Bibliometric and Scientometric analysis on CSR practices in the banking sector

This paper provides a bibliometric and Scientometric analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) in banking sector. Our study analyzes 551 articles from the Scopus database to find out the relationship between CSR and banking. A bibliometric method was used to visualize the results using R-studio and VOS viewer software. The Scientometric analysis was conducted to determine the findings and mappings of the research themes, directions of current and future research, impact, co-occurrence, co-citations and impact and collaboration trends. We explore how CSR literature has evolved over the years in the banking sector between 1993 and 2021. We find that publication in the CSR and banking domain has increased significantly during 2017 and 2021. Social aspects, board of directors, CSR, environment, competitions, Islamic banking, sustainability, disclosure, ethics, legitimacy theory, sustainable banking, loyalty, and brand equity are the popular research trends and collaboration trends identified. We also provide further scope of the study based on the extensive review of the past literature. Our findings may provide help to future researchers, bankers, and regulators in understanding the current trends and future research progression in the CSR and banking sector.     

Political markets? Politics and economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets

This paper analyses the relationship between politics and performativity of economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets. While the role of economics in constructing markets has been demonstrated by sociology and social studies of science, it has also become apparent that politics plays an important role in the material outcome of economic experiments. Two case studies of the creation of markets for biodiversity offsets are analysed, in the United States and England. The findings suggest that the creation of both markets is rooted in the language, concepts and models of economics. Politics, on the other hand, functions as a mediator of the material expression of those models. Through this mediation effect, similar economic models are performed differently, resulting in a variety of markets. This suggests that the material outcomes of processes of market creation are not defined at the outset, but can be influenced by political processes.     

Reorganizing School Lunch for a More Just and Sustainable Food System in the US

Public school lunch programs in the United States are contested political terrains shaped by government agencies, civil society activists, and agri-food companies. The particular organization of these programs has consequences for public health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This contribution draws on political economy, critical food studies, and feminist economics to analyze the US National School Lunch Program, one of the world's oldest and largest government-sponsored school lunch programs. It makes visible the social and environmental costs of the “heat-and-serve” economy, where widely used metrics consider only the speed and volume of service as productive work. This study demonstrates that such a narrow understanding of the labor of lunch devalues care and undercuts the potential for school food provisioning to promote ecological and feminist goals. Further, it proposes a “high road” alternative and outlines an agenda for reorganizing school food provisioning to maximize care in all its dimensions.     

The effect of traditionally marginalized groups in advertising on consumer response

Increasingly, national brands have cast people from marginalized groups in advertising. It is important to understand the elements that influence consumers’ responses to advertisements featuring groups who have been traditionally excluded from advertising campaigns. Although consumers may wish to buy brands that support their own views on human rights and equality, we propose that consumers in the target market may be uncomfortable if the group portrayal contradicts their beliefs about the topic, concept, or social groups in the ad. Across two studies, we show that when an ad creates this type of internal contradiction within consumers, it may elicit a more negative response than an ad portraying a more traditional model. However, we also find preliminary evidence that using models from marginalized groups can be more effective than using more traditional models—as long as such portrayals do not violate certain target consumers’ schemas. The implications of these results will be discussed.     

The Level of Sustainability Assurance: The Effects of Brand Reputation and Industry Specialisation of Assurance Providers

This research focuses on examining the relationship between some attributes of assurance providers and the level of sustainability assurance. By using the propensity to issue negative conclusions in the assurance statement as an indicator of the level of assurance, we examine whether the brand name and industry specialisation of the practitioners have an impact on the assurance opinion issued. Using an international sample of 1233 firm-year observations over the period 2007–2014, the findings document the impact of the brand reputation and industry specialisation of assurance providers on the level of assurance. The probability of detecting material errors and omissions in a sustainability report is higher if it is verified by a Big 4 auditing firm and by an industry expert as an assurance practitioner. The greater experience in providing audit services and the relevant skills and training provided by Big 4 firms, as well as the greater knowledge and experience of industry experts, increase the propensity to report more accurate opinions about a sustainability report. The findings are robust for alternative measures for the level of assurance and the industry specialisation.     

Tourism and climate change: a review of threats and adaptation strategies for Africa

The intersection of tourism and climate change has seen significant research over the past two decades, focusing particularly on issues of mitigation and adaptation in the global North. Research output has predominantly been centred on the Mediterranean and Nordic countries and number of localities in North America. The global South has seen significantly less investigation, despite having significantly lower adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate change, and numerous countries with rapidly growing tourism sectors. The African continent specifically has seen appreciably less research than other countries in the global South, despite arguably having the lowest adaptive capacity and projections of severe impacts of climate change to the tourism sector from temperature increases, changes in precipitation volume and sea level rise. This paper therefore presents a review of the existing literature on adaptation strategies of tourism sectors and participants in African countries. The crucial argument of this paper is in highlighting the need for an increase in research into the threats of climate change to tourism in African countries, identifying future research trajectories. The development of such knowledge would assist in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies for these most vulnerable tourism economies.     

The European Union preventive restructuring framework: A hole in one?

While traditionally (Continental) Europe has not been known for an in particular debtor‐ or restructuring‐friendly insolvency practice, in recent decades, important reforms were implemented that would foster restructurings in Europe. In this article, we comparatively look a the status quo of insolvency and restructuring practice in five different European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK). We place our observations into the context of the preventive restructuring directive, to be implemented within the next two years after its publication on 26 June 2019. The directive leaves quite some room implementation, from a watered‐down restructuring tool with high access threshold to a pre‐insolvency debtor‐friendly US‐style restructuring procedure.     

How capital markets assess the credibility and accuracy of CSR reporting: Exploring the effects of assurance quality and CSR restatement issuance

This research examines how the credibility and accuracy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures enhance market confidence by exploring their effect on the cost of capital. How do capital markets react to higher-quality assurance of CSR reporting? Can the hypothetical reduction in the cost of capital that assurance quality produces be explained by restatements of previous information given in these CSR reports? We explore the relationship between assurance quality, as a proxy for credibility and market confidence, and the mediating effect of CSR restatements as indicators of accuracy. We propose regression models with a sample of CSR reports issued by European companies. Building upon the signalling and legitimacy theories, the results support the positive effect of higher assurance quality statements on market confidence by confirming a decrease in the cost of capital; assurance quality gives an indication of credibility to the capital market and restatements related to methodological updates signal accuracy. The reduction in the cost of capital brought on by higher assurance quality appears to be determined by the issuance of CSR restatements, which create legitimacy for both client companies and assurance providers. CSR reporting and assurance have reached a greater level of maturity as demonstrated by the evolution of these practices and financial market perceptions.     

Public–private partnerships for nature-based tourist attractions: the failure of Seal Rocks

In 1998, the Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre opened on Phillip Island, Australia. It was a public–private partnership, with a privately funded tourist attraction built on a government-owned protected area. Almost immediately it was beset by problems and court action found in favour of the private developer, who was awarded $A37 million in damages, with ownership of the centre returning to the state. This article fills a gap in the literature examining public–private partnerships by considering this failed venture. It is a qualitative case study, analysing the 2003 appeal court judgement in the case and newspaper accounts from 1995 to 2004. Our findings highlight that deficiencies with the drafting of commercial contracts for public–private partnerships may limit the environmental and economic benefits that are being sought by governments through these arrangements. In this case, the application of a “best efforts” clause was critical, as it required that priority was given to the commercial success of the project over environmental and planning concerns. Furthermore, the development was a centralised decision made by the state government, affording very little input from local parks management and community stakeholders. Such a court finding has important ramifications for future developments of partnership agreements in nature-based tourism.     

Contradictions of the Climate-Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco-Gentrification and Housing Justice

As local governments and corporations promote ‘climate friendliness’, and a low-carbon lifestyle becomes increasingly desirable, more middle- and upper-income urban residents are choosing to live near public transit, on bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets, and in higher-density mixed-use areas. This rejection of classical forms of suburbanization has, in part, increased property values in neighborhoods offering these amenities, displacing lower-income, often non-white, residents. Increased prevalence of creative and technology workers appears to accelerate this trend. We argue that a significant and understudied socio-environmental contradiction also occurs where the actual environmental outcomes of neighborhood transformation may not be what we expect. New research on greenhouse gas emissions shows that more affluent residents have much larger carbon footprints because of their consumption, even when reductions in transportation or building energy emissions are included. We describe an area in Seattle, Washington, the location of Amazon's headquarters, experiencing this contradiction and show a distinct convergence of city investments in low-carbon infrastructure, significant rises in housing prices and decreases in lower-income and non-white residents. We conclude with a discussion of a range of issues that require more attention by scholars interested in housing justice and/or urban sustainability.