to grasp some concepts, affecting their academic performance. This paper examines the expected influence of gender and school libraries on comprehending corporate governance concepts in Ghanaian universities.

With the culturo-techno-contextual approach (CTCA) as the underlying theory, the study sampled 1050 undergraduate students from the selected Ghanaian public universities. The study adopted a quantitative approach, and the data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA.

The results show a statistically significant difference between male and female Ghanaian students in their understanding of corporate governance concepts, with the mean figures suggesting that males slightly understand corporate governance concepts more than females. The results also show a statistically significant difference among Ghanaian students studying using school libraries of varying quality in their understanding of corporate governance.

This study's novelty stems from examining the corporate governance curriculum in a developing country from the perspectives of gender and school library. Adopting the CTCA components in analysing school libraries and gender further evidences the study's novelty.

This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the financial distress (FD) of firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). Furthermore, the moderating effect of corporate governance (CG) on the CSR–distress relationship is investigated in this study.

The final sample of the study includes 117 companies from 2008 to 2021. The sample firms' CSR engagement is assessed using a multidimensional financial approach, and the likelihood of FD is determined using Altman's Z-score. The governance level is measured using the governance index, which includes 29 governance provisions. To achieve the research objectives, the system generalized method of moments estimator is used. Furthermore, several tests are performed to assess the robustness of the study's findings. The analysis was carried out using STATA software version 15.

The authors find that CSR is significantly inversely related to FD. The governance mechanism was discovered to be inversely related to FD. Furthermore, corporate governance strengthens the negative relationship between CSR and FD. In addition, the authors find that CSR is significantly inversely related to FD in firms with strong CG mechanisms but has no effect on FD in firms with weak CG mechanisms.

The findings of this study provide policymakers, business managers, regulators and investors with a better understanding of the relationship between the quality of CSR investments and the likelihood of FD in Pakistani firms, as well as the role of CG in this context.

This study contributes to our understanding of the role of CG in the CSR-distress relationship in an emerging market. This suggests that policymakers should prioritize CG quality while anticipating the impact of CSR on corporate FD.

This study aims to investigate the association between board diversity and systematic risk. The theoretical framework used in this study is based on agency and resource dependency theories.

Using a panel data set of 788 firms listed in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets index from 2015 to 2020, the authors apply Panel-Corrected Standard Error estimation method to test the three proposed hypotheses and the two-stage least squares method is adopted for the endogenous test.

The results suggest that board-specific skills diversity (BSSD) and board independence (BIND) have a negative impact on systematic risk. On the other hand, board gender diversity does not affect systematic risk. The findings reinforce the relevance of board diversity for reducing systematic risk and offer valuable insights for policymakers and investors, suggesting that the presence of directors with specific skills and independent directors could reduce firms’ systematic risk.

The study extends the scope of agency and resource dependency theories by suggesting that the BSSD and BIND reduce agency costs and bring critical resources to the firm’s survival.

The findings support policymakers and managers in reducing systematic risk. In addition, the results demonstrate the importance of policies that encourage board diversity and BIND.

The study demonstrates how companies can reduce systematic risk through board diversity and BIND.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the association between board diversity and systematic risk only in emerging markets.

Inequality in the creative industries often serves as the starting point for public debates over culture in the UK. Academic literature has long recognised the precarious nature of the fashion industry. This chapter offers a critical review of the relationships of power existing in the support offered to ethnic minorities in disadvantaged communities in the fashion and creative sectors in the UK. In addressing these issues, a Foucauldian perspective is adopted. The chapter focuses on Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) fashion entrepreneurs’ challenges in promoting young designers from disadvantaged communities.

Our findings show that the BAME entrepreneurs are active agents who are essential in identifying and shaping new creative and talented young designers. The chapter contributes to the debate through a critical review of the relationships of power existing in the support offered to ethnic minorities in disadvantaged communities in the fashion and creative sectors in the UK.