Corporate social and environmental disclosure as a sustainable development tool provided by board sub-committees: Do women directors play a relevant moderating role?

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of three audit committee characteristics on corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR) disclosure: the existence of an audit committee, audit committee independence, and audit committee financial expertise. Moreover, this research analyzes the moderating effect of board gender diversity between these audit committees' attributes and CSR reporting. The results of analyzing 13,178 firm-year observations of non-financial companies show that the presence of an audit committee and audit committee financial expertise are positively associated with CSR disclosure. However, a higher proportion of non-executive directors in audit committees has a negative effect on the disclosure of CSR information. These findings suggest that some audit committees' features play an important role in ensuring the reporting of environmental, social, and economic information. Our evidence also indicates that the presence of female directors on boards increases the positive impact of financial expert membership of audit committees on CSR disclosure, while women directors moderate any negative effect of the percentage of independent directors on audit committees on CSR reporting by increasing the latter. In addition, female directors moderate the positive impact of the existence of an audit committee on the disclosure of CSR information by reducing the latter.     

食品企业社会责任信息披露影响因素研究

针对近年来不断出现的食品安全事件,结合企业社会责任理论和食品行业披露的社会责任信息,对中国食品企业社会责任信息披露的主要影响因素进行了实证分析。文章选取了2006～2010年食品行业的A股公司作为研究样本,通过对企业年报、社会责任报告的内容分析,测算了公司社会责任信息披露指数。研究发现:规模越大、独立董事比例越高的公司披露的社会责任信息越多;公司财务杠杆和企业社会责任信息披露负相关;企业性质对企业社会责任信息披露无显著影响。论文从实证结果出发,提出了食品企业建立社会责任信息披露制度的建议。     

Conformance and Deviance: Company Responses to Institutional Pressures for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting

This paper analyses how large Danish companies are responding to new governmental regulation which requires them to report on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The paper is based on an analysis of 142 company annual reports required by the new Danish regulation regarding CSR reporting, plus 10 interviews with first‐time reporting companies and six interviews with companies that failed to comply with the new law. It is concluded that coercive pressures from government have an impact on CSR reporting practices. Further, the analysis finds traces of mimetic isomorphism which inspires a homogenisation in CSR reporting practices. Finally, it is argued that non‐conformance with the new regulatory requirements is not solely about conscious resistance but may also be caused by, for example, lack of awareness, resource limitations, misinterpretations, and practical difficulties. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Board internationalization and corporate social responsibility

This study examines the association between board internationalization and firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in China during 2009–2019. Using a large dataset of director nationalities and CSR scores, we find that foreign directors promote CSR performance as evidenced by higher CSR scores. We further document that this relationship is more pronounced among government-controlled firms, firms with better corporate governance, and firms operating under stricter institutional environments. These findings remain valid after sequential robustness checks. Overall, our findings imply that foreign directors motivate the board of directors and their firms to actively pursue and practice social responsibility. Our study enriches the literature on the outcomes of board internationalization and determinants of CSR and provides the internationalization of corporate governance mechanisms a reasonable basis.     

The Influence of Governance Structure and Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility Toward Sustainability Reporting Quality

Increased business complexities coupled with enhanced global transformation have propelled corporations to behave as responsible citizens to drive the sustainability agenda. Many corporations incorporate their affirmative commitment to sustainable business practices into their corporate identities and give evidence for this in their sustainability reports. This paper examines the role of the board of directors in sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) in the Asia‐Pacific region. Based on a cross‐sectional study of 113 companies from 12 countries in the region, we find that the SRQ in the region leaves much room for improvement. However, we find that the institutionalization of the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in an organization provides a sound foundation for enhancing SRQ. We find that the value of CSR anchored in the vision and/ or mission statement and strategic alliances fostered with non‐governmental organizations are positively associated with SRQ. This study contributes to strengthening the understanding, promoting discussion on the state of sustainability reporting in the Asia‐Pacific context and laying a solid foundation for more aggressive efforts to enhance SRQ. The study identifies the significant drivers currently associated with SRQ. The weak role of the board of directors in upholding the sustainable development agenda through the reporting process is highlighted. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Sustainability Development and the Quality of Assurance Reports: Empirical Evidence

There is a rising trend among companies to publish their sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Assurance of these reports is a valuable voluntary tool to provide them with higher credibility. Nonetheless, the quality of assurance reports differs in practice and the objective of this paper is to provide evidence in this new area of research. Indeed, we are pioneers in developing an index to measure the quality of assurance reports. We choose the Spanish setting because it is the worldwide leading country as regards CSR reporting (KPMG, 2011; Sierra et al., 2012). We have found evidence on the determinants for CSR reporting posited by existing literature that have an impact on (a) the decision of companies to publish their CSR reports, (b) the decision to assure the CSR report or not and (c) the decision to hire the assurance services from an auditor or a consultant and the subsequent quality of the assurance report. Last but not least, our results from a sample of 161 CSR assurance reports evidence that assurance reports are of fairly acceptable quality, according to the index proposed. Furthermore, the value of the quality index is significantly higher if the assurance services are provided by an auditor (as opposed to a consultant) and if the CSR reporting company is larger. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate Environmental Reporting and News Coverage of Environmental Issues: an Agenda‐Setting Perspective

Departing from agenda‐setting theory, this paper explores whether environmental content in newspapers is related to corporate environmental agendas presented in corporate environmental reports and annual reports. Based on a sample of 1668 corporate reports published between 1997 and 2008, this paper compares corporate reporting against environmental news content over the same period with time lags of one and two years as well as without time lags. The results suggest that the media agenda and the corporate environmental agenda mirror each other. The results further suggest that, for some issues, there may be an impact of the news media agenda on corporate environmental agendas, but not vice versa. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Do Board's Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Orientation Influence Environmental Sustainability Disclosure? UK Evidence

The environmental implications of corporate economic activities have led to growing demands for firms and their boards to adopt sustainable strategies and to disseminate more useful information about their activities and impacts on environment. This paper investigates the impact of board's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and orientation on the quantity and quality of environmental sustainability disclosure in UK listed firms. We find that effective board CSR strategy and CSR‐oriented directors have a positive and significant impact on the quality of environmental sustainability disclosure, but not on the quantity. Our findings also suggest that the existence of a CSR committee and issuance of a stand‐alone CSR report are positively and significantly related to environmental sustainability disclosure. When we distinguish between firms with high and low environmental risk, we find that the board CSR/sustainability practices that affect the quantity (quality) of environmental sustainability disclosure appear to be driven more by highly (lowly) environmentally sensitive firms. These results suggest that the board CSR/sustainability practices play an important role in ensuring a firm's legitimacy and accountability towards stakeholders. Our findings shed new light on this under‐researched area and could be of interest to companies, policy‐makers and other stakeholders. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Enhancing the Credibility of Reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility in Europe

This paper studies variables that have an effect on the choice of whether or not reports on corporate social responsibility are assured and who is selected to provide assurance. Such assurance reports increase the credibility of environmental and social reporting. In a European sample we observe some differences from previous research. Overall, industry effects seem small, but size and media visibility have a significant impact on assuring CSR reports. It seems that companies differentiate less between auditors and consultants. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

利益相关者对企业社会责任履行的影响——基于成本收益的经济学分析

借助经济学的成本收益分析法,对企业社会责任行为的影响因素进行分析,发现利益相关者的容忍度以及监督力度对企业实际履行社会责任水平会产生显著影响。研究结果表明,在企业声誉捷径欲望较强的情况下,要保障企业社会责任行为的有效履行,如果仅仅依靠企业自律,效果并不理想。而加强利益相关者的监督并提高企业对监督成本的负担比重,将有助于企业社会责任行为的改善。从长远来看,降低利益相关者的容忍度和企业捷径欲望系数,对企业社会责任水平提升至关重要。只有当利益相关者和企业双方的社会责任意识都非常高,利益相关者对企业才有很强的制衡力量。同时,企业声誉捷径欲望很低并且自律意识很高的时候,双方才会最终实现效用最大化的共赢局面。     

Financial fragility,uninsured deposits,and the cost of debt

Using annual data from 1995 to 2009, I analyze the impact of banks’ financial fragility on the costs of U.S. corporate bank loans. Diamond and Rajan (2001) hypothesize that financially fragile banks are able to raise funds at a lower cost and competition among banks result in some of these benefits being passed on to borrowers. My results provide broad support for this hypothesis, as I find that a one standard deviation increase in a bank's financial fragility lowers the cost of this bank's corporate loans by 7%. Since some types of regulation, such as deposit insurance, can decrease banks’ financial fragility, this paper also contributes to the debate on the benefits and costs of bank regulation which can be helpful for policy-making.     

董事网络与企业社会责任鉴证的示范效应——基于模仿压力理论的实证检验

在中国企业社会责任（CSR）快速发展的时代背景下，研究CSR鉴证在董事网络中的示范效应。利用A股上市公司数据进行回归分析，发现董事连锁企业的CSR鉴证对CSR披露质量具有显著正向影响。引入强制披露压力作为调节变量，发现外部压力强化了CSR鉴证的示范效应，从而为模仿压力理论提供了新的经验证据。     

银行业改革、赶超与开放——基于Malmquist TFP指数的实证分析

为评估近年来中国国有银行改革、城市商业银行赶超与银行业对外全面开放5年来外资银行效率的变化,主要采取"中介法",利用2005～2010年数据对中国本土和外资银行Malmquist TFP指数及其组成部分进行了测算分解和实证分析。研究表明:改革促进了中国银行业效率的提高;城市商业银行的"赶超"战略显著提升了效率;中国本土银行的纯技术效率亟待改善;中国银行业对外全面开放后,外资银行的全要素生产率有所提高,但规模效率和技术进步有待改进;股权/资产比率等因素降低了银行效率。     

非利息收入对我国商业银行业绩的影响——基于风险管理视角

近年来,我国商业银行收入结构出现了传统业务比重下降而非利息业务比重上升的趋势.利用我国14家上市商业银行2003年至2010年数据,对银行发展非利息业务的驱动因素进行分析,并对非利息业务和风险调整的银行收益率的相关关系进行检验,研究结果显示:积极开展非利息业务是我国商业银行的主动寻求新利润来源的行为,并不是迫于来自传统存贷业务的竞争压力;非利息业务提高了银行经过风险调整的盈利能力.     

独立董事网络位置、税收规避与企业价值

独立董事的治理效果影响着上市公司的治理状况,本文从独立董事网络的声誉机制和信息传递机制出发,选取2008?2017年沪深A股上市公司作为研究样本,实证检验独立董事网络位置与企业税收规避的关系。研究发现:独立董事网络位置对企业税收规避有负向影响;与所处地区市场化程度较高的公司相比,所处地区市场化程度较低的上市公司独立董事网络中心度对公司税收规避程度的影响更强;管理层权力削弱了独立董事网络中心度对企业税收规避程度的抑制作用。进一步引入企业价值后发现,独立董事网络中心度可以抑制税收规避对企业价值的减损。本文的研究结果完善了税收规避行为价值的研究体系,也为研究独立董事是否有效发挥治理作用提供了新思路。     

Enhancing Corporate Environmental Performance Through Reporting and Roadmaps

Managing the carbon footprint of companies and addressing their respective decarbonization plans is a challenging endeavour. The aim of this study is to help companies better understand the issues around decarbonization and environmental performance by suggesting a holistic management process on which they could embark. This process comprises two crucial steps, which are (a) sustainability reporting and (b) low‐carbon roadmaps. These steps are covered and further developed based on a detailed study of the UK food retail sector. This sector is relevant due to its economic and environmental importance, but most importantly it has a significant record of available environmental reports in the public domain and a large potential to influence consumers, policy makers and multiple supply chains. Sustainability reporting is assessed by analysing environmental KPIs disclosed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and then these are compared against industry standards. This analysis highlights a general lack of consistency and transparency in CSR reporting of UK food retailers. Consequently, a low‐carbon roadmap based on relevant KPIs and on the ‘backcasting’ framework is presented as a case study in order to showcase how a hypothetical UK food retailer can employ a low‐carbon roadmap. The case study demonstrates that ambitious environmental targets are achievable if robust corporate action plans are followed. Furthermore, the case study indicates that capital might be misallocated in favour of highly visible environmental stores and on‐site energy generation technologies, whilst more could be done by applying energy efficiency measures that have the potential to deliver substantial carbon savings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Inertia in the attributional content of annual accounting narratives

Narrative disclosures in annual reports reflect explanatory activities in which specific attribution patterns can be identified. Research on corporate attributional behaviour within the context of financial accounting narratives has documented this behaviour and evidenced significant preferences for certain kinds of explanations in particular circumstances. This kind of research typically relies on cross-sectional data. There exist few statistically validated conclusions regarding the character and consequences of such verbal behaviour over time. This paper reports on a study investigating the change in narrative explanation practices over time. In this longitudinal research special attention is given to the relative strength of consistency and inertial forces on the attributional behaviour in annual reports. It is argued that there are a variety of forces that make that the explanatory patterns in annual reports are likely to be very similar year after year. Reporting practices can be to a great extent unadaptive, in the sense that they become programmed through the development of habit, precedents, traditions and formalized procedures. This is not to say that reporting practices do not change, but that changes even in the way corporate outcomes and actions are explained, are expected to be modest. The purpose of the research was to determine the extent to which the attributional content and framing in annual narrative reports changed over a period of eight years, and whether these changes were related to certain organizational characteristics of the reporting companies conceptualized as potential sources of inertial forces. Overall the results confirm a significant degree of consistency in the attributional content of accounting narratives over time. Evidence of an inertial effect of company listing status and performance history was convincingly present as to the assertiveness aspects of attributional behaviour and as to the differential use of accounting language in the explanation of financial accounting outcomes.     

Monitoring and governance of private banks

In this paper I examine regulation and corporate governance mechanisms at a sample of non-publicly traded state member banks in 2006. Using a simultaneous regression approach, results show that insider representation on the board has a positive influence on both director and executive compensation in commercial banks. Regulatory ratings, however, are only related to bank performance—not to board structure or compensation schemes. This may be attributed to less information asymmetry between managers and owners at private banks. Also, directors are rewarded for strong CAMELS ratings. The governance structure of private banks is not affected by regulatory ratings; however, the percent of insiders on the board influences actions of the board to a large extent.     

The role of the board and the audit committee in corporate risk management

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance on corporate risk-management activities in S&P 500 firms over the period 2004–2010 by measuring the characteristics of the board directors and audit committee. Our results show that the board of directors, especially the audit committee, plays an important role in the firm’s hedging decisions, including whether to hedge and to what extent. Such evidence is even stronger in high-leveraged firms with large risk-shifting incentives. These results are robust to the consideration of endogenous concerns, a board corporate governance index, and industrial effects. Our study contributes to the literature by showing the influential role of the audit committee on corporate risk management.     

Components of CEO Transformational Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility*

abstract We use transformational leadership theory to explore the role of CEOs in determining the extent to which their firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We test this theory using data from 56 US and Canadian firms. CEO intellectual stimulation (but not CEO charismatic leadership) is found to be significantly associated with the propensity of the firm to engage in ‘strategic’ CSR, or those CSR activities that are most likely to be related to the firm's corporate and business‐level strategies. Thus, studies that ignore the role of leadership in CSR may yield imprecise conclusions regarding the antecedents and consequences of these activities. We also critique transformational leadership theory, in terms of its overemphasis on charismatic forms of leadership. This leads to a reconceptualization of transformational leadership, which emphasizes the intellectual stimulation component in the context of CSR.