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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) promotes society, reduces risk, and encourages ethical business practices. Due to its relevance, we study how CSR influences firms' sustainable development. We analyze data from 427 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)-listed firms from 2008 to 2022. The Refinitiv environmental and social score is used to measure CSR, whereas for firms' sustainable development we rely on corporate sustainable growth rate (SGR) and market-based metrics. The analysis employs various econometric techniques, including ordinary least square, fixed effect regression, two-stage least square, generalized method of moment, and simultaneous quantile regression. The results indicate that CSR has a positive and significant effect on firms' sustainable development across all models. This relationship supports the notion that socially responsible business can contribute to long-term financial sustainability in line with “stakeholder theory”, indicating that companies should accommodate the concerns of various stakeholders, including society and the environment, to achieve sustainable development. We evaluate how the conditional distributions of SGR and firms’ value are affected by CSR, categorizing them into high, moderate, and low regimes. The quantile regression estimates indicate that the effect of CSR is more pronounced at upper quantiles, followed by moderate and low regimes. These findings underscore the importance of considering CSR in assessing the SGR and enterprises market value. We also confirm that our results are robust under range of different econometrics' methods. Finally, we enlighten current literature, and our research has useful policy implications for management and investors.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new conceptual framework for service organizations to achieve sustainable business performance through strategic quality orientation and innovation capabilities on the basis of relevant literature review and integration of various innovation and business sustainability theories and models. The study tests if the strategic quality orientation enhances innovation capabilities in terms of exploitation and explorative innovation, which, in turn, can lead to sustainable business growth. Mediating impact of innovation capabilities between strategic quality orientation and sustainable business growth relationship is also examined.

A conceptual framework was developed to test and establish these relationships. Results were analyzed based on 442 questionnaires collected from five different service industries of Pakistan, and the structural equation modeling technique was used to empirically test the conceptual framework.

The results indicate that strategic quality orientation directly affects innovation capabilities and sustainable business growth and also indirectly impacts sustainable business growth through its effect on innovation capabilities.

The study suggests service organizations can jointly implement quality and innovation using a structured approach, with strategic quality orientation as the foundation. In this way, they can leverage from their strategic quality management, supplier relationship, corporate quality culture, continual improvement and people management in order to ensure innovation and sustainability in their business growth.

The study integrates strategic quality orientation and innovation capabilities, and validates a new organizational framework through empirical examination which can be used by service organizations to ensure their sustainable business growth.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the application of sustainable growth challenge (SGC) model in agricultural finance as a conceptual paradigm and then uses the model to measure sustainable growth rates for Illinois grain and livestock farmers. The SGC concept is used to understand the economic conditions and business decisions made by farmers in certain episodes of the time period analyzed.

A seemingly unrelated regression approach is used to analyze the interrelationships of the four levers of growth using a panel data of Illinois farm‐level financial and operating information. The second analysis flows from the first and examines aggregate US farm data to provide an historical perspective of changes in the SGC over time.

Econometric results indicate the relevance of the SGC model in explaining farm financial and operating decisions. The farms’ tendencies to attain balanced growth seem to be more influenced by asset productivity and leverage decisions, which are given different emphasis by grain and livestock farms due to differing operational structures and constraints. This study's estimation and analysis of the USA farm sector's actual and sustainable growth rates from 1981 to 2001 data generally show that the industry has adapted to positive or negative SGCs in a manner consistent with the model.

This paper explores the relevance of the SGC model as a business, policy and teaching tool for understanding issues surrounding farmers’ financial and operating decisions.

By drawing attention to the finite rather than unlimited nature of physical resources, the purpose of this paper is to: examine the implications of the (near absolute) emphasis placed on firm growth on sustainable consumption; and discuss complementary perspectives spanning individual, firm and societal levels that allow for both firm growth and sustainable consumption.

The authors integrate multidisciplinary insights from marketing, sociology, environmental sciences, management and economics, to understand the inherent tensions between unchecked firm growth, consumption and sustainability. Five propositions link production, consumption and marketing from a resource standpoint.

A ceaseless economic growth paradigm and overconsumption causes an unwarranted depletion of resources and is at odds with sustainability. Firms can play an important role by guiding future marketing and production toward sustainable ends. Several alternate perspectives support the case that growth may coexist and align with sustainable consumption. Consequently the authors consolidate and reflect on seven approaches (voluntary simplicity, humane consumption, CSR 2.0, social marketing, marketing 3.0, anti-positional economy and degrowth) that hold promise for achieving sustainability via responsible growth and consumption.

The authors consider the complex triad of growth, consumption and sustainability that spans multiple levels. A focus on the pattern and nature of growth and consumption helps to identify its effects on sustainability. Specifically, two value chain activities – production and marketing may be leveraged as firm level initiatives to achieve sustainable goals. In addition, the authors present seven heterogeneous perspectives that complement firm attempts to achieve growth with sustainable consumption. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of social media, perception, readiness and usage on sustainable growth of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional and adopted a mixed method approach. Data was gathered through a questionnaire survey of 212 business owner–managers that are members of the Uganda Small Scale Industries Association (USSIA) and engaging 8 business managers in the in-depth interviews to support and strengthen the quantitative results. Data analysis was done using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS.24) and Atlas ti.8.

The study reveals that social media perception, readiness and usage positively influence sustainable growth of MSEs in Uganda. However, the insufficient soft and technical skills, lack of devices such as computers and smartphones and the high cost of Internet data undermine the usage of social media by business owner–managers for sustainable growth of their businesses.

The findings demonstrate what policymakers, social media operators and business owner–managers need to do to enhance integration of social media platforms and channels into the operations of MSEs in Uganda.

This study adds to existing literature on social media technology in MSEs with evidence from Uganda. The study results are likely to foster usage of social media as policymakers and social media providers will come up with appropriate strategies to unlock the social media potential of the business owner–managers for sustainable business growth in Uganda.

The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model offers a financing hierarchy that can be used for examining the POT. As far as the EFN considers growth of sales as a driver for changing capital structure, it follows that shall firms plan for a sustainable growth of sales, a sustainable financing can be reached and maintained. This study uses data about the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from June 30, 1999, to March 31, 2012. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) causality analysis in order to show the generic and mutual associations between the components of EFN. The results conclude that (a) in the majority of the cases, firms plan for an increase in growth sales but not necessarily to approach sustainable rate; (b) in cases of observed and sustainable growth of sales, firms reduce debt financing persistently; (c) firms use equity financing to finance sustainable growth of sales in the long run only, while in the short run, firms use internal financing, that is, retained earnings as a flexible source of financing; and (d) the EFN model is quite useful for examining the hierarchy of financing. This study contributes to the related literature in terms of utilizing the properties of the EFN model in order to examine the practical aspects of the POT. These practical considerations are extended to examine the use of the POT in cases of observed and sustainable growth rates. The findings contribute to the current literature that there is a need to offer an adjustment to the financing order suggested by the POT. Equity financing is the first source of financing current and sustainable growth of sales, followed by retained earnings, and debt financing is the last resort.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how independent director-CEO friendliness has an impact on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability and further explore how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and executive compensation affect the relationship in the Chinese context.

Using a sample of Chinese-listed companies from 2010 to 2020, the study adopts fixed effects models to empirically analyze the effect of independent director-CEO friendliness on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability and the roles of CSR and executive compensation.

This study finds that independent director-CEO friendliness is significantly positively correlated with the sustainable growth capability of an enterprise, and this effect is enhanced with the improvement of the degree of CSR fulfillment. What is more, the positive relationship between independent director-CEO friendliness and the enterprise's sustainable growth capability becomes stronger with higher executive compensation.

Given that the existing research on sustainable growth capability mainly focused on the macroeconomic field, this study is of great theoretical significance in exploring the relationship between independent director-CEO friendliness and the enterprise's sustainable growth capability from the micro-level, contributing to the research on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability. In addition, this study considers the boundary conditions of CSR and executive compensation from internal and external perspectives, respectively, as it is innovative to elucidate organizational development from the perspective of internal and external balance.

This is a comparative study of the nature of operating decisions made by agricultural and non-agricultural banks, affecting their actual growth plans in the years around and during the Great Recession of 2008. The main empirical question is whether banks under greater economic stress shortly before, during, and immediately after the recession made deliberate adjustments in their growth decisions vis-à-vis predetermined sustainable levels.

Higgins' sustainable growth challenge is employed to evaluate banks' growth decisions involving four growth levers (profitability, earnings retention, asset management, and financial leverage). Actual growth trends are related to business growth rates deemed sustainable given available financial capability as prescribed by Higgins' model.

Both banking groups made cautious growth decisions during the sample period. Actual growth rates were below sustainable levels. Agricultural banks registered steadily increasing sustainable growth rates from the pre-recession years until the recovery period, while non-agricultural banks were more constrained to grow given their declining sustainable growth levels. Notably, agricultural banks showed relatively more aggressiveness in raising slightly actual revenue growth to levels much closer to sustainable levels. This could have resulted from their less volatile profit margin trends and usual pressure to maintain acceptable liquidity conditions in order to gain access to external funds.

This study presents an additional application of Higgins' model to agricultural finance. The comparative analysis of banking groups becomes even more relevant these days as recent economic discussions focus on indicators of an imminent recessionary period.

Using various proxies for the firms' return on equity (ROE) and retention ratios (b) the authors calculate 36 sustainable growth rates, on a rolling basis, for a comprehensive set of firms over a 52-year period. The authors then assess the ability of these different sustainable growth rates to predict the actual, out-of-sample, five-year growth rates of the firms' earnings.

The authors compare the forecast to determine which method of estimating ROE and b produce the lowest mean-squared-errors and then determine the estimation method that works best for firms with different characteristics and for firms in different industries.

Overall, using the median ROE of all firms in the market and the 5-year average of the specific firm's retention ratio produces the lowest, statistically significant, forecast errors. Variations are documented based on firm characteristics, including dividend payout, level of ROE and industry.

The findings can guide practitioners in using the best earnings forecasting method.

Financial textbooks seem universally to suggest that one method of estimating the growth rate of a firm's earnings is to calculate the “sustainable growth rate” by multiplying the firm's ROE by the firm's b. At the same time, multiple methods of proxying for both ROE and b have been suggested; therefore, it is an interesting and useful empirical question, which, heretofore, has not been addressed in the literature, as to which estimation of the sustainable growth rate best approximates the actual future growth of the firm's earnings. The findings can guide practitioners in using the best earnings forecasting method.