Wiley-Online-Library: Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility: Table of Contents

Issue Information

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 35, Issue 3, Page 1333-1334, July 2026.

The Rule of Law and Antifraud Measures in the Allocation of Next Generation Eu Funds

David Blanco‐Alcántara, Teresa Elvira‐Lorilla, Cristina Sierra‐Calvo — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study analyses the different factors that influence the allocation of Next Generation EU (NGEU) Funds among European Union (EU) Member States, particularly on the Recovery and Resilience Facility. We used a sample of the 27 EU countries and applied Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to carry out our analysis. Our results show that the EU considers informal criteria when making allocation decisions in the context of the NGEU Funds. Particularly, the quality of the Rule of Law and the presence of robust anti-fraud measures significantly impact the distribution of funds. In addition, there is no single path to receiving higher levels of funding; rather, multiple combinations of institutional and demographic conditions can lead to greater allocations. In fact, the informal governance indicators are especially considered for more populous Member States. The contributions of this study are twofold. It contributes to the literature by introducing a novel methodological approach and highlighting the importance of informal criteria in EU fund distribution. On the other hand, it has some practical implications since it offers practical insights for Member States seeking funding as well as guidelines for designing more effective allocation strategies for policymakers.

How Can Female Directors' Influence on Responsible Production Become More Consequential?

Muhammad Taufik, Fiona Vinelia — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, despite having the greatest linkage to other goals, remains underexplored. We examine the impact of female directors on SDG 12 (responsible production) by addressing two debates: whether their presence reflects genuine board diversity and whether they serve merely as token leaders. Using 2214 hand-collected firm-year observations from Indonesian-listed firms (2017–2023), we find that all proxies of gender diversity and female directors negatively affect SDG 12. Although regulations mandating SDG 12, institutional ownership, and CSR committees promote responsible production, they all fail to catalyze the role of female directors. Even after controlling for endogeneity, our results remain consistent. All efforts to make their role more consequential face challenges—not due to their behavior, but rather because their presence indicates chronic tokenism. Male directors, as their counterparts, positively affect SDG 12 due to their greater number and representation.

Curbing Corporate Fraud From Within: A Perspective From Rank‐and‐File Employees

Qilin Wang, Shuaiqi He, Xinyuan Xu, Jinzhao Liu — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of rank-and-file employees on corporate fraud. Using the educational levels of employees as a proxy for employee quality, we demonstrate that higher-quality employees serve as notable deterrents to corporate fraud. This effect operates through two underlying mechanisms: earnings pressure alleviation and monitoring role enhancement. Our findings survive after addressing potential endogeneity concerns. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the inhibitory effect of employee quality is more pronounced in firms facing severer financing constraints, weaker CEO power, greater reliance on employees, lower unemployment concerns, and better corporate governance. Lastly, we find that internal employee monitoring substitutes for external mechanisms, while employee stock ownership plans enhance the monitoring effectiveness of employees.

Does Firms' Exposure to Religion Lead to Conservative Loan Financing? The Mediating Role of ESG Performance

Ying Chen, Ming Qian, Kim Klyver — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Recent studies suggest that religion influences firm outcomes. Our study extends this emerging stream of research by exploring how firms' exposure to religion affects their ESG performance and, subsequently, the cost of loans and the loan-to-asset ratio for those firms. Drawing upon social norms theory and signaling theory, we suggest that firms located in areas with a high level of religiosity have higher ESG performance due to the influence of religious social norms and that, in turn, such performance reduces both the cost of loans and the loan-to-asset ratio as a result of the signaling effect. Furthermore, we suggest that regional economic development positively moderates the relationship between firms' exposure to religion and their ESG performance. Our findings highlight the ethical complexity of religiosity, suggesting religion drives both risky (direct effect on loan-to-asset ratio) and conservative (indirect effect on loan-to-asset ratio) financial behavior. That is, contrary to conventional assumptions, we found that firms' exposure to religion can increase, not decrease, their loan-to-asset ratio; however, when religious exposure promotes firms' ESG performance, they become more conservative in their financing behavior. We discuss the implications of our study for financial management research.

Sustainability at the Summit: Transforming Haute Cuisine With Circular Business Models

Alessandra Costa, Antonio Crupi, Vincenzo Corvello, Tindara Abbate — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The adoption of circular economy principles poses a vibrant challenge for firms by becoming a potential and sustainable way for them to keep pace with highly dynamic changes in a competitive environment. Although previous research has examined experiences and practices that firms adopt to facilitate their transition to a circular economy, existing studies fall short of describing the factors that firms could leverage for circular business model design and implementation. This issue is more relevant to creative industries, such as haute cuisine, which is strongly characterized by sustainability concerns and assumes a leading role in the food industry. To explore and identify those relevant factors, this research uses a multiple-case study approach, focusing on seven Michelin Green Star restaurants in Italy, which link culinary excellence with an increasing commitment to sustainability. The findings advance theoretical understanding of how creative industries can drive the transition to a circular economy by providing a novel framework grounded in three interrelated dimensions: green sustainable behavior, creativity, and terroir.

Environmental Levies and Business Ethics: Unintended Labor Market Impacts and Corporate Responsibility in China

Zehao Wang, Yu Feng, Yang Shen — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Environmental taxation is often seen as a necessary tool for promoting sustainability, yet its impact on employment remains a subject of debate. This study empirically examines how China's environmental protection tax (EPT) affects labor demand, uncovering distinct responses among firms of different sizes. Using a triple-difference approach, we find that environmental taxes lead to job losses primarily by increasing production costs, which, in turn, drive firms to either cut output or invest in greener technologies. Large firms tend to mitigate tax burdens by adopting cleaner production methods and improving efficiency, while small firms, facing financial constraints, often resort to reducing production, leading to more significant employment declines. Further analysis reveals that low-skilled workers bear a disproportionate share of job losses, raising concerns about social inequality. However, government green subsidies play a crucial role in cushioning the negative effects by helping firms transition to environmentally friendly operations without sacrificing jobs. These findings underscore the need for balanced environmental policies that support businesses in adapting to regulatory changes while minimizing labor market disruptions. This study not only highlights the unintended employment consequences of environmental taxation but also provides policy insights for fostering both economic stability and environmental sustainability.

Exposure to Corruption and Stock Returns for US Multinational Firms: Evidence From Africa

John Fan Zhang — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study is motivated by the prevalence of corruption and the inevitability of some firms operating in corrupt regions. It aims to explore whether and how firms can gain financially from operating in such environments. By analyzing a sample of 3865 US firms, we find that those with higher corruption exposure are more likely to operate in Africa. Further, compared with firms not operating in Africa, those with greater exposure to corruption and operations in Africa experience higher returns. This finding is consistent across univariate analysis, portfolio analysis, and regression analysis. Further investigations reveal that other cultural traits such as trust and egalitarianism also influence stock values. While some corporate governance may mitigate the corruption impact, other channels suggested in the literature do not seem to have impact. However, even after considering these factors, the positive valuation effect of corruption exposure remains significant. These results imply that, in certain contexts, firm exposure to corruption may benefit shareholders. Therefore, instead of simply adhering to a higher standard of conduct imposed in the home country, a firm's familiarity with and adaptation to the local culture where it operates seems to be also crucial to its foreign operations.

Low‐Carbon Transition and Active Management: Evidence From Emerging Market Funds

Juan Carlos Matallín‐Sáez, Amparo Soler‐Domínguez, Diego Víctor de Mingo‐López — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Previous literature finds mixed evidence on the performance of emerging mutual funds and how investors are becoming more aware of investing in companies involved in low-carbon emission activities. Given the opportunities that emerging markets and sustainable investing offer to active management, this study aims to fill a gap in the literature by considering their effect on the performance of emerging mutual funds. The study considers a large worldwide sample of equity mutual funds that invest in emerging countries from January 2000 to January 2024. We follow a robust multi-method empirical approach. First, we analyze portfolios formed according to carbon risk score and the level of active management. We also perform cross-sectional and panel data regressions. Results show that low-carbon funds and more active funds achieve greater abnormal returns. Specifically, funds with lower carbon risks perform better among less active funds, while more active funds outperform among high-carbon risk funds. These results are robust when controlling for other performance determinants and accounting for the variability of fund performance and other characteristics over time and across countries. The evidence emphasizes the role of strategic and tactical asset allocations on fund performance and entails that active managers, who take a holistic approach by integrating sustainable criteria in financial decisions, navigate towards the best investment opportunities while transitioning towards a low-carbon world.

What Drives Employees' Pro‐Environmental Behavior? Evidence From China

Yufei Wang, Yan Wang, Zhongju Liao — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

In the field of employees' pro-environmental behaviors, studies integrating the common influences of organizational and individual factors are limited. To fill this gap, this study selects perceived corporate environmental responsibility and biospheric values to explore their impact on employees' pro-environmental behaviors. This study constructs a psychological formation mechanism of employees' pro-environmental behaviors by introducing beliefs and norms into the theoretical framework. Environmental transformational leadership is selected as the primary external source of information for employees to explore the role of environmental role models. Through the questionnaire, this study demonstrates that perceived corporate environmental responsibility and biospheric values positively influence employees' pro-environmental behaviors, where environmental beliefs and personal environmental norms play chain intermediary roles. Environmental transformational leadership positively moderates the impact of perceived corporate environmental responsibility and biospheric values on employees' pro-environmental behaviors. This study can help managers gain a clearer understanding of how to motivate employees to engage in pro-environmental behaviors and create an organizational atmosphere based on employees' characteristics.

Youth Anti‐Corruption Potential: Insights From Germany, Lithuania and Spain

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Corruption is universally recognised as one of the biggest challenges for modern societies. Its negative impact on economies and institutions, as well as its erosive effect on citizen trust and state stability, pose a significant strain on good governance. Due to its pervasive nature, implementation of anti-corruption policies and education require persistent efforts and dedication. Understandably, young people are identified as the most important cohort within society, which should be well prepared to address all challenges associated with the malpractice. According to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, knowledge must be transformed into perception, followed by the adoption of a suitable attitude, which should then be reflected in future behaviour. As such, it is paramount to ensure that young individuals are able to comprehend the negative impact of corruption, identify the malpractice, and be prepared to inform the relevant authorities when faced with acts of corruption. This set of competences is referred to as anti-corruption potential. It is shaped by the cultural, societal and institutional constraints of the country (region) as well. It consists of three main elements—perception (knowledge), attitude (values) and behaviour. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the current dynamics of youth anti-corruption potential in three European countries—Germany, Lithuania and Spain. For its purposes, a survey was conducted amongst 1,922 young individuals, aged 15–29, who are currently in education. The countries selected represent three main EU regions—Western, Eastern and Central and Southern Europe. The results demonstrate that corruption is universally recognised as an existing challenge. However, Lithuanian and German young people exhibit higher intolerance towards the malpractice, whilst Spanish youth demonstrate the most positive attitude in regard to integrity as a contributing factor to personal success. Moreover, the majority of respondents from all three countries assert that their decision to report suspected or witnessed acts of corruption would be made after a thorough deliberation, taking into account the specific circumstances and the context of the situation. Results further indicate that anti-corruption education programmes should become an indispensable part of the educational process. However, such programmes must be tailored to reflect the cultural specificities of the society and the unique needs of the youth. This research makes a major contribution regarding the anti-corruption potential of young people across diverse European contexts. It further demonstrates how regional and cultural variations shape perceptions, attitudes and behaviour towards corruption. As such, increasing understanding of the social and cultural context in which corruption occurs—both at personal as well as state level—should be considered a priority by policymakers and practitioners.

Does Audit Committee Chairs' Collectivism Matter? The Impact of Rice Culture on Financial Fraud

Li Chen, Yingwen Guo — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates whether audit committee (AC) chairs' collectivism has an impact on corporate financial frauds. Based on the rice theory of culture, we identify the AC chairs born in rice-planting regions as those from collectivist cultures. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2013 to 2019, we find that firms with collectivist AC chairs are less likely to commit financial frauds. This result suggests that collectivism motivates AC chairs to focus on organizational interests and curb managerial misconduct in financial reporting at the expense of shareholders' wealth. This effect is strengthened by AC chairs' tenure, accounting expertise, and reputation. Further analysis suggests that collectivistic AC chairs enhance internal control quality, hire a more competent auditor, and exhibit greater risk aversion. Moreover, the relationship is more salient when the AC chairs share the same culture with the CEO or when other AC members also have collectivistic tendencies.

Beyond Profit: Revealing the Nexus Between Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Innovation in Eastern European SMEs

Imen Bouchmel, Jihene El Ouakdi, Abdelwahed Omri — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This research aims to examine the effect of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) on innovation and firm performance by using pooled cross-sectional data on a sample of 10,410 observations of Eastern European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over the period of 2018–2020. We constructed an appropriate proxy index of CER using principal component analysis (PCA) which revealed that CER is based on three pillars: (i) energy monitoring and efficiency, (ii) greenhouse gas emissions, and (iii) pollutants' emissions. To address reverse causality and endogeneity biases, we employed two-stage least squares (2SLS) analyses and instrumental probit (IVProbit) regression. Results show that CER positively influences research and development expenditures, external knowledge acquisition, and product and process innovation. In contrast, CER negatively affects firm performance. In addition, the findings prove that corporate innovation has a mediating role between environmental responsibility and firm performance. These results imply that investing in environmental responsibility can improve innovation and competitiveness of Eastern European SMEs. Yet, managers also need to be aware of the potential detrimental consequences on short-term firm performance. Overall, the results suggest that firms in Eastern Europe may face trade-offs between environmental responsibility and financial performance. While environmental responsibility may lead to increased innovation, it may also have negative effects on firm performance. Accordingly, firms have to carefully take into consideration the costs and benefits of implementing environmental practices and seek ways to balance their environmental and financial goals. The development of more effective environmental regulations and support mechanisms tailored to SMEs by governments and policymakers can neutralize this negative effect.

Independent Board of Directors Group Faultlines and CSR: Evidence From India

Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study, leveraging group faultline and upper echelons theories, explores how relation and task-based faultlines among independent board members influence CSR investment under the contingency effect of the financial slack of the firms. This study, leveraging the concept of group faultline and upper echelons, first hypothesizes how the supra-top management team (TMT) influences CSR investment. Specifically, the study explores the role of relationship-related and task-related faultlines among independent board members in influencing firms' CSR investments. This study further suggests the moderating effects of financial slack on the relationship between independent directors' group faultlines and CSR investment. Drawing on a sample of 942 firms from India for 4 years (2014–2018), we explore how relationship-related faultlines (like gender, education, and age) and task-related faultlines (like functional background and tenure) among independent board members are associated with CSR investment. The study finds that relationship-related faultlines, gender, education level, task-related faultlines, functional background, and tenure would influence CSR investment by firms. Relationship-related faultlines among independent board members decrease CSR investment, but task-related faultlines increase CSR investment. Further, financial slack decreases the negative influence of relationship-related faultlines and enhances task-related faultlines' positive influence among independent board members on CSR investment. The study contributes to the CSR literature by examining how relationship- and task-related faultlines among supra-TMT influence a firm's ethical and sustainability behavior. This study has significant practical and policy implications, such as whether it would be wise for a firm to configure and reconfigure independent directors depending on financial slack. This strategy will help firms maximize the value of a diverse, independent board of multiple subgroups and reap the benefits of appropriate CSR behavior.

Handling A New Regulatory Era: The Influence of due Diligence Legislation on the Deliberative Capacity of Multi‐Stakeholder Initiatives

Leona A. Henry, Eva van der Zee — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

In multi-stakeholder initiatives, actors across sectors develop voluntary standards to guide firms' sustainability efforts. While multi-stakeholder initiatives have long been a prevalent instrument of sustainability regulation, recently, there has been an uptake of legislation that makes it mandatory for firms to acknowledge sustainability issues along their value chains, known as due diligence legislation. In this paper, we explore how the increasing amount of due diligence legislation affects the deliberative capacity of multi-stakeholder initiatives. Our qualitative multiple case study shows members' varying perceptions around due diligence legislation, the opportunities and challenges for deliberative capacity these perceptions result in, and the actions multi-stakeholder initiatives are currently developing to respond to due diligence legislation. Based on these insights, this study advances our understanding of the interplay between multi-stakeholder initiatives' deliberative capacity and their regulatory environment. In addition, it advances our understanding of standard multiplicity by elucidating the coexistence of voluntary and governmental standards to regulate corporate accountability.

The Effects of Organizational Dependence and Hotline Administration on Whistleblowing Accounting Fraud

Eva Zedlacher, Martin Altenburger, Hauke Krüger — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The EU Whistleblower Directive 2019/1937 states that companies can administer their internal whistleblowing lines at their own discretion (e.g., via anonymous internal or external hotlines). However, it remains unclear how the respective reporting line influences whistleblowers' perceptions or hinders/promotes whistleblowing when the organization's survival or success depends on the wrongdoing. In this study, we investigate how the hotline administration and level of organizational dependence—measured via a description of material versus immaterial beneficial consequences of a financial statement—influence whistleblowing intentions. Results of an online 2 × 2 experiment support our hypothesis that the intention to blow the whistle is stronger if the organizational dependence on the wrongdoing is described as high rather than low, but only weakly support the hypothesis that organizational dependence interacts with the channel administration. However, supplemental analyses suggest that externally administered hotlines positively affect safety and anonymity perceptions when reporting highly material fraud. Our findings underline how strongly materiality affects whistleblowers' reporting intentions even when the organization depends on the wrongdoing. In practice, reporting instances of wrongdoing with low materiality may be encouraged by providing multiple reporting channels, lowering materiality disclosure thresholds, and by strengthening the “ethical infrastructure” of an organization via additional formal and informal measures.

How Does Strategic CSR Foster Innovation? Evidence From France

Zaineb Hlioui, Abdelwahed Omri, Ouidad Yousfi — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the impact of strategic CSR on innovation performance, focusing on French firms listed on the SBF120 index. Despite increasing interest in the relationship between CSR and innovation, there is a notable gap in understanding the nuanced ways in which specific strategic CSR mechanisms influence innovation outcomes. This study addresses this gap by developing a comprehensive quantitative measure for strategic CSR based on four mechanisms: reputation enhancement, stakeholders' reciprocation, risk mitigation, and innovation capacity improvement. Our results indicate that the overall strategic CSR score is positively associated with corporate innovation. However, only the stakeholders' reciprocation and the innovation capacity improvement among the strategic CSR pillars significantly influence innovation outcomes. These insights offer policy implications, suggesting that policymakers encourage CSR practices that foster stakeholder collaboration and enhance innovation capabilities. These findings highlight the importance of a targeted implementation of strategic CSR to boost innovation effectively.

Perceptions of Ethics Programs and Corporate Ethical Values and a Positive Work Attitude: An Application of Pluralistic and Decoupling Frameworks

Sean R. Valentine, Connie Bateman, Sanjay Goel — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

In support of positively aligned ethics infrastructures, employers utilize ethics programs to advance work environments that improve individual attitudes and behaviors. There is reason to believe that ethics infrastructures should be strengthened by multiple programs representing multiple ethics orientations, but this notion of plurality is underexplored in business ethics research. This study uniquely draws from the pluralistic theory of ethics program orientations, its principle of requisite variety, and the concept of decoupling to better understand ethics infrastructures in firms. Using a convenience sample of employees working for organizations primarily located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States, this study explored the collective impact of four ethics program orientations, reflected across perceived ethics practices utilized and ethics communication frequency, on employees' perceptions of corporate ethical values and their overall positive work attitudes. The results of the mediation analysis indicated that perceptions of ethics programs were associated with stronger perceived corporate ethical values and a more positive work attitude. This suggests firms focus on a variety of ethics program orientations when selecting ethical practices and communication efforts to enhance employees' ethical perceptions and attitudes, thus preventing the decoupling of the ethics infrastructure from employee outcomes.

The Impact of Organizational Culture on Corporate Tax Avoidance

Hiep Ngoc Luu, Dung Thuy Thi Nguyen, Dung Duc Doan — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of different dimensions of organizational culture on corporate tax avoidance. We use textual analysis to quantify the different organizational culture dimensions of firms in conjunction with those proposed in the Competing Values Framework, including Control-, Collaborate-, Compete-, and Create-oriented cultural dimensions. We find that firms with a Control-oriented culture that values safety and predictability are less likely to be involved in tax avoidance. By contrast, firms with a Compete-oriented culture that encourages risk-taking and aggressive behavior are more likely to avoid paying tax. Smaller firms primarily drive the impact of organizational culture. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses. Overall, these results provide novel evidence about the real effects of different dimensions of organizational culture on corporate tax avoidance.

Sustainability in Healthcare: The Role of Digital Technologies for Improving Patient Engagement

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Sustainability in healthcare is getting considerable research attention as systems worldwide tend to balance environmental, social, and economic factors. In this context, digital technologies have demonstrated significant potential to enhance engagement among different consumer groups across various industries. Recognizing the importance of patient engagement and its impact on patient–doctor relationships for sustainable value creation in healthcare (i.e., when creating value for all stakeholders contributes to a sustainable society), this paper aims to investigate the extent to which a technological factor stimulates and fosters the engagement of patients in their own healthcare journey and how this favors long-term benefits' generation. With the aim to identify and map the available evidence, we conduct a scoping literature review. To disclose the current state of research in the studied field, we performed a literature search with the Scopus database. A total number of 76 studies published up to October 2023 were included in our literature review. By synthesizing the existing knowledge base and highlighting the role of digital technologies in fostering sustainable value creation in healthcare through improved patient engagement, this study addresses the identified research gap. As a result, this research provides three valuable contributions: (1) theoretically, this manuscript proposes a novel framework that advances the academic understanding of the potential of digital technologies to enhance patient engagement and support sustainability practices in healthcare; (2) practically, this study offers a comprehensive guidance to managers to enable effective adoption of technologies in clinical practice; (3) finally, this work suggests strategies to promote more inclusive and sustainable healthcare destined for all practitioners and policymakers.

So Good, but So Far Away? The Effect of Institutional Distance on the Parent CSR and Subsidiary Reputation Link

Francisco Javier Forcadell, Juan José Nájera, Elisa Aracil, Fernando Úbeda — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) leverage strategies of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the parent and subsidiary levels to build a reputation overseas. Nevertheless, institutional distance can weaken this connection in developing host countries, where MNEs face significant institutional voids. We explore the mechanisms through which CSR enhances subsidiary reputation, focusing on how stakeholders in host developing countries perceive CSR signals sent from headquarters. We further explore the moderating role of formal and informal institutional distance in this relationship. Using a panel of MNEs headquartered in developed countries and operating across Latin America, we employ a multi-stakeholder indicator of the subsidiary reputation based on assessments from key host country stakeholders. The analysis controls for country, corporate, and subsidiary-level factors, including a variable derived from big data analytics. By examining the cross-country parent CSR signals and their subsidiary reputation effects, this study advances the international business literature, providing new insights into how institutional distance shapes the local reputational outcomes of parent CSR strategies.

Can Technological and Customer Competencies Enable the Firm to Be Greener? Simultaneous Consideration of Resource‐Based View and Social License to Operate

Tongkyu Kim, Hyeonyu Son, Yu Ri Kim, Jiyeon Han, Yunze Cho, Taewoo Roh — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This research explores the contribution of firm competencies and green management practices to enhancing a firm's sustainable performance. It examines the effects of technological competencies (TC) and customer competencies (CC) through the lens of a competence-based view (CBV) framework, particularly focusing on their influence on green supply chain management (GSCM) and green innovation (GI), along with the subsequent impact on environmental performance (EP). Additionally, the study examines the moderating role of the social license to operate (SLO) in the relationship between firm competencies, green management practices, and sustainable performance, highlighting its strategic necessity in mitigating conflicts and sustaining moral legitimacy within a developed country context. Utilizing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the study analyzes data from 213 Korean companies. The results demonstrate that both TC and CC have a positive effect on green management practices. Furthermore, both GI and GSCM contribute to improved EP. Although it is theorized that SLO can play a moderating role within this dynamic, the results find insignificant effects, with the exception of the relationship between TC and GSCM. These findings provide valuable insights to both policymakers and business managers by highlighting the role of firm competencies and SLO.

Further Considerations Needed to Assess Reshoring: Its Impact on Host Communities

Fernando Merino — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

After several decades of offshoring, reshoring is becoming an emergent strategy in many countries and industries. Both governments compel firms to reshore their production to their home countries as firms find, in some cases, that it is more profitable for them to do so. However, neither the reviews of the firm's current behavior nor the existing models for deciding on reshoring include the impact that reshoring has on the communities that host the offshored activities. This paper discusses the impact of reshoring on host communities, emphasizing that it differs from never having hosted offshored activities. It is necessary for firms to be aware of their responsibilities towards the stakeholders they created when they offshored their production. The review of some humanistic management approaches to assess offshoring can inspire how to incorporate this consideration into the reshoring decision-making process and its implementation.

The Impact of Corporate Carbon Emission Reduction on Corporate Performance: The Joint Moderating Effects of Supply Chain Concentration and Supply Chain Transparency

Ying Jiang, Meizheng Wu, Xiaoqing He, Ting Luo — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

As key subjects of market economic activity, corporations should strive to maintain the balance between reducing carbon emissions and improving corporate performance to augment their contributions to the triple bottom line of sustainability (i.e., the economic, social, and environmental goals). Using microdata of 533 Chinese listed companies for 2010–2021, we draw a perspective from supply chain management and examine how corporate carbon emission reduction (CER) gives firms sustainable performance. We further extended the supply chain management and investigated the moderating roles and their joint moderating effects of supply chain concentration (SCC) and supply chain transparency (SCT). The findings revealed that the greater the intensity of corporate CER efforts, the higher the incremental increase in corporate performance. Both SCT and supplier concentration (SC) can strengthen the promoting effect of CER on the growth rate of corporate performance, while the promoting effect of CER on the growth rate of corporate performance decreases when customer concentration (CC) increases. Furthermore, if SCT and SCC are taken together to moderate a firm's carbon reduction behavior, increasing SC as SCT increases further strengthens the facilitating effect of CER on corporate performance; however, increasing CC will weaken the positive impact of corporate CER on its performance. These results reveal the prominent role of effective supply chain management practices in strengthening the promoting effect of CER on the growth rate of corporate performance. The research provides both theoretical and managerial implications for promoting a win-win scenario for both businesses and the environment.

The Moderating Effect of Firm Life Cycle on the Influence of Financial Performance and Green Innovation Performance on Environmental, Social, and Governance Reporting: Evidence From China

Fawad Rauf, Qi Baolei, Khwaja Naveed, Syed Usman Qadri — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines the influence of green innovation performance and financial performance on environmental social and governance reporting by considering the impact of the firm life cycle as a moderator. The study used OLS regressions with panel data from the CSMAR and Bloomberg databases to verify our research propositions on a sample of 15,410 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2021. The study's findings indicate that firm life cycle moderates the association between green innovation performance, financial performance and ESG disclosure in China. The findings have implications for academics, practitioners, and regulators relevant to environmental social and governance reporting. Additionally, the results provide authorities and the board of directors with information about the firms and states' prospects for growth. The research is unique because it addresses the moderating role of a firm life cycle in the link between environmental social and governance reporting and the financial performance of green innovation performance.

Dialect Diversity and Corporate Greenwashing: Evidence From China

Youde Yang, Guanghua Xu, Jinhua Fei — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The factors influencing corporate greenwashing have attracted growing scholarly attention owing to their theoretical and practical relevance. However, the role of informal institutions in shaping greenwashing behavior remains underexplored. To address this gap, this study empirically investigates the effect of regional dialect diversity on greenwashing among heavily polluting firms, drawing on social cognitive theory and data from 13,035 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies in the heavy pollution industry from 2012 to 2022. The findings reveal a significant positive correlation between regional dialect diversity and greenwashing. Regional environmental regulatory intensity and education level negatively moderate this relationship. Moreover, the influence of dialect diversity operates primarily through cultural cognition rather than information transmission. This paper not only further expands and enriches the research framework of macro-institutional environment and micro-firms' behaviors, but also clarifies the reasons for the existence of geographic differences in corporate greenwashing from the perspective of informal institutions, providing theoretical and practical guidance for the construction of a more comprehensive corporate greenwashing governance system.

Avoiding Corporate Greenwashing? Sustainability Silence Narratives in the Agri‐Food Industry

Olivier Boiral, Marie‐Christine Brotherton, David Talbot, Laurence Guillaumie — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to shed more light on the reasons underlying companies' under-communication or lack of communication to stakeholders about sustainability achievements in the agri-food sector. A qualitative study based on 34 semi-structured interviews with respondents from this sector shows the predominance of a rationale of sustainability silence and a high level of stakeholders' mistrust concerning the information publicly available in this area. The results of the study also show that sustainability silence is closely linked to the ambiguities inherent in communication on complex issues and the resulting risks that this communication will be perceived as greenwashing. The article contributes to the emerging literature on the rationale of organizational sustainability silence and proposes an integrative model to better understand its implications. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and the theory of ambiguity, it also contributes to the literature on the congruence of sustainability communication and on the greenwashing practices of agri-food organizations by questioning the intentional character of companies' lack of transparency concerning their actions and performance in this area. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are also discussed.

Returnee Directors and Corporate Environmental Investment: Evidence From Chinese Listed Companies

Minna Zheng, Guangqian Ren, Li Liu — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Corporate environmental problems have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Directors who return from studying or working abroad often possess advanced green experience that can effectively address a firm's environmental issues. However, they may also instigate group conflicts regarding environmental matters, potentially hindering a company's green development. This study combines the resource dependency theory and social identity theory to investigate the relationship between returnee directors and corporate green investment, using data from Chinese listed companies from 2013 to 2020. The findings reveal a U-shaped correlation between the number of returnee directors and corporate green investment. The ownership of qualified foreign institutional investors and the level of marketization positively affect this curvilinear relationship. A further analysis indicates that these findings hold for non-state-owned enterprises and companies in which the chairperson has overseas experience. These findings make important contributions to the resource dependency and social identity theory, and provide evidence of how returnee directors influence corporate green investment through double-edged sword effects.

Exploring Consumer Word‐Of‐Mouth Intentions Following Green Product Purchases: A Self‐Verification Theory Perspective

Chunfeng Chen, Depeng Zhang, Lu Zhu, Fenghua Zhang — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Promoting word-of-mouth for green products enhances consumer awareness and increases product acceptance. Given the distinct perceptions associated with purchasing green versus conventional products, the internal processes underlying word-of-mouth intentions may differ. Drawing on self-verification theory, this study develops a conceptual model to investigate the impact of green product consumption on consumers' word-of-mouth intentions. To test the hypotheses, the study collected data from an online survey of 397 consumers and analyzed it using structural equation modeling. The results reveal that consumers' awareness of a product's green benefits significantly enhances both warm glow and psychological empowerment. In turn, warm glow fosters pro-environmental and self-expression motivations, while psychological empowerment strengthens self-expression and dominance motivations. These motivations, in turn, positively influence word-of-mouth intentions. Moreover, the effect of green benefits on warm glow is more pronounced for consumers with a stronger prevention focus, while those with a stronger promotion focus experience greater psychological empowerment. The findings contribute to the understanding of the internal psychological mechanisms underlying word-of-mouth intentions following green consumption. They also offer a new perspective on the spillover effects of green product consumption and enrich the theoretical literature on word-of-mouth behavior. Additionally, the study provides valuable practical implications for businesses seeking to effectively manage word-of-mouth in the context of green consumption.

The Double‐Edged Sword of Green Supplier Integration: The Moderating Effect of Organizational Compatibility

Yuan Le, Shushan Zhang, Xinyu Teng — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon resource dependence theory and the transaction cost theory, the research investigates how green supplier integration (GSI) influences economic performance, the mediating roles of knowledge sharing (KS) and inter-organizational conflict (IOC), and the moderating role of organizational compatibility (OC). We use a two-stage questionnaire survey to collect data from managers of green manufacturing enterprises. Using the hierarchical regression method through SPSS software to analyze the collected data, the results showed that KS has a positive mediating effect, while IOC has a negative mediating effect. Additionally, OC strengthens the impact of GSI on KS and IOC. This study contributes to the literature by constructing a dual-path model of the mediating role of KS and IOC. A deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges of GSI can provide practical implications of how to improve economic performance through GSI for manufacturing enterprises. From a perspective of compatibility, examining the boundary conditions for GSI can help managers attend to the heterogeneity of strategies, cultures, and knowledge that need to be addressed in the GSI process, so as to reduce conflicts with partners in green practices and achieve sustainable green goals.

ESG, ESG Disagreement and Maturity Mismatch Between Investment and Financing: Evidence From China

Ye Tao, Linghao Zhang, Yiwen Ma — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, as well as disagreement in ESG ratings, influences the maturity mismatch between corporate investment and financing (MMIF). Our findings show that firms with higher ESG scores exhibit a lower degree of MMIF, suggesting that better ESG practices help alleviate maturity mismatches. However, inconsistencies in ESG evaluations across rating agencies reduce this beneficial effect. Further analysis indicates that disagreement among ESG ratings diminishes the ability of high ESG scores to relax financing constraints, which is identified as a critical mechanism for ESG's impact on MMIF. The moderating impact of ESG disagreement is especially significant for firms in regions with less banking competition, those with greater information asymmetry, and non-state-owned enterprises. In addition, our results indicate that environmental and governance components are the main driving factors. These findings highlight the necessity of considering both ESG performance and disagreements in ESG assessments when evaluating firms' investment and financing activities.

Enhancing the Ethical Culture of Organizations: A Longitudinal Study Using a Comprehensive Ethics Training

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

A supportive ethical culture (EC) can encourage moral behavior among employees and help them avoid wrongdoing. One option for fostering EC is ethics training; its longer-term effectiveness, however, has rarely been examined, especially in countries lacking strong regulatory environments. Accordingly, we used a comprehensive theory-driven approach to train the upper echelons (18 males, 16 females) from two organizations in Colombia. In turn, they agreed to use their influence in a manner that would cascade through the hierarchy. EC perceptions of 275 staff across the companies (n ₁ = 193, n ₂ = 82; total = 275) were assessed 1–2 months and 9–10 months post-training. Relative to pre-training levels, both overall EC and its subdimensions significantly increased 1–2 months out, but these gains were not sustained 9–10 months later. Qualitative findings of data collected in each company (8 interviews per company) suggested that ensuring effective transfer of training from the upper echelons was a challenge.

Green Leadership Support as a Catalyst for Innovative Behavior: A Study of Green Absorptive Capacity and Work Climate in UAE Hotels

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how green absorptive capacity influences employee perceptions of a green work climate and their engagement in green innovative behavior. It also examines the moderating role of green leadership support in shaping these relationships. Guided by the resource-based view, the research explores how environmental knowledge capabilities and supportive organizational conditions contribute to sustainability-focused innovation. Survey data were collected from employees at twelve four- and five-star hotels in the United Arab Emirates and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings show that green absorptive capacity significantly enhances perceptions of a green work climate, which in turn leads to increased green innovative behavior. The results further reveal that green leadership support strengthens the effect of green work climate on green innovative behavior. These insights extend the resource-based view by demonstrating that organizational resources must be integrated with a supportive climate to achieve innovation outcomes. The study offered practical recommendations for firms aiming to embed sustainability into their core operations by investing in environmental knowledge systems, cultivating green workplace values, and reinforcing leadership support for environmental initiatives.

Social Trust and Assurance of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports: Evidence From Chinese Listed Firms

Fahad Khalid, Fadoua Toumi, Mohit Srivastava — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is critical for sustainable business practices. However, the reliability and transparency in CSR reporting raise significant concerns. Although formal regulations and institutional frameworks are often used to explain the need for CSR assurance, the role of informal institutions, particularly social trust, in driving CSR assurance remains underexplored. Grounded in institutional theory, this study uses Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2018 to examine how social trust affects CSR assurance decisions. Social trust enhances external institutional development and internal governance quality, driving firms' decisions to obtain CSR assurance. The positive influence of social trust on CSR assurance is pronounced if the state is the majority shareholder and the firm operates in regions with high social governance. The findings provide insights for corporate leaders and managers into how social trust within institutional contexts drives credible CSR practices and promotes effective and trustworthy corporate governance.

Aggravation or Alleviation? The Dual Role of Corporate Donations in Crisis Management: A Signal Incongruence Perspective

Zhiwei He, Lai Deng, Jihui Liu — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

While prior research suggests that corporate philanthropy can be strategically employed as a “pre-crisis” insurance-like mechanism to obfuscate opportunistic motivations, the effectiveness of corporate philanthropy as a “post-crisis” remedial tool, and the contextual conditions shaping its effectiveness, remain underexplored. Drawing on a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2019, we investigate the impact of both corporate misconduct and industry misconduct on the focal firm's debt financing capacity. We then analyze whether donations function as an effective “post-crisis” management tool to mitigate creditor risk perceptions. The findings reveal that both corporate misconduct and industry misconduct significantly impair the debt financing capabilities of the focal firms. However, the crisis management effectiveness of corporate donations is context-dependent. In the case of firm misconduct, donations exacerbate signaling incongruence, thereby amplifying creditor concerns regarding opportunistic behavior. Conversely, in the context of industry misconduct, corporate donations may serve as a “crisis insulation” tool to reduce the signal incongruence and mitigate the negative spillover effect. This research contributes to the signaling literature by demonstrating the contingent nature of CSR's signaling value and provides insights for firms seeking to navigate the impact of misconduct through strategic crisis management.

Lifting the Green Fog: Government Environmental Attention and Corporate Greenwashing

Ziwei Fang, Shuang Tao — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between government environmental attention and corporate greenwashing, with particular emphasis on the role of implicit institutional frameworks shaped by local governments' allocation of attention to environmental matters in mitigating irresponsible corporate actions. Using an attention-based view and signaling theory, we empirically investigate the impact of government environmental attention on corporate greenwashing and identify the mechanisms involved. Our findings reveal that increased government focus on environmental issues significantly curtails corporate greenwashing by alleviating firms' financial constraints, boosting their innovation capabilities, and improving managers' green perceptions. Moderating effect tests indicate that command-and-control environmental regulations enhance the effectiveness of governmental environmental attention in reducing corporate greenwashing, while a close relationship between local governments and firms weakens its inhibitory effect on greenwashing.

Socio‐Normative Control in Alternative Forms of Work Organizations: How Self‐Management Practices Shape Control

Marine De Ridder, Frederik Claeyé — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Control in organizational life has long been a central concern in Critical Management Studies, evolving from coercive to more subtle forms such as (neo)normative control. Yet, little is known about how control operates in alternative forms of work organizations (AFWOs), particularly those without formal leadership roles. This study investigates how self-management practices shape control in AFWOs by examining the paradoxical tensions that arise in the absence of formal hierarchy. Based on an in-depth case study and a practice-based approach, we show how these tensions give rise to a distinct form of control. We extend the concept of socio-normative control to describe a peer-driven mechanism that is socially constructed, collectively accepted, and reinforced through formalized practices within a shared normative environment.

Does Ethics Matter? The Moderating Role of Business Ethics in Corruption Management and ESG Disclosure in Asia

Tuan Nhat Pham, Yan‐Jie Yang — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how corporate corruption management and business ethics influence ESG reporting transparency in Asian firms, utilizing a dataset comprising 663 firms across 11 countries from 2013 to 2023. Addressing a significant research gap in emerging markets, it further examines whether business ethics moderates the relationship between corruption management and ESG disclosures. Grounded in agency, legitimacy, and signaling theories, the findings yield three core insights: (1) robust anti-corruption practices are positively linked to ESG transparency; (2) firms with strong ethical orientations exhibit higher ESG disclosure levels; and (3) business ethics strengthens the positive association between corruption management and ESG transparency. Methodologically, the study adopts the difference generalized method of moments (DGMM) to address endogeneity concerns, employs alternative ESG proxies, and controls for sectoral heterogeneity, regulatory differences, and the quasi-natural shock of COVID-19. The results offer robust empirical support and yield practical insights for enhancing corporate transparency and sustainability across Asia's heterogeneous institutional landscapes.

An Innovative Decision‐Making Model for Alternative Regulatory Frameworks Based on Sustainable Development Goal Disclosure Costs

Hasan Dinçer, Waleed Ihsan, Ullas Rao, Mohsen Saad, Serhat Yüksel — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The study explores the costs of disclosing sustainable practices within the decision-making process. We identify various sustainable development goal (SDG) disclosure costs, including litigation, regulatory, reputational, operational, and proprietary costs. The costs are discussed through the lenses of economic and socio-political theories, which highlight different motivations for disclosures. We reveal the interconnections among these costs and investigate the cause-and-effect interactions using a novel methodology that supplements the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique with quantum picture fuzzy sets (QPFS). Our findings show that the litigation cost has the greatest influence on other costs, followed by the regulatory cost, whereas the proprietary cost is the least influential. Further analysis reveals that experts rank mandatory disclosures, third-party assurance, and penalties as top regulatory frameworks to ensure effective disclosures. Our research assists managers in developing disclosure strategies that will minimize costs and provides valuable insights for policymakers in informing their regulatory frameworks. Overall, this helps enhance the effectiveness of disclosures and contributes to achieving SDGs.

Does Equity‐Based Compensation Make CEOs Engage in More Corporate Misconduct Than Industry Norm: Evidence From the U.S. Restaurant Industry

Sungbeen Park, Sujin Song, Jinsoo Hwang — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon agency theory and institutional theory perspectives, this study examines the relationship between CEOs' equity-based compensation and a firm's corporate misconduct in the restaurant industry. Specifically, the study proposes that option-loaded CEOs tend to engage in more corporate misconduct than the industry average. In addition, this study investigates the moderating roles of market conditions and social-relative performance for the proposed main relationship. Using a sample of U.S. publicly traded restaurant firms, this study conducted a panel regression analysis. The results show that CEOs' equity-based compensation positively affects a firm's corporate misconduct. Moreover, this positive relationship is enhanced when a firm faces a high level of market competition within the industry, whereas it is diminished when a firm has relatively better performance than other competitors. Given the lack of empirical studies that examine the effect of CEOs' compensation on corporate misconduct in hospitality literature, this study expands upon existing literature by showing the relationship between CEOs' compensation and restaurant firms' engagement in corporate misconduct.

Unveiling the Greenium: Factors and Impact of Green Bonds in a Sustainable Finance Landscape

Mariantonietta Intonti, Matteo De Leonardis, Candida Bussoli — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The study examines the premium associated with Green Bonds, known as Greenium, through the analysis of 264 Green Bonds from an international dataset covering the period from October 23, 2019, to March 1, 2023. Utilizing double-stage regression, the research identifies key factors affecting the Greenium, such as issuer credit ratings, transparency, adherence to International Capital Market Association norms, and the types of environmental projects financed. It reveals a Greenium of −57 basis points (bps) and highlights how bond features and financed projects influence investor returns and issuer costs. The paper emphasizes the critical role of transparency in reducing greenwashing risk, thus boosting investor confidence in Green Bonds. Moreover, the study analyzes the influence of significant global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine war, finding no direct impacts on the premium. The paper enriches the existing literature and contributes to academic debate by enhancing understanding of how market variables and global events influence the sustainable bond market. It also provides useful contributions for managers and policy makers regarding the characteristics that bonds, both private and government, must have to meet the market's interest and effectively pursue the ecological transition objectives for which they are issued. In this regard, the findings highlight the significance of certifications and international standards to increase investor awareness, mitigate informational asymmetries, and improve the quality of bonds.

A Qualitative Analysis of Social Indicators in Highly Polluting Sectors: The Challenge for Multifaceted Standards in Emerging Economies

M. Marco‐Fondevila, J. M. Moneva, S. Scarpellini, J. L. Osorio‐Tejada — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The institutional current effort to regulate and increase the quantity and quality of sustainability information reported by companies is undeniable. However, the growing complexity of sustainability reporting standards creates isolated compartments for each major dimension of sustainability, leaving aside their interconnectedness and combined impacts. Indeed, highlighting the social impact of environmental issues requires a different approach, based on multifaceted indicators, which the current reporting standards fail to provide. This paper proposes a tool to measure and report on the social impacts of environmental issues, based on the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). Choosing the freight transport sector as a transversal industrial sector linked to high environmental risks and social impact in terms of pollution, we perform a case study with representative companies, applying the S-LCA methodology to assess the multifaceted social impacts of the sector in three different countries from three different continents, presenting particular socio-economic and cultural conditions. Through in-depth communication with the sector stakeholders in every country, we conclude that social indicators linked to the freight sector activity are not reflected in standard reporting, nor adjusted to the stakeholders' needs. Contributions of this study are relevant to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners with several recommendations for management practice related to the perceptions of social indicators when addressing the interests of various stakeholders in different countries, according to their priorities and business mindset.

Balancing Circular Economy Practices and Digitization: Non‐Linear Performance of Luxury Firms With Moderating Role of Information Communication Technology

Shajara Ul‐Durar, Mubasher Iqbal, Noman Arshed, Younes Ben Zaied — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

Adopting circular practices and ICT boosts luxury firms performance, with optimal benefits at moderate sustainability levels.

ABSTRACT

Luxury firms cater to high-end customers, focusing on minute details in product development. Their global supply chain plays a key role in trade, growth, and innovation. The performance of these firms is sensitive to the adoption of technology and environmental responsibility. This study explored the aggregated performance of luxury firms in the top 10 trading countries from 2009 to 2023. In this way, this study is vital as it provides insights into how global trade dynamics, consumer preferences, and economic factors shape the performance and competitive advantage of high-value industries in key markets. This study considers the circular economy as a key determinant of luxury firms' performance, aiming to understand how sustainable practices influence profitability, innovation, and consumer loyalty in a high-value, trend-setting industry. This study is guided by Stakeholder Theory and Resource-Based View, where sustainable transformation and digital capabilities co-evolve to influence performance. Empirical findings, using panel quantile regression with Common Correlated Mean Group specifications, have confirmed the inverted U-shaped impact of the circular economy on luxury firms' performance is validated. It advocates that the initial sustainable practices adoption boosts performance but, beyond a certain point, the costs of further sustainability efforts may offset the benefits, thereby leading to diminishing returns. Furthermore, the incorporation of information communication technology (ICT) boosts luxury firms' performance and simultaneously moderates circular practices, leading to an improved impact. As control variables, infrastructure and inflation are key factors in understanding the relationship between circular economy practices, ICT integration, and the performance of luxury firms.

ESG Controversies and Firm Value in Times of Crisis: The Effects of Contextual Factors

Amandine Bavent, Elisabeth Paulet — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study is to investigate the factors driving the varying impact of ESG controversies on firm value. We focus on stakeholder expectations as a key mechanism and examine the relationship between ESG controversies and firm value in the challenging post-COVID years to explore whether stakeholders expect CSR practices from companies and the conditions under which these expectations become more pronounced. Using MSCI ESG controversy scores from a global sample of 832 companies, we perform a panel regression analysis to explore this relationship. We also account for various contextual factors, including firm size, ESG performance, industry, geographic location, and the nature and severity of the issue. The findings indicate a positive direct relationship between ESG controversies and firm value during this period. However, firm size and ESG performance moderate and alter the direction of the relationship. Additional variations are observed across industry, geography, and the nature and severity of the controversies. This study contributes to the literature by examining ESG controversies during challenging times where stakeholder priorities often shift. It focuses on stakeholder expectations and applies expectancy violations theory to reveal the conditions under which stakeholder responses to ESG controversies become more salient. The results deepen our understanding of the factors leading to varying effects of ESG controversies on firm value. The study also highlights the need for managers to integrate CSR into corporate strategies and for policymakers to work towards a more harmonized regulatory framework and identify gaps in stakeholder actions to improve regulatory measures.

The Impact of Trade Credit Financing on Corporate Environmental Performance: Considering Financing Function Effects and Signaling Effects

Xukang Liu, Chaoqun Ma, Yi‐Shuai Ren — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

China's economy has transitioned to a phase of high-quality and sustainable development, with resource allocation now focusing on the integrated distribution of industrial and capital chains. This study examines the financing function and signaling effect of trade credit financing in the context of sustainability, utilizing the theories of comparative advantage in finance and signaling. This study analyzes the influence of trade credit financing on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) of A-share listed firms in China from 2009 to 2022. The findings indicate that trade credit financing can markedly enhance CEP. This finding remained robust even after considering potential endogeneity. Furthermore, according to Corporate Governance Theory, both internal and external governance of firms can moderate the relationship between trade credit finance and CEP. Moreover, the mediating analysis reveals that trade credit financing influences CEP primarily through its finance function and signaling effects. Finally, trade credit financing has heterogeneous effects on different types and characteristics of firms. Our findings offer compelling evidence to thoroughly investigate the noneconomic ramifications of trade credit financing and support firms' sustainability objectives.

Impact of Ownership Structures on ESG Performance and Earnings Management: Evidence From India

Renu Devi, Mohammad Firoz — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines how different ownership structures (Indian ownership and institutional ownership) moderate the relationship between Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance and earnings management. Additionally, it investigates the distinct roles of Indian family and non-family ownership in influencing this relationship. Using a sample of 224 non-financial firms listed on the Nifty 500 index from 2013 to 2023, the study employs a two-way fixed-effects model to account for unobserved heterogeneity. To ensure robust results, additional robustness checks, including dynamic panel estimation techniques, are used to address concerns related to measurement error, reverse causality, and endogeneity. The findings align with the active monitoring hypothesis, revealing that Indian ownership plays a pivotal role in discouraging unethical financial reporting, as stronger sustainability performance is significantly associated with lower levels of earnings manipulation. However, the presence of institutional investors does not show a meaningful influence in moderating this relationship. These insights contribute to the growing discourse on responsible ownership and ethical corporate governance in emerging markets. By highlighting the unique governance dynamics in India, this study offers new perspectives on how ownership structures can support the institutionalization of sustainability standards and promote corporate accountability.

Enacting Stakeholder Responsibility: Insights From a Structured Healthcare Program

Simone R. Barakat, Andrew C. Wicks — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Companies have traditionally been called upon to be responsible for their impact on stakeholders. However, little attention has been given to stakeholders' responsibility toward organizations and other stakeholders. While it is essential to hold firms accountable for the impact of their activities and for their role in the value creation process, neglecting the role of stakeholder responsibility results in a partial and potentially misleading view of how value is created. To contribute to this discussion and better understand how stakeholder responsibility is enacted in practice, we conducted an in-depth empirical study of a structured program in a healthcare organization. Drawing on case-based research, we found that stakeholder responsibility is enacted through specific organizational practices that support the dimensions of reciprocity, interdependence, and accountability. Building on this foundation, we extend existing theory and advance the concept of stakeholder responsibility by proposing a fourth dimension: shared commitment to a common purpose. Our study contributes to narrowing the gap between normative and empirical approaches in stakeholder theory and emphasizes the importance of incorporating multiple stakeholders' perspectives to better understand how value is created in organizational settings.

Global Trends in Pro‐Environmental Purchasing Intentions: Insights From an Analytical Examination

Manuel Escobar‐Farfán, Leslier Valenzuela‐Fernández, Francisco Villegas — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Pro-environmental behavior approaches aim to minimize environmental degradation resulting from customer actions, a societal concern. This study aims to provide a complete overview of the trends regarding scientific research on pro-environmental purchasing intentions over the last three decades. The objective is to identify years of evolution, the most relevant and influential keywords, articles, journals, universities, publishers, countries or regions, and authors. For this purpose, the work uses the Web of Science Core Collection database. It analyses a wide range of bibliometric indicators, including the number of publications and citations, citations per paper, the h-index, and citation thresholds. The study also develops a graphical analysis of bibliographical material using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. We present a bibliometric analysis using evaluative and relational techniques, reviewing measures, associations, and cauterization from 1995 to 2023. Our findings reveal a notable convergence of consumer behavior and environmental responsibility since the 2000s. The findings suggest the identification of three clusters of pro-environmental purchasing intention research: Customers' perception of the value of sustainable products, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Willingness to pay. The number of publications on the theme has exponentially increased since 2017. Research on pro-environmental purchasing intentions is conducted in various fields, including business, environmental sciences, green sustainable science and technology, environmental studies, and management. Therefore, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of patterns of pro-environmental purchasing intentions, which can inform further research.

How Does ESG Performance Affect Corporate Financial Violation? A Social Identity Perspective

Jianling Wang, Caini Yang, Qianhui Gao — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Preventing corporate financial violation is crucial for safeguarding investors' interests and promoting the sustainable development of businesses. Applying social identity theory, this study investigates the relationship between environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance and corporate financial violation through the moderating effects of executive characteristics. Based on a sample of 4881 listed firms in China from 2012 to 2021, this study finds that ESG performance is significantly and negatively associated with both the likelihood and severity of corporate financial violation. Moreover, executives' financial background strengthens this negative relationship, while executives' equity incentives weaken this relationship. We further find that the negative association between ESG performance and corporate financial violation is more pronounced in regions with a more developed market environment and stronger stakeholder-oriented culture. Additionally, firms with higher ESG performance experience shorter violation detection time. We contribute to the business ethics and corporate finance literature by highlighting that firms' ESG performance positively influences executives' social identification, thus reducing corporate financial violation. We also provide a new rationale for firms to develop ESG practices and curb corporate violation.

CSR Performance in Family Firms: The Pivotal Role of the External Auditor and the Moderating Impact of Family Influence and Eponymy

Bennet Schierstedt, Maarten Corten, Marisa Henn — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The debate surrounding the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of family firms remains inconclusive. In order to unravel the dynamics that lead to better CSR performance of family firms, accounting for their heterogeneity is essential. While valuable steps in this regard have already been taken, we posit that a central figure is generally overlooked in prior studies, namely the external auditor. Specifically, we argue that the extent of investment made by family firms in their external audit, reflected in the level of audit fees, directly impacts their CSR performance as presented in CSR reports. We contend that this investment enhances the quality of these reports, facilitating a more effective communication of CSR efforts to stakeholders. However, drawing from the willingness-ability paradox, family firm characteristics may modulate the willingness of these firms to leverage this potential. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed family firms in the United States, our findings reveal a strong and positive association between the level of audit fees and CSR performance. Notably, this relationship becomes weaker as the degree of family influence within the firm increases but stronger when the company name bears the family's name. These findings shed light on the intricate interplay between external audits, family firm dynamics, and CSR performance, offering valuable insights for academics, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to better understand and promote CSR initiatives in family businesses.

Overwhelmed or Withdrawn? How Job Demands and Unfairness Drive Alienation, Quiet Quitting, Knowledge Withholding

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

When employees engage in counterproductive work behaviours, such as knowledge withholding and quiet quitting, questions arise regarding the ethical implications of these actions. While these behaviours are often seen as intentional, the role of organisational factors remains underexplored. This study investigates two counterproductive behaviours—knowledge withholding, typically directed at colleagues and quiet quitting, which involves disengagement from job tasks and organisational commitment. We propose that these behaviours are not solely driven by individual intent but by organisational factors such as job demands and perceived effort-reward unfairness. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to examine how high job demands lead to both knowledge withholding and quiet quitting, both directly and indirectly through work alienation. Additionally, the study anticipates that the relationship between job demands, and these behaviours is moderated by employees' perception of effort-reward unfairness, meaning that the relationship is expected to be stronger when such perceptions are present. A time-lagged survey of 340 healthcare professionals in the UAE, including nurses, physicians and administrative staff, was conducted. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesised models. The results show that job demands are positively associated with both quiet quitting and knowledge withholding. Employees engage in these behaviours not out of unwillingness, but because they are overwhelmed with tasks, leaving them with little time for extra effort or sharing knowledge. Alienation was found to mediate these relationships, with employees feeling disconnected being more likely to engage in these behaviours. Perceived unfairness further amplifies these effects. This study offers a new perspective by demonstrating that organisational factors, such as excessive job demands and unfair reward systems, contribute to knowledge withholding and quiet quitting. Implications for management and future research are discussed.

How Does CEO Career Horizon Affect ESG Engagement? The Contingent Role of Individual and Multiple Performance Feedback

Guocai Chen, Xin Sui — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing emphasis on the CEO effect on ESG engagement, the role of CEO career horizon on ESG engagement is underexplored. Drawing on the principal-agent theory and behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF), this study investigates the impact of CEO career horizon on ESG engagement in the context of China, an emerging economy. We offer a contingent framework based on BTOF by discussing the contingent roles of individual and multiple performance feedback, clarifying how CEOs' perceptions of risk exposure reshape the association between CEO career horizon and ESG engagement. We derive three key findings employing a dataset of Chinese-listed firms from 2007 to 2021. First, we identify an inverted U-formed association of CEO career horizon-ESG engagement. Second, considering the role of individual performance feedback, historical and social underperformance strengthen this impact, respectively, revealing that internal shareholders' pressure, induced by historical underperformance, and external stakeholders' pressure, caused by social underperformance, amplify CEOs' risk exposure, prompting their ESG engagement to reduce risk. Conversely, social outperformance weakens the benchmark effect, but historical outperformance has no significant impact. Finally, under multiple performance feedback, consistent outperformance (underperformance) weakens (strengthens) the effect. In ambiguous situations, the combination of social underperformance and historical outperformance enhances the effect, whereas the reversed combination has no significant impact. Our results contribute to the literature about the CEO effect on ESG engagement by revealing the private motivations of CEOs' ESG engagement and offering the CEOs' holistic risk exposure perceived mechanism in clear and ambiguous situations.

Value Creation or Opportunism? Corporate Political Connection and Social Responsibility

Canjun Chen, Lelin Lv — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The reasons underlying the inconsistency in corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviors have been a topic of ongoing controversy, especially in emerging markets characterized by substantial government intervention, where the issue is further complicated. An empirical examination of private listed companies in China from 2010 to 2019 investigates the factors contributing to the inconsistency in CSR behaviors under political intervention, assessing the impact of political connections on different types of CSR and the moderating role of institutional environments. Additionally, it analyzes the economic consequences of various CSR types under political connections. The findings indicate that: (1) political connections facilitate external CSR while inhibiting internal CSR practices; (2) economic and legal environments play a moderating role in the relationship between political connections and CSR behaviors. Specifically, the financial environment can mitigate both the negative impact of political connections on internal CSR and the positive impact on external CSR. However, the legal environment only reduces the negative effect on internal CSR without influencing the suppression of external CSR; (3) for firms with political connections, external CSR has a negative impact on corporate value, whereas internal CSR contributes to the long-term growth of corporate value. These insights enrich the understanding of CSR behaviors in emerging markets and offer practical guidance for managers and policymakers in crafting CSR strategies that align with institutional contexts.

Influence of Communist Ideology on Corporate Sustainability: Analyzing the Role of CEO Capital and Characteristics

Pengyu Chen, Shuo Yang, QianYing Chen — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Over a century of development, the Communist Party of China has effectively integrated its policies and practices, blending communist ideology with entrepreneurial spirit, and extending its influence into corporate management. However, the impact of communist ideology on business development, particularly on sustainable practices, has yet to be confirmed. Against this backdrop, this study uses data from publicly listed companies between 2011 and 2020 as the primary dataset, employing a double fixed-effects model to analyze the relationship between ideology (Communist and non-Communist CEOs) and corporate sustainability. We found that, compared to non-Communist CEOs, Communist CEOs contribute to promoting corporate sustainability. Social and political capital exhibit a partially complementary effect in the relationship between communist ideology and corporate sustainability. Specifically, social capital strengthens the positive impact of Communist CEOs on corporate sustainability, while the role of political capital remains unclear. Notably, the political capital of Communist CEOs who have held positions at the department or bureau level is significantly effective. Communist CEOs who are older, female, highly educated, or have longer tenures tend to lead their companies toward stronger sustainable development outcomes. Party organization, the quality of information disclosure, and board governance were found to be potential pathways through which Communist CEOs influence corporate sustainability. These findings offer new insights into the enduring development of ideology and its integration with corporate sustainability.

Examining the Impact of ESG News Sentiment on Corporate Performance: A Comprehensive Analysis by News Topic and Industry

Jeong‐Ji Han, Soyoung Jun, Jong Woo Kim — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between ESG news sentiment and corporate performance through the lens of stakeholder theory. While ESG ratings face significant limitations, including measurement inconsistencies and time lags, news sentiment analysis offers insights into internal and external stakeholder responses to ESG activities. Using news articles for Korean listed companies, we investigate ESG news sentiment across different dimensions and topics defined by the sustainability accounting standards board (SASB) while considering industry context. The results reveal a positive relationship between overall ESG news sentiment and corporate performance. In the dimensional analysis, social and governance news sentiment demonstrate significant positive effects, while environmental sentiment shows no significant association. Analysis of SASB-defined topics reveals that certain issues have stronger associations with performance, with effects varying across industries. Our findings contribute to addressing a research gap in sustainable finance literature by revealing how stakeholder responses vary across different ESG dimensions and material topics, while providing practical implications for corporate strategy, investment decisions, and policymaking.

Future‐Ready Strategies: Dynamic Managerial Capabilities, Digitalization, and Green Product Innovation in Building Firm Resilience

My‐Linh Tran, Huy‐Cuong Vo Thai — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The resilience literature has gained significant traction, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing firm resilience as vital for effectively navigating crises and external pressures. Concurrently, green product innovation has emerged as a key strategy to bolster environmental sustainability and mitigate pollution, yet its precise contribution to resilience remains ambiguous, especially in developing economies. This research advances existing knowledge by investigating the relationship between green product innovation and firm resilience in Vietnamese enterprises, with particular attention to the enabling roles of dynamic managerial capabilities and digitalization. Employing structural equation modeling on a sample of 319 Vietnamese enterprises, our research makes several distinct contributions to the literature. The findings demonstrate that green product innovation serves as a specific mechanism for building resilience in developing economy contexts. It also reveals the previously unexplored triple helix of dynamic managerial capabilities, digitalization, and green innovation in fostering resilience. Additionally, it identifies digitalization as a crucial moderator that amplifies the impact of green innovations on firm resilience. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of resilience-building mechanisms in emerging economies while offering practical insights for managers leveraging simultaneous environmental and digital transformations.

The Role of B Corp Certification in Uncertain Times: An Empirical Investigation

Matteo Podrecca, Silvia Cantele, Guido Orzes — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine whether B Corp certification enhances firms' ability to navigate uncertain times and how contingent factors affect its effectiveness. Building on Stakeholder Theory and the Resource-Based View, we formulated a set of research hypotheses and tested them with a long-term event study and an ordinary least squares regression performed on a sample of Italian B Corps during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that certified firms exhibit higher financial performance than their non-certified counterparts. Moreover, Born Bs and firms with prior certification experience obtain greater benefits from their status. The study deepens our understanding of the performance effects of B Corp certification and contributes to the broader debate on the role of standards during crises. Specifically, it enriches existing knowledge by demonstrating that investing in structured sustainability practices enhances firms' resilience to disruptions. From a practical point of view, the findings provide managers with valuable insights into how B Corp certification can help companies navigate shocks and volatility more effectively. Moreover, for policymakers and the certification body responsible for B Corp, the study presents compelling arguments to foster the diffusion of the standard.

Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis for Strategic Decision‐Making

Valerio Brescia, Lorenzo Coronella, Silvana Secinaro, Alessandro Mechelli — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

The communication of sustainable development is essential for higher education institutions (HEIs), which voluntarily prepare sustainability reports (SRs) to demonstrate commitment and inform strategic decision-making. This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify and analyze the challenges associated with implementing SRs in HEIs and their implications for strategic management. Some key challenges include publication practices, accessibility, comparability, sustainability assessment, limited stakeholder engagement, and an underdeveloped sustainability culture. Proposed solutions involve adopting HEI-specific SR guidelines, strengthening sustainability culture across institutional levels, and enhancing stakeholder participation. A bibliometric analysis of existing literature supplements the SLR to identify emerging trends, research gaps, and future opportunities. This study offers practical recommendations to improve SR practices in HEIs and enhance their value for academic decision-makers, while also providing theoretical insights for future research.

The Biodiversity Moonshot: A Spark for a Transformative Change or a New Business‐Case Facade?

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Biodiversity has recently gained increased attention in sustainability management research. It sustains the ecosystems on which organizations depend, while simultaneously being threatened by organizational activities. By highlighting this dynamic of impact and dependence, the integration of biodiversity into management discourse offers an opportunity to foster a more holistic understanding of the business–nature relationship, grounded in a systems perspective. At the same time, however, there is a risk that biodiversity will be reduced to yet another environmental variable subsumed within the prevailing business-case logic that views nature primarily as a source of economic value. This approach has proven inadequate to drive the transformative change needed to address the environmental crisis. Drawing on a discussion among scholars, this essay outlines six critical challenges—measurement, strategic decision making, innovation, public policy, interdisciplinary approaches, and dominant ontologies—which, depending on how they are addressed, may either catalyze a rethinking of the business–nature relationship or merely perpetuate existing paradigms.

Borrowing Short to Lend Long: Fraudulent or Not? Elements Missing From the Current Debate

David Sutton, Ashraf M. Ismail, Hamza Almustafa — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

There has been a long-running debate conducted between two pairs of Austrian School economists concerning the legitimacy of borrowing short to lend long (BSLL). Barnett and Block take the view that the practice amounts to fraud. Their fellow “Austrians,” Bagus and Howden argue that, while risky, the practice is not fraud. Barnett and Block state that BSLL can lead to the Austrian Business Cycle (ABC), in which mal-investment transforms booms into bubbles, ending in crashes. This inquiry seeks to contribute to the debate, addressing currently neglected issues. These issues involve reconfiguring the debate for consistency between the protagonists' central truth claims, elevating risk-taking behavior as the crucial determinative factor of market failures, including certain macro-prudential implications, and concluding that BSLL is not inherently fraudulent. The debate is essentially an ethical one, in which a basic understanding of fraud must be agreed.

Rethinking the Normative Foundations of the Stakeholder Theory Through the Civil Economy Approach: Insights From a Relationality‐Based Anthropological Perspective

Roberta Sferrazzo, Giorgia Nigri, Renato Ruffini — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:37:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

A growing enthusiasm to reconsider the normative foundations of the stakeholder theory is spreading in related literature. Current research mainly focuses on religious, spiritual, and philosophical underpinnings to reexamine these foundations. We believe these conceptual elaborations must be complemented and extended with an in-depth investigation of the relationality-based anthropological assumptions of the stakeholder theory. To do this, our work draws from the civil economy approach to encourage scholars and practitioners to change their perspectives on each person's stake by shifting from an individualistic approach to a relationality-based view. Through our theoretical work, we shed light on one of the most important pillars of the civil economy tradition—the principle of gratuità—to contribute to current research on the normative foundations of the stakeholder theory. We asserted that the common good can be achieved insofar as the principle of gratuità finds its place in every type of human relationship, including those in the business sphere.

ESG Performance and Stock Market Outcomes: The Moderating Role of National Culture in a Global Setting

Yongsheng Guo, Irsa Azam — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:00:51 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the relationship between firms' environmental, social, and governance performance on stock market performance using a global unbalanced panel of 10,043 listed global firms from 2002 to 2024. Employing firm and year-fixed effects with instrumental variable estimation, we find a robust positive association between ESG scores and subsequent market performance. The strength and direction of this relationship vary systematically across national cultures, as captured by Hofstede's dimensions. The positive effect is most pronounced in regions with strong institutional frameworks, such as Europe and North America, and in cultures characterised by higher uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. These findings suggest that the market relevance of ESG is context dependent rather than uniform across countries. By integrating signalling and value-relevance theories with cultural and institutional moderators, this study clarifies the contextual conditions under which ESG becomes financially material, offering actionable insights for managers, investors, and policymakers.

Do Environmentally Responsible Firms Face Lower Tail Risks: Evidence From China

Linyu Wang, Linting Zhuang — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 05:11:43 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates whether environmentally responsible firms—measured by their green and low-carbon level—face lower tail risks, using data from Chinese listed firms between 2011 and 2022. The findings suggest that one standard deviation increases in green and low-carbon level lead to a 0.71% decrease in left-tail risk and a 0.61% decrease in extreme return. Specifically, the reduction in left-tail risk implies a reduction in the potential for extreme losses. The reduction in extreme return represents a reduction in the likelihood of price bubbles, which is generally desirable for stability. After considering the robustness tests and endogeneity problems, the findings are still robust. The underlying mechanisms suggest that institutional investors' ownership, corporate reputation, and organizational resilience are possible paths that green and low-carbon affect tail risks. Further analyses indicate that the negative effects of green and low-carbon level on tail risks are more significant in firms with high levels of digitization, high social trust, and strong environmental regulatory intensity. Our findings provide significant insights for policy-makers and researchers seeking to promote sustainable development and decrease tail risks.

Leveraging How You Lead to Get What You Want: Achieving Environmental Performance Among Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises in a Developing Economy Context

William Tsiatey Afloe, Henry Ataburo, James Aditchere, Wisdom Tetteh Afloe — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 05:06:32 -0700

ABSTRACT

Sustainability-oriented leaders, guided by pro-environmental values, play a critical role in advancing corporate sustainability goals. To refine our understanding of this relationship, we examine key boundary mechanisms shaping how sustainability leadership translates into environmental performance. We propose that stakeholder integration capability—grounded in firms' adaptive behaviours—provides distinctive advantages under conditions of business environmental uncertainty (BEU). Using survey data from 395 small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana, we find that sustainability leadership indirectly improves environmental performance through stakeholder integration, particularly under high BEU. These findings deepen understanding of how stakeholder participation enhances sustainability outcomes and highlight ways governments can foster firm–stakeholder collaboration through targeted policies and incentives.

Circular Business Models in Luxury: Impacts on Consumer Perceptions

Camila Lee Park, Mauro Fracarolli Nunes, Hyunju Shin, Jose A. D. Machuca — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:39:52 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how the adoption of circular business models impacts consumer perceptions of luxury companies. Through two factorial scenario-based experiments applied to a total sample of 736 participants from the UK, we analyse how the introduction of circular initiatives may impact corporate credibility (expertise and trustworthiness) and attitude towards the firm in both luxury and non-luxury companies. The comparison allows us to contrast our unit of analysis (i.e., luxury companies) with organisations in other sectors (non-luxury companies). Results reveal that while the disclosure of industrial waste harms brand perceptions, actions to minimise waste such as introducing parallel brands with recycled materials enhance them. Interestingly, luxury consumers' perceptions were unaffected by pricing strategies for recycled products, whereas non-luxury consumers showed sensitivity, particularly to higher prices. These findings underscore that circular business models can mitigate reputational risks and align luxury companies with sustainability goals without compromising their superior image. The study contributes to the application of the theory of planned behaviour in organisational and sustainability-related contexts and offers managerial insights for integrating circular practices in the luxury industry.

The Elephant in the Room: Dealing With Carbon Emissions, Stock Liquidity and CEO Overconfidence

Ines Bargaoui, Imen Khanchel, Naima Lassoued — Fri, 22 May 2026 22:54:31 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how carbon emissions create trading costs in stock markets and why executive psychology matters for this relationship. Using 387 U.S. firms from the S&P 500 index over 2010–2021, we find that carbon emissions reduce stock liquidity by increasing information asymmetry, inducing stakeholder divestment, and threatening corporate legitimacy. Direct emissions (scope 1) create the strongest liquidity penalties because they signal immediate regulatory exposure and operational carbon intensity. However, overconfident CEOs mitigate these negative effects through enhanced environmental communication, credible innovation signaling, and proactive stakeholder engagement—mechanisms that reduce market uncertainty despite high emission levels. Our analysis of international climate agreements reveals that during the Kyoto Protocol's first phase (2010–2012), markets primarily penalized direct emissions, while the second phase (2013–2020) saw broader investor pricing across emission types. During the Paris Agreement's pre-commitment phase (2010–2015), regulatory uncertainty led to negative market reactions, but the commitment phase (2016–2019) transformed emissions from risk factors into operational concerns as regulatory clarity emerged. Finally, high-emission industries show more pronounced liquidity effects, confirming that carbon risk pricing varies with sectoral environmental exposure.

Beyond Rainbow‐Washing: The Role of Genuine LGBTQ+ Advocacy in Sustainable Business Practices

Ahmad Zaeem Faraz, Muddassar Sarfraz, Yulin Deng — Mon, 11 May 2026 19:04:01 -0700

ABSTRACT

Consumers today are uncertain about companies' motivations behind their practices and advertisements, leading them, in particular, to articulate public criticism about rainbow-washing. Rainbow-washing, a manifestation of corporate greenwashing specifically targeting the LGBTQ+ community, occurs when organizations publicly endorse LGBTQ+ causes while their actions or policies fail to align with these professed values. This study examines the effects of rainbow-washing on brand loyalty and sustainable business practices in Italy through performative corporate social responsibility (PCSR) approaches and consumer perception measures. Data analysis was conducted using regression analysis and structural equation modeling after distributing the questionnaires to 378 Italian consumers. The findings demonstrate how rainbow-washing produces two negative effects on CSR activities and consumer understanding but creates two positive impacts on brand loyalty and sustainable behavior attitudes. Sincere LGBTQ+ advocacy activities strengthen consumer brand loyalty and produce positive attitudes toward sustainable practices. The combination of authentic CSR initiatives with good consumer impressions enables brands to foster loyalty and advocates LGBTQ+ equality. Through rainbow-washing, organizations affect how customers perceive them and their CSR activities. Genuine inclusivity represents a crucial element for businesses seeking sustainable achievement, while presenting long-term business benefits to companies that truly support LGBTQ+ advocacy and sustainable practices. This research boosts knowledge about the interconnected effects between rainbow-washing alongside brand loyalty and sustainable practices within Italian markets, while offering insights to firms together with policymakers and scholars researching CSR and LGBTQ+ advocacy and consumer behavior.

Resisting Hubris: For A Stoic Ethics of Power in Leadership Development

Valérie Petit, Xavier Pavie — Sun, 10 May 2026 20:19:41 -0700

ABSTRACT

This essay advances a philosophical and Stoic reinterpretation of hubris that challenges the reductionist treatment it has received in contemporary management research. Whereas most studies, shaped by a positivist epistemology, have sought to quantify the effects of leader hubris on performance, this essay reclaims the concept's original ethical and spiritual meaning: the corruption of the leader's soul through excessive exposure to power. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, we argue that hubris should be understood not only as a measurable psychological trait but as a moral distortion of the self, produced by the intoxicating effects of power on the soul. By revisiting the Stoic tradition of spiritual exercises and building on the examples of Marcus Aurelius and Alcibiades, this essay enables a rethinking of leadership development: it is not a matter of competencies or behavioural development, but an education of the soul grounded in self-knowledge, temperance, and ethical vigilance. By doing so, this essay opens a heterodox space for reuniting philosophy and leadership ethics in the critique of power and abuse of power.

Disciplining the “Queen of the World”? Responsible Innovation as a Way of Life

Xavier Pavie, Ghislain Deslandes, Monika Kostera — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:39:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a critical reflection on the concept of responsible innovation as defined during the last decades. We argue that the emphasis on innovation as a process risks neglecting the very goals of innovation, namely societal desirability and acceptability. Thus, we suggest reconsidering the role of imagination, the “Queen of the world” as Blaise Pascal put it, to propose an alternative way to responsible innovation and to redefine the priorities in order to meet the present challenges. Of course, the significance of imagination has always been recognized by organization and management scholarship, but lessons from philosophy help to envisage its implications for a new way of living. Conceiving of innovation not as a process but as a way of life is a thesis which, to a large extent, runs counter to those currently in force. As such, it offers important opportunities for discussion and debate.

Green Leadership Unleashed: Boosting Eco‐Innovation and Employee Performance Through Sustainable Behaviors

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:46:23 -0700

ABSTRACT

Using empirical data, this research aims to explore the interplay of sustainability-driven leadership (green transformational leadership) and its influence on environmental performance. It delves into the connection between green transformational leadership, facilitated through green innovation, and its effects on employee environmental performance. Additionally, it investigates how employees' green behavior moderates this relationship within Ghanaian industries. A multi-item survey questionnaire was used to collect data from employees and their supervisors working in the manufacturing and service industries in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana. Analysis was conducted on 373 valid responses using SPSS AMOS and PROCESS analysis. The study's results unveiled that green transformational leadership positively influences green innovation, subsequently impacting employee environmental performance within the organization. Moreover, it was discovered that employee green behavior played a moderating role in the connection between green innovation and employee environmental performance. Based on the study's findings, the implications for practitioners are discussed.

Performance Expectation Shortfall and ESG Performance: An Integrated Perspective of Media Attention and Environmental Regulation

Junping Yang, Ruiqi Wu — Wed, 06 May 2026 03:43:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

Drawing from corporate behaviour theory and institutional theory, this article delves into the influence of the performance expectation shortfall on ESG performance through the lenses of environmental regulation and media attention. Employing a comprehensive dataset from Chinese publicly traded companies from 2013 to 2022, the article yields several notable conclusions: (1) It identifies an inverted U-shaped relationship between performance expectation shortfall and ESG performance; (2) Environmental regulation acts to smooth the inverted U-shaped curve, indicating a positive moderating effect and (3) Media attention not only flattens the curve but also shifts the inflection point rightward, indicating a positive moderating effect. Through an application of corporate behaviour theory, this article fills in the gaps in the dynamic analysis of how performance expectation deficiency affects ESG performance. It also identifies the crucial influencing factors from the perspective of institutional theory. It enriches the contextual mechanisms of performance feedback studies, offering practical insights and enlightenment on the ESG issues of companies within the context of harmonious development between humans and nature in China.

Environmental Regulation, Corporate ESG Environmental Performance and the Mediating Role of Green Innovation: Evidence From China

Honghong Wei, Ying Wang — Mon, 04 May 2026 06:02:10 -0700

ABSTRACT

In response to stricter environmental regulations and increased stakeholder awareness, firms are increasingly focused on enhancing their ESG performance. However, limited research has explored how environmental regulation affects corporate ESG environmental performance, particularly through the mediating role of green innovation. This study addresses this gap by analyzing the influence of environmental regulation on corporate ESG performance in China, using panel data from listed firms between 2010 and 2023. Our findings reveal that: (1) stringent environmental regulations hinder ESG environmental performance; (2) green innovation mediates the relationship between environmental regulation and ESG environmental performance; (3) the negative impact of regulations on ESG environmental performance is mitigated in firms with environmental management systems, yet intensified in state-owned enterprises and high-polluting industries. This research offers insights into the effects of environmental regulation on corporate practices, highlighting implications for advancing a green economy in transitional economies like China.

Feeling Obliged to Follow: The Impact of Work‐Related Identity on Unethical Pro‐Organizational Behavior and the Role of Psychological Empowering

Sabrina Jeworrek, Christoph Ostermair, Joschka Waibel — Mon, 04 May 2026 05:55:36 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines why people engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) by focusing on an overlooked mechanism: the mere fact of being a subordinate at the workplace. To establish a causal relationship, we conducted an online experiment with 615 full-time employees. We primed participants with private versus work-related contexts before instructing them to follow a rule that was beneficial for the organization but potentially unethical. We find that individuals high in power distance orientation engage to a greater extent in UPB after being primed on their work-related identity. Our results further emphasize that empowering leadership can mitigate this effect: For participants high in power distance, empowering messages eliminated the priming effect; their UPB levels matched those in the private control group. Thus, our study makes three key contributions: First, we add to the discussion of UPB antecedents. Second, we identify organizations that may be particularly vulnerable. Third, we point to strategies that could reduce UPB.

Escaping the Shadow of Performance Pressure: The Relationship Between Female Managers and Bribery in Emerging Economy Firms—Insights From Chinese Listed Firms

He Cheng, Jianquan Guo — Fri, 01 May 2026 06:36:26 -0700

ABSTRACT

Why is it often difficult for the advantages of female managers in emerging economy firms (EEFs) to be fully realized, and why do they sometimes become entangled in the whirlpool of bribery? How can their strengths be better leveraged? Drawing on a sample of listed companies in China, this study reaches the following conclusions. First, there is a significant positive association between the proportion of female managers and the level of bribery in EEFs. Second, this positive relationship is significantly weakened when EEFs receive more favorable performance feedback. Further analysis yields additional insights. First, the proportion of female managers in EEFs is positively associated with the firm's inclusive value-sharing performance toward its internal and external stakeholders, yet this beneficial effect is substantially undermined by bribery. Second, government subsidies received by EEFs can significantly weaken the positive relationship between the proportion of female managers and bribery. Third, the central government's anti-corruption initiatives have led to a decline in bribery. Overall, our findings suggest that performance pressure may erode the potential advantages female managers could otherwise bring in emerging markets. Based on these insights, we offer recommendations for both firm management and policymakers in emerging markets: fostering a more equitable environment for female managers can enhance the firm's broader, stakeholder-oriented outcome and promote sustainable corporate success.

Business Realism—A New Account of Morality and Power in Business Ethics

Iwan Alijew — Fri, 01 May 2026 06:03:37 -0700

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a new account of morality and power in business ethics called “business realism”. To this end, it first outlines the political realism literature—a view in political philosophy that deals with the question of the relation between morality and politics. This view stresses the importance of power in politics and of a political ethics guided by political practice. Second, it uses the concept of change to argue, by analogy, for a realist view of business—a view in (what we might call) business philosophy that stresses the importance of power in business and of a business ethics guided by business practice. Third, it maps influential business ethics frameworks through a lens of business change. Fourth, it states business realism—a new account of morality and power in business ethics. Against this background, it considers the implications of this new account for business ethics and business.

From an Aging Society to a Green Society: Annuity Systems and Corporate Green Technology Innovation

Xiaoqiu Chen, Hao Yang, Yilong Li, Qichen Qiu — Fri, 01 May 2026 05:59:52 -0700

ABSTRACT

Population aging and environmental pollution have become critical challenges to global sustainable development. Against this backdrop, we aim to explore the largely underexamined economic role of corporate pension plans in promoting corporate environmental sustainability, beyond their traditional function of mitigating demographic aging risks. Leveraging China's rapid expansion of the second pillar of its pension system, we empirically investigate the association between corporate pension plans and firms' environmental sustainability practices, based on 51,435 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms over the period 2007–2024. Our results indicate that the implementation of annuity systems significantly enhances firms' green technology innovation. This finding remains robust across a battery of identification strategies, including instrumental variable estimation, Heckman two-stage models, propensity score matching, and placebo tests. Mechanism analyses suggest that annuity systems promote green technology innovation by improving the quality of human resources, alleviating financing constraints, and mitigating managerial myopia. Cross-sectional analyses further indicate that the effect is more pronounced as Chinese society transitions into the stage of deep aging, particularly in regions with higher levels of population aging, and among firms with greater levels of digitalization and corporate governance. Overall, our study integrates labor market dynamics with socio-ecological sustainability within the context of population aging, thereby providing novel insights into synergistic pathways for addressing demographic transitions and advancing sustainable development globally.

Responsible Leadership Types: Understanding the Variety and Implications of Different Forms of Leading Responsibly

Christian Voegtlin, Andrew Crane — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:19:03 -0700

ABSTRACT

Responsible leadership can be manifested in a variety of ways but we lack understanding of what drives this variation and what the implications are of different approaches. In this conceptual article, we develop a novel typology of responsible leadership approaches based on leaders' different perceived obligations as experts, facilitators, and citizens, giving rise to seven distinct responsible leadership types. We build our arguments on role theory and ground responsible leadership in a psychological perspective. We show what happens when leaders focus on some of these obligations and neglect others, outlining tensions and mutually reinforcing effects of enacting responsibility in these different ways. Our analysis provides new insight on the drivers and challenges of different responsible leadership types and offers scholars and practitioners a new lens through which to study and approach responsible leadership.

The Double‐Edged Sword Effect of Virtual Corporate Social Responsibility Co‐Creation Interactivity on User Stickiness

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:14:08 -0700

ABSTRACT

Driven by digital transformation, the practice logic of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has undergone a revolutionary shift, with virtual CSR co-creation becoming a hot topic in both industry and academia. However, existing research lacks analysis on the interactive characteristics of virtual CSR co-creation and their subsequent effects. Based on the conservation of resources theory, this paper constructs a dual-path model of how virtual CSR co-creation interactivity affects user stickiness. The results show that virtual CSR co-creation interactivity has a double-edged sword effect on user stickiness. The human-system interaction and human-human interaction of virtual CSR co-creation can positively affect user stickiness by enhancing users' perceived benefits, but they can also negatively affect user stickiness by exacerbating users' privacy concerns, with the effect of human-system interaction being more pronounced. At the same time, the customizability of virtual CSR co-creation can not only strengthen the positive effect of human-system interaction and human-human interaction on users' perceived benefits but also mitigate their negative impact on users' privacy concerns. Moreover, except for the insignificant moderating effect of customizability on the mediating effect of perceived benefits between human-human interaction and user stickiness, its moderating effect on other mediating paths is significant. This paper provides theoretical guidance and practical insights for enterprises to enhance user stickiness through virtual CSR co-creation activities.

From Precarity to Moral Authenticity: Butler, Ghazali, and Polycrisis Ethics

Abdullah Muhammad Dhrubo — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:15:28 -0700

ABSTRACT

In contemporary polycrisis scenarios, characterized by intertwined global disruptions, ethical frameworks face significant limitations due to intensified uncertainty, systemic vulnerability, and moral ambiguity. This paper synthesizes Judith Butler's relational ethics of precarity with Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Islamic virtue ethics of sincerity (ikhlāṣ) to propose “moral authenticity” as a robust ethical orientation for navigating polycrisis contexts. Butler's emphasis on relational vulnerability demands empathetic and nonviolent ethical responses but lacks concrete guidance for operationalizing these responsibilities. Ghazali's internal virtue-based approach provides essential moral clarity and intentional alignment but insufficiently addresses structural and relational vulnerabilities. By integrating these perspectives, this study presents four theoretical propositions demonstrating how recognizing stakeholder precarity fosters ethical sincerity, translating awareness into moral authenticity, mitigating moral nihilism, and enhancing organizational ethical resilience. This integrative framework offers both theoretical advancement and practical guidance for authentic ethical leadership and decision-making amidst profound complexity and uncertainty.

Sustainable or Just Ethical? Revisiting Islamic and ESG Indices Through the Lens of Resilience

Abdulkader Aljandali, Mohammed Amine, Dalia ElEdel — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:20:38 -0700

ABSTRACT

As financial systems face mounting exposure to economic, environmental, and geopolitical shocks, the definition of Corporate Sustainability (CS) is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This paper advances the field by reconceptualizing CS to include resilience—defined as the ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from systemic disruptions—as a core dimension. This theoretical shift raises questions about the sustainability classification of ethically oriented investment frameworks—particularly Islamic and ESG indices—which have traditionally been considered sustainable due to their normative commitments to ethical governance, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship. By placing resilience at the heart of sustainability evaluation, this study provides a novel conceptual lens to distinguish between ideological alignment, structural similarity, and functional convergence in ethical finance. To empirically test this expanded framework, our paper analyzes the behavior of Islamic and ESG markets across eight major crises from 2004 to 2024, encompassing financial, macroeconomic, geopolitical, and public health crises. Using risk-adjusted return metrics, Value at Risk (VaR), Dynamic Conditional Correlation–GARCH models, and Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR), we assess risk, connectedness, and hedging effectiveness. Findings reveal complementary resilience profiles: the Islamic market outperforms the ESG market during financial and macroeconomic crises, while ESG exhibits greater robustness during energy-related and geopolitical shocks. Both indices show strong spillover dynamics and mutual hedging benefits, primarily through exposure to clean energy, commodities, and general equities. In doing so, the paper offers a multidimensional, resilience-based redefinition of sustainable finance, challenging conventional ESG classifications and advancing a more adaptive understanding of what it means to be truly sustainable in an era of global volatility.

Minority Shareholder Activism and ESG Greenwashing

Hao Qian, Zhihong Zhang, Lingyun Yang, Hua Feng — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 03:15:56 -0700

ABSTRACT

The influence of minority shareholder activism on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) greenwashing is examined in this study, and the results reveal that active voting by minority shareholders places pressure on management, thereby increasing their catering behavior in terms of ESG greenwashing. Mechanistic analysis reveals that the pressure from minority shareholder activism leads to managerial myopia, which increases ESG greenwashing. Furthermore, negative sentiment among minority shareholders amplifies management's catering behavior. The heterogeneity test indicates that a concentrated ownership structure can mitigate the positive relationship between minority shareholder activism and ESG greenwashing, while the standalone release of ESG reports can exacerbate ESG greenwashing. This study provides new insights from the perspective of catering theory, offers theoretical support for understanding the impact of minority shareholder activism on ESG greenwashing and provides empirical evidence to inform policies aimed at addressing the negative effects of such activism.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Perspective on the Business–Environment–Performance Nexus in an Emerging Market Economy

Li KaoDui, Maxwell Kongkuah, Ummar Faruk Saeed, Noha Alessa — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0700

ABSTRACT

Sustainability has become a defining challenge for firms in emerging economies, where pressures to address environmental and social concerns increasingly intersect with the need to remain financially competitive. Yet many organizations struggle to show whether sustainability disclosures create measurable business value, particularly in complex supply chain environments. This raises two central questions: To what extent do economic, social, and environmental disclosures affect firm financial performance? And how does Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) influence these effects by strengthening or weakening the disclosure–performance link? To answer these questions, this study develops a conceptual model informed by the Triple Bottom Line theory. The model was tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with survey data from 120 senior managers of manufacturing firms in Ghana. The findings reveal that all three types of sustainability disclosure are positively associated with financial performance, with environmental disclosure showing the strongest effect. SCV significantly moderates these relationships by enabling firms to monitor, coordinate, and communicate sustainability practices more effectively across their supply chains. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that SCV functions both as a strategic capability and as a mechanism of institutional alignment, allowing firms to convert sustainability commitments into tangible financial outcomes in emerging markets. For managers, the results highlight the value of investing in SCV tools and supplier collaboration to embed sustainability within competitive strategy. For policymakers, the study suggests that incentives for visibility-enhancing mechanisms can promote more transparent and sustainable industrial ecosystems.

Can External Sustainability Have a Spillover Effect? Buyer's Sustainable Institutional Investor and Supplier's Green Innovation

Xiao Yan, Lei Zhang — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 02:46:59 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study examines the green innovation determinants at the external–external level. The external–external perspective refers to examinations of the impact of a buyer's external stakeholders (institutional investors) on another external party of the buyer (suppliers), with a focus on the former's cross-organizational sustainability spillover effects on the latter's green innovation. Based on delegated philanthropy and signaling theories, we analyzed 2010–2020 data from Chinese listed firms (970 buyer–investor–supplier pairs). A significant positive correlation is found between buyers' institutional investors' sustainability and suppliers' green innovation. This holds true after robustness checks including the Heckman two-stage method, Poisson model, instrumental variable test, propensity score matching, hierarchical linear model, and generalized method of moments. This relationship is strengthened by buyer–supplier power dynamics (buyers' power over suppliers and suppliers' industry power) and is more pronounced among buyers in highly regulated industries, among larger buyers, and when suppliers depend more heavily on buyers. This study expands relevant theories and offers practical insights for firms and regulators promoting sustainability.

ESG and Firm Performance: A Configuration Perspective

Gang Ren, Peishu Peng, Yan Li — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0700

ABSTRACT

As global concerns over environmental protection and carbon reduction intensify, firms face growing pressure to improve environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance to maintain legitimacy. Although the ESG-performance relationship has been widely studied, prior work has focused on net effects, overlooking its resource interdependencies. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and constructs ESG scores using machine learning techniques. The results show that high ESG is associated with high firm performance, particularly when coupled with high independent directors and R&D investment. Notably, we identify a complementary relationship between ESG and sales growth, underscoring the interdependence of financial and non-financial reputations. Pillar-level analyses underscore the predominant roles of the social and governance dimensions in influencing performance. Finally, heterogeneity analyses further demonstrate that the positive ESG-performance association occurs more in firms with superior green innovation, companies in sectors with lower market competition, and those in regions without the Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme. Our findings help reconcile previous conflicting findings and provide valuable guidance for sustainable practices.

What if Adam Smith Debated an AI Economist: A Thought Experiment on Markets, Ethics, and the Invisible Hand

Alexandra‐Codruța Bîzoi, Cristian‐Gabriel Bîzoi — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0700

ABSTRACT

Can AI-driven capitalism sustain the moral preconditions of market order? We stage a dialogue between Adam Smith and a steel-manned “EconAI” to test four Moral-Market-Fitness criteria: trustworthiness, fairness, non-domination, and contestability, across 11 dilemmas. Our heterodox claim is anti-sufficiency: procedural fixes and CSR-centric governance do not, by themselves, convert optimization into moral market order. We argue for a two-step pathway: first, reopening markets to restore contestability and limit arbitrary power, followed by deepening procedural justice through enhanced explainability and redress. The contribution is philosophical and diagnostic: a Moral-Market-Fitness Rubric for evaluating AI capitalism. Through a gap analysis of 11 dilemmas, we specify levers managers and regulators can deploy now to transition from Algorithmic Oligarchy toward AI-Driven Moral Capitalism.

Untangling CSR Decoupling: Board Attributes Effects and the Unexplored Moderating Role of Board Gender Diversity

María Consuelo Pucheta‐Martínez, Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez, Inmaculada Bel‐Oms — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:35:14 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility (CSR) decoupling, wherein firms' CSR disclosures diverge from their actual CSR performance, often resulting in misleading portrayals of environmental and social commitments commonly associated with greenwashing. Drawing on resource dependence and agency theories, the research examines how specific board attributes—board tenure, board-specific skills and board cultural diversity—function as governance mechanisms to reduce CSR decoupling by enhancing board effectiveness in aligning managerial actions with stakeholder expectations. Using a large international sample of 14,004 firm-year observations from 34 countries between 2012 and 2023, the study also explores the moderating role of board gender diversity, an area underexplored in prior research. The results confirm that longer board tenure, greater board-specific skills, and higher board cultural diversity significantly reduce CSR decoupling. However, the presence of female directors unexpectedly weakens these beneficial effects, indicating a complex and nuanced interaction between board gender diversity and other board characteristics in shaping CSR outcomes. These findings contribute to the literature by clarifying how corporate governance mechanisms influence the authenticity of CSR engagement, highlighting the importance of considering gender diversity as a moderator in governance studies.

The Determinants of Environmental and Social Performance and Its Effect on the Financial Performance of the Ethiopian Banking Sectors: Multi‐Mediation Analysis

Xu Hongyi, Atanaw Desalegn Taye — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:27:02 -0700

ABSTRACT

The present study examines how Corporate Social Responsibility culture (CSRC) and Corporate Social Responsibility leadership (CSRL) jointly enhance CSR performance (CSRP) (environmental performance (EP), social performance (SP)) and how CSRP subsequently drives financial performance (FP) through the mediating roles of customer satisfaction (CS) and corporate image (CI). Grounded in an integrative framework of Resource-Based View, Stakeholder Theory, and Knowledge-Based View, this study employs a quantitative, cross-sectional approach. Data from 473 employees in the Ethiopian banking sector were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4. The findings indicate that CSRC (β = 0.384, p < 0.001) and CSRL (β = 0.332, p < 0.001) significantly predict CSRP, which in turn positively influences FP (β = 0.200, p < 0.001). Customer satisfaction (β = 0.206, p < 0.001) and corporate image (β = 0.189, p < 0.001) fully mediate the CSRP–FP relationship. Therefore, these findings underscore the strategic importance of embedding CSR in leadership and culture to improve societal and environmental impact as well as financial outcomes. This study contributes by (1) being one of the first to empirically examine the instruction of CSRC, CSRL, and multidimensional CSRP in Ethiopian banking and (2) proposing and validating a novel mediated pathway in which CS and CI fully transmit CSRP effects to FP—a mechanism previously unexamined in this context. Implications for managers and policymakers underscore the need to prioritize CSR integration across all organizational levels to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Stakeholder Theory Is Dead: Toward an Eco‐Centric Ethics

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:55:45 -0700

ABSTRACT

Stakeholder theory has long functioned as the normative “operating system” of business ethics, civilizing corporate discourse through the language of balancing interests. Yet in the Anthropocene, where planetary boundaries are binding and ecological thresholds are non-negotiable, this orthodoxy collapses. Its axioms of anthropocentrism, commensurability, and managerial arbitration fail in the face of scale effects, tipping points, and non-substitutable ecological functions. This essay advances an alternative: eco-centric ethics. Six axioms reframe responsibility around the intrinsic value of the more-than-human, strong sustainability, ecological limits as deontic constraints, precaution under irreversibility, intergenerational justice, and relational accountability. These principles generate concrete guardrails, negative lists, duties of result, and portfolio exits that subordinate stakeholder dialogue to the integrity of ecological ceilings. The implications are threefold: researchers must move beyond instrumental stakeholder models and retire aggregated ESG scores; managers must embed limits-first governance and ecological veto roles; and policymakers must replace disclosure regimes with binding constraints. The age of balancing our way out of collapse is over; business ethics must recenter life itself as the non-negotiable ground of responsibility.

Talking vs. Walking: How ESG Strategic Positioning in Disclosure and Practice Across Dimensions Drives Financial Performance

Yang Yang, Yuting Gao, Kexin Li — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0700

ABSTRACT

A fundamental challenge for businesses globally is how to allocate limited resources between sustainability disclosure (“talk”) and practice (“walk”). Existing research either relies on aggregated ESG scores or examines disclosure or practice in isolation, failing to capture their strategic interplay and ignoring dimension-specific differences, which creates ambiguity for practice. This study fills this gap by investigating the dimension-specific interaction between ESG disclosure and practice (conceptualized as ESG strategic positioning) and its impact on financial performance. Empirically, we first employ an ANOVA to identify significant performance differences across ESG strategic positions. We then apply a fixed-effects model, controlling for firm and time heterogeneity, to robustly estimate the causal effect. Results show financial returns depend on where (E/S/G) and how (“talking” vs. “walking”) firms invest. Specifically, we find that firms benefit most “talking” on environmental issues; prioritize “talking” while being cautious with “walking” on social issues; and gain value from “walking” on governance issues. These findings offer a universal economic insight: not all ESG investments are equal. At the same time, this study provides managers and investors with a strategic lens to prioritize sustainability investments for maximum financial return.

Walking the Walk or Just Talking the Talk? Corporate Climate Strategies Under Extreme Weather

Yuting Dong, Ziyuan Sun, Yiqiang Zhou — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0700

ABSTRACT

In the wake of extreme weather shocks, do firms “walk the walk” or merely “talk the talk” in their climate strategies? Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study empirically examines firms' climate strategy choices in response to extreme weather events using panel data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2022. The results show that extreme weather events significantly increase firms' climate-related discourse but do not lead to corresponding adaptation actions, suggesting a tendency toward symbolic strategies—“talking the talk” without “walking the walk.” These strategies are primarily motivated by institutional pressures and securing credit resources, as firms seek to gain legitimacy through low-cost disclosures while alleviating financial constraints. Furthermore, firms with older top management teams and lower risk tolerance are more inclined to adopt symbolic strategies. Crucially, such symbolic climate approaches are found to hinder firms' long-term development. Overall, this study advances understanding of corporate climate strategy choices under extreme weather shocks and offers managerial and policy implications for fostering substantive climate strategies in emerging economies.

Firm‐Level Climate Change Initiatives and Christian Religiosity

Jinhua Cui, Hoje Jo, Manuel Velasquez — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 21:28:58 -0800

ABSTRACT

We conduct an empirical investigation into whether the Christian religiosity prevalent in a company's headquarters community influences its top management's decisions on climate change. The study tests two opposing theoretical frameworks: a stewardship hypothesis, which predicts a positive relationship in which managers act as environmental stewards, and a dominion hypothesis, which predicts a negative relationship in which managers exercise a harmful dominion over nature. The results present a compelling contrast. We find that general Christian religiosity is negatively associated with corporate climate initiatives, supporting the dominion hypothesis. Conversely, the specific Catholic religiosity within a community is associated positively with Catholic religiosity, supporting the stewardship hypothesis. This pattern is reinforced by data on managers' personal religiosity, showing that Catholic managers favor climate-friendly initiatives, while Protestant managers disfavor them.

Virtuous Organizations in the Age of AI: Relational Goods and Human Flourishing

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

The integration of AI-based systems in everyday work has given rise to augmented organizations, transforming traditional work paradigms and prompting new research questions concerning augmented work processes and their related ethical issues. Drawing upon the practice-institution framework proposed by Alasdair MacIntyre, integrated with Donati's concept of relational goods, this article examines whether and how augmented organizations can be virtuous. This article spans the macro, meso, and micro levels, shedding light on the crucial role of practical wisdom in balancing effectiveness and relational goods. The findings underscore the significance of practical wisdom across diverse organizational settings, with care-related professions serving as exemplars. We focus on carebots and hospitals, exploring the relational dimension in nursing and medical practices. We chose this sector for its ethical relevance, technological involvement, and its human-centric nature, combining expertise and technological advancements for the common good. Additionally, the article encourages further investigation of the interplay between AI and human moral development within augmented organizations.

Corporate Environmental Framing and Moral Disengagement Across Strategic Phases: Case Study of BP's Environmental Communication Strategies

Afolabi Qudus Olanrewaju, Baruck Opiyo — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 18:26:19 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study examines how BP strategically employs environmental framing and moral disengagement across three phases: pre-accusation branding, accusation response, and post-accusation sustainability communication to manage public perception and maintain legitimacy. Using a longitudinal qualitative case study of 87 corporate materials, including visual elements such as campaign imagery and logos, the analysis reveals a cyclical moral logic through which BP's “Beyond Petroleum” and “Keep Advancing” and “Possibilities Everywhere” campaigns framed the company as an environmental leader while obscuring its continued fossil fuel reliance. During the Deepwater Horizon crisis, BP used moral disengagement mechanisms such as minimization and displacement of responsibility to deflect blame. In the “Keep Advancing” and “Possibilities Everywhere”, strategies like moral justification and temporal deferral reframed fossil fuel continuity as part of a climate solution. The findings show that BP's communication reflects a cyclical pattern of narrative adaptation rather than a linear shift toward accountability. This research contributes to the business ethics literature by offering a framework for decoding corporate sustainability discourse and highlighting the ethical risks in long-term climate pledges. The findings have implications for scholars, policymakers, and communication professionals seeking to critically evaluate corporate environmental claims in high-impact industries.

Place Matters at Work: A Systematic Review of Workplace Attachment and Environmental Factors

Rubinia Celeste Bonfanti, Nicolò Billeci, Silvia Platania, Stefano Ruggieri — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

The topic of workplace attachment has garnered significant attention in academic studies since the early 2010s. However, due to its inherently interdisciplinary scope, research on workplace attachment remains notably fragmented and lacks cohesion, resulting in numerous unresolved questions. Consequently, a systematic review was conducted to examine the association between workplace attachment and organizational and environmental factors. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that used quantitative measures of workplace attachment were included. A total of 16 studies met inclusion criteria (n = 5282). The findings demonstrated distinct relationships between workplace attachment and (1) psychological and relational factors influencing organizational functioning, (2) spatial environmental factors, and (3) variables influencing the perception of work meaningfulness. This review provides nuanced insights into existing literature, examining workplace attachment from employee perspectives. By doing so, it offers an in-depth understanding of the challenges present within current theoretical frameworks on workplace attachment. A key contribution of this review is the integration of existing findings into a comprehensive conceptual framework on workplace attachment, which systematically synthesizes the relevant variables and theoretical foundations that underpin research in this domain.

Family Firms Towards Sustainability Competitiveness: A Chain of Moderated Mediating Models in Term of ESG Practices and Corporate Governance

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:35:09 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study explores the connection between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure and the competitive performance of family firm (FAFI) in the ASEAN-6 region (specifically Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). It investigates whether GHG emissions disclosure acts as a mediating factor and evaluates the moderating influences of ESG initiatives and corporate governance (COGO) structures. Grounded in a dataset of 3255 firm-year observations from publicly listed enterprises between 2020 and 2024, sourced from Refinitiv Eikon, we applied maximum likelihood structural equation modeling to examine the proposed links. The findings indicate that FAFI tends to exhibit lower GHG emissions disclosure. GHG emissions disclosure harms competitiveness and serves as a mediator in the relationship between FAFI attributes and competitive performance. ESG practices have moderated the link between GHG emissions disclosure and competitiveness and have been moderated by COGO. This study provides actionable insights for FAFI in ASEAN. Thereby, it suggests ways to improve their competitiveness through GHG emissions management. The results highlight the significance of strong ESG initiatives, especially in the emissions phase, and underscore the important role of effective COGO in optimizing the value-creation potential of ESG. This research has added to our understanding of FAFI in ASEAN. The study has deeply analyzed how FAFI, GHG emissions disclosure, ESG, competitiveness, and COGO connect in ASEAN. The paper has clarified that GHG emissions disclosure acts as a mediator, and ESG activities have a moderating effect. The research has demonstrated how certain COGO mechanisms affect the strength of that moderating effect.

Mitigating Cultural Constraints on Environmental Performance With Women on Boards During Crises

Aranthy Sabaratnam, Vikkram Singh, Sui Sui, Anjali Chaudhry — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 22:01:32 -0800

ABSTRACT

Existing management literature has acknowledged the intricate interplay between board gender diversity (BGD), national culture, and environmental performance (EP). However, the COVID-19 pandemic offers an unprecedented context to reexamine these relationships. This study contributes to the discourse by investigating how specific cultural traits may impede EP during crises and how BGD mitigates these adverse effects. Drawing on a sample of 261 international pharmaceutical companies and employing Heckman's two-stage model, the findings demonstrate a positive influence of BGD on EP improvements during the pandemic. Moreover, cultural dimensions such as high individualism and short-term orientation are associated with slower progress in EP during this period. Notably, firms with greater BGD effectively buffer these negative cultural impacts, mitigating their detrimental influence on EP. These findings illuminate the intersection between national culture, board composition, and environmental performance, offering practical insights for fostering resilient and sustainable corporate governance in global crises.

Navigating Green Innovation: The Dual Influence of Environmental Ethics and Managerial Social Ties on Strategic Choices

Lei Zhu, Feng Zhang, Wenwen An, Xi Li, Minjing Zhu — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 22:00:55 -0800

ABSTRACT

Although corporate environmental ethics are widely recognized as catalysts for green innovation, how they guide firms' strategic choices between green product and green process innovation remains unclear. Grounded in the attention-based view and social network theory, this study develops a contingency framework linking corporate environmental ethics and green product and process innovation, moderated by different managerial social ties. Survey data from 515 Chinese manufacturing firms show that environmental ethics foster both types of green innovation, yet exert a stronger effect on process innovation. Managerial ties moderate these effects: business ties strengthen the link between environmental ethics and green product innovation, while weakening its association with green process innovation; conversely, political ties reduce the relationship between environmental ethics and green product innovation, but enhance it with green process innovation. The main contribution of this study is the integration of the attention-based view with social network theory, providing insights into how and when environmental ethics lead to distinct green innovation outcomes in different contexts shaped by specific managerial ties.

Major Customers' Geographic Dispersion and Supplier Corporate Social Responsibility: A Moderated U‐Shaped Relationship

Wenqian Li, Wei Gao, Xingping Jia, Hua Fan, Tingting Liu — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 02:08:59 -0800

ABSTRACT

Previous studies on the antecedents of supplier corporate social responsibility (SCSR) have mainly focused on the factors in customer-supplier relationships, leaving the influence of suppliers' customer base underexplored. To fill the gap, this study identifies major customers' geographic dispersion (MCGD) as an important characteristic of suppliers' customer base, and explores its influence on SCSR from a combined perspective of transaction cost, social control, and signaling theories. Based on data from 1873 Chinese listed suppliers during the period from 2010 to 2021, this study finds a U-shaped relationship between MCGD and SCSR. Moreover, the results also show that the U-shaped relationship is further moderated by supplier size (SS) and customer concentration (CC). Overall, this study advances the understanding of SCSR and provides important implications for the participants in B2B markets and researchers alike.

Co‐Creative Sustainability: Enacting Ethical Power

Masoud Karami, Grant Gillett — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 02:08:18 -0800

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship and broader business literature show a growing interest in sustainability issues, illuminating the critical role that entrepreneurship can play in addressing the issues facing economic development in diverse socioeconomic settings. This study undertakes a selective systematic literature review and synthesizes co-creative entrepreneurship research with Foucault's conceptualizations of ethical power and human relationships to deepen our understanding of the roots of sustainability issues. It offers insights into addressing sustainability challenges in diverse social settings and provides reflections and directions for future research. As such, this study provides a philosophical ground for the further development of sustainable entrepreneurship.

From Feeling to Action: Exploring Emotional Arousal and Cognitive Responses to Environmental Threat Appeals

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 02:49:37 -0800

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study examines how emotional arousal, triggered by environmental threat appeals, relates to consumer attitudes toward sustainable brands and their willingness to pay (WTP). Grounded in Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), the research employs a multi-method approach that integrates biometric data, specifically Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Facial Expression Analysis (FEA), with traditional survey measures. The study was conducted with a sample of 38 undergraduate students (52.6% female; 47.4% male), aged between 21 and 25 years, who voluntarily participated in a laboratory experiment. While emotional arousal alone did not significantly predict attitudinal or behavioral outcomes, its effect was contingent upon individual differences. In particular, consumer conscientiousness was found to strengthen the relationship between emotional arousal and positive brand attitudes, while consumer dispositional CSR skepticism attenuated the role of emotions for WTP. These findings offer new insights into the emotion–cognition–behavior pathway in sustainable consumption and demonstrate the importance of trait-based segmentation in sustainability marketing. By combining neurophysiological tools with established psychological theory, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how consumers process, interpret, and act upon emotionally charged environmental messaging.

Beyond CSR: Corporate Digital Responsibility and Sustainable Performance in the AI Era

Fengwen Wang, Eugene Cheng‐Xi Aw — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 02:41:38 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how corporate digital responsibility (CDR) enhances artificial intelligence (AI)-based partner relationship management to drive sustainable firm performance. Drawing on stakeholder, institutional and dynamic capabilities theories, data were collected from bank managers and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and combined importance-performance analysis (cIPMA) techniques. Results show that environmental, economic and technological digital responsibility strengthen AI-based partner relationship management, which in turn improves sustainable performance, while social digital responsibility is non-significant. Contrary to expectations, coercive and normative pressures moderate the link between CDR and AI-based partner relationship management. cIPMA further reveals a necessity–performance paradox: AI-based partner relationship management emerges as the most critical performance driver, yet all four CDR dimensions and all three institutional pressures are necessary conditions for achieving sustainable performance. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the differentiated roles of CDR dimensions in shaping AI-enabled dynamic capabilities for sustainable development.

Environmental Legitimation in A Global Context: Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises Versus Developed Market Multinational Enterprises

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to study the differences and similarities between emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) and developed market multinationals (DMNEs) in their levels of adoption of environmental management policies and environmental disclosure practices when they increase their international diversification. This paper builds on a panel dataset consisting of 227 MNEs from 44 countries over the period 2010–2024, employing fixed-effects panel regression models to test our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that EMNEs and DMNEs exhibit both similarities and differences in their environmental strategies within a global context. Although EMNEs show levels comparable to DMNEs in terms of environmental management policies and environmental disclosure practices, DMNEs exhibit a sharp increase in both environmental strategies as they increase their international diversification. These differences are particularly evident in environmental disclosure, with DMNEs showing a stronger response to transparency demands from home-country stakeholders. This study contributes to the literature on environmental sustainability in EMNEs and DMNEs by providing a comprehensive understanding of how MNEs address climate change challenges to achieve environmental legitimation in foreign markets. Furthermore, it offers managerial and policy implications, suggesting that policymakers should implement supranational sustainability measures targeting the global operations of MNEs, particularly EMNEs. It also advocates for incentivizing higher levels of international diversification, as this enhances MNEs' environmental management policies and disclosure practices.

Protective Role of ESG Disclosure in Firm Valuation During Global Crisis: Evidence From Institutional Investor Ownership

Jingxin Xue, Rui Zhang, Yue Wang, Dongxue Li, Yingzhe Xing, Jiasheng He — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:43:40 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study investigates crisis-period environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure research by examining how ESG disclosure protects firm value during major global public crises. The pandemic is a severe exogenous shock generating synchronized global uncertainty. Using panel data regression analysis of U.S. public firms, we find that superior ESG disclosure significantly enhances firm value during systemic crisis. This protective impact is amplified in companies that have a greater proportion of long-term institutional ownership, confirming investor time horizons as critical moderators. In addition, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) systematically dampens ESG disclosure's value-protective capacity through resource constraints and market sentiment channels. These results reconceptualize ESG disclosure as a conditional strategic asset whose efficacy depends on institutional investor composition and macroeconomic uncertainty levels. This study advances ESG literature by demonstrating that the value-protective role of ESG disclosure during crisis is intensified by long-term institutional ownership, while EPU serves as a catalyst for reversing the insurance effects of ESG disclosure. Our work pioneers invest in temporal heterogeneity and EPU as critical boundary conditions. The findings challenge generalized ESG benefit assumptions while offering actionable guidance for embedding ESG disclosure within crisis resilience frameworks.

From Sociability to Associability: Understanding Affective Tensions in Stakeholder–Organization Relationships During COVID‐19

Fabien Martinez — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:30:21 -0800

ABSTRACT

This paper conceptualizes stakeholder associability as a distinct form of episodic, affect-driven tension in organizational life that disrupts stakeholder–organization relationships and undermines trust. While such tensions are widely observed in practice, they remain undertheorized in management and organization studies. Drawing on a micro-ethnographic study of a COVID-19 drive-in testing center in the UK, complemented by social media commentary, the analysis identifies three antecedents of associability: (i) altered relational contexts, (ii) limited organizational agility and responsiveness, and (iii) managerialist decision-making logics that deprioritize emotional attunement. Integrating affective atmosphere theory and Simmel's sociology of sociability, the study advances scholarship on stakeholder engagement, affect, and crisis management by theorizing associability as a situational, relational breakdown that emerges from the interplay of affective and structural dynamics. For managers, the findings emphasize the need to embed emotional intelligence and real-time responsiveness into stakeholder strategies, shifting from retrospective damage control to proactive trust-building. For policymakers, the study highlights the importance of human-centered crisis management frameworks that prioritize empathy, transparency, and frontline sensitivity alongside operational efficiency. Together, these insights position stakeholder associability as a critical yet overlooked lens for understanding organizational legitimacy in times of uncertainty and lay a foundation for future research on affective dynamics in organizational life.

A Farewell to Arms… Manufacturing: Learning From a Landmine Producer Who Became a Deminer

Marco Guerci, Luca Carollo — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

ABSTRACT

Certain industries—labeled “dirty,” “sinful,” “stigmatized,” or “controversial”—are under public scrutiny because of the ethical, social, and environmental concerns that they raise. Previous research has typically focused on the industry or organizational level of analysis, examining how companies in controversial industries can enhance their legitimacy by reforming the way they operate, for example by means of specific CSR and communication strategies. This article challenges that approach by adopting an individual-level lens and presenting a life-story interview with the former owner of a company involved in the arms industry, specifically the production of anti-personnel landmines, who refused to reform his business to make it appear less controversial. After a difficult period, he decided to close the family business. He then redirected his technical expertise by joining the social movements supporting the global campaign against landmines and by working as a deminer, thus trying to act as an individual change agent and to repair the damage to which he had contributed. This heterodox individual-level analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that controversial industries should seek only incremental improvements, and it sparks provocative reflections on the possibility of exiting them and contributing to their outright closure.

Fostering Social Connection Responsibility in Value Creation: Lessons From the Assessment of a Local Participatory Guarantee System

Silvana Signori, Francesco Vittori — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:13:56 -0800

ABSTRACT

This paper builds on the call for further research on stakeholder engagement as a relational and contextual process for value creation by examining a Participatory Guarantee System for organic agriculture in Lombardy (Italy). It emphasises that value creation is a collaborative effort within a stakeholder network, requiring the shared and ongoing responsibility of all actors beyond their specific interests. To explore how such shared responsibility unfolds, data collected through participant observation are analysed using Iris Marion Young's social connection responsibility approach. Specifically, the study investigates factors shaping stakeholder relationships, focusing on four parameters: power, privilege, interest and collective ability. Findings reveal that while the project aimed to foster a sustainable agricultural system, differing stakeholder positions complicate the engagement process, highlighting contradictions between collective goals and individual decisions. Power dynamics and privileges significantly shape stakeholder involvement, affecting motivations and commitment. Additionally, the analysis illustrates tensions between stakeholders' economic roles and their contributions to a shared purpose, revealing how functional or self-interested logics can overshadow relational goals. Theoretically, the study extends stakeholder theory by empirically applying Young's social connection model, demonstrating how power, privilege and interest operate both within and across stakeholder groups, shaping responsibility and collective value creation. Practically, it offers insights for designing and managing multi-stakeholder initiatives through inclusive, deliberative processes that balance power asymmetries, strengthen mutual understanding and sustain engagement across diverse contexts and settings. Indeed, the study underscores the importance of contexts and places in fostering effective engagement and responsibility.

CEO Power and Circular Economy Disclosure: The Moderating Role of Institutional Forces

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 01:43:42 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of CEO power on circular economy disclosure (CED), highlighting the moderating role of institutional pressures on CEO discretion. The analysis draws on a sample of 8354 multinational companies from the Refinitiv database, covering the period 2013–2022. The sample includes companies from 74 countries and 11 economic sectors. By developing a novel indicator to measure CED, the research shows that CEO power negatively affects transparency, particularly in waste management and resource circularity. This study also examines how coercive and normative pressures—stemming from regulatory frameworks and societal expectations—influence CEO decision-making. The findings advance the literature by integrating three theoretical perspectives: (i) agency theory, which explains how concentrated CEO power reduces disclosure by sustaining information asymmetry; (ii) stakeholder capitalism theory, which demonstrates that CED responds to the expectations of diverse social and economic groups; and (iii) institutional theory, which shows how these expectations are reinforced through coercive and normative pressures that enhance accountability.

When More Isn't Better: The Curvilinear Effects of ESG on Firm Performance

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:59:29 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study examines the non-linear effects of ESG performance on firm value in Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2023, addressing a gap in emerging-market ESG research that often assumes a linear, universally positive relationship. Using 29,439 firm-year observations and performance measures including Tobin's Q, ROA, and ROE, the study applies two-way fixed-effect, Lind-Mehlum U-tests, and robustness checks with alternative ESG ratings (Bloomberg and Huazheng) and by excluding extreme market shocks (the 2015 stock market crash and COVID-19). The findings reveal a robust inverted U-shaped relationship, demonstrating that moderate ESG engagement enhances firm performance, whereas excessive ESG investment results in diminishing or even negative returns. Heterogeneity analyses show that this effect is strongest in non-state-owned, financially unconstrained, and high-polluting firms, while SOEs and constrained firms exhibit weaker or more linear effects. Pillar-level analysis highlights environmental and governance dimensions as primary drivers, whereas social initiatives have limited impact. The study's novelty lies in providing empirical evidence for the curvilinear ESG-performance link in an emerging market context, advancing theory by showing that ESG investments create intangible assets such as legitimacy, trust, and innovation only up to an optimal threshold, with institutional and financial contexts shaping the relationship. These insights inform policymakers and managers to calibrate ESG strategies strategically, and motivate future research across other markets, ESG ratings, and causal designs.

Road to Sustainable Development: How Can Green Institutional Investors Improve Corporate ESG Performance in China?

BingHong Lin, BingXiang Li, Tao Zhang — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:58:54 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study mainly explores how green institutional investors affect corporate ESG performance and conducts empirical analysis using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2021 as research samples. The research results show that green institutional investors can promote corporate ESG performance by alleviating financing constraints, enhancing green management capabilities, and improving corporate governance levels. This promoting effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and enterprises with high analyst attention. Further research has found that green institutional investors have a more prominent promoting effect on the performance of S and G dimensions, while the promoting effect on the performance of E dimension is relatively small. Meanwhile, insufficient market competition and environmental uncertainty will weaken the promoting effect of green institutional investors on corporate ESG performance. The research conclusion clearly presents the intrinsic relationship between green institutional investors and corporate ESG performance, providing new theoretical insights for promoting sustainable development of enterprises.

Individual Personality, Values, and Tax Morale Among the Self‐Employed: The Moderating Role of Institutional Context

Kristine Velasquez Tuliao — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:00:58 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study examines the tax morale of the self-employed using a multilevel model grounded in the socio-psychological framework. It aims to demonstrate that individual personality and values influence tax morale among the self-employed. Additionally, the moderating role of institutional context on the influence of personality and values on tax morale was explored. Findings from hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) indicate that conscientiousness and altruism are positively associated with tax morale, whereas egoism is negatively related to tax morale. Furthermore, the institutional context, including governance quality and education level, moderates the impact of individual personality and values on tax morale. These findings provide a broader understanding of tax morale by integrating personal and contextual characteristics. Alongside this theoretical contribution, this paper offers valuable insights for tax authorities in devising policies and programs to foster tax compliance among the self-employed.

Ethics in Motion: Embedding Alternative Forms of Work Organization Into the Business Ethics Logic

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 02:59:59 -0800

ABSTRACT

In this editorial, we examine how alternative forms of work organization (AFWOs) are both driving and being shaped by the ethical foundations underpinning them. Recently, scholars of organization and management studies have highlighted AFWOs as a response to broader societal challenges—digitalization, sustainability, and workplace democratization—and as an arena of intense experimentation in spatiotemporal flexibility and participatory management. Despite their growing adoption, AFWOs remain underexamined from a business ethics perspective, leaving open crucial questions about fairness, autonomy, empowerment, and the subjective experiences of workers—particularly in hybrid settings. Against this backdrop, in this special issue, we aim to clarify how and why business ethics matters in the context of AFWOs. The contributing authors pursue this aim by mobilizing diverse ethical frameworks to investigate the following key questions: How can AFWOs be grounded in a robust business ethics logic? What philosophical foundations can guide new organizational experiments? How might ethical inquiry illuminate the aspirations, tensions, and practical consequences of work environments characterized by flexibility, shared responsibility, and digital mediation? Collectively, the contributing authors advance a richer understanding of AFWOs by integrating theoretical reflection with empirical insights and foregrounding the ethical stakes of reimagining how work is organized today.

From Rating System to Thought Leadership: The Evolution of the Canada Green Building Council

J. J. McArthur, Stephen Dunne, Sarah Birrell Ivory — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 02:53:59 -0800

ABSTRACT

Green Building Social Movement Organizations encourage the adoption of green buildings, primarily by promoting sustainability rating tools. While numerous papers have explored the market impact of these sustainability rating tools, very few have examined either the lengthy and protracted process of their selection and enrollment by organizations, or even their impact upon the structure and governance of organizations. This paper fills these gaps by presenting a 20-year case study of organizational evolution. It identifies five distinct periods through which the chosen organization variously selected, developed, established, lost control, and transcended its relationship with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; a ‘green building’ rating tool) in Canada. Conceptually, our analysis has roots within the Sociology of Translation and (Scandinavian) Institutional Theory. In this, we treat the technical mediation of sustainability rating tools as institutional work activities to understand their role(s) in organizational evolution. The empirical basis for our analysis is data acquired through 21 semi-structured interviews with organization founders and key personnel in each period, as well as a comprehensive analysis of archival records. Our findings offer significant insights for organizations that have bound themselves to a tool, certification, or standard as their means of market or societal transformation. We close by recognizing our study's limitations before underlining the crucial managerial and policy consequences of our analysis.

Corporate Leadership and Disability Employment Disclosure: The Role of Board Structure in Promoting Inclusion

Hamzeh Al Amosh — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 02:47:33 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study examines how board structure influences disability employment disclosure (DED) among 192 nonfinancial FTSE 350 companies from 2015 to 2022. It investigates six board attributes—gender diversity, independence, size, CEO duality, tenure, and expertise—to determine how governance design affects transparency on disability inclusion. The results show that firms with more diverse, independent, and skilled boards are significantly more likely to disclose quantifiable information about disability employment, reflecting stronger ethical and social accountability. In contrast, companies led by CEOs who also serve as board chairs disclose less, suggesting that concentrated leadership weakens independent oversight and transparency. These findings align with stakeholder and legitimacy theories, showing that inclusive and well-balanced boards pursue substantive legitimacy through genuine commitments to diversity, while less independent boards tend toward symbolic disclosure. This study is among the first to explicitly link board governance to disability employment disclosure, highlighting the role of board composition as a key driver of transparency, accountability, and inclusive corporate governance. The results provide valuable implications for policymakers and business leaders seeking to promote ethical reporting and workplace inclusion.

Between Cryptocurrencies' Risk and Crypto Environmental Attention: The Crypto Environment Attention Index and Volatility in the Cryptocurrencies Market Nexus

Ines Ghazouani, Zaineb Hlioui, Marwa Zouawi — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 23:07:02 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of environmental attention on cryptocurrency market volatility by introducing the Crypto Environmental Attention Index (CEAI), a new metric inspired by Wang et al. (2022) and constructed using daily web search data. Environmental concerns can significantly impact the popularity and volatility of cryptocurrencies, influencing risk perceptions, and shaping market dynamics. Using vector autoregression (VAR), vector error correction models (VECM), and Granger causality tests on data from 2014 to 2022, the study finds that Ethereum's volatility is strongly influenced by the CEAI in both the short and long-term, whereas Bitcoin volatility has a short-term unidirectional effect on environmental attention and a bidirectional relationship in the long term. This study is situated within a broader economic framework of sustainable finance, the transition to greener blockchain technologies, and regulatory responses to environmental issues. It offers actionable insights for risk management, policy formulation, and cryptocurrency valuation using environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.

Building a World Through Binding Ethics and Moral Traditions: Catholic Social Teaching and Virtue Ethics in Business Ethics

Vidya S. Athota, Ignacio Ferrero, Priyan Max Jeganathan — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 22:42:37 -0800

ABSTRACT

Businesses today face the dual challenge of achieving organizational effectiveness while fostering human flourishing in a morally pluralistic world. Moral systems offer guidance, yet differ widely in their precepts and societal impact. This paper argues that contemporary business ethics requires more than ad hoc value statements or profit-driven codes of conduct; it calls for a robust ethical framework capable of uniting diverse stakeholders and sustaining long-term success. Engaging with a range of moral traditions, we propose Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as a particularly rich development of virtue ethics that integrates classical insights with actionable principles for organizational life. Grounded in human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, participation, and the common good, CST offers a normative system that not only enhances business performance but also strengthens the social bonds on which thriving economies depend. By demonstrating how CST's virtue-based approach aligns organizational practices with universal human values, this paper presents a pathway toward a more ethically grounded and human-centered business paradigm—one that builds community, inspires purpose, and contributes to the common good.

Managerial Cognition and Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy: An Abductive Study of Integrative Complexity and Temporal Orientation

Binqi Tang, Alan Muller — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:08:53 -0800

ABSTRACT

Given the growing importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to business, firms are increasingly taking a strategic approach to their CSR efforts. This study aims to explore how elements of managerial cognition interact to underpin firms' choices for specific CSR strategies. Following an abductive approach, we conduct qualitative research among six small and medium-sized enterprises in China to develop a cognition-based framework for CSR strategy. We discover that integrative complexity and temporal orientation work together to shape managers' strategic goals with respect to CSR, thereby leading to distinct CSR strategies. Based on our analysis, we develop a set of testable propositions that improve our understanding of CSR strategies and their cognitive foundations. Our findings contribute to the CSR literature by advancing knowledge of how different patterns of managerial cognition shape specific CSR strategies, with important implications for managers and policymakers aiming to foster CSR strategies that create shared value for business and society.

Effects of Combining Eco‐ and Social Labels on Consumer Value—Additive, Neutral or Cannibalizing? Insights From a Conjoint Analysis

Lamia Arslan, Samanthi Dijkstra‐Silva — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 01:06:44 -0800

ABSTRACT

Despite research on sustainable labels, little is known about combining eco- and social labels and the effects on consumers. Although consumers are increasingly confronted with both socially oriented, e.g., fair trade, as well as environmentally oriented eco-labels such as certified organic cotton, the effect on consumer value has not been explored. To address this gap, this paper theorizes that the effects of combining a social and an eco-label could be additive, neutral, or – in the worst case – cannibalizing. This study employs a choice-based conjoint analysis to investigate the interaction effect of social and eco-labelling for apparel. The study also examines which attributes (quality, price, social and eco-label) consumers prefer. We contribute to the literature in two ways: First, we discuss the need to differentiate between social and environmental labels and hypothesize about the potential effects of combining both. Second, we show that combining social and eco-labels has a neutral – not additive or cannibalizing – effect although consumers value the presence of a sustainability label, i.e., an eco- or social label, on apparel. While consumers appreciate the consideration of sustainability in the supply chain of the product, clarity on what elements are important and are reflected in the labels requires further research.

Demand Meets Supply: The ESG Impact of Green Procurement and Green Subsidy

Lei Cheng, Xiaohong Wang, Meilin Zhao — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 01:00:38 -0800

ABSTRACT

Drawing on China's policy practices under the “dual carbon” goal, this study examines how green procurement (GP), a demand-side policy, and green subsidies (GS), a supply-side policy, jointly affect corporate ESG performance. Using panel data of A-share listed industrial firms from 2015 to 2022 and a two-way fixed effects model, the findings show: (1) the GP–GS policy mix significantly enhances ESG performance through complementary “market-locking” and “resource-matching” effects; (2) mechanism analysis identifies three channels—greater information transparency, stronger market competition, and higher green innovation; and (3) heterogeneity tests reveal stronger impacts among heavily polluting firms and in regions with robust institutional environments. By moving beyond single-policy analyses, this study provides evidence on the synergistic optimization of demand- and supply-side environmental policies and offers micro-level insights to refine China's green governance toolkit and strengthen ESG drivers.

Exploring the Nexus of Organizational Culture and Corruption Reporting: Evidence From the Australian Public Service

Bridget Rice, Peter Fieger, Nigel Martin, Muhammad Mustafa Raziq, John Rice — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:03:30 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study utilizes a large Australian government employee survey dataset to investigate the relationship between organizational culture, employee demographic attributes, and whistleblowing behaviors. The survey gathered data on employee engagement, leadership perceptions, job satisfaction, and other matters. Organizational culture was assessed by linking questionnaire items with a framework developed by Zammuto and colleagues. This framework suggested a competing values framework of group, developmental, hierarchical, and rational cultures. Factor analyses identified individual scores for these dimensions, which were then examined alongside demographic variables using logistic regression. The analysis suggests that a positive developmental culture, characterized by tolerance and support for innovation and risk management, increases the likelihood of corruption reporting, with this effect amplified by the presence of a strong rational culture. Gender, agency size, cultural/linguistic background, and job role were also identified as significant predictors of reporting behaviors.

True Green or Fake Green? The Impact of ESG Rating Disagreement on Corporate Greenwashing Behavior

Guangqian Ren, Man Jing, ZiMing Wang — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 02:29:45 -0800

ABSTRACT

ESG rating disagreement (ESGRD) is derived from ESG ratings. Research on its impact on corporate sustainable development strategies can help better understand and promote the development of the Chinese ESG industry, thus providing useful references for developing countries worldwide. This study uses data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2023 as the sample, applies the fraud triangle theory to analyze the impact of ESGRD on corporate greenwashing behavior, and examines the moderating effects of media attention and environmental regulation based on institutional theory. The results reveal that ESGRD exacerbates corporate greenwashing behavior. The mechanism analysis indicates that ESGRD induces corporate greenwashing behavior through increasing financing constraints, enhancing information asymmetry, and exacerbating managerial myopia. The moderating effect analysis finds that both media attention (an informal institution) and environmental regulation (a formal institution) have negative moderating effects, which can weaken the positive impact of ESGRD on corporate greenwashing behavior. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive impact of ESGRD on greenwashing is more significant in non-heavily polluting industries and enterprises with low foreign investor shareholdings. An extended analysis reports that ESGRD exhibits significant spillover effects, exacerbating the greenwashing behavior of other firms in the same industry and province. The conclusions not only expand the research scope on the economic consequences of ESGRD but also hold significant implications for standardizing ESG rating criteria, driving corporate green transformation, and fostering sustainable development.

The Impact of Greenwashing on Stock Price Synchronicity

Yirong Lu, Yusuf Karbhari, Xin Yang — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 19:59:42 -0800

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the influence of greenwashing on the alignment between firm-level stock returns and broader market trends, with particular attention to the mediating roles of investor sentiment, media coverage and sustainable fund ownership. The findings reveal that greenwashing significantly reduces return synchronicity by embedding unreliable firm-specific environmental signals into stock prices, thereby impairing market efficiency. The results demonstrate that greenwashing amplifies sentiment-driven trading among investors, attracts increased media coverage that further disseminates and legitimizes biased environmental narratives, and influences institutional investment decisions—particularly by sustainable funds, which tend to rely on superficial environmental disclosures. Additionally, the heterogeneous analysis indicates that the influence of greenwashing on stock price synchronicity is insignificant in heavily polluting industries due to heightened regulatory oversight and stakeholder scrutiny. This research adds to existing knowledge by linking greenwashing to stock price synchronicity, providing new insights into how selective environmental disclosures influence market behavior. By exposing the negative consequences of biased environmental disclosures, this study highlights the urgent need for stronger accountability standards, robust environmental reporting frameworks, and stricter regulatory oversight. Such measures are essential to ensure transparency, uphold market integrity, and protect investors from the adverse effects of deceptive corporate practices.