Board Attributes,Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy,and Corporate Environmental and Social Performance

In this paper, we draw on insights from theories in the management and corporate governance literature to develop a theoretical model that makes explicit the links between a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) related board attributes, its board CSR strategy, and its environmental and social performance. We then test the model using structural equation modeling approach. We find that the greater the CSR orientation of the board (as measured by the board’s independence, gender diversity, and financial expertise on audit committee), the more proactive and comprehensive the firm’s CSR strategy, and the higher its environmental and social performance. Moreover, we find this link to be endogenous and self-reinforcing, with superior CSR performers tending to further strengthen their board CSR orientation. This result while positive is also suggestive of the widening of the gap between the leads and laggards in CSR. Therefore, the question arises as to how ‘leaders’ are using their superior CSR competencies seen by many scholars as a source of corporate (at times unfair) competitive advantage. Stakeholders of corporations therefore need to be cognizant of this aspect of CSR when evaluating a firm’s CSR activities. Policy makers also need to be cognizant of these concerns when designing regulation in this field.     

Board governance and corporate performance

We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world.     

An examination of the relationship between women's personal goals and structural factors influencing their decision to start a business: The case of Pakistan

Most of the work on women entrepreneurs in developing countries relates largely to those who are uneducated and very poor, working in the rural areas or the urban informal sectors. Few studies have attempted to study women entrepreneurs in the urban formal sectors in developing countries, the category of women corresponding to the women entrepreneurs studied in the Western world.Furthermore, most of these studies, conducted largely by international development agencies, have tended to focus on issues from a macroperspective. They assume that women entrepreneurs in developing countries are a homogeneous group, with similar experiences in starting a business.This study departs from earlier research in two major ways. First, it focuses on actual and potential women entrepreneurs in the urban formal sector. Second, adopting a symbolic interactionist approach, it tries to take a closer look at women's experiences in starting a business. Hence, it focuses on women's perceptions and the way they define their goals and the advantages and constraints they face in starting a business at a micro level.Data for the study were gathered through in-depth interviews of 33 participants of an entrepreneurship development program (EDP) run in Karachi, Pakistan. Sixteen of these were women who started a business after attending the EDP. The other 17 women did not start a business, although they had originally intended to do so.The study revealed that women wanted to start a business in order to achieve three types of personal goals: personal freedom, security, and satisfaction.Freedom seekers were mostly women who had experienced some kind of frustration or dissatisfaction in their paid work, and who now wanted to start their own business in order to have the freedom to choose the type of work, hours of work, work environment, and the people they worked with.Security seekers were mostly women who, triggered by some personal mishap (such as death or retirement of husband), wanted to start a business in order to maintain or improve their and their family's social and economic status. An important reason why most of these women opted for their own business rather than paid work was the flexibility that self-employment offered in terms of location (close to home, working from home) and hours of work, to which paid jobs could not cater.The satisfaction seekers were mostly housewives, with no previous work experience, who wanted to start a business in order to prove to themselves and to others that they are useful and productive members of society.The impact of structural factors on women's ability to start a business varied according to the dominant personal goal women had chosen. Structural factors influencing start-up were divided into three categories: internal resources, that is, women's qualifications and/or work experience; external resources, that is, finance and location; and relational resources, that is, family, employees, suppliers, and customers.The relationship between women's personal goals and structural factors influencing start-up led to the development of a conceptual framework that could help explain why some women, despite apparently unfavorable circumstances, succeeded in starting a business, whereas others even under apparently favorable circumstances did not do so.Understanding the different goals women pursue and how the relationship between these goals and the structural factors influenced start-up can be of great help to researchers, planners, as well as practitioners working to promote women entrepreneurs. This understanding can lead to the development of more finely tuned policies and programs of support that not only recognize that women have different goals for wanting to start a business, but that their needs and experiences in starting up vary according to their particular goals for business ownership.     

US Fiscal Policy,Manufacturing Stagnation,and the Shift to Financialization in the Era of Globalization: An Econometric Analysis, 1973–2015

ABSTRACT

Financialization can be partially attributed to the decline in the US manufacturing profit rate since the 1970s. However, scholars have not reached a consensus regarding the factors responsible for stagnation in manufacturing. This paper employs an Auto-regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to test the impact of both national defense and government consumption expenditure on manufacturing profitability in the United States from 1973, the onset of stagnation, to 2015. Its goal is two-fold: to determine whether stagnation is associated with a decline in Keynesian policies, and to examine the potential for state fiscal programs to reverse this trend and facilitate a shift of private investment away from the financial sector and into manufacturing. The paper finds that the impact of government consumption expenditure on the manufacturing profit rate is positive and significant in both the short-term and long-term (from 1973–2015 and 1973–1993), while the long-term impact becomes negative from 1983 to 2015, when the financial sector profit rate began its upward trend. This casts doubt on whether Keynesian fiscal policies could be employed to restore a healthy profit rate in the manufacturing sector and lower unemployment.     

Computer users’ ergonomics and quality of life – evidence from a developing country

This study is aimed at investigating the quality of workplace ergonomics at various Pakistani organizations and quality of life of computer users working in these organizations. Two hundred and thirty-five computer users (only those employees who have to do most of their job tasks on computer or laptop, and at their office) responded by filling the questionnaire covering questions on workplace ergonomics and quality of life. Findings of the study revealed the ergonomics at those organizations was poor and unfavourable. The quality of life (both physical and mental health of the employees) of respondents was poor for employees who had unfavourable ergonomic environment. The findings thus highlight an important issue prevalent at Pakistani work settings.