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As focal buyers implement sustainable supplier management (SSM) to advance their supply chain sustainability, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more nuanced understanding of how buyers’ use of power may incite varying perceptions of justice from suppliers that affect sustainable supplier performance (SSP).

This paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 181 supplying firms in China to examine the complex links among power use, justice, SSM, and sustainable performance using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Both coercive and reward buyer power can facilitate SSM implementation and justice perception moderates the impact of SSM on SSP. Furthermore, coercive power adversely influences justice evaluation, thereby attenuating the effect of SSM on performance.

This study complements and extends sustainable supply chain management research by evaluating SSM: on environmental, social and economic performance; from the perspectives of suppliers; and in an emerging market where many suppliers of Western firms are located. It also adds to behavioral SCM research by examining how buyers’ exercise of power might influence suppliers’ justice perception.

To implement SSM, focal buyers cannot simply issue codes of conduct to suppliers and ignore suppliers’ disposition to commit to standards. While coercive power might be convenient and tempting for buying firms, managers ought to be judicious in the use of coercion.

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among power use, justice, SSM and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers in an emerging economy.

As supply chain sustainability has become more urgent than ever before, this study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how supplying firms’ sustainability motives influence their compliance and commitment, as well as sustainable performance, as they respond to buyers’ sustainable supplier management programs.

To investigate the intriguing links among sustainability motives, compliance/commitment and sustainable performance of supplying firms, this paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 281 supplying firms in China to test the proposed model and hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

Instrumental and moral motives make comparable contributions to compliance; moral motives exert stronger influence on firms’ commitment to sustainable practices. In addition, although compliance has a greater impact on economic and environmental performance, commitment is far more robust in improving environmental and social performance.

Unlike most research on motives that has been theoretical, this study represents one of the few empirical analyses of how motives may affect sustainable performance. Examining the challenges from the perspectives of supplying firms, it also adds to the SSCM literature by making clear how compliance and commitment may differentially predict sustainable performance.

Although instrumental and moral motives can be complementary in advancing sustainable practices, it is imperative for firms to integrate moral considerations into sustainability decision-making and move beyond compliance, if they are to contribute meaningfully to a better society and cleaner environment.

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among motives, compliance, commitment and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers.

This study aims to analyze the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on a bank’s financial stability. Moreover, it also examines whether digitalization and income diversification act as mediators (individual and serial) in this relationship.

Hypotheses were tested using data from Pakistan’s banking sector financial statements from 2017 to 2021. A two-step analytical approach was used: panel regression in STATA for initial hypothesis examination, followed by mediation analyses using bootstrapping in SPSS. In addition, mixed-effect ML regression was conducted to verify causation and ensure robust findings.

Results demonstrate that BGD, digitalization and income diversification are positively associated with higher financial stability. Moreover, as hypothesized, both digitalization and income diversification individually and sequentially mediate the relationship between BGD and banks’ financial stability.

It is important to acknowledge the study’s limited five-year timeframe. Further investigation is needed to determine the optimal board compositions, especially considering the study’s inclusion of up to 25% female directors on boards.

Policymakers and top management should prioritize increasing the number of female directors on boards for diversity. Banks that involve female directors can benefit from the synergies between gender diversity and digitization, along with the unique perspectives these women offer. This cooperative dynamic enables banks to explore and capitalize on innovative income diversification opportunities, enter new markets and ensure financial stability.

Research findings emphasize promotion of gender equality and meritocracy through increased female director representation. This fosters a more inclusive and cooperative decision-making culture, benefiting individual banks and setting a model for other sectors. Ultimately, it contributes to greater social acceptance of women executives.

The study reveals a novel mechanism, emphasizing the revolutionary impact of active female directors in tandem with digitalization, amplifying chances for income diversification and accelerating increased bank viability.

This study aims to examine the information transfer effects of customers’ credit rating downgrades on supplier firms.

In this study, the authors use suppliers’ cumulative abnormal returns around customers’ credit rating downgrade events to identify how shocks to customer credit impact supplier equity prices. The authors also incorporate ordinary least squares and weighted least squares regressions regression analysis of the determinants of supplier market response to customer downgrades.

The authors find that customer credit rating downgrades present significant negative shocks to the stock prices of supplier firms. Moreover, the authors show that the information transfer effects are determined by both firm- and industry-level factors, including the market anticipation of downgrades, the strength of the customer–supplier linkage, the industry rivals’ reactions to the downgrades and investor attention. The authors also find that the likelihood that a supplier will receive a rating downgrade is significantly higher following its primary customer firm’s downgrade.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the information transfer effects of credit rating downgrades on primary stakeholders within the supply chain. The authors document that customer–supplier networks have valuable implications for the spillover effect across debt and equity holders. Information about customers’ financial stress is incorporated into suppliers’ equity prices outside of the context of customer bankruptcy.

Individuals, organizations, firms, and governments have been making strenuous effort to promote sustainable and green consumption. However, it is noticeable that a large amount of unattractive produce is ruthlessly discarded and wasted around the globe, resulting in unsustainable consumption behavior, harming long-term business development, and breaking the harmonious relationship between humans and nature. Therefore, to increase consumer literacy toward unaesthetic produce, this research investigates the pivotal role of “natural” labeling in increasing purchase intention toward visually unattractive fruits and vegetables.

By recruiting participants from one of the largest online crowdsourcing platforms (the Credamo), this research conducts three online experimental studies (with two pilot studies) to test three hypotheses based on the cue utilization theory and the lay belief theory.

The results show that unattractive produce with the “natural” label could significantly increase consumers' purchase intention compared with those without specific labels. The results also reveal that consumers' lay beliefs that natural foods are perceived to be tastier and healthier mediate the positive effects of “natural” labeling (vs no specific labeling) on willingness to purchase.

This research explores competing lay beliefs about unattractive produce. It identifies the positive effects of lay beliefs “natural = tasty and healthy” through “natural” labeling appeal, thus attenuating the misapplication of lay beliefs “unattractive = tasteless and unhealthy” and broadening the application scope of consumer lay belief theory. The findings also contribute to the cue literature by manifesting the positive consequences of the “natural” label playing as a cognitive cue in priming lay beliefs about naturalness. In addition, it also paves a positive way for business practitioners and marketers to develop the produce industry sustainably.

Using China’s key audit matters (KAMs) data, this study aims to examine whether negative press coverage alleviates boilerplate KAMs.

This study uses Levenshtein edit distance (LVD) to calculate the horizontal boilerplate of KAMs and investigates how boilerplate changes under different levels of the perceived legal risk.

The findings indicate that auditors of firms exposed to substantial negative press coverage will reduce the boilerplate of KAMs. This association is more significant for auditing firms with lower market share and client firms with higher financial distress. Additionally, the authors find that negative press coverage is more likely to alleviate the boilerplate disclosure of KAMs related to managers’ subjective estimation and material transactions and events. Furthermore, the association between negative press coverage and boilerplate KAMs varies with the source of negative news.

The findings suggest that upon exposure to negative press coverage, reducing the boilerplate of KAMs has a disclaimer effect for auditors.