Examining the extent of and determinants for sustainability assurance quality: The role of audit committees

This study examines the extent of and determinants for sustainability assurance quality. Data comprise sustainability assurance statements published by the top 100 listed companies in Australia and New Zealand from 2017 to 2019. The findings indicate that Australian companies lead their New Zealand counterparts in sustainability assurance. Although sustainability reporting has risen, assurance rates remain significantly low. Accountants dominate the market, and companies prefer to use their own auditors for sustainability assurance work. Sustainability assurance quality is poor and does not vary significantly among Australian and New Zealand companies. Low-quality sustainability assurance plays a limited role in mitigating potential stakeholder–agency conflicts. The regression analysis indicates that audit committee characteristics such as members' independence, industry/market expertise, and attending meetings enhance sustainability assurance quality, whereas audit committee size has no affect. These findings suggest that audit committee characteristics such as independence, industry expertise, and regular meeting attendance have the potential to reduce stakeholder–agency conflicts by improving the quality of sustainability statement assurance. Our findings build on the sustainability assurance literature by exploring current trends in sustainability assurance practices in Australia and New Zealand where corporate governance codes have been recently revised. Further, these findings are timely given recent changes in standards (International Standard on Assurance Engagements [ISAE] 3000 and Global Reporting Initiative [GRI]). Our study contributes to the audit committee literature and sheds light on the role played by audit committee characteristics on sustainability assurance statement quality. The study findings potentially offer useful insights for practitioners, standard setters, and regulators.     

基于限制因素组合序列的耕地质量提升潜力研究*——以什邡市为例

[目的]通过分析什邡市耕地质量现状,充分把握影响耕地质量的主导因素并进行质量提升分区,测算不同质量提升区的提升潜力,以期为全市耕地质量的建设与发展指明方向。[方法]依据农用地分等理论,构建2014年什邡市耕地质量限制性指数评价体系,采用限制性指数模型测算耕地质量限制性指数,结合因素组合法、耕地质量潜力测算法,分别进行耕地质量提升分区及其提升潜力评价。[结果]什邡市耕地质量现状差异显著,地域分布特征明显;因素限制程度以中限制为主,多因素共同主导限制耕地比重大;各质量分区限制特征明显,各区耕地质量提升潜力在时序上和空间上也存在差异。高等别耕地集中分布于南部平原,受土壤酸碱度中等限制和剖面构型高程度限制为主;北部丘陵区以及南部河谷低洼地带主要为低等别耕地,表现为坡度与灌溉因素较高程度限制为主;综合提升潜力较大的耕地集中于北部丘陵区与南部河谷低洼地带。[结论]什邡市范围内耕地质量差异明显,存在普遍限制且分区限制特征明显,各区提升潜力空间差异明显。     

土地细碎化和土地质量是否影响小麦技术效率*——基于山东省小麦种植户的实证分析

［目的］小麦是我国重要的口粮之一，提高小麦的技术效率对于保障粮食安全具有重要的战略意义。在测算小麦技术效率的基础上，找出影响小麦技术效率的关键因素，为保障国家口粮安全提供参考。［方法］基于调研数据，运用超越对数生产函数以及一步随机前沿分析方法，构建计量模型分析土地细碎化和土地质量对小麦技术效率的影响。［结果］全部样本的技术效率差距较大，规模经营农户的技术效率高于小农户，农户技术效率最高的种植面积为67~333hm2，代表小麦种植的适宜规模。从技术效率的影响因素来看，土地细碎化程度和土地质量都对小麦生产的技术效率产生显著影响。［结论］为了提高小麦的技术效率，应该发展多种形式适度规模经营，鼓励创新土地流转形式，提高农业机械化水平； 深入开展土地质量调查，因地制宜地选择土地修复路径； 实行精准补贴，切实保护农民的利益。     

What is driving increases in dietary quality in the United States?

Over 1994–2010, adult dietary quality in the United States increased by 10 percent. We find a shift in consumption between at-home and away-from-home food played a relatively minor role as compared to changes in demographics and educational attainment. The two largest contributors we identify include an increased usage of nutritional information and a shift away from relying heavily on price, taste, storability and ease of preparation when shopping for food. Our findings suggest nutrition policy discussions could focus on further shifting attitudes/preferences towards healthier diets while allowing consumers to better extract nutrition information when making food choices.     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

CEO internal experience and voluntary disclosure quality: Evidence from management forecasts

Internally‐promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally‐promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher quality disclosure than outsider CEOs. Using a sample of US firms from the S&P1500 index from 2001 to 2011, we hand‐collect whether a CEO is hired from inside the firm and, if so, the number of years they worked at the firm before becoming CEO. We then examine whether managers with more internal experience issue higher quality disclosures and offer three main findings. First, CEOs with more internal experience are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Second, CEOs with more internal experience issue more accurate earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Finally, investors react more strongly to forecasts issued by insider CEOs than to those issued by outsider CEOs. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that these results extend to mandatory reporting quality (i.e., accruals quality, restatements, or internal control weaknesses), perhaps because mandatory disclosure is subjected to heavy oversight by the board of directors, auditors, and regulators. Overall, our findings suggest that when managers have work experience with the firm prior to becoming the CEO, the firm's voluntary disclosure is of higher quality.     

Effects of export product diversification on quality upgrading: an empirical study

This paper empirically examines the effects of export product diversification on overall export quality in a panel data set of 115 countries from 1970 to 2010. It uses the data sets of the overall export quality and three export diversification measures of the International Monetary Fund: the extensive margin (variation in the number of new products exported), the intensive margin (variation in export values among existing exports), and the overall (Theil) index. It finds that export quality has only been increasing with a higher variation in export values among existing exports in low- and lower-middle-income countries. It also observes that export quality has been increasing with both a higher variation in export values among existing exports and new products exported in upper-middle- and high-income countries. The results are robust to the changing measures of controls in the benchmark model, the inclusion of many other controls; i.e. various measures of globalization, country size, factor endowments, macroeconomic stance, etc., and the exclusion of outliers.     

Advancing environmental productivity: Organizational mindfulness and strategies

This study investigates the importance of mindfulness‐based organization systems and policies on the organization's continuous efforts to become a greener company. The study is devised as a pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis of productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling of U.S. companies. The data set taken from U.S. Newsweek 500 recorded 600 companies dispersed into 63 industries during the period of 2012–2014 and provided 1,498 company–industry–year observations. The study found that systems and policies (e.g., deployment of third‐party auditors for its environmental metrics report; linkage of the remuneration of company's senior executive team with the achievement of environmental performance targets; and establishment of a committee at the Board of Directors' level whose mandate includes sustainability of the company in environment‐ and resource‐related matters) connect the company's mindfulness to its effort in improving the environmental quality through the company's productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling. The relationships are positive and significant. Also, systems and policies serve as a motivator for the firm to continue to improve upon the current achievements. The study emphasizes the importance of translating organizational and individual mindfulness into organization policies and systems in order to motivate the organization to continuously improve its productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling leading to improvements in environmental quality.     

Multi-stakeholders’ assessment of bike sharing service quality based on DEMATEL–VIKOR method

ABSTRACT

Bike sharing is a sustainable mode of urban transportation. Assessing the perceived service quality is essential to improve the development of bike sharing. Most of the existing research evaluates the service quality of bike sharing only from the perspective of its users. This study assesses the perceived quality gap among four different stakeholders including government regulators, platform operators, bike association and users. First, an evaluation criteria system consisting of sixteen criteria obtained from the five dimensions of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy is constructed based on a revised service performance model. Thereafter, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model that combines Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) with VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) is proposed. Then, the model is applied to evaluate the service quality of bike sharing in Xi’an City. Finally, some useful suggestions are given to improve the bike sharing service quality from the perspective of multi-stakeholders.     

The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual employee voice: The moderating role of conflict avoidance

This article examines the role of national culture, measured by conflict avoidance, on the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and individual employee voice. Using data collected from automotive industry employees in the United States and Korea, the findings show that conflict avoidance is negatively related to employee voice and also moderates the relationship between LMX and employee voice in the Korean sample. In particular, the relationship between LMX and voice becomes less positive when conflict avoidance is high. On the other hand, conflict avoidance does not have a direct effect on employee voice as well as an interactive effect with LMX on employee voice in the U.S. sample. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of the national culture in the comparative study of employee voice.