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How does market competition affect the reporting of sustainability practices? Insights from the UK and Germany

PurposeThis study tests the proprietary cost of reporting sustainability practices. It explores how market competition impacts the reporting of corporate sustainability information. Further, it examines whether the influence of market competition on sustainability reporting is affected by firm size.Design/methodology/approachIt uses two samples of the UK FTSE 350 and German Frankfurt CDAX nonfinancial firms from 2010 to 2023. The sustainability reporting scores for UK and German firms are their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure scores based on the Bloomberg disclosure index. The Herfindahl–Hirschman index has been utilized to measure a firm’s degree of market competition.FindingsThe results reveal that reporting sustainability practices is a negative function of the degree of market competition. Specifically, companies in highly competitive industries disclose less information about their sustainability practices, suggesting that firms view sustainability reporting as a potential source of competitive disadvantage and, therefore, choose to limit such disclosures to maintain a strategic advantage over rivals. Further, the findings reveal a negative impact of market competition on sustainability reporting among small firms. However, this effect is weak or absent among medium and large firms. The results are more observable in the liberal market economy (i.e. the UK) than in the coordinated market economy (i.e. Germany).Practical implicationsIt provides implications for policymakers and market participants to advocate for more significant policies that promote transparency and encourage companies to report their sustainability practices and performance, especially companies in highly competitive industries.Originality/valueIt provides the first evidence of how market competition influences corporate sustainability reporting, adding a deeper insight into another non-financial dimension of sustainability reporting. Likewise, it reflects the varying priorities of companies of different sizes in managing both competition and sustainability reporting. Besides, it is the first to explore this nexus in two distinct jurisdictions: the UK and Germany.

POSTULATING THEORY SYNTHESIZATION FOR STRATEGIC ALLIANCE AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE SUCCESS IN NIGERIA

<p><span lang="EN-US">Irrespective of country and economy, organizations around the globe are constantly scanning for ways to enhance their competitive position for sustained industry performance amidst heightened competition. Rather than competing against each other, these firms view themselves as strategic partners for long-term industry relationships. To this end, the study analyzed how theoretical Synthesization would greatly influence the positional standing of aligning firms. To achieve the study intent, the scoping review approach was employed. Study materials were mainly journal articles sourced from academic search engines and institutional databases. The study clearly states that regarding strategic alliance and competitive advantage, the essence of possessing rare, uncopiable, and non-substitutability organizational resources should be for inter-organizational purposes rather than individualist exploitation.</span></p>

Minds and machines: A look at employee attitudes and work engagement regarding AI in large organizations

This study investigates how workers in huge firms view and feel about AI innovation. Utilizing Prolific.co, a particular group of workers with first-hand information using AI innovation was employed. The study posed inquiries about the adequacy of AI, its benefits and drawbacks, client acknowledgment, morals, straight forwardness and individual strengthening. Specialized staff (40%) and the executive’s staff (60%) made up the fragments of respondents. For the various decision questions, a measurable examination was finished, and for the genuine inquiries, a topical investigation. The discoveries show a huge level of understanding between the perspectives and assessments of the two worker divisions, particularly as to AI execution and fulfilment levels with morals, straightforwardness, and conference. Discernments and mentalities with respect to AI innovation were demonstrated to be essentially emphatically affected by segment factors; the effect of calling type and key utilitarian areas of AI organization was viewed as less huge. Generally speaking, the review accentuates that it is so basic to consider socioeconomics while analyzing perspectives and conclusions in regards to AI innovation in corporate settings.

Alternative modes of entry in franchising

Franchising has been widely studied from the perspective of the franchisor-fraanchisee relationship and firms' performance. Meanwhile, entry mode studies have explored various avenues for internationalization by the pace and method of expansion and the governance mode adopted. Companies have used mixed modes of expansion depending on the features of their domestic and international markets. One form of expansion is the store-in-store strategy, which some firms view as providing real estate revenue and others consider as part of their business model. The increased adoption of this entry mode provides a window for theory development that considers store-in-store franchising and internationalization. Accordingly, this paper draws upon relational contracting theory to develop a conceptual framework for store-in-store franchising using host department stores for the purpose of domestic and international expansion. We also report on a survey to provide managerial insights to company executives on the adoption of the store-in-store strategy.

Gender roles or gendered goals? Women's return to rural family business

PurposeThis paper aims to add to the theorization of the gender dynamic in rural areas by investigating the motives of women who join their family firm (or their spouse's family firm) and thereby defy the demographic trend of rural flight. The context of this study is the depopulation of rural areas with the closing of basic services and relocation of the younger population, and educated women in particular, to urban areas. Consequently, rural family businesses risk failing to find successors and suffering forced closure or relocation. The empirical site of the study is rural family firms in Sweden, a context characterized by a high level of gender equality in legislation and culture but gender-conservative business structures in rural regions.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical case in this paper builds on a qualitative study of nine (9) life course narratives of women entrepreneurs in a rural region of Southern Sweden who have returned to rural areas to join their family business. The authors follow the view established by gender scholars that women are active agents in navigating their lives, and their life story narratives offer insight into the considerations that inform their choice to stay or return to rural locations. In Sweden, the setting for the study, gender equality is widely supported by legislation, policy and institutional frameworks and popular understanding of gender relations. In contrast to the gender-progressive policies of Sweden at large, women's entrepreneurship in rural regions of Sweden tends to follow traditional gender hierarchies and face similar constraints as in rural areas of other countries. The juxtaposition of these competing sets of ideals makes Sweden an important and interesting place to study and draw insights from the experiences of women entrepreneurs.FindingsThe findings reveal that women who choose to join rural family firms view them primarily in a positive light and see this choice as aligned with their need for professional flexibility and assertiveness, rewarding relationships, and a calm, secure, well-balanced life. Theoretically, the study implies that women choosing to engage in rural family firms seek non-material benefits, such as work–life balance and social support, and may be driven in part by a sense of psychological ownership that extends to the rural community.Originality/valueThe findings provide novel insights on women as active agents in navigating their lives and the intrinsic (e.g. alignment of personal values) and extrinsic (e.g. community support) motives that inform their decisions. The study also raises questions regarding how women perceive themselves as “fitting in” to rural settings and to what extent the sense of security within these settings that the women describe may be contingent upon factors such as their families' embeddedness within the community as well as their conformity to the local social norms.

Overview on Theory of Co-Creation for Competitive Advantage through Open Innovation in Modern Business Environment

This paper aims to assess the potential of a company to create competitive advantage through open innovation in dynamic environmental context of organizations. The dynamic nature challenges the competitiveness of a firm demanding to implement novel corporate strategies to stay competitive in the market. Hence, firms view traditional methods of competing in markets to be as less reliable, and obsolete. There are three different theoretical perspectives identified in open innovation mainly as service science, innovation and technology management, and marketing and consumer research. The collaborative process of producing value with the support of all parties involved in the supply chain process means, having participants with diverse ideas. However, having a diverse group result in having individuals with varied interests and expectations that can pursue an individual agenda. Hence, it and can force people to undertake an additional risk by moving from their own comfort zones for better results. It also can create ambiguity and result in loosing common understanding, making it harder to achieve the common goals set initially. Instrumental to open innovations in organization are the collaboration, culture and the structural changes that foster and facilitate success.

How Firms and Experts View The Phillips Curve: Evidence from Individual and Aggregate Data from South Africa

ABSTRACT Heterogeneity is now a regular part of macroeconomic theory, but disaggregated data about firm expectations remain scarce. A survey of firms and financial analysts in South Africa provides forecasts of inflation and other macroeconomic variables. We estimate a variety of inflation and wage growth-based Phillips curves, which reflect differences in how firms and financial analysts view the link between inflation and real economic activity, as well as heterogeneity across firms. South African Phillips curves have become flatter, but backward-looking factors remain more relevant for firms. Rising real wage growth exceeds expected and past inflation and wage growth since the GFC.

A comparative analysis of employee wellbeing practices implemented in information technology companies & automobile companies in Pune

In the current unprecedented times of pandemic & BANI environment, maintaining & taking care of employee wellbeing became one of the prerequisites of organizational success. The purpose of this study was to analyze the diverse employee well-being strategies used by the IT & manufacturing industries.The author adopted the methodology of collecting data from 118 respondents working in IT & manufacturing industries using a standardized questionnaire containing standard scales. Focus group interviews with employees were also undertaken to learn more about the different strategies used by companies for promoting employee wellbeing. The analysis produced findings showing that firms view good employee well-being practices as one of their strategic pillars for attracting and keeping talent.The study also highlighted the limitation: The data for the study was collected from the IT & manufacturing sector, so inferences have limitations

A Review of Corporate Social Responsibility and Reputational Costs in the Tax Avoidance Literature*

ABSTRACTIn recent years, academic researchers, policymakers, and the public have increasingly focused on the tax avoidance behavior of corporations. At the same time, firms are increasingly pressured to incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their decision making, leading to heightened academic interest in CSR. Given that opponents of corporate tax avoidance often argue that avoiding tax is socially irresponsible, we review the growing literature surrounding this issue. We begin with a theoretical review of how corporate tax avoidance fits into the CSR framework. We then review the empirical evidence on the interrelationship between CSR and firm reputation in the tax avoidance literature. We frame our review around three questions: (i) Do firms view tax avoidance as a CSR issue? (ii) Do stakeholders view tax avoidance as socially irresponsible, leading to reputational costs of tax avoidance? And (iii) Do firms change their tax avoidance behavior due to fear of these reputational consequences? Throughout our review, we provide discussions on the state of the current literature and offer suggestions for future research opportunities.

A Review of Corporate Social Responsibility and Reputational Costs in the Tax Avoidance Literature

In recent years, academic researchers, policymakers, and the public have increasingly focused on the tax avoidance behavior of corporations. At the same time, firms are increasingly pressured to incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their decision making, leading to heightened academic interest in CSR. Given that opponents of corporate tax avoidance often argue that avoiding tax is socially irresponsible, we review the growing literature surrounding this issue. We begin with a theoretical review of how corporate tax avoidance fits into the CSR framework. We then review the empirical evidence on the interrelationship between CSR and firm reputation in the tax avoidance literature. We frame our review around three questions: (1) do firms view tax avoidance as a CSR issue? (2) do stakeholders view tax avoidance as socially irresponsible, leading to reputational costs of tax avoidance? and (3) do firms change their tax avoidance behavior due to fear of these reputational consequences? Throughout our review, we provide discussions on the state of the current literature and offer suggestions for future research opportunities.

Jurisdiction shopping and foreign location choice: The role of market and nonmarket experience in the European solar energy industry

Several countries provide policy support to specific sectors in order to facilitate industry transitions. While industry-support policies stimulate the growth of their target sectors, little is known about how such policies engender heterogeneous international strategies. In this article, we investigate how industry-support policies influence foreign location choices. We argue that firms engage in jurisdiction shopping, choosing to invest in countries with more generous policy support, but that this tendency varies markedly across firms. Specifically, we suggest that firms’ nonmarket experience exacerbates the effect of policy support on location choice, whereas market experience has less of an impact. Further, we propose that some firms view generous policies more skeptically than others, depending on the nature of their nonmarket experience. We test and find support for our predictions using a longitudinal dataset of foreign investments of firms entering the solar energy industry in the European Union. Our findings indicate that supportive policies stimulate the energy transition, attracting in particular foreign entrants diversifying into renewables or having more policy experience. At the same time, they suggest that adverse policy changes in one country affect how firms assess policies in other countries, highlighting the need for policy coordination at a supranational level.

Resource efficiency in the innovative and conservative stages of a firm's evolution

Attempts to understand how firms view environmentally-friendly operations and conscious consumerism are easy to find in the resource efficiency literature. Although scholars consider various resource efficiency business models, opportunities to seize the benefits of the organizational life cycle theory remain under-researched. In the current study, we analyze resource efficiency actions undertaken by close to 1,200 firms in the innovative and conservative stages of a firm’s evolution from four European Union member states: Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. Logistic regression results show that firms in the conservative stage are more likely to undertake resource efficiency actions related to the saving of water, energy, and materials than firms in the innovative stage which are expected to be implementing actions associated with the design of sustainable product. Surprisingly, our findings also suggest that firms in the conservative stage perform more resource efficiency actions than firms in the innovative one. Various actions are applied by firms in different stages among member states that share similar economic conditions. Moreover, support mechanisms are also considered in this study. The findings allow us to contribute by expanding how the resource efficiency field is conceived in the terms of firm-specific characteristics, their needs and limitations while providing insights and recommendations for researchers and policymakers to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.

Factors for eliminating plastic in packaging: The European FMCG experts’ view

The fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) sector is in the spotlight as a culprit for the current plastic waste problem. However, few studies provide insight into plastic elimination from the FMCG perspective. This qualitative study explores what the FMCG industry encounters when they attempt to address the plastic packaging issue. We conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with selected managers and technology experts in 7 European FMCGs. The analysis uses am original approach, named ‘the Factor Mapping Grid’, developed to stimulate responses from participants and map relationships between different factors. Results include 7 critical factors, and show that FMCG managers believe that pressure from “consumers” is the most prominent factor in reducing plastic. But, consumers are also equally viewed as a barrier to transition and thus act as a double-edged sword for FMCGs, depending on their awareness of plastic as an issue, and their willingness to take actions. All firms view legislation as an important enabler, but acknowledge that this is out of their control. It is evident that for industry, there is a general desire to reduce plastic, but there is a reluctance to be the first, and thus, a ‘we will if you will’ phenomenon is observed.

Capital Incentive Policies in the Age of Cloud Computing: An Empirical Case Study

The following paper assesses whether current policy environments are appropriate for the emergence of cloud computing technology. In particular, this research uses firm-level data for Germany and the UK to examine the impact of capital incentive programmes (a common policy present in most OECD countries) on cloud adoption. The design for many of these policies target investments in physical capital while excluding digital services like the cloud. Firms view digital investments and digital services as substitutes, therefore narrowly define dincentive programmes may actually discourage the use of emerging tools like cloud computing, which are found to enable the growth and performance of young entrants. Overall, the results find that while capital incentive policies encourage firm investments in ICT and other forms of capital, they actually reduce the probability of cloud adoption. Policy makers may therefore need to reconsider the design of capital incentive programmes within their jurisdictions.

Engaging with open innovation: A scottish perspective on its opportunities, challenges and risks

With open innovation gaining popularity, the question is how firms view its conceptualisation. This is of particular interest for those national economies that are patchy and consisting largely of small and medium-sized enterprises, as in Scotland. To solicit views of Scottish firms a focus group was organised centred on core themes of open innovation. Interviews with Scottish Innovation Centres complemented the focus group. The outcomes suggest that canonical views on ‘open innovation’ prevail, particularly for collaboration, even though its opportunities are well-recognised. It also turns out that some Scottish companies hold myopic views on innovation, which could be an explanatory factor for the oft-discussed innovation gap in the United Kingdom. Most interestingly, our study also reveals the concept of open innovation is not always understood for what it covers; it is recommended that the term ‘open innovation’ is redefined as ‘open collaboration’ to better reflect its nature. JEL Codes: O32

Policy Uncertainty and Short-Term Financing: The Case of Trade Credit

We examine the impact of policy uncertainty on trade credit. We document a decline (increase) in accounts payable and receivable during periods of high (low) policy uncertainty. The relation is robust and holds after controlling for endogeneity, economic and political uncertainties, and the Great Recession. Additionally, the impact of policy uncertainty on trade credit is long term, affecting short-term borrowing and lending in the following year as well. The reduction in trade credit during periods of high uncertainty is driven by a decrease in supply; firms that are most likely to lend, reduce credit to customers during these periods. There is no evidence that firms with access to alternative sources of funding reduce their borrowings during periods of high policy uncertainty. For the subset of firms that have limited access to external funds, there is an increase in accounts payable in high uncertainty periods suggesting that these firms view trade credit as a substitute source of financing during difficult times. Finally, industry competitiveness impacts the relation; suppliers (customers) in competitive industries have higher (lower) levels of accounts receivable (payable) during high uncertainty periods.

Materiality judgments in an integrated reporting setting: The effect of strategic relevance and strategy map

This study reports an experiment conducted to examine auditors' materiality judgments for nonfinancial performance information (NFPI) in the context of Integrated Reporting; a setting where auditors do not have well-established guidelines or benchmarks. We examine two fundamental factors underlying Integrated Reporting that are predicted to influence auditors' NFPI materiality judgments, namely, the level of strategic relevance associated with the NFPI being assessed, and the provision of a strategy map (a visual representation of linkages between the firm's strategic objectives) to auditors. Our study provides evidence that while auditors judge misstated NFPI of low strategic relevance to be less material than misstated NFPI with high strategic relevance, they only make this distinction when a strategy map is present. As integrating a client's strategy in the process of evaluating materiality is important, our result suggests that the presence of a strategy map potentially improves the efficient allocation of assurance resources. The importance of understanding how qualitative factors affect materiality judgments in nonfinancial assurance engagements is reflected in the fact that accounting firms view such assurance as mainstream. Our findings not only have implications for standard setters developing further guidance for determining audit materiality under Integrated Reporting, but also more generally for auditors who are providing assurance services for NFPI.

The role of supply chain finance in third-party logistics industry: a case study from China

ABSTRACTThis research aims to explore how third-party logistics (TPL) firms with different strategic orientations gain competitive advantage through market practices. The study also aims to determine the role of supply chain finance (SCF) in the process. We adopt a multiple case study methodology to conduct interviews with five Chinese TPL firms chosen as representatives of diverse TPL firm types. The findings suggest that the roles of SCF vary in firms with different orientations. Scale-oriented firms gain competitive advantage through market exploitation practices. They view SCF as an optional tool to achieve their goal of meeting customer needs through enhancing the benefits of their market exploitation practices. In comparison, scope-oriented firms view SCF as a key business sector to improve their financial performance. They gain competitive advantage through market exploitation practices, which is enabled by SCF.

Effect of corporate social responsibility on corporate tax avoidance: evidence from a matching approach

The literature provides various theories relating to the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance. If firms view both CSR activities and tax payments as paths toward contributing to society, CSR and tax avoidance activities exhibit a negative relationship. Conversely, the two activities exhibit a positive relationship if firms engage in CSR for the purpose of risk management. This study examines the effect of CSR on corporate tax avoidance using a matching approach. Three matching algorithms, namely nearest neighbor, radius, and kernel algorithms, are used to match the two groups of firms (CSR and non-CSR firms) in order to correct for sample selection bias. This study adopts Chinese listed firms during 2009–2016 as a research sample. Most empirical results show that CSR firms have higher book-tax differences and lower effective tax rates. This indicates that CSR firms are more aggressive in their tax avoidance. These findings imply that firms engage in CSR activities as a risk management strategy.

Which CSR Activities Are More Consequential? Evidence From the Great Recession

We exploit the Great Recession of 2008 to study how firms view corporate social responsibility (CSR). When confronted with an adverse exogenous shock, firms are forced to prioritize. Our results show that, during the Great Recession, firms do not lessen their overall CSR investments, suggesting that they recognize the importance of CSR. However, further analysis shows that firms substantially reduce investments in five CSR activities (Community, Employee, Environment, Human Rights, and Product), while increasing investments in two CSR activities (Corporate Governance and Diversity). Firms appear to view some CSR activities as more essential to the strategic direction of the firm than others.