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This article aims to analyse the relationship between the environmental, social and governance (ESG) score and the cost of capital of 600 large, mid and small capitalization companies across 17 countries that are component of the EURO STOXX 600 Index. By examining whether ESG has an impact on the cost of capital, this article contributes to the solutions to improve the impact of organizations and societies on sustainable development. The article further examines whether the effect is because of the environmental, social and/or governance components. In addition, the article analyses which WACC component (i.e. the cost of equity, the cost of debt, the beta or the leverage ratio) is affected. Furthermore, this article analyses whether a high ESG score can substitute for a weaker legal environment.

The results were obtained by using ordinary least squares panel data modelling to analyse the relationship between the ESG score and the cost of capital. The sample consists of companies that are part of the STOXX Europe 600 Index over the period 2018–2021, which is composed of 600 companies, including large, mid and small capitalization firms listed across 17 countries. The sample finally includes 1,960 firm-year observations.

Companies with a higher ESG score tend to have a lower cost of capital, but this relationship holds only for firms domiciled in countries with a weaker legal environment. In addition, these firms should not only increase their ESG score to create a more sustainable environment but also to reduce their cost of debt. Environmental and social factors have a significantly negative impact on the cost of capital only in countries with a weaker legal environment, while the governance component positively impacts the cost of capital by allowing firms to borrow more.

There is not yet a standardized taxonomy to define ESG, making the study dependent on commercial data providers.

The new insights can be used by companies domiciled in countries with weaker legal environments to reduce their cost of capital. The results also allow us to know on which components of the ESG score to focus. It can also help policymakers, specifically those in countries with a weaker legal environment, to provide incentives to further stimulate ESG investments and disclosure, thereby contributing to a more sustainable society.

To achieve the sustainable development goals put forward by the United Nations, it is important for firms to invest in ESG projects. It is nevertheless insightful to know whether these ESG investments, which are currently observed as a cost, also provide benefits to firms and in which countries. If firms clearly see the advantages of investing in ESG projects, they are likely to proactively engage in them.

This article is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to focus on 17 European countries, thereby capturing divergent legal environments. This setting allows us to answer the main novel research question, namely, whether the ESG score can act as a substitute for the legal environment in which the company is domiciled. The article also goes further than previous articles by examining whether the effect is because of the environmental, social and/or governance component and whether these impact the components of the weighted cost of capital, namely, the cost of equity, the cost of debt, the beta or the leverage ratio of the companies.

This study investigates the effect of intellectual capital (IC) and its components on the technical efficiency of Indian commercial banks after controlling the influence of bank-specific and macroeconomic variables.

The study selects a sample of 37 listed Indian commercial banks from 2005 to 2019 and uses the two-step data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Banks' technical efficiency scores are first estimated, while the relationship between IC and technical efficiency is examined in the second stage using the panel data Tobit model.

This study's findings suggest a fluctuating trend in the technical efficiency of Indian banks. Notably, from 2015 onwards, a declining technical efficiency trend is observed for all banks. However, private-sector banks outperform public-sector banks in terms of technical efficiency. This study's regression analysis indicates a positive relationship between IC and banks' technical efficiency scores. Further, by decomposing IC into its components like human capital, structural capital and capital employed, the study's findings show that human capital and structural capital enhance banks' technical efficiency. Notably, capital employed reduces technical efficiency. Moreover, bank size, diversification, capitalization, net interest margin and the country's growth rate significantly drive Indian banks' efficiency. In contrast, their operating cost ratio and the country's inflation negatively influence the same.

This study makes a novel endeavor to examine the IC and bank's technical efficiency nexus in the Indian context, encompassing a period of landmark banking reforms.

This study aims to propose and empirically examine the simultaneous complementary mediating role of bank branch collective human capital and justice climate between implemented high-performance work system (HPWS) and bank branch performance in the banking sector.

Data were collected at three different intervals of time between March 2022 to July 2022 from a final sample of 323 branch managers and 1,369 employees of commercial banks operating in Pakistan. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical model proposed by this study.

Study results revealed that collective human capital and justice climate simultaneously mediate the relationship between implemented HPWS and branch performance.

The study contributes to the strategic HRM theory by proposing the complementary mediating roles of human capital and organizational justice to reap the benefits of implementing HPWS for improving branch-level performance. The managers should focus on developing and exploiting the knowledge, skills and experiences (human capital) of branch employees and improve their collective perceptions of justice to reap the benefits of HPWS for enhancing branch-level performance.

Drawing upon the resource-based view of the firm and organizational justice theory, this novel study examines the simultaneous and complementary mediating effects of collective human capital and justice climate between implemented HPWS and branch performance relationships at the branch-level analysis.

This study evaluated the impact of a faculty training program on student assessment using the Kirkpatrick model.

A self-reported survey assessed 111 Saudi and non-Saudi participants' satisfaction. Subjective and objective measures (self-reported measures, assessment literacy inventory and performance-based assessment tasks) gauged participants' learning level. Pre- and post-training data were collected from 2020 to 2022.

A highly significant effect on satisfaction (>80%) and learning levels was observed, as manifested by workplace practices of student assessment (>70%, the cut-off score). Pre- and post-training comparisons of participants' satisfaction and assessment literacy scores showed significant improvements following training. Multiple regression analyses showed no significant effects for gender and educational attainment but a substantial impact of academic cluster on participants' student assessment skills.

Long-term effects of training faculty on assessment practices and student achievement will be studied at the institutional level in future research.

The current study contributes to human capital investment via faculty training on student assessment, helping them comply with assessment best practices. This assures the quality, fairness and consistency of assessment processes across disciplines in higher education institutions, enhances assessment validity and trust in educational services and may support institutional accreditation.

This study provides opportunities for sharing best practices and helps establish a community of practice. It enhances learning outcomes achievement and empowers higher education graduates with attributes necessary to succeed in the labor market. The human capital investment may have a long-term impact on overall higher education quality.

This study contributes to the scarce literature investigating the impact of training faculty from different clusters on student assessment using subjective and objective measures. It provides developing and evaluating a long-term student assessment program following the Kirkpatrick model.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which sell-side analysts efficiently incorporate firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities into their earnings forecasts. In addition, this paper also investigate the CSR information efficiency of analysts vis-à-vis that of investors.

This paper measures CSR activities by using CSR strength and CSR concern scores from the Morgan Stanley Capital International Environmental, Social and Governance database. This paper uses analysts’ earnings forecast errors and dispersion as proxies for their information efficiency. To compare the CSR information efficiency of analysts to that of investors, this paper uses the Vt/Pt ratio, which is the equity value estimates inferred from analysts’ earnings forecasts (a proxy for analysts’ CSR information efficiency) to the stock price of the focal company (a proxy for investors’ CSR information efficiency).

The regression analysis indicates that analysts’ earnings forecasts are optimistically biased and more dispersed for firms with positive CSR activities. The paper also finds that analysts’ forecasts are more optimistically biased than investors in interpreting CSR activities.

The lack of standardized protocols in CSR reporting and activities has raised the risk of mispricing by analysts, threatening the stability of sustainable investments. This paper suggests that regulators and standard-setters should establish a uniform framework governing firms’ CSR activities, along with their reporting and measurement, to ensure more consistent and reliable evaluations of CSR practices.

Analysts’ mispricing of CSR activities may distort sustainable investing, as it can overly focus on the positive impacts of stakeholder theory, overlooking agency theory’s warnings about managerial self-interest. Investors need to assess CSR efforts with a dual perspective, acknowledging their societal value but also examining their alignment with shareholder interests.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to assess the efficiency of analysts versus investors in processing CSR information amidst growing sustainable investment interests. Furthermore, building on Dhaliwal et al. (2012), which found that voluntary CSR disclosures correlate with more accurate analyst forecasts, this research provides fresh perspectives on the evolving nature of how analysts assimilate CSR information over time.

This paper examines the impact of extreme rainfall shocks on the performance in test scores of students living near at-risk urban areas in Brazil.

To identify the causal effect, we consider the exogenous variation of rainfall at the municipal level conditioned on the distance from the school to risk areas and the rainfall intensity in the school months.

The results suggest that extreme precipitation shocks, defined as a shock of at least three months of high-intensity rainfall, have an adverse impact on both math and language performance. Through a heterogeneous effects analysis, we find that the impact varies by student gender, with girls being more affected. In addition, among students who study near at-risk areas, those with better previous school performance and higher socioeconomic status are more negatively affected.

Our results suggest that extreme weather events can increase the differences in human capital accumulation between the population living near risk areas and those living more distant from these areas.

The human resource and talent management fields have been increasingly focusing on the process and criteria to identify employees’ potential for career advancement due to their impact on the competitive advantage of organizations. This paper expands the extant theoretical and empirical evidence regarding these complex decisions, namely through the combined analysis of multidimensional sources of employees' capital.

This is a cross-sectional study. Data were collected from 384 individuals assessed by their line managers. The research model and hypotheses were tested using structured equation modeling.

The results show a positive and significant influence of four employees’ capital sources, namely: human capital (what you know), social capital (whom you know), psychological capital (who you are) and reputational capital (how others perceive us) with regard to judgments of potential for career advancement. The model explains 52% of the total variance in those judgments.

The data were collected using a questionnaire at a single point in time and thus, not allowing cause-effect inferences.

The results provide guidance to organizational leaders to improve the decision-making process regarding judgments of potential for career advancement.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine managers’ judgments regarding the potential for career advancement using four sources of employees' capital: human, social, psychological and reputational capital. Furthermore, it considers that reputation plays a mediation role.

:在人力資源和人才管理的領域裡,越來越多的焦點被放在找出員工職業發展所需潛能的過程和標準上,這是因為機構和組織的競爭優勢會受其影響。本文擬擴展關於這類複雜的判斷和決定的現存理論和經驗證據; 研究人員使用的方法為對員工資本的多維來源進行綜合分析。

:本研究為橫斷面研究。數據來自384 名受其直線經理評估的個別員工; 研究人員使用了結構方程模型,去測試其研究模型和各個假設。

:研究結果顯示,就員工職業發展所需潛能的判斷而言,存在著會帶來正面和重大影響的四個員工資本來源,這包括人力資本 (你所瞭解的事物) 、社會資本 (你所認識的人物) 、心理資本 (你是誰) 和聲譽資本 (我們予人的印象) 。有關的模型可說明判斷百分之五十二的總方差。

:由於數據的收集是於單一時間點和透過問卷調查而完成的,故未能收因果推斷的效果。

:研究結果給予組織領袖實際的指引,使他們在關於職業發展所需潛能的判斷上，能夠改善其決策的過程。

:就我們所知,本研究為首個研究、以四個員工資本來源,即人力資本、社會資本、心理資本和聲譽資本,去探討經理如何就職業發展所需的潛能作出判斷; 而且，本研究認為聲譽是扮演著調節角色的。

The purpose of this study is to propose and explore a conceptualization of decisional capital that is suitable for early career teachers.

This study uses exploratory factor analysis on a sample of early career teachers to examine a literature-derived conceptualization of decisional capital.

The factors that emerged support the literature-derived conceptualization. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis on a second sample of early career teachers offers additional evidence for the proposed conceptualization. An exploration of the underlying factor structure comparing results across four competing models (i.e. unidimensional, correlated factors, second order, and bifactor) suggests that a second order factor explains the variance across the three proposed factors well. We conclude that this second order factor is decisional capital.

This is the first study that examines the discrete elements of decisional capital. Understanding these discrete elements is an avenue for investigation into the development of decisional capital beyond the acknowledgment that it takes time to develop.

As a consequence of global changes, the landscape of immigration is changing. This brings opportunities for researching more nuanced aspects related to immigrant entrepreneurship in new contexts. The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Africa-to-African immigrants leverage their social capital and human capital towards improving the success of their entrepreneurial ventures.

First-generation immigrant entrepreneurs within the Johannesburg area in South Africa were surveyed (n = 230). Instrument validity and reliability was first established, and then the hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analyses.

Hypotheses are supported insofar African immigrant entrepreneurs in South Africa rely on their structural and resource-related dimensions of social capital to achieve entrepreneurial success. Furthermore, human capital in terms of both work experience and entrepreneurial experience was found to be a significant predictor of entrepreneurial success.

There is value in developing policies that promote African immigrant entrepreneurs with higher levels of human and social capital. These African immigrants have the potential to increase the national skills base and knowledge required for successful entrepreneurship development in South Africa.

While both human capital and social capital have been associated significantly with the generic entrepreneurship literature, this paper provides an empirical contribution by focusing on the relevance of these constructs in the context of immigrant entrepreneurship from an African emerging market perspective.