Search results

Reacting to the calls in the contemporary literature to further examine the relationship between board attributes and firms’ decisions to obtain corporate social responsibility assurance (CSRA) through the use of pioneering techniques, this study aims to analyse the influence of such attributes together with the existence of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee on the adoption of CSRA using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (Fs-QCA).

Fs-QCA was performed on a sample of nonfinancial European companies listed on the STOXX Europe 600 index over the period 2016–2018.

The study findings indicate that the decision to obtain a CSRA report depends on a complex combination of the influence of the CSR committee and certain board attributes, such as size, experience, independence, meeting frequency, gender and CEO separation. These attributes play essential contributing roles and, if suitably combined, stimulate the adoption of CSRA.

The study findings are important for policymakers, professionals, organisations and regulators in forming and modifying the rules and guidelines related to CSR committees and board composition.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first examination of the impact of board attributes and CSR committees on the adoption of CSRA using Fs-QCA method. It also offers a novel methodological contribution to the board-CSRA literature by combining traditional statistical (logistic regression) and Fs-QCA methods. This study emphasises the benefits of Fs-QCA as an alternative to logistic regression analysis. Through the use of these methods, the research illustrates that Fs-QCA offers more detailed and informative results when compared to those obtained through logistic regression analysis. This finding highlights the potential of Fs-QCA to enhance our understanding of complex phenomena in academic research.

This study aims to investigate the role of negative media coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in deterring tax avoidance. Inspired by media agenda-setting theory and legitimacy theory, this study hypothesises that an increase in ESG negative media coverage should cause a reputational drawback, leading companies to reduce tax avoidance to regain their legitimacy. Hence, this study examines a novel channel that links ESG and taxation.

This study uses panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between negative media coverage of ESG issues and tax avoidance among the largest European entities. This study considers different measures of tax avoidance and negative media coverage.

The results show that negative media coverage of ESG issues is negatively associated with tax avoidance, suggesting that media can act as an external monitor for corporate taxation.

The findings have implications for policymakers and regulators, which should consider tax transparency when dealing with ESG disclosure requirements. Tax disclosure should be integrated into ESG reporting.

The study has social implications related to the media, which act as watchdogs for firms’ irresponsible practices. According to this study’s findings, increased media pressure has the power to induce a better alignment between declared ESG policies and tax strategies.

This study contributes to the literature on the mechanisms that discourage tax avoidance and the literature on the relationship between ESG and taxation by shedding light on the role of media coverage.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework that jointly considers Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and organisational resilience (OR) components to ameliorate organisations' understanding of sustainability’s overall requirements and related decision-making processes.

This paper combines ESG and OR through a 3x3 conceptual matrix, where ESG factors are listed along the vertical axis and OR components along the horizontal axis. This results in nine quadrants, which have been read according to two arrangements: (1) static, looking at the specific characteristics of each single quadrant, and (2) dynamic, investigating the relationships between the different quadrants according to the system theory (ST) lens.

The integration between ESG and OR results in nine organisational typologies, each characterised by a specific focus: (1) green visioning, (2) eco ethos, (3) climate guard, (4) inclusive strategy, (5) empathy ethos, (6) community shield, (7) ethical blueprint, (8) integrity ethos and (9) compliance guard. These typologies and related focuses determine the different strategic options of organisations, the decision-making emphasis concerning ESG factors and OR components and the organisation’s behaviour concerning its internal and external environment. According to ST, the nine typologies interact with each other, emphasising the existence of interconnectedness, interdependence and cascading effects between ESG and OR.

The paper represents a unique attempt to interrelate ESG factors and OR components according to a ST lens, emphasising the dynamic nature of their interactions and organisations’ need for continuous adaptation and learning to make decisions that create sustainable long-term value.

Most research on tax evasion focused on microeconomic variables revolving around perceptions and decisions of individual taxpayers. However, a new wave of research is now investigating the role of macroeconomic variables in inducing tax evasion. This study adds to the limited studies in this new direction of research. Previous studies found that inflation, low gross domestic product (GDP) growth and gross fixed capital formation causes recession, increases unemployment, raise interest rates, hurts both domestic and foreign direct investments. This study examined the relationship between these variables and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The study adopts a correlation research design with 2,300 data points collected from 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, tax to GDP ratio, gross fixed capital formation per GDP and the GDP annual growth report from each country for the period 2011–2020 was retrieved. Generalised least square regression technique was employed to analyse the data due to the presence of heteroskedasticity in the model and random effect was utilized based on the Hausman test. To avoid misspecification and biased result; therefore, all relevant test was conducted including the multicollinearity test.

The results indicate that GDP annual growth and gross fixed capital formation have a significant negative impact on estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings further indicate a negative but insignificant relationship between inflation and estimated tax evasion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that both GDP annual growth rate and gross fixed capital formation negatively influence estimated tax evasion and the policy implications in the African continent were discussed.

The new findings on the effects of GDP annual growth, growth fixed capital formation and inflation on estimated tax evasion provide novel knowledge that is currently lacking in the current literature, specifically Sub-Saharan African continent.