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This study tests the bidirectional connections between corporate social responsibility performance and the financial performance of firms within the tourism sector and related industries based on the instrumental stakeholder and slack resources theories. Disaggregated measures of firms' corporate social responsibility practices and corporate financial performance were considered to avoid compensation effects. This choice also allows for testing of whether separated dimensions of corporate social responsibility have different linkages with corporate financial performance measures. Static and dynamic panel data regression models were implemented for robustness. With a few exceptions, the study found a neutral impact of corporate environmental, social, and governance performance on firms' financial success. This study therefore recommends that managers of tourism firms should engage in corporate social responsibility practices, which can contribute to different sustainable development goals without sacrificing financial performance. Contradictory to the slack resources theory, with a few exceptions, the higher the financial performance of tourism firms, the lower their commitment to corporate social responsibility issues. Furthermore, tourism firms must communicate their corporate social responsibility initiatives to develop public awareness of their environmental, social, and governance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of the size of firms' board of directors on corporate social performance through a meta‐analytic perspective. To that end, a sample of 80 articles that draw on evidence from more than 80,000 international companies, published between 1997 and 2018, was examined. This paper analyzes the moderating effect of a set of corporate governance mechanisms such as board composition and corporate governance systems on the hypothesized relationship between the size of firms' board and corporate social performance. Our central results reveal that larger and more independent boards better represent stakeholders' sensitivities and allow companies to achieve their social objectives. Moreover, that connection is more positive and stronger in companies with more independent boards and in countries that have codified law, which often have fewer mechanisms to protect shareholders' interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of different national institutions on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance through the varieties of institutional systems approach. This research complements previous research that used traditional approaches such as the national business systems and the varieties of capitalism, because it considers companies in understudied economies in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. To that aim, a dataset of 4,751 firms within 52 countries is examined through a multilevel model, which allows establishing three levels of analysis: (a) yearly observations of a firm ESG performance, (b) the companies, and (c) the countries. This technique is useful to address the nested nature of firms' ESG performance within higher level institutional contexts. The results identify which specific national institutions enhance/restrict companies' ESG performance. This provides interesting implications because firms' ESG represent most of the companies' contributions to environmental preservation, social well‐being, and community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the theoretical framework of socio-political economics, and more specifically of stakeholder theory, this work examines whether companies operating under different institutional constraints and stakeholder pressure tend to emphasize different models of corporate environmental reporting. Furthermore, the paper tests whether different corporate environmental reporting policies are driven by the countries' corporate governance systems. A sample of 3931 international companies was examined through a logistic biplot and conditional mean linear regression models. The main results reveal that companies follow two distinct environmental reporting approaches, which depend on specific stakeholders and institutional requirements. The first model, which is followed by firms within codified law countries, mostly focuses on water and emissions. The second approach, mainly followed by companies operating in common law countries, emphasizes materials and energy issues. This finding reveals that companies gradually modify their environmental strategies to make themselves more compatible with the characteristics of the social and institutional environment, which will result in several corporate benefits. The paper provides several outstanding implications for companies' strategic managers, national institutions and firms' stakeholders, especially for investors and customers. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the influence of organizations' board independence on corporate social performance (CSP) using a meta-analytic approach. A sample of 87 published papers is used to identify a set of underlying moderating effects in that relationship. Specifically, differences in the system of corporate governance, CSP measurement models and market conditions have been considered as moderating variables. The results show that the independence of a company's board positively influences CSP. This is because companies with more independent directors in their boards are more likely to commit to stakeholder engagement, environmental preservation and community well-being. Interestingly, the results also show that the positive connection between board independence and CSP is stronger in civil law countries and when CSP is measured by self-reporting data. Finally, the strength of the influence of the independence of a firm's board on CSP varies significantly in different market conditions. The paper concludes by presenting the main implications for academics, practitioners and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental and social impacts of companies and their processes, products and supply chains are a widespread concern. At the same time, such impacts provide opportunities for firms to engage in sustainability practices, to transform their businesses or to start new ventures contributing to sustainable development. In this context, innovation can be an important supportive vehicle for developing corporate sustainability management and accounting practices to effectively contribute to sustainable development. Based on the six attributes proposed by Baregheh et al. () to characterise innovations, this paper discusses what innovation in accounting for sustainability may encompass. Although significant efforts have been made, a reorientation and more research are needed to develop corporate accounting approaches to address environmental and social challenges more effectively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the influence of companies' financial factors on the extent of corporate environmental sustainability reporting (CESR) in an impressive sample of 3931 companies operating in 51 industries and 59 countries. A CESR composite index is constructed for each company that focuses on the G3 core environmental indicators from the Global Reporting Initiative because they are material for most organizations. In a methodological innovation, this study employs a quantile regression that unfolds certain interesting effects of financial drivers on the intensity of CESR that have not previously been revealed. Considering a combination of the main underlying theories of corporate sustainability reporting - legitimacy theory, agency theory, political costs theory, and signal theory - offers a better understanding of the complex structure of the dependencies found among factors such as company size, leverage, return on assets, research and development spending, market return and market capitalization, and commitment to environmental reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate companies' environmental, social, governance (ESG), and financial implications of their commitment to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The focus is placed on companies operating in the three countries with the highest number of UNGC participants: Spain, France, and Japan. The results clearly reveal that adoption of the UNGC often requires an organizational change that fosters stakeholder engagement, ultimately resulting in improvements in companies' ESG performance. Additionally, the results reveal that ESG performance has a significant impact on financial performance for companies that adopted the principles of the UNGC. These findings provide both non-financial and financial incentives to companies to commit to this voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, which will have important implications on companies' strategic management policies that aim to foster sustainable businesses and community development. Finally, the linkages between the UNGC-committed companies' ESG and financial performance may be influenced by geographical spread, mainly due to the appearance of differences in the institutional, societal, and cultural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the link between a sustainable supply chain and companies’ financial performance (FP) and provide empirical evidence about the relationship between these two constructs. This link is an important, but still unclear, subject. Design/methodology/approach – Multivariate measures of sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP are used for Granger causality tests on a large, diverse sample of 3,900 companies in a time frame of eight years (2004-2011). Findings – Results indicate general bidirectional causality between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ margins and revenue. However, the link between firms’ profitability and sustainable supply chain performance is unidirectional. In addition, the recent financial crisis altered this link between the studied constructs. Finally, a wide diversity in relationship patterns between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP emerges when the full sample is divided into different geographical regions and economic sectors as specified by the Global Industry Classification Standard system. Practical implications – This research makes recommendations for improving several processes, such as stakeholder evaluation of the sustainable supply chain performance of companies worldwide and manager testing of environmental policy outcomes. Originality/value – Building on the mostly qualitative literature on sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP, this research provides quantitative evidence of the gaps between these constructs. This research contributes to the discussions of supply chain management, environmental practices and the drivers of companies’ environmental and financial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to measure the financial performance of 21 primary Clean Techs (CT) equity indexes, covering the primary energy markets worldwide. We use a modified state-space market model to recursively estimate the risk/return performance of each index, and two market benchmarks are considered, thus providing a more accurate picture of the financial outcomes of investing in these relatively new financial instruments. The main findings indicate that during periods of market stability, Clean Techs indexes outperform market portfolio in terms of returns. This superior performance is a consequence of the higher risk levels associated with Clean Techs indexes. This research also supports that CT indexes with a restricted investment universe underperform the market portfolio in terms of returns. Moreover, we find a structural change in the dynamics of the Clean Techs indexes' return/risk performance that coincides with the beginning of the financial crisis. Although the CT indexes are highly volatile financial instruments, even in bull market periods, they turn even riskier during the recent financial crisis. In addition, the CT provider portfolio allocation policy and the activities covered by these indexes influenced the risk/return performance of a limited number of CT equity indexes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discusses various reports within the issue on topics including sustainable development, environmental management, and supply chain management.

This study not only revisits, from a meta-analytic perspective, the influence of firms' boardroom independence on corporate financial performance, but also addresses the way that countries' social and institutional contexts moderate that connection. A meta-regression covering 126 independent samples reveals that firms' boardroom independence has a positive and negative effect on accounting and market-based measures of corporate financial performance, respectively. Further analyses reveal that while the firms' board independence-financial performance connection is stronger in non-communitarian societies, that relationship becomes weaker in countries with greater developed mechanisms to protect the interest of minority investors. These results are robust to different model specifications and to the presence of a set of methodological control variables. Our results are of outstanding relevance for companies' board composition processes by suggesting the way that corporations should actively re-balance the proportion of independent directors across different social and institutional contexts to ensure their financial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]