Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

Environmental proactivity,competitive strategy,and market performance: The mediating role of environmental reputation

This article examines the impact of small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) proactive environmental strategy on market performance through the mediating mechanism of environmental reputation. In addition, we investigate the potential moderating role of competitive strategies on the environmental reputation-market performance nexus. Data were collected from 223 SMEs. Using the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the results show that a proactive environmental strategy positively enhances environmental reputation. Also, the influence of proactively environmental strategy on market performance is mediated by environmental reputation. In addition, our findings show the relationship between environmental reputation and market performance is greater for firms that adopt the differentiation strategy but not significant for firms adopting the low-cost and integrated strategies. Our study offers several theoretical and practical implications.     

Understanding sustainable development flexibility: An information perspective

Although flexibility has been considered critical in responding to uncertainty in a business environment, few studies have explored firms' flexibility in sustainable development. To understand the nature of firms that can respond better to uncertainty in their sustainable development practices, this study defines sustainable development flexibility and investigates the mechanism underlying its formation. The study proposes a conceptual framework on the interactions of managers' environmental attitude and cognitive style, as well as firms' information integration on sustainable development flexibility. A questionnaire survey was developed to test the corresponding hypotheses, and 241 valid responses were received from middle- and top-level managers in Chinese firms. The results show that (a) the higher the manager's environmental attitude, the higher the firm's information integration and greater sustainable supply chain flexibility, and (b) the more intuitive the manager's cognitive style, the greater the impact of environmental attitude on sustainable development flexibility.     

Enhancing environmental information transparency through corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

This research aims to contribute to the scientific debate about the lack of interlinkages between mandatory non-financial reporting and sustainable business models. For our purposes, a counter-accounting analysis was conducted on the non-financial reports of a sample of 145 Italian firms interested by the Directive 2014/95/EU effects. Specifically, the study adopts an empirical approach to evaluate environmental information transparency, which represents one of the main critical issues concerning the non-financial declarations prepared by European Italian Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU. The results highlight that corporate governance and report characteristics affect environmental transparency. Furthermore, the results confirm the overall attitude to avoid the disclosure of unfavourable or unavailable environmental information through impression management strategies. Finally, the analysis underlines the opportunities for policymakers to rethink mandatory non-financial reporting to sustain the ecological transition of European PIEs.     

Social media and sustainable purchasing attitude: Role of trust in social media and environmental effectiveness

The role of social media in promoting sustainable attitudes is currently understudied. Underpinned by social learning theory, this study unveils the effect of social media usage and browsing on sustainable purchasing attitude, the underlying mechanism, and the boundary condition. Drawing on a sample of 693 experienced respondents analyzed using structural equation modeling, this study reveals that social media usage and browsing have a significant positive association. Both constructs significantly impact sustainable purchasing attitudes with complementary partial mediation of the drive for environmental responsibility. Further, trust in social media and perceived environmental effectiveness significantly moderate the relationships belongs to the browsing and drive for environmental responsibility. Contrary to the theorization, moderating constructs cannot substantially impact the proposed associations of social media usage. In this manner, the present research is innovative and provides valued knowledge to comprehend social media's role in encouraging sustainable attitudes.     

我国物流业2019年发展回顾与2020年展望

2019年是中华人民共和国成立70周年,也是物流业稳中有进、变中求新的一年。面对严峻形势,我国物流业顶住下行压力,实现平稳运行,取得多方面进展。具体而言,一是社会物流需求增速持续放缓,总体运行缓中趋稳;二是物流需求结构持续优化,物流供给结构稳步升级,供需结构加速调整;三是科技应用引领数智化转型,科技赋能物流数智化、平台化;四是新兴的供应链服务企业向标准化发展迈出了重要一步,供应链创新发展进入新阶段,现代供应链成为新亮点;五是物流基础设施网络加快升级,物流枢纽网络建设进入实质推进阶段,助力枢纽经济发展;六是物流业"走出去"空间加大,国际物流打开对外开放新局面,我国对外投资合作与对外援助执行保持平稳有序健康发展;七是绿色物流配合污染防治攻坚战,绿色可持续物流取得新进展;八是物流政策落地,物流企业获得感增强,从业人员稳定性增强,物流营商环境持续改善。2020年,我国经济稳中向好的基本趋势不会改变,物流业平稳增长的总体方向不会改变,物流业主要经济指标将继续保持平稳增长,但物流业下行压力依然较大,发展不平衡、不充分矛盾依然比较突出,与人民群众日益增长的美好生活需要和现代化经济体系建设的要求相比依然存在差距,高质量发展任重道远。在新的一年里,为更好地推动我国物流业发展,一要平衡物流稳增长与高质量发展关系,决胜全面建成小康社会;二要坚持目标导向,探索新时代物流业发展的新使命新要求;三要突出新发展理念,推动传统数量型降成本向效率型降成本转变;四要深化产业联动融合,从低水平粗放式发展向精细化、高品质发展转变;五要坚持科技引领和技术驱动,激发物流业高质量发展新动能;六要推进国家物流枢纽联盟工程和全国百家骨干物流园区互联互通工程,建设物流基础设施网络;七要配合"一带一路"倡议,推动国际物流合作与交流;八要进一步处理好政府与市场、国家与地方、市场与企业的关系,营造政府、企业与协会合力推动物流业高质量发展的产业生态圈。     

For green or not for green? The effect of cooperation goals and type on environmental performance

Although many scholars have demonstrated that companies engaged in collaborations achieve better environmental performance than other companies, existing studies have not analyzed in depth whether this effect changes considering the characteristics of cooperation. Our paper aims to explore whether collaboration with other companies always has a positive effect on environmental performance or whether it depends on cooperation goals, collaboration type, or company size. Empirical analysis based on a sample of 773 European companies demonstrated that an external source of knowledge is an important way to foster firms' environmental proactivity, especially when environmental goals are shared at the basis of collaboration. Second, we verified that companies involved in JVs with environmental goals achieve greater environmental performance than companies that use M&As to acquire external knowledge. Finally, we demonstrated that it is more important for small companies to be involved in environmental collaboration than larger ones.     

Is corporate environmental disclosure associated with firm value? A multicountry study of Gulf Cooperation Council firms

Several studies have found a relationship between corporate social and environmental disclosure and firm value (FV) or accounting profitability. Where environmental disclosure has been the focus, though, only single-country studies have been published, and most of the previous research concerns the developed world. This study examines the association between corporate environmental disclosure (CED) and FV in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where CED has been increasing from its previous low base. Findings from a multicountry sample of 500 firm-year observations using a 55-item unweighted environmental disclosure index suggest that CED is significantly and positively related to FV as measured by Tobin's Q (TBQ). The relationship is robust to using a weighted version of the disclosure index, individual countries and environmental disclosure subindices. Some evidence of a positive relationship between CED and return on assets is also found, but even where statistically significant, the relationship is much weaker than in the case of TBQ. For empirical and theoretical reasons, we recommend that future studies pay greater attention to market-based proxies, if possible, when investigating the value relevance of CED in both developed and developing countries. Our results suggest that both managers and policymakers in GCC countries should take a positive view of expanded CED.     

Adoption des Politiques de Protection de l'Environnement et performance des Entreprises Camerounaises

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of the environmental protection policies of by Cameroonian firms on their performance. It uses the endogenous switching regression technique and propensity scores applied to micro-data from 639 firms in Cameroon. The results show that only 17% of firms adopt these measures, while on average 85% of firms produce solid, gaseous or liquid waste. The results also indicate that the adoption of these environmental protection policies increases operating costs while significantly improving the turnover and the performance of the productive capacity of the company. These increases are 39.11%, 58.6%, and 38.63% for operating costs, turnover and return on productive capacity of the company, respectively. However, firms can also suffer significant losses resulting from the non-adoption of environmental policies. In fact, firms that do not adopt environmental protection policies have their performance reduced by an average of 1.625 percentage points.     

Green human resource management: Development of a valid measurement scale

The objective of the study was to develop a valid measurement scale for green human resource management (HRM). Even though the common practices of green HRM have been presented in much of the literature, the previous studies focused only on a small number of functions in integrating environmental management with HRM. Additionally, the measurement of green HRM practices still calls for empirical validation. The two‐stage methodology of structural equation modeling in AMOS was employed for data analysis. Exploratory factor analysis revealed seven dimensions of the construct measured by 28 items. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the factor structure. The measuring instruments revealed convergent and discriminant validity. Several model fit indices indicated the model fitness. The study provided supplementary evidence on the underlying structure of the construct that can be valuable to researchers and practitioners in this area.