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This paper aims to investigate how a US firm’s political landscape affects the integration of environmental, social and governance (hereafter ESG) measures in CEO compensation contracts, thereby affecting the firm’s ESG performance and credit rating.

Based on the results of state senatorial and presidential elections and the location of a US firm’s headquarters, the authors categorize whether a firm has a political environment that is predominantly Democratic (blue) or Republican (red). The empirical analyses are based on a sample of US firms in the period 2014–2021.

The authors find that firms in blue states are more likely to link CEO compensation to ESG performance measures. Further, the results show that firms in blue states with ESG-linked compensation contracts have better ESG performance. Lastly, the authors find evidence that a firm’s ESG performance has a positive impact on its credit rating, but the impact is weakened if firms in red states link ESG performance to executive compensation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research that explores how a firm’s political environment affects the use of ESG performance measures in CEO compensation contracts. Furthermore, the authors contribute to the literature by showing evidence that the political environment interacts with the impact of ESG-linked compensation incentives on the firm’s ESG performance and, thus, its credit rating.

This paper identifies the development of and gaps in knowledge in various management disciplines, including international marketing in relation to political ties in emerging markets, based on a systematic review of the related literature. The paper develops a synthesized integrative framework and provides a research agenda and pathways for future research.

The study adopts the systematic literature review protocol to investigate the ways in which political ties have been examined in the management literature in various disciplines, such as international business, marketing, entrepreneurship, strategy, innovation, and organization. In total, 114 articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2022 were analyzed.

The authors believe that studying the impact of political ties on firm outcomes is timely and important as interest in this area of research is growing rapidly. The review reveals that the diverse conceptual and methodological approaches adopted in different management disciplines have resulted in inconclusive and mixed findings on the relationship between political ties and performance.

This is one of the few systematic literature reviews of political ties and firm performance in emerging markets. The authors clarify some of the ambiguities around the subject and offer a path forward for developing current understanding and insights. The study also highlights the major perspectives in management and clarify the similarities and differences in the conceptualization of political ties. In addition, the authors develop an integrative framework of the political ties–performance link in emerging markets.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of political stability on corruption by drawing upon a sample encompassing both developed and developing European and Asian countries.

The dataset, sourced from the Refinitiv database, spans from July 2014 to May 2022. Panel data techniques, specifically pooled estimation and dynamic panel data [generalized method of moments (GMM)] are employed. The analysis encompasses both fixed and random effects models to capture country-specific cross-sectional effects. To validate our findings, we perform a robustness test by including in the investigation four control variables, namely poverty, type of governance, economic freedom and inflation. To test heterogeneity, the dataset is further divided into two distinct subsamples based on the countries’ locations.

Empirical findings substantiate that political stability (viewed as the risk of government destabilization) has a positive and significant impact on corruption in all analyzed samples of European and Asian countries, though some differences are observed in various subsamples. When we take into account the control variables, these analysis results are robust.

This research provided a panel data analysis with GMM, while other empirical methodologies could also be used, like the difference-in-difference approach. However, our results should be validated by extending the time and the sample to a worldwide sample and using alternative measures of corruption and political stability. Moreover, our focus was on a linear and unidirectional relationship between the considered variables, but it would be interesting to test in our further research a non-linear and bidirectional correlation between them. Furthermore, we have introduced in the robustness test only four economic variables, but to consolidate our findings, we plan to include socioeconomic and demographic variables in future studies.

These outcomes imply that authorities should be aware of the necessity of implementing anti-corruption policies designed to establish effective agencies and enforcement structures for combating systemic corruption, to improve the political environment and the quality of institutions and to apply coherent economic strategies to accelerate economic growth because higher political stability and sustainable development determine a decrease in levels of corruption.

At the microeconomic level, the survival of organizations may be in danger from new types of corruption and money laundering. Therefore, in order to prevent financial harm, the top businesses worldwide should respond to instances of corruption through strengthened supervisory procedures. This calls for the creation of a mechanism inside the code of conduct where correct reporting of suspected situations of corruption would have a prompt procedure to be notified of. To avoid corruption in operational procedures, national plans and policies should be developed by government officials, executives and legislators on a national level, as well as by senior management and the board of directors on an organizational level. This might lower organizations' extra corruption-related expenses, assure economic growth and improve global welfare.

A novel feature of our research resides in its broad examination of a sizable sample of European and Asian countries regarding the nexus between corruption and political stability. The paper also investigates a less explored topic in economic literature, namely the impact of political stability on corruption. Furthermore, the study depicts policy recommendations, outlining effective and reasonable measures aimed at improving the political landscape and combating corruption.

This paper explores whether the Euro-area sovereign credit default swap market is prone to contagion effects. It investigates whether the sharp increase in sovereign CDS spread of a given country is due to a deterioration of the macroeconomic variables or some form of contagion.

For this purpose, the authors use an innovative approach, i.e. spatial econometrics. Although modeling spatial dependence is an attractive challenge, its application in the field of finance remains limited.

The empirical findings show strong evidence of spatial dependence highlighting the presence of pure contagion. Furthermore, evidence of wake-up call contagion-increased sensitivity of investors to fundamentals of neighboring countries and shift contagion-increased sensitivity to common factors are well recorded.

This study aims to study a crucial financial issue that gained increased research interest, i.e. financial contagion. A methodological contribution is made by extending the standard spatial Durbin model (SDM) to analyze and differentiate between several forms of contagion. The results can be used to understand how shocks are spreading through countries.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This study examines the effect of female governors (gender effect) on environmental performance in terms of state-level carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in United States.

The study used annual data from 1970 to 2020 to investigate the relationship between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. Hypothesis was tested through ordinary least squares regression (OLS). The results of the study were also validated using propensity score matching and a difference-in-difference approach.

This study provides empirical insights into the relationship between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. The findings indicate that female governors have a significant negative impact on state-level CO2 emissions per capita. These results suggest that female political leadership is associated with a reduction in CO2 emissions per capita at the state level. The results also show that states under the leadership of female governors experience lower levels of CO2 emissions than those with male governors, indicating female leadership’s potential to promote environmental sustainability.

The findings of this study have practical implications for policymakers, government officials, and other stakeholders involved in the formulation of strategies to promote environmental sustainability. This study highlights the significant role that female political leader play in mitigating CO2 emissions at the state level. It suggests that promoting female in political leadership positions can lead to more environmentally conscious policy decisions and actions, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions per capita. Policymakers should actively encourage women’s participation in leadership roles to utilize their potential contributions to advancing sustainability goals. Furthermore, organizations that focus on environmental issues should prioritize supporting and promoting female leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to environmental sustainability. Ultimately, this study highlights the need for female in political leadership as a potential strategy to address environmental challenges and advance a more sustainable future.

This study pioneers research on the links between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. This study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the potential role of female political leaders in promoting environmental sustainability. Overall, this study enriches the social role and upper echelons theories literature through empirical evidence.

Social media have become the main channel of direct communication between members of parliament and constituents. The study analyzes the content in all Israeli MPs' Facebook channels throughout an entire term of parliament and asks if the results are consistent with the equalization or the normalization hypotheses.

The study uses automatic analysis to produce a birds-eye-view of the content uploaded to the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs during a full term of parliament. All 106 MP pages were automatically scraped. Some complementary information was added to each post in the dataset, such as post length (number of words) and whether the page belongs to a member of the opposition or coalition. The total of 441,974 posts was analyzed to compare engagement and publication rates between pages, coalition vs opposition MPs, MPs vs users etc.

The findings demonstrate that the MP-Facebook sphere is non-egalitarian, in that it follows skewed distributions by MPs in terms of post publication and engagement rates; non-inclusive, in that pages of coalition members receive significantly much more engagement vis-a-vis pages of members of the oppositions; and “top-down”, in that MP-authored posts receive dramatically more engagement then user-authored posts, suggesting MPs have a near-monopoly on setting the agendas manifest in their pages, while users have extremely limited agenda-setting capabilities in these pages.

Previous studies have looked at the character of the interactions between MPs and constituents on the Internet and particularly on online social media. Yet, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study provides a birds-eye-view of the content in all MPs' Facebook channels throughout a full term of parliament. Such an analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of the character and dynamics of conversations that take place in such arenas.

This study aims to investigate whether socially responsible businesses with corporate social expenditure are less prone to engaging in tax avoidance. The study also examines whether political connections moderate the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance.

The study uses ordinary least squares to analyse the panel data of all 30 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange covering 2012 to 2020. The study uses a set of alternative variables to check the robustness of the findings.

Confirming the corporate culture theory, the study findings indicate that the higher the firms’ CSR expenditure, the lower the tax avoidance. Contrarily, the moderating effect of political connection weakens the role of CSR in tax avoidance, implying that political relation makes the firms socially irresponsible. Besides, the findings document that firms with strong political connections are more likely to be tax aggressive by weakening the role of CSR. The findings imply that firms with weaker political connections are more socially responsible than firms with strong political ties.

The study provides the bank management and regulatory bodies valuable insights to take necessary actions so that they can easily monitor whether the banks follow their instructions regarding CSR and tax payments. As the politicians make the firm socially irresponsible, the regulatory bodies and bank management should not keep them or their relatives on the board.

The study contributes to the CSR and tax avoidance literature considering the moderating role of political connections in Bangladesh banking sector.

This paper aims to fill gap in the literature and explore policy options for resolving the problems of accountability by framing three research questions. The research questions are (i) whether certain elements of Scott’s (2014) institutional pillars attenuate (accentuate) corporate and public accountability; (ii) whether the presence of ruling party-affiliated enterprises (RPAEs) create an increase (decrease) in the degree of corporate (public) accountability; and (iii) whether there is a particular form of ownership change that transforms RPAEs into public investment companies.

Using a qualitative research methodology that involves term frequency and thematic analysis of publicly available textual information, the paper examines Mechkova et al.’s (2019 forms of government accountability. The paper analyzes the gaps between the de jure and de facto accountability using the institutional pillars framework.

The findings of the paper are three. First, there are gaps between de jure and de facto in all three (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) forms of government (public) accountability. Second, the study finds that more than three fourth of the parties that contested the June 2021 election did have regional focus. They did not advocate for accountability. Third, Ethiopia’s RPAEs are unique. They have regional focus and are characterized by severe forms of agency and information asymmetry problems.

The main limitation of the paper is its exploratory nature. Extending this research by using cross-country data could provide a more complete picture of the link between corporate (public) accountability and a country’s institutional pillars.

Academic research documents that instilling modern corporate (public) governance standards in the Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) region has shown mixed results. The analysis made in this paper is likely to inform researchers and policymakers about the type of change that leads to better corporate (and public) accountability outcomes.

The institutional change proposed in the paper is likely to advance the public interest by mitigating agency and information asymmetry problems and enhancing government accountability. The changes make the enterprises investable, save scarce jobs, enhance diversity and put the assets in RPAEs to better use.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that uses the institutional pillars analytical framework to examine an SSA country's corporate (public) accountability problem. It demonstrates that accountability is a domestic and a (novel) traveling theory. The paper identifies the complexity of resolving the interlock between political institutions and business enterprises. It theorizes that it is impossible to instill modern corporate (public) accountability standards without changing regulatory, normative and cultural cognitive pillars of institutions. The paper contributes to the change management and public interest literature.