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Information technology is widely applied for completing group tasks and enhancing learning in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. Group members not only complete tasks but also learn ideas from other members of the group. These ideas can be better than what individual could come up with. As these ideas are referred as an upward comparison in the perspective of social comparison theory. However, there are limited studies that provide evidence in investigating how social comparison orientation (SCO) perceived by individual learner impacts on learning and group performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study experimentally tackles this problem at both individual and group level. An experimental study was applied in this study. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling approaches are used to validate the data.

Results of 168 subjects reveal that SCO does have associations with group performance and learning performance respectively. Discussions and implications for literature and practice are given at the end of the paper.

This study confirms that the social genesis occurs more effectively through social interactions in CSCL. It also extends our understandings about the impacts of SCO. Results reveal that the higher level of SCO adopted by group members, the higher level of social interactions at group level can be triggered. As a result, the group performance can be enhanced. On one hand, these findings bridge the research gap in terms of investigating the notion of SCT on CSCL. On the other hand, it provides a possible solution in alleviating the problem of social loafing as commonly observed in CSCL. Therefore, these findings fulfilled the two research objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to define co-exploitation, co-exploration, and alliance ambidexterity from the perspective of organizational learning; to analyze how knowledge bases, structural arrangements, and control mechanisms of R&D alliances influence co-exploitation and co-exploration; and to discuss how to achieve alliance ambidexterity by managing paradoxes around knowledge bases, structural arrangements, and control mechanisms.

This is a conceptual paper focussing on how to balance exploitation and exploration at the alliance level through managing three paradoxes of cooperation: similarity vs complementarity, integration vs modularity, and contracts vs trust.

While technological similarity, structural integration, and contracts are more likely to promote co-exploitation, technological complementarity, structural modularity, and trust are more likely to facilitate co-exploration. Alliance ambidexterity, which is beneficial for alliance performance, derives from either the combination of technological complementarity, structural integration, and contracts, or the combination of technological similarity, structural modularity, and trust temporally.

Researchers should analyze the possibility of building alliance ambidexterity in other types of interorganizational relationships, and find other possible antecedents of interorganizational learning.

Managers should not simply treat R&D alliances as one of exploratory interorganizational relationships, but pay equal attention to co-exploitation and co-exploration. To achieve this balance, practitioners should combine technological complementarity with structural integration and contracts, or integrate technological similarity with structural modularity and trust.

This paper is one of the first contributions that analyze how an R&D alliance could gain its ambidexterity through the management of nested cooperation paradoxes.

Public-interest entities – among which are listed companies – are obliged to publish nonfinancial disclosure in some countries and regions. The European Commission established mandatory nonfinancial disclosure by Directive 2014/95/EU. While a large body of literature was developed on sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) in voluntary context, evidence about the effect of mandatory nonfinancial disclosure on SRQ is controversial and previous experiences worldwide did not make clear if obligatoriness improves SRQ. This chapter aims to bridge the gap of empirical evidence about this phenomenon in European countries, focusing on first implementation of new legislation by Italian and German companies. The research has an explorative character and it adopts content analysis methods performed on sustainability reporting practices of companies listed in FTSE-MIB and DAX 30. The analysis aims to understand if obligatoriness affects SRQ, causes some changes in reporting practices such as harmonizing Italian and German ones by performing a cross-country comparison. The findings suggest that obligatoriness improves reporting quality and, above all, it fills the gap between different countries by fostering the adoption of international guidelines and the consequent introduction of some content, such as materiality analysis and quantitative measures of social and environmental performance.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential benefits for firms that report more on environmental activities, with regard to two important categories of stakeholders: shareholders and customers.

To avoid the endogeneity problem, the authors apply the system generalized method of moments approach by estimating the relationship between environmental reporting and firm performance with regard both to levels and first differences simultaneously.

Based on the 120 largest publicly traded companies in France from 2007 to 2011, results suggest that shareholders interpret and perceive firms’ environmental information disclosure differently than consumers. However, reporting on environmental duties is perceived favorably by both customers and shareholders for firms with better environmental performance. In the same way, an increase in the level of environmental reporting is valuable in terms of customer-related performance (i.e. sales growth and profit margin) and in terms of market value (i.e. Tobin’s q) for firms operating in customer proximity industries. In a supplementary analysis, the authors found that, for reporting on climate change (a component of the combined environmental reporting index), positive customer and shareholder perceptions are acquired in particular through superior environmental performance and proximity to the final customer.

When reporting on their environmental duties, environmental performance and proximity to the final customers play a critical role for firms in obtaining the necessary support of key stakeholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the difference between shareholders’ and customers’ perception of environmental reporting according to firms’ environmental performance and to their proximity to the final customer.

In recent years, integrated reporting has emerged as a tool to provide environmental information in an interconnected way. However, in the academic literature, the amount of environmental information contained in integrated reports has never been analysed. This study, through the stakeholder-agency theory, aims to fill this important gap by examining the impact of the corporate governance mechanisms on the level of environmental information disseminated by the firms through integrated reports.

A manual content analysis based on an environmental disclosure index consisting of 30 items was performed to measure the amount of environmental information. In addition, a regression analysis was performed on a sample of 129 international firms to examine the impact of the corporate governance mechanisms on the level of environmental information disseminated through integrated reports.

The results show a positive effect of the board size, board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility committee existence on the level of environmental disclosure. Furthermore, they show a non-significant impact of board independence.

This study enriches the literature in several ways. First, it extends the field of application of the stakeholder-agency theory. Second, this study extends the analysis of environmental disclosure to another document – the integrated report – still unexplored by academic literature. Finally, it shed light on the determinants of environmental disclosure.

The global energy sector draws significant stakeholder attention due to never-ending controversies surrounding its environmental impacts. Investors’ response to such controversies causes direct financial implications for these firms. Furthermore, environmental, social and governance (ESG) sensitivity, which is likely to safeguard the energy sector firms from such controversies, is itself conditional to the development stage of a country and its regulatory environment. Therefore, this study aims to investigate if the influence of ESG on the share price volatility (SPV) of energy sector firms is subject to the development stage of the countries.

The study investigates nine years of panel data of 93 global energy sector firms from developing and developed nations. Using dynamic two-way fixed effects estimation and computing robust standard errors to obtain the econometric results.

The main finding reveals that the impact of ESG on SPV is, indeed, subject to the development stage of the nations. Similar results are observed for the effects of the social dimension of ESG on SPV. While ESG impacts the SPV negatively for firms in developing economies, the impact is the opposite for firms in developed nations. In other words, strong ESG propositions induce share price stability for developing countries while destabilizing the firms in developed nations.

The policymakers should further streamline the regulations and policies related to ESG adoption and adherence. In practice, the energy sectors should streamline their operations. Firm managers, especially in the energy sector, should devise strategies with ESG as an essential component to safeguard their firms against environmental and market volatility and adversatives. The firms in developing nations should further strengthen their social dimension of ESG to foster social equity and harmony.

The study contributes through its niche investigations on the energy sector, which is very important for the world economy. The study is relevant in the current scenario when the world faces a severe energy crisis due to global supply chain issues.

This meta-analysis aimed to examine health professionals' job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

This research was conducted using the meta-analysis method, one of the quantitative research methods. A preliminary literature search was conducted to determine keywords over the internet access network. With screening, keywords such as “Organizational commitment,” “Organizational loyalty,” “Job satisfaction,” “job satisfaction,” “Healthcare worker,” “Organizational commitment,” “Organizational faith,” “job satisfaction,” “Job saturation” keywords in Turkish and English were determined. Nine full-text articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 2014–2020 from the electronic databases of Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, EKUAL and Google Academic were included in the meta-analysis. The study's effect size and publication bias included in the meta-analysis were calculated using the CMA 3 (Comprehensive meta-analysis) program.

The total sample number of the studies included in the analysis is 7,218. According to the random effects model, the overall effect size between job satisfaction and organizational commitment was statistically significant, with a value of 0.544 (confidence interval [CI]; 0.445–0.629; p < 0.05). This effect size was found to be moderate, according to Cohen's classification.

As a result of this meta-analysis, it was determined that there is a mutual interaction between job satisfaction and organizational commitment based on the cause–effect relationship. The findings obtained determined that job satisfaction has more power to affect organizational commitment positively.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of the volume of environmental disclosures and their quality, with particular focus on the role of audit committees (ACs) and the effects of the Smith report recommendations for the UK Corporate Governance Code.

Quantitative large sample analysis of UK FTSE350 companies for the period 2007-2011.

Firms with higher quality ACs make higher quality disclosures. Larger firms with block shareholders have greater volume of disclosures, whilst AC quality does not increase disclosure volume.

Findings are based on evidence from single country and imply further international comparative research.

ACs mitigate the requirement for prescriptive legislation on narrative accounting disclosures relating to environmental issues.

The paper contributes to research that has examined the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, specifically ACs, and the quality of financial reporting by considering voluntary narrative disclosures on environmental matters.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the linkages between audit committees’ (AC) effectiveness, audit quality and corporate voluntary disclosure quality (VDQ).

Empirical tests address 144 firm-year observations drawn from Ghanaian listed companies during 2013–2016.

The results document a substitute and complementary effect between the presence of Big Four auditor and effective AC in increasing quality voluntary disclosure.

This study is one of the few that have examined the effect of AC effectiveness and audit quality on corporate VDQ. The findings lend credence to the belief that AC effectiveness and Big Four auditors complement each other to enhance quality of voluntary information disclosure.