Search

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a set of ambitious and interconnected goals adopted by the United Nations to address the most urgent global challenges. Among various institutions, universities play a vital role in advancing the SDGs, serving as significant catalysts for progress. The challenges associated with universities' engagement in accomplishing the SDGs have captured the attention of scholars. Nevertheless, an area that remains largely unexplored pertains to the factors that could potentially influence universities' contributions to the SDGs. This study, under the lens of legitimacy and stakeholder theories, seeks to address this significant gap by analyzing the factors driving the contributions of universities located in European Union countries towards the achievement of the SDGs. The econometric analysis, conducted on a sample of 210 European Union universities, shows that the size of the universities, the board size and the degree of gender diversity represent factors that positively affect the contribution that these institutions offer to the achievement of the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing environmental concerns and the need to address global challenges such as climate change and resource exploitation have highlighted the relevance of the circular economy (CE) and the importance for companies to communicate circular practices externally. While academic literature has examined the dissemination of CE information, the effects of CE disclosure (CED) remain underexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring, through signaling theory, the influence of CED via social media on firm value. The econometric analysis, based on 366 observations (an unbalanced panel of 133 internationally listed companies for the period 2019–2021), demonstrates that CED via Twitter serves as a powerful market signal, positively influencing investor perception and increasing firm value. This study enlarges the literature relating to the association between non‐financial disclosure and firm value, and the effects of CED. Furthermore, it extends the debate on the use of social media as disclosure tools and broadens the scope of signaling theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society's growing attention to sustainability has also brought about major challenges for the healthcare sector. In particular, hospitals by virtue of their function are also called to incorporate social and environmental issues in the undertaking of their activities. In this scenario, hospitals must also provide a correct representation of these issues through an adequate sustainability disclosure. However, despite the relevance of the topic, it is still little explored in the academic field. This study aims to fill this important gap by investigating the determinants of online sustainability disclosure through a legitimacy theory perspective. The econometric analysis, conducted on a sample of the best hospitals in the world, highlights a low level of dissemination of sustainability information. Furthermore, it demonstrates a positive impact of the size, public status and teaching status of hospitals on the amount of sustainability information disclosed by these institutions through their website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, to solve the problems related to sustainability, there is an increasing need for a transition from linear production and consumption systems to new models oriented toward reusing, reducing and recycling. In the academic field, several scholars have turned their attention to the adoption by companies of the new circular economy (CE) models. Due to the interest of a large number of stakeholders in issues related to the CE, several scholars have begun to explore the CE disclosure (CED) practices of companies. Despite this, studies on the topic are still limited. This study, under the lens of communication and stakeholder theories, aims, first, to examine the level of CE information disseminated by companies via Twitter and, second, to explore the impact of some firm characteristics on the level of CED. The econometric analysis, conducted on a sample of 141 companies belonging to the S&P 500 index, shows that the most profitable and most indebted companies disclose a greater amount of CE information through their official Twitter accounts. Furthermore, it demonstrates a lower propensity by energy companies to disclose CE information via Twitter compared to firms operating in other highly polluting sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The sport industry, due to the great importance of intangible assets, represents a field of particular interest for the analysis of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD). However, this sector is still underexplored in the academic literature. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the level of intellectual capital (IC) information disclosed by the most important basketball clubs on their website and the factors capable of influencing the dissemination of such information. Specifically, it examines the impact of social media visibility – in terms of number of social networks, number of posts, number of followers and internet visibility – on the ICD level. Design/methodology/approach: Firstly, this study performs a manual content analysis of the websites of the top 80 European and US basketball clubs aimed at analysing the ICD level. Secondly, it provides for a regression analysis to test the impact of social media visibility on the amount of IC information disclosed. Findings: Empirical results show a low level of ICD among the basketball clubs examined. They also demonstrate the positive impact of number of posts, number of followers and internet visibility on the amount of IC information disclosed online. Originality/value: This study extends the analysis of the ICD to the sport industry, still little examined by the academic literature. In this regards, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the ICD in the basketball industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]