Identifying Worldviews on Corporate Sustainability: A Content Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reports

Companies commonly issue sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. This study seeks to understand worldviews of corporate sustainability, or the corporate message conveyed regarding what sustainability or CSR is and how to enact it. Content analysis of corporate sustainability reports is used to position each company report within stages of corporate sustainability. Results reveal that there are multiple coexisting worldviews of corporate sustainability, but the most dominant worldview is focused on the business case for sustainability, a position anchored in the weak sustainability paradigm. We contend that the business case and weak sustainability advanced in corporate sustainability reports and by the Global Reporting Initiative are poor representations of sustainability. Ecological embeddedness, or a locally responsive strategy that is sensitive to local ecosystems, may hold the key to improved ecological sensemaking, which in turn could lead to more mature levels of corporate sustainability worldviews that support strong sustainability and are rooted in environmental science. This must be supported by government regulation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Approximate maximum likelihood estimation for stochastic differential equations with random effects in the drift and the diffusion

Consider N independent stochastic processes \((X_i(t), t\in [0,T])\), \(i=1,\ldots , N\), defined by a stochastic differential equation with random effects where the drift term depends linearly on a random vector \(\Phi _i\) and the diffusion coefficient depends on another linear random effect \(\Psi _i\). For these effects, we consider a joint parametric distribution. We propose and study two approximate likelihoods for estimating the parameters of this joint distribution based on discrete observations of the processes on a fixed time interval. Consistent and \(\sqrt{N}\)-asymptotically Gaussian estimators are obtained when both the number of individuals and the number of observations per individual tend to infinity. The estimation methods are investigated on simulated data and show good performances.     

Influence of acquirer boards on M&A value creation: Evidence from Continental Europe

We examine how the size and the composition of acquirer boards are associated with shareholder abnormal returns for 2,230 M&As made by listed firms in Continental Europe. Although board size proves insignificant, our findings do offer some evidence as to a beneficial effect of board diversity on M&A value creation. Gender diversity appears marginally positively associated with acquirer shareholder abnormal returns. The fraction of foreign directors is in general not significantly positive, unless the rule of law in the acquirer country is weak. Nonetheless, nationality diversity in the board turns out harmful in purely domestic takeovers. The influence of age diversity is marginally positive, yet only in domestic and horizontal takeovers. Next, the fraction of independent directors has a robust positive effect on the acquirer CAR, while directors with multiple board appointments prove valuable especially through preventing firms from pursuing poor takeovers. Finally, CEO duality is detrimental only in industry‐diversifying deals initiated by acquirers that are not controlled by an individual or a family shareholder. Any negative CEO‐duality effect is mitigated when the acquirer‐country rule of law is strong.     

Are Chinese nationals’ attitudes to wildlife tourist attractions different from those of other nationalities?

Many wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) have negative impacts on animal welfare and species conservation. In the absence of regulation, raising standards requires tourists to create market pressure by choosing to attend WTAs with benefits for wildlife. We surveyed respondents from five countries – China, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA – to quantify how attitudes to captive animals, and towards WTAs’ outputs and standards, may vary with nationality. Our aim was to provide a firm basis for behaviour change interventions to alter current patterns of tourist consumption of WTAs. All respondents agreed on the importance of conservation and animal welfare, but Chinese respondents were twice as likely to believe that WTAs would not be allowed to exist if they were bad for animals, and that WTAs’ promotional materials were reliable indicators of welfare and conservation standards. These findings indicate Chinese respondents had fundamentally similar attitudes to those from the other countries, but differed in how those attitudes were likely to be applied. Chinese tourists may experience more barriers to aligning their actions with their values with respect to WTAs. Removing these barriers may require information campaigns to highlight the lack of regulation, and the unreliability of some WTAs’ promotional materials and tourists’ reviews.     

City of Discontent? The Influence of Perceived Organizational Culture,LMX, and Newcomer Status on Reported Bullying in a Municipal Workplace

Workplace bullying is a counterproductive behavior that has captured the attention of researchers in recent years. The extent of reported bullying behavior in US organizations varies however; it is estimated to affect 15% to 50% of workers with projected annual costs of over $40 billion including direct and indirect costs. Workplace bullying poses a serious ethical challenge by sending messages about appropriate conduct within the organization’s culture. In this study, we focus on environmental factors as predictors of self-reported bullying in a public-sector organization. Specifically, the factors of interest are organizational culture, commitment to change, and leader-member exchange (LMX). We also investigate newcomer status and its relationship to reported bullying. Findings demonstrated perceived stability in the organization and higher levels of LMX showed lower levels of workplace bullying. Further, an organizational culture that emphasizes rewards lead to higher levels of bullying and newcomers are subjected to more bullying than longer service workers.     

Procyclicality of the comovement between dividend growth and consumption growth

Duffee (2005) shows that the amount of consumption risk (i.e., the conditional covariance between market returns and consumption growth) is procyclical. In light of this “Duffee Puzzle,” I empirically demonstrate that the conditional covariance between dividend growth (i.e., the immediate cash flow part of market returns) and consumption growth is (1) procyclical and (2) a consistent source of procyclicality in the puzzle. Moreover, I solve an external habit formation model that incorporates realistic joint dynamics of dividend growth and consumption growth. The procyclical dividend-consumption comovement entails two new procyclical terms in the amount of consumption risk via cash flow and valuation channels, respectively. These two procyclical terms play an important role in generating a realistic magnitude of consumption risk. In contrast to extant habit formation models, the conditional equity premium no longer increases monotonically when a negative consumption shock arrives because it might lower the amount of risk while increasing the price of risk.     

Performance Measures in Dose-Finding Experiments

In the first phase of pharmaceutical development, and assuming that the probability of positive response increases with dose, the main statistical goal is to estimate a percentile of the dose–response function for a given target value $\mathrm{\Gamma }$. We compare the Maximum Likelihood and centred isotonic regression estimators of the target dose and we discuss several performance criteria to assess inferential precision, the amount of toxicity exposure and the trade-off between them for a set of some exemplary adaptive designs. We compare these designs using graphical tools. Several scenarios are considered using simulation, including the use of several start-up rules, the change of slope of the dose-toxicity function at the target dose and also different theoretical models, as logistic, normal or skew-normal distribution functions.     

Effect of exploitation and exploration on the innovative as outcomes in entrepreneurial firms

The main aim of this study is to establish the effect of the Exploitation and Exploration; and the influence of these learning flows on the Innovative Outcome (IO). The Innovative Outcome refers to new products, services, processes (or improvements) that the organization has obtained as a result of an innovative process. For this purpose, a relationship model is defined, which is empirically contrasted, and can explains and predicts the cyclical dynamization of learning flows on innovative outcome in knowledge intensive firms. The quantitative test for this model use the data from entrepreneurial firms biotechnology sector. The statistical analysis applies a method based on variance using Partial Least Squares (PLS). Research results confirm the hypotheses, that is, they show a positive dynamic effect between the Exploration and the Innovative as outcomes. In the same vein, they results confirm the presence of the cyclic movement of innovative outcome with the Exploitation.