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The 1990s brought a strong dominance of the US model of corporate governance, setting the continental European model at a disadvantage. Due to the financial crisis, the shareholder dominated Anglo‐American model has lost much of its evidence. The purpose of this paper is to try to come to terms with this development.

The paper compares the American model of corporate governance shaped by the idea of the capital market as the market for corporate control and the Continental European model shaped by the idea of consensual decisions and co‐determination of stakeholder groups. The paper uses as the main parameters the dominant features of both models, the capital market orientation in the case of the American and the consensus orientation in the case of the Continental European model and demonstrates the strengths and shortcomings of both models. It analyses the idea of the purpose of the firm and its impact on the formation of the legal and ethical rules of the corporation.

The paper finds that different concepts of the firm's purpose lead to different concepts of the firm, to a shareholder or a stakeholder concept of the firm. Basic models of philosophical theory like purpose, agency and consensus are used to describe foundational ideas of the theory of the firm.

The philosophical foundational concepts of the firm discussed in the paper add new insight to the discussion about corporate governance and allow a better understanding of the underlying models of corporate governance. They make the differences and the common features of the American and European models visible.

Research has found that firms with deep purpose treat purpose as an existential intention that informed every decision, practice and process. They adopted purpose as their operating system, perceiving it as a vital animating force. As a result, they navigated the tumultuous terrain of multi-stakeholder capitalism far more adeptly than most, increasing value for all stakeholders, including investors, over the long-term.

The author analyses Professor Ranjay Gulati’s new book “Deep Purpose” and his HBR article, “The Messy but Essential Pursuit of Purpose” that introduce the concept of “deep purpose,” which has enabled some firms to “operate with heightened passion, urgency, and clarity”.

Firms with deep purpose treat ‘purpose as an existential intention that informed every decision, practice and process’.

Purpose serves as an organizing principle that shapes decision-making and binds stakeholders to one another.

This is a very timely article that will held senior executives develop and articulate their firms purpose statement and connect it to their operating practices.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the type of theoretical lens and strategic purpose impacts the relationships among firm environmental strategy, financial performance, and environmental performance.

This is a theoretical paper which first investigates three constructs: firm environmental strategy, environmental performance, and economic performance. Scholars have argued for different relationships among the three constructs. The paper then discusses two theoretical lenses (strategic choice and the resource‐based view) and two strategic purposes (stakeholder and shareholder) used in the literature. The paper argues that the type of theoretical lens and strategic purpose will impact the way the three constructs (firm environmental strategy, financial performance, and environmental performance) are arranged.

The paper provides a two‐by‐two matrix distinguishing between theoretical lens and strategic purpose. The paper argues that the specific choice of theoretical lens and strategic purpose helps define the way firm environmental strategy, financial performance, and environmental performance are arranged.

As different scholars have argued for different relationships among the three constructs, this paper provides a framework that could help justify the seemingly paradoxical relationships. The paper concludes with ideas for future research on these issues.

The research seeks to evaluate stakeholder perceptions of firms, the extent these assessments impact trust in firms and possible implications for sustainability communications.

Three studies were undertaken involving two experiments (n = 436, n = 393) and one survey (n = 217). Analyses of variance was used in all three studies and in studies 2 and 3—to test for possible mediators—each variable was tested using Hayes' PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013) with bootstrapping of 5,000 samples.

Results demonstrate significant favouring of sustainability-minded firms. Some differences between consumers and investors were found but also notable commonalities such as a general propensity to favour purpose-oriented firms and similar determinations of trust in firms.

Findings could support more effective sustainability communications and firm decisions regarding investments in purpose- and sustainability-oriented initiatives. The results may also support designs to pursue and promote designations (e.g. B Corp) that legitimize sustainability claims.

This research was unique in its evaluation of two stakeholder types in the same context. Further, it provides new insights into how a firm’s profit-purpose orientation affects stakeholder perceptions and assessments of trustworthiness.

Due to the emergent use of social media for marketing purposes, and the limited number of studies focusing on the use of social media by firms, the purpose of this paper is to explore the inclusion of social networks in the traditional marketing mix models.

A sample of 20 small and large Italian liquor producers was used, and their Facebook profiles were content analyzed.

The results provide evidence about the emerging shift from the use of social media for communication purposes through static advertising (characterized by pictures and slogans), to its use as an interactive channel that can influence consumers’ purchasing behaviour through multimedia tools (i.e. games and interactive applications able to solicit users’ interest), by emphasizing the extent to which a higher level of participation by a firm involves a higher level of consumer interaction. The findings also suggest that the firm’s participation should be considered as a new element of the traditional marketing mix model and as an additional tool for efficient market sizing and sensing.

The study offers findings on actual usage of Facebook as part of marketing mix strategies based on large and small enterprises operating in the food and beverage sector, where a dearth of studies is observed. The study enhances and advances the social media and marketing literatures.

High performing firms have been associated with “quality” mission statements defined by the choice of components. In an attempt to extend our knowledge in order to give more legitimacy to these claims and also provide more local and relevant reference for Ghana‐based firms, the purpose of this paper is to investigate, through a component analysis, how high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define their mission.

Mission statements of 50 of the Ghana Club 100 firms, primarily extracted from the official web sites, Initial Public Offer prospectuses and annual reports of the firms, were subjected to content analysis which evaluated and scored the mission statements based on the occurrence of 20 specific components.

The paper found that high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define missions to include components that the literature uses to measure quality; and these are similar to those of the UK, Canada and Ireland. Based on the ranking of the components, three categories were identified: the imperatives, the highlights, and the adjuncts.

The paper lumped together all firms irrespective of industry or sector. There is, therefore, the need to conduct further research to identify possible industry or sectoral differences, for better insight and relevance.

Ideas generated in this paper provide a guide to practitioners and firms regarding how they can develop mission statements, drawing on experiences of high‐performing Ghana‐based firms.

This is the first attempt to study how high‐performing Ghana‐based firms define their mission and hence is a major contribution to the scarce if not non‐existent Africa‐specific studies. It also provides a more prescriptive approach to crafting mission statements by proposing hierarchies of the components of mission statements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between a firm's cash conversion cycle and its profitability.

The relation between the firm's cash conversion cycle and its profitability is examined using dynamic panel data analysis for a sample of Japanese firms for the period from 1990 to 2004. The analysis is applied at the levels of the full sample and divisions of the sample by industry and by size.

A strong negative relation between the length of the firm's cash conversion cycle and its profitability is found in all of the authors’ study samples except for consumer goods companies and services companies.

Traditional focus in corporate finance was on the long‐term financial decisions, particularly capital structure, dividends, and company valuation decisions. However, the recent trend in corporate finance is the focus on working capital management. Most of working capital management literature is based on the US experience. This study investigates the relation between the firm's cash conversion cycle and its profitability of Japanese firms where the organizational structure is totally different from that of the US firms; most of the Japanese firms are interconnected and related through corporate groups (keiretsu).

The purpose of this study is to examine investors’ awareness in Amman Stock Exchange of the effects of earnings manipulation incentives on the earnings manipulation practices of managements through the usage of the available level of flexibility in the accounting standards, and to examine whether those investors are able to detect these practices. A self‐administered questionnaire of three sections was developed and used to achieve the purposes of this study. A sample of 144 respondents from four industries was selected using a stratified sampling method. The study found that investors in Amman Stock Exchange have enough awareness to the effects of earnings manipulation incentives on the practices of managements toward the manipulation of earnings. Moreover, this study concluded that investors in Amman Stock Exchange have the ability to detect those practices.