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For funding, Kerah Gordon-Solmon is grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Sometimes one can prevent harm only by contravening rights. If the harm one can prevent is great enough, compared to the stringency of the opposing rights, then one has a lesser-evil justification to contravene the rights. Non-consequentialist orthodoxy holds that, most of the time, lesser-evil justifications add to agents’ permissible options without taking any away. Helen Frowe rejects this view. She claims that, almost always, agents must act on their lesser-evil justifications. Our primary task is to refute Frowe’s flagship argument. Secondarily, it is to sketch a positive case for nonconsequentialist orthodoxy. Publisher PDF

Socio-ecological crises in the Anthropocene are shaking the assumptions, norms and practices of many disciplines. The climate emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially disrupted academic work and life with calls to return to normal, embrace change and many other options in between. Here, we invite critical discussion and reflection amongst the Centre for Social & Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) community on our collective reliance on international in-person conferences and associated air travel. In doing so, we seek to highlight the ways in which our intellectual and practical endeavours are increasingly being shaped by both the climate crisis and debates around post-pandemic academia. We also report on the results of a (pre-pandemic) survey of the CSEAR community, which reveals highly differentiated patterns of air travel, echoing global patterns of dependency and inequality. Following this, we outline various practical solutions that have been proposed or introduced at individual, institutional and community levels. These include recent grassroots campaigns which have sought to mobilise opinion around the issues and explore different practices and modes of organising knowledge production, as well as the work of other academic communities attempting to enact commitments to lower their carbon emissions. Finally, we briefly outline the wider contours around low carbon scholarship and conclude by considering whether this is sufficient to contribute to collective efforts for scholarship for sustainability. Publisher PDF

This paper examines whether environmental and social (ES) activities affect the resiliency of firms during the COVID-19 crisis. We study a sample of 330 firms operating in five developed countries: Canada, France, Japan, the UK and the US. Our analysis shows that US firms with a high ES ranking experienced a significantly lower stock price range volatility during the Covid stock market rundown of February-March 2020. Such findings also hold for Japanese firms but only later on after the introduction of government support. In terms of returns, compared to their peers with a low ES ranking, Japanese and UK stock prices with a high ES ranking suffered more during and after the market rundown. For other countries, we do not find significant differences in stock price behavior based on ES ratings. Our findings suggest that engaging with ES activities is not associated with a better or worse performance during crisis times, which has important implications for investors and managers. Publisher PDF

Hobbes’s account of the individual’s right to resist sovereign authority is nuanced. His allowance for cases where a sovereign’s command falls outside the terms of the social contract, despite recent reappraisals, cannot rescue him from the accusation that his system is contradictory. It has been suggested that some Hobbesian rights can be transferred whilst others are quarantined, or that it is the institution of law, rather than the particular commands of the sovereign, which Hobbes ultimately upholds. By reconsidering Hobbes’s concept of sovereignty alongside his theory of natural law, I argue that his system remains in tension with itself. Hobbes’s prioritisation of sovereign judgement over that of the individual, when combined with the principles he retains from the natural law tradition, renders his theory of resistance irreconcilable with his position on sovereignty. Publisher PDF

Funding: This research was funded by the Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programme. We explore the activities of frontline workers situated in public bodies responsible for water service provision. We use Scotland as a case study. Here, like in other parts of Europe, communities there are greater expectations and responsibilities placed on communities to tackle water concerns. In this context, frontline workers are required to collaborate closely with communities to encourage their involvement in public services whilst being more attentive to their needs and concerns. Doing so brings the relationship between the frontline workers and communities into focus. In water services, a research gap exists as to how frontline workers interact with communities and influence engagement. Although frontline workers in water services have a highly influential role, evidence of how they perform their daily duties remains limited. This gap hinders understanding the challenges that frontline workers experience and how they can be overcome. Responding to this gap, we look to administration and policy studies, where a tradition of studying frontline workers exists in diverse public policy areas. Using the concepts of biasing, aligning and negotiating, we explore the activities of frontline workers. Using interview and observational data, we demonstrate how they (i) bias services to limit and control engagement, (ii) align resources and people to enhance opportunities for engagement and (iii) negotiate with colleagues and communities to deliver goals. We unpack the role of frontline workers and explore their pertinent position in water governance as they work inside and outside their organisations. We finish with conclusions and future avenues for research. Publisher PDF

This is a book about duties to help others. When does one have to sacrifice life and limb, time and money, to prevent harm to others? When must one save more people rather than fewer? These questions arise in emergencies involving nearby strangers who are drowning or trapped in burning buildings. But they also arise in everyday life, in which one has constant opportunities to give time or money to help distant strangers in need of food, shelter, or medical care. With the resources available, one can provide more help or less. This book argues that it is often wrong to provide less help rather than more, even when the personal sacrifice involved makes it permissible not to help at all. It shows that helping distant strangers by donating or volunteering is morally more like rescuing nearby strangers than most of us realize. The ubiquity of opportunities to help others threatens to make morality extremely demanding, and the book argues that it is only thanks to adequate permissions grounded in considerations of cost and autonomy that one may pursue one’s own plans and projects. It concludes that many are required to provide no less help over their lives than they would have done if they were effective altruists.

Funding: The authors wish to acknowledge InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise, part of the AHRC Creative Industries Clusters Programme (AH/S002871/10), for funding the time of one of the co-authors. The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has quickly established itself as a major focus within regional development research. A key conceptual framing commonly adopted by scholars theorising about the growth and evolutionary dynamics of EEs is via anthropomorphised life-cycle models. In this debate article we offer a critique and argumentation as to why the validity of this approach is spurious and contestable. Arguably, life-cycle based models overly simplify these complex spatial entrepreneurial phenomena and convey the temporal evolution of EEs as a simplistic, linear, deterministic and path dependent process. Despite the seductively simplistic appeal of life-cycle models, places are not like people and the uncritical adoption of such crude anthropomorphic framings potentially weakens this research field, at the same time running the risk of mis-informing policy makers. Publisher PDF

There are plenty of classic paradoxes about conditional obligations, like the duty to be gentle if one is to murder, and about “supererogatory” deeds beyond the call of duty. But little has been said about the intersection of these topics. We develop the first general account of conditional supererogation, with the power to solve familiar puzzles as well as several that we introduce. Our account, moreover, flows from two familiar ideas: that conditionals restrict quantification and that supererogation emerges from a clash between justifying and requiring reasons.

This paper investigates whether a firm’s managerial ability affects the link between a firm’s cost of equity capital and corporate sustainability. We test our predictions by using a large U.S. sample of 17,389 firm-year observations. Our findings show that only when managerial ability is high, corporate sustainability significantly reduces a firm’s implied cost of equity capital. An important implication of our findings is that firms with high managerial abilities and limited sustainability commitment are encouraged to pursue or initiate more sustainability activities owing to their negative effect on a firm’s cost of equity capital. Publisher PDF

This paper investigates whether firm-level (idiosyncratic) political risk (PR) affects the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm value using a sample of 16,518 firm-year observations which correspond to 2055 unique firms belonging to the Russell 3000 Index over the sample period 2010–2020. Our main findings are as follows: First, firm-level PR does not affect firm value. Second, CSR is positively related to firm value, which is mainly driven by the social component of CSR. Finally, PR has no effect on the CSR–firm value relationship, regardless of the PR type. Our evidence suggests that firm-level PR is not priced in the financial market and as such it does not affect the CSR–firm value relationship. This is consistent with portfolio theory which suggests that only systematic risk is priced. Publisher PDF

Funding: The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Foundations are frequently referred to as a donor’s dead hand, as a way to exert social, political, economic and cultural influence from beyond the grave. Building on this, our article argues for a greater focus on and consideration of the significance of the spectral in philanthropy research and practice, particularly in relation to foundations. We argue that spectrality offers a focal phenomenon in philanthropy and a focal theory for moving foundation inquiry forward. Based on our systematic review of the social sciences literature on the spectral, we identify and offer four thematic clusters to frame insights about foundations in relation to relationality and decentering, narratives and representations, ethics and politics, and continuity and change. Connecting foundation scholarship with existing debates about the spectral and vice versa, our work offers a basis for reflection and future research on the part of those immersed in the foundation world, and contributes to emergent scholarship about the spectral in organisation and management studies. Publisher PDF

Funding: Scottish Graduate School of Social Science /Bates Wells Braithwaite London LLP (Grant Number(s): ES/J500136/1). Philanthrocapitalism – the strategic application of market methods and motives for philanthropic purposes – plays increasingly prominent roles in policy design and implementation at national and international levels. Notwithstanding philanthrocapitalism's growing significance, relevant scholarly discourse remains limited and fragmented. Drawing together diverse debates, our paper systematically reviews and synthesizes academic literature on philanthrocapitalism. Alongside raising questions about the casting and practice of philanthropy, the 186 relevant publications included in our review indicate a strong emphasis of philanthrocapitalism in the areas of education, international development, healthcare, and agriculture. Across these, we identify, and discuss the importance of, three cultural frames: (1) development challenges being framed as scientific problems; (2) beneficiaries being framed as productive entrepreneurs; and (3) philanthropy being framed as a social investment. Outlining and critically examining these issues, this work contributes: a comprehensive analysis of key debates and issues; strengthened conceptual clarity and nuance through an evaluative exploration of the multiple interpretations of philanthrocapitalism; and a future research agenda to address persisting knowledge gaps and refine focus. Publisher PDF

How does middle managers’ sensemaking of other middle managers’ attitudes to a new strategy affect strategy implementation? We explore this question using a qualitative-abductive approach. Our investigation of the implementation of a top-down strategy in the plant of a multinational German engineering company revealed that middle managers experiencing ambiguity make sense of other middle managers’ attitudes to the strategy in social interactions. Based on their understanding of their colleagues’ attitudes, middle managers construct shared and separate realities about the strategy to be implemented. While shared realities are subjectively experienced commonalities, separate realities are subjectively experienced differences from others’ attitudes to the strategy. In our case, middle managers’ shared realities were associated with inaction on strategy implementation, whereas middle managers’ separate realities were related to initial actions to implement the strategy. Our findings suggest that middle managers’ sensemaking of other middle managers’ attitudes to a new strategy can shape their strategy implementation behavior. Publisher PDF

In this commentary, we trace the economic and spatial consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of potential business failure and the associated job losses across the 100 largest cities and towns in the United Kingdom (UK). The article draws on UK survey data of 1500 firms of different size classes examining levels of firm-level precautionary savings. On business failure risk, we find a clear and unequal impact on poorer northern and peripheral urban areas of the UK, indicative of weak levels of regional resilience, but a more random distribution in terms of job losses. Micro firms and the largest firms are the greatest drivers of aggregate job losses. We argue that spatially blind enterprise policies are insufficient to tackle the crisis and better targeted regional policies will be paramount in the future to help mitigate the scarring effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of firm failures and the attendant job losses. We conclude that Covid-19 has made the stated intention of the current government’s ambition to ‘level up’ the forgotten and left-behind towns and cities of the UK an even more distant policy objective than prior to the crisis.

Consider three cases: Turn: A trolley is about to kill five innocent strangers. You can turn the trolley onto me, saving the five and killing me. Hurl: A trolley is about to kill five innocent strangers. You can hurl me at the trolley, saving the five and paralyzing me. TurnHurl: A trolley is about to kill five innocent strangers. You can turn the trolley onto me, saving the five and killing me. You can instead hurl me at the trolley, saving the five and paralyzing me. Most find the following four claims intuitively plausible: (1) It is permissible to turn the trolley onto me in Turn. (2) It is impermissible to hurl me at the trolley in Hurl. (3) It is impermissible to turn the trolley onto me in TurnHurl. (4) It is permissible to hurl me at the trolley in TurnHurl. But how does turning go from permissible to impermissible, and hurling from impermissible to permissible, when both alternatives are available? I argue that such “secondary permissibility” claims are explained by contrastive consent. Even if I do not consent to being harmed, it is likely I'll consent to being hurled at the trolley rather than being turned onto. Publisher PDF

Launched in March 2019, the European philanthropy manifesto (EPM) argues for the introduction of a single market for philanthropy. Examining the historic precedents of that idea and the recommendations put forward in the EPM to achieve the single market, in this policy review we critically reflect on the potential and shortcomings of the EPM.

Regional resilience is a topic of growing academic and policymaker interest. This paper empirically examines this concept by scrutinising the impact of Brexit on Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given their crucial importance for the Scottish economy, SMEs are a good “unit of analysis” and a powerful barometer for measuring regional resilience. The research adopted a novel mixed methods approach examining the Longitudinal Small Business Survey together with in-depth interviews with SMEs. It is clear from the survey analysis that certain types of SMEs (i.e. innovators and exporters) were disproportionately fearful of Brexit. This was firmly corroborated by the interview data which found these same firms to be the most detrimentally impacted, manifesting in reductions in employment, exports and innovation. In contrast, the majority of domestically focused, less innovative SMEs were much less concerned and less negatively affected. While a small minority managed to deploy adjustment mechanisms to mitigate these negative effects, overall many firms had major difficulties operationally and strategically coping with this uncertain and turbulent environment. The findings suggest proactive public policies will be needed to help mitigate the difficulties caused by Brexit for certain types of SMEs. Publisher PDF

I have written about Rob before – about his colossal influence on social and environmental accounting research and practice and his immense contribution to accounting academia more broadly. Not only did Rob establish the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) and Social and Environmental Accountability Journal (SEAJ), but he was instrumental in establishing the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) and The British Accounting Review (BAR). For these reasons alone, there are probably thousands of accounting scholars across the world who have benefited enormously from Rob’s trailblazing achievements. In this contribution, I want to remember Rob for another significant aspect of his scholarship. More specifically, I want to remember Rob as an inspirational accounting educator – as someone who cared deeply about his students, his subject and his profession. Postprint

As COVID-19 spreads across the globe, a common public policy response has been to enforce the temporary closure of non-essential business activity. In some countries, governments have underwritten a proportion of the wage income for staff forced to furlough or broadened their welfare systems to accommodate newly laid off workers or small business owners. While these actions are helpful, they do not explicitly address the lack of sales trading activity on business income and cash balances. In commentary, we identify what types of businesses have been increasing their cash holdings in the lead up to COVID-19 as an indication of what types of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are most at risk if the lockdown extends for a protracted period of time. We find that only 39% of the of businesses were bolstering their cash balances leading up to COVID-19 which suggests that 61% of businesses may run out of cash, including 8.6% that had no retained earnings whatsoever with micro firms at particular risk. The importance of precautionary saving for SMEs is critical to enhance resilience when Black Swan events occur. Postprint

This commentary explores the manner in which the current COVID-19 crisis is affecting key sources of entrepreneurial finance in the United Kingdom. We posit that the unique relational nature of entrepreneurial finance may make it highly susceptible to such a shock owing to the need for face-to-face interaction between investors and entrepreneurs. The article explores this conjecture by scrutinising a real-time data source of equity investments. Our findings suggest that the volume of new equity transactions in the United Kingdom has declined markedly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears that seed finance is the main type of entrepreneurial finance most acutely affected by the crisis, which typically goes to the most nascent entrepreneurial start-ups facing the greatest obstacles obtaining finance. Policy makers can utilise these real-time data sources to help inform their strategic policy interventions to assist the firms most affected by crisis events. Publisher PDF

In this paper, we propose a new theory that sheds a different light on the potential relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Stock Price Informativeness (PI). More specifically, we explain why a neutral association between CSR and PI can be an indicator of high economic and social welfare, while a positive association can be an indicator of both markets and governments failure. Under a neutral relationship, we argue that mandatory disclosure is getting firms to disclose near their optimal level. Therefore, any voluntary disclosure beyond the mandatory regime (such as CSR disclosure) should not improve PI. We base our hypothesis on public interest theory that suggests that regulators promote the public interest when a market failure is identified. On the other hand, under a positive association between CSR and PI, we argue that regulators do not offer adequate incentives for firms to disclose at their socially optimal levels because the level of voluntary disclosure by socially responsible firms is optimal in comparison to the level of mandatory disclosure provided by other firms with weak CSR engagement. Postprint

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the nature and relevance of debates around the existence of, and ramifications arising from, the Anthropocene for accounting scholarship. Design/methodology/approach The paper’s aim is achieved through an in-depth analysis of the Anthropocene, paying attention to cross-disciplinary contributions, interpretations and contestations. Possible points of connection between the Anthropocene and accounting scholarship are then proposed and illuminated through a case study drawn from the seafood sector. Findings This paper develops findings in two areas. First, possible pathways for further development of how accounting scholarship might evolve by the provocation that thinking about the Anthropocene is outlined. Second, and through engagement with the case study, the authors highlight that the concept of stewardship may re-emerge in discussions about accountability in the Anthropocene. Research limitations/implications The paper argues that accounting scholarship focused on social, environmental and sustainability concerns may be further developed by engagement with Anthropocene debates. Practical implications While accounting practice might have to change to deal with Anthropocene induced effects, this paper focuses on implications for accounting scholarship. Social implications Human well-being is likely to be impacted if environmental impacts accelerate. In addition, an Anthropocene framing alters the understanding of nature–human interactions and how this affects accounting thought. Originality/value This is the first paper in accounting to seek to establish connections between accounting, accountability and the Anthropocene.

This research develops a new argument that departs from traditional theories that explain the potential impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on Chiefs Executive Officers (CEOs) compensation. More specifically, we argue that if CSR investments provide value for firm’s shareholders and stakeholders, they can also decrease firm’s competitors’ value (negative externality hypothesis). As a result, inefficient CEO compensation may arise even if CSR choice allows managers to act in the best interest of firm’s shareholders and non-investing stakeholders. In sum, our new perspective indicates that excessive levels of CEO compensation are more than a principal-agent-stakeholder problem. In addition, our new theoretical argument suggests that voluntarily CSR should not be a relevant factor for achieving efficient levels of CEO compensation. Publisher PDF

This research is part of a larger PhD studentship Grant, which is funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland (ICAS). This paper critically investigates the implementation of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights (UNGPs) into the corporate setting through the concept of ‘translation’. In the decade since the creation of the UNGPs, little academic research has focussed specifically on the corporate implementation of human rights. Drawing on qualitative case studies of two multinational corporations—an oil and gas company and a bank—this paper unpacks how human rights are translated into the corporate context. In doing so, the paper focuses on the “resonance dilemma” translators encounter, the strategies used to make human rights understandable and palatable, and the difficulties that emerge from this process. We contend that the process of making human rights understandable and manageable can change their form and content, which may act as an obstacle to human rights realisation and corporate accountability for human rights. Publisher PDF

Funding: We gratefully acknowledge the ESRC-funded Enterprise Research Centre. In this paper, we investigate whether innovative small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to be discouraged from applying for external finance than non-innovators. These so-called discouraged borrowers are credit worthy SMEs who choose not to apply for external finance despite the fact that this is needed. We find that SMEs undertaking pure product and joint product and process innovation have a significantly higher incidence of borrower discouragement than non-innovative counterparts. Moreover, radical and incremental product innovators are more likely to be discouraged relative to non-innovative counterparts. Innovative activity can increase borrower discouragement for a myriad of reasons including fear of rejection, reluctance to take on additional risk, negative perceptions of the funding application process and perceived negative economic conditions. Overall, our results suggest a need for targeted policy interventions in order to alleviate borrower discouragement of innovative SMEs, as well as a closer alignment between innovation and SME finance policy. Publisher PDF

Fernando Rubiera and Tania Fernández-García would like to thank financial support to the Asturias Government and GITPA thought the Chair for the analysis of innovation (grant agreement No CATI-2020-005 CINNOVA). Vicente Liern and Blanca Pérez-Gladish would like to thank financial support to the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, project reference number: RTI2018-093541-B-I00. In this paper, we address the problem of the ranking of companies based on their diversity and financial performance. The addressed problem is a multiple criteria decision-making problem where a composite measure needs to be obtained to rank firms. Taking as a reference the methodological approach followed by Refinitiv in the construction of their Diversity and Inclusion Index, we propose an alternative ranking framework that overcomes some of the problems identified in the methodological approach of Refinitiv. In particular, the proposed method in this work does not require the a priori establishment of a weighting scheme and is able to incorporate the past behavior of the companies in terms of diversity in their workplaces. Publisher PDF

This qualitative study provides empirical knowledge and develops theory about the role of strategic management in Malaysian local government. As the country addresses the grand challenge of economic growth amid enduring national aspirations of moving from developing to fully developed status, the analysis identifies six approaches to strategic management across nine Malaysian local authorities. Rather than presenting a linear story of progression, the six models of strategizing in Malaysia illuminate the governance traditions that co-exist in this setting. The study examines the assumptions about public management that underpin the different approaches and relates these to the country's inheritance of classical public administration and centralized government, the introduction of New Public Management, and the subsequent emergence of features of New Public Governance. It contributes to theory by providing an analysis of the role of strategy in each of the three governance traditions and connects debates about local governance with scholarship on strategic management. It also contributes to the emerging literature on strategizing for grand challenges and the limited repository of such studies located in a public sector context. The article ends by identifying the implications for policy and practice and suggesting areas for further research. Points for practitioners This study highlights the need for collaboration to address strategic meta problems, manage economic pressures and deliver public services. The six approaches to strategy development presented provide a set of models and frames through which practitioners may assess their local environment. Our typology offers a basis for cross-sectoral learning and reflection, including ways of diagnosing contextual variables and developing strategic knowledge. The Malaysian case shows how the context of strategy formation has been affected by the shift from local government to governance, as well as by interacting colonial legacies.

Research for this article was partly funded by Danida, “Realising the SDGS: The role of responsible business”. National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation. In response to wider critiques of international human rights norms, and their failure to exact universal state compliance, experimentalist governance theory highlights the dynamic, dialogic and iterative character of human rights implementation as well as the role of stakeholders. In this article, we apply experimentalist governance theory to evaluate the role and character of business and human rights NAPs. Rather than attempting to evaluate NAPs’ ultimate consequences for rights-holders, which appears premature, we focus on NAPs processes. Specifically, we analyse NAPs processes in twenty-five states against five experimentalist governance criteria relating to (i) stakeholder participation; (ii) agreement on a broad problem definition; (iii) local contextualisation; (iv) monitoring and peer review and (v) periodic revision and learning. According to our findings, NAPs on business and human rights in most states demonstrate resemblance to the traits of experimentalist governance. In particular, our analysis points to the emergence of relatively sophisticated and demanding institutional governance mechanisms within NAPs — including the institutionalisation of complex deliberative processes. Nevertheless, our paper also identifies some significant shortcomings in NAPs, related to the lack of inclusion of vulnerable groups and the lack of explicit indicators and targets. Publisher PDF

Business angels (BAs) - high net worth individuals who provide informal risk capital to firms - are seen as important providers of entrepreneurial finance. Theory and conventional wisdom suggest that the need for face-to-face interaction will ensure angels will have a strong predilection for local investments. We empirically test this assumption using a large representative survey of UK BAs. Our results show local bias is less common than previously thought with only one quarter of total investments made locally. However, we also show pronounced regional disparities, with investment activity dominated by BAs in London and Southern England. In these locations there is a stronger propensity for localised investment patterns mediated by the “thick” nature of the informal risk capital market. Together these trends further reinforce and exacerbate the disparities evident in the UK’s financial system. The findings make an important contribution to the literature and public policy debates on the uneven nature of financial markets for sources of entrepreneurial finance. Publisher PDF

It is commonly held that unexcused impermissible acts are necessarily blameworthy, not praiseworthy. I argue that unexcused impermissible acts can be not only pro tanto praiseworthy but also overall praiseworthy—and even more so than permissible alternatives. For example, there are cases in which it is impermissible to, at great cost to yourself, rescue fewer rather than more strangers, yet overall praiseworthy, and more so than permissibly rescuing no one. I develop a general framework illuminating how praiseworthiness can so radically come apart from deontic status. Postprint

The notion that business corporations should be managed for the exclusive benefit of shareholders has been widely challenged. In particular, critics have argued that directors are authorised to serve the interests of the corporation: a legal entity that is completely separate from its shareholders. However, the premise that shareholders have sole legitimate claim to ‘membership’ has rarely been questioned. This article explores medieval thought on ownership, authority and participation in guilds, churches, towns and universities, and shows that membership can be understood as participation in, and shared responsibility for, a group's distinct collaborative activity over time. Our theory suggests that ‘membership’ in the modern corporation extends to non-shareholding stakeholders, but with the implication that ownership and authority are vested in the members as a body and not in a separate entity.

Employee owned companies (EOCs) are a growing sector of the UK economy and yet research remains divided on their impact and effectiveness. While research has focussed on the links between ownership form and organisational performance, in this paper we investigate whether distinctive ‘economic democracy skills’ can be identified. Our findings reveal that economic democracy skills in EOCs comprise formal business-owner skills - termed skills in economic democracy - and softer socioemotional skills necessary for effective democratic functioning, which we label economic democracy skills. These skills are developed through democracy work by EOCs. The implications of these findings for the sustainable performance of democratically owned firms are discussed. Postprint

This paper examines the role of accelerator programmes in promoting transnational entrepreneurship. Designed to assist the growth of start-ups by providing seed finance and structured entrepreneurship support, these programmes are now a prominent feature in many entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. Drawing on in-depth qualitative evidence focused on one particular programme, the paper shows accelerators play an important intermediary or “brokerage mechanism” providing start-ups with enhanced relational connections and networks. Transnational entrepreneurs attracted to these programmes are highly focused on exploiting these networks whilst maintaining multiple levels of embeddedness in various contexts to maximise the opportunities afforded by accelerators. While many governments are attempting to replicate accelerators programmes within the public sector, the paper concludes that such attempts may prove problematic within weaker entrepreneurial ecosystems. Postprint

This paper examines a novel and innovative methodological approach and dataset for measuring the complex relational dynamics underpinning entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). Existing measurement techniques have largely failed to yield sufficiently nuanced data or insights to inform robust policy recommendations within this research field. To rectify this situation, this paper sets out a novel approach to assessing the relational connectivity within EEs by capturing entrepreneurial "conversations". Drawing on real-time data extracted from an event-based social media platform, in combination with social network analysis and qualitative interview data, we provide an in-depth assessment of the relational connections within the city of Edinburgh at three analytical levels. Overall, the paper demonstrates that the analysis of conversations and conversational spaces is an important mechanism for exploring and mapping the relational connectivity within EEs. As well as producing novel empirical insights, this approach provides policy makers with vital strategic policy intelligence to help better inform public policy frameworks and associated interventions. Postprint

This study examines the effect of the lender’s social capital on the link between the borrower’s social capital and the cost of bank loans. We exploit the last financial crisis as an exogenous shock to trust during which social capital becomes more valuable. Our findings suggest that when a lender’s social capital is high, borrowers with high social capital pay 46.22 basis points less on their bank loans than those with low social capital., Cette étude examine l’effet du capital social du prêteur sur le lien entre le capital social de l’emprunteur et le coût des prêts bancaires. On a exploité la dernière crise financière, comme un choc exogène à la confiance des acteurs du marché financier, au cours duquel le capital social a pris plus de valeur. Nos résultats suggèrent que lorsque le capital social du prêteur est élevé, les emprunteurs ayant un capital social élevé paient 46,22 points de base de moins sur leurs prêts bancaires que les emprunteurs ayant un capital social faible., En este trabajo se estudia el efecto del capital social del prestador sobre el vínculo entre el capital social del prestatario y el coste de los préstamos bancarios. Se ha aprovechado la última crisis financiera como un choque exógeno de confianza, durante la cual el capital social se volvió más valioso. Los resultados sugirieron que cuando el capital social de un prestador es alto, los prestatarios con alto capital social pagan 46.22 puntos básicos menos en sus préstamos bancarios que aquellos que lo tienen más bajo.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. 1) We propose for the first time in the literature a theory (managerial learning hypothesis) that may explain why managers engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). 2) We use an intuitive empirical methodology (Edmans et al. 2017) to test the relevance/irrelevance of our new theory. The idea behind our main contribution is that managers engage in CSR to learn new relevant information from other informed stakeholders. In return, managers will use both the new information and other information they already have to choose the optimal level of firm’s investment (Jayaraman and Wu, 2019). Therefore, we propose to examine whether a strong CSR engagement improves revelatory efficiency (Edmans et al. 2012, 2017). The latter accounts for the extent to which stock prices reveal new information to managers that will help them make value-maximizing choices. Our findings suggest that CSR activities do not allow firm’s managers to extract new information from their stock prices and ultimately improve the efficiency of their investment choices. Publisher PDF

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. Publisher PDF

This paper illustrates how chronic uncertainty caused by crisis events affects the availability of entrepreneurial sources of finance for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To explore this line of argument, this paper examines Crunchbase real-time data examining entrepreneurial finance investments in China during unfolding Covid-19 crisis. The paper shows that these equity investments slumped dramatically in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 virus, resulting in a year on year decrease of 60% in the total volume of investment raised between quarter 1 in 2019 and quarter 1 in 2020. Importantly, the paper found early-stage seed investments falling the steepest, suggesting nascent start-ups are those most heavily affected by the crisis. While the global financial crisis heavily hit debt markets, the relational nature of equity investments may mean entrepreneurial finance is even more susceptible to major upheaval caused by the Covid-19 crisis. Overall, enterprise policy makers need to become better attuned at monitoring real-time data sources to mitigate chronic entrepreneurial uncertainty via strategic policy responses., Highlights • This paper illustrates how chronic uncertainty caused by crisis events affects the availability of equity investments. • Equity investments in China slumped and resulted in a year on year decrease of 60% in the volume of investment raised. • The paper found early-stage seed investments falling the steepest, suggesting nascent start-ups are those most affected. • Policy makers need to become better attuned at monitoring real-time data sources to mitigate entrepreneurial uncertainty.

Effective Altruism is a social movement which encourages people to do as much good as they can when helping others, given limited money, time, effort, and other resources. This paper first identifies a minimal philosophical view that underpins this movement, and then argues that there is an analogous minimal philosophical view which might underpin Effective Justice, a possible social movement that would encourage promoting justice most effectively, given limited resources. The latter minimal view reflects an insight about justice, and our non-diminishing moral reason to promote more of it, that surprisingly has gone largely unnoticed and undiscussed. The Effective Altruism movement has led many to reconsider how best to help others, but relatively little attention has been paid to the differences in degrees of cost-effectiveness of activities designed to decrease injustice. This paper therefore not only furthers philosophical understanding of justice, but has potentially major practical implications. Publisher PDF

Whether return synchronicity is associated with higher or lower stock price informativeness is still an ongoing debate in the academic literature. This paper contributes to this debate by exploiting an exogenous shock, provided by a regulatory change introduced by the Federal Reserve in 2015, and examining its impact on return synchronicity using a sample of U.S. listed bank holding companies (BHCs) operating during the period of 2014: Q3 – 2016: Q2. Applying a regression discontinuity design, we find that return synchronicity of treated BHCs decreases after the regulatory change. This finding suggests that lower return synchronicity represents lower stock price informativeness. Postprint

This debate article provides a critical examination of the rationale for, and validity of, mission-oriented innovation policies. It does so by providing a critique of the “mission-oriented” approach espoused for the new Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB). The central contention put forward in this paper is that its mission-oriented approach constitutes “fuzzy” policy making which is highly opaque, lacking sufficient detail and fails to align itself properly with the demand conditions within the Scottish innovation system. Arguably, this policy approach could result in significant policy path dependencies which could further reinforce (rather than reverse) the inherent weaknesses within the Scottish innovation system. The paper outlines an alternative “diffusion-oriented” approach which seems better equipped at overcoming the entrenched “low productivity, low innovation equilibrium” evident in Scotland. Regional innovation policy must be properly customised to ensure new agencies are effectively tailored and aligned to the demand conditions within their local innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. In short, policy should be context-led rather than mission-led. Postprint

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of a struggle for power over the regulation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social and environmental accounting and reporting (SEAR) within the European Union.Design/methodology/approachThe paper combines insights from institutional theory (Lawrence and Buchanan, 2017) with Vaara et al.’s (2006) and Vaara and Tienar’s (2008) discursive strategies approach in order to interrogate the dynamics of the institutional “arena” that emerged in 2001, following the European Commission’s publication of a Green Paper (GP) on CSR policy and reporting. Drawing on multiple sources of data (including newspaper coverage, semi-structured interviews and written submissions by companies and NGOs), the authors analyse the institutional political strategies employed by companies and NGOs – two of the key stakeholder groupings who sought to influence the dynamics and outcome of the European initiative.FindingsThe results show that the 2001 GP was a “triggering event” (Hoffman, 1999) that led to the formation of the institutional arena that centred on whether CSR policy and reporting should be voluntary or mandatory. The findings highlight how two separate, but related forms of power (systemic and episodic power) were exercised much more effectively by companies compared to NGOs. The analysis of the power initiatives and discursive strategies deployed in the arena provides a theoretically informed understanding of the ways in which companies acted in concert to reach their objective of maintaining CSR and SEAR as a voluntary activity.Originality/valueThe theoretical framework outlined in the paper highlights how the analysis of CSR and SEAR regulation can be enriched by examining the deployment of episodic and systemic power by relevant actors.

Through an empirically grounded analysis of contested interpretations of\ud impact held by business school academics and wider stakeholders, we\ud provide a political and relational understanding of research impact\ud whereby impacts are realized through situated, relational and ongoing\ud interactions. Our qualitative study of three UK business and management\ud schools, comprising interviews with around 70 researchers, academic\ud leaders and stakeholders explores conceptualizations of impact,\ud examines the processes through which impact is achieved and considers\ud the influence of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The inclusion\ud of academic leaders and business stakeholders adds value to studies\ud that have focused primarily on academic researchers. We present a\ud nuanced picture of the ways in which academics and business\ud stakeholders conceptualize impact and navigate the complexity of roles\ud and relationships in this arena. Implications for practice include the\ud desirability of embracing different understandings of impact, creating\ud space for generative dialogue and incorporating impact more explicitly\ud in teaching and learning.

This paper investigates the role of credit card financing in UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this varies by location and business orientation. Using a large scale dataset of UK SMEs, the results of a regression based analysis suggest that firms located in peripheral geographic areas have greater usage of credit cards relative to counterparts located in ‘core’ locations. Innovative, growth, and export-oriented SMEs are also more inclined to use credit card financing. Moreover, SMEs that use credit cards as a form of improvised financial ‘bootstrapping’ are more likely to seek additional funding sources in the future. Postprint

This work was conducted while Prof. Pérez-Gladish was a visitant researcher at the Business School of The University of Edinburgh. She would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education Culture and Sport for its financial support within the framework of its International Mobility Program for Senior Researchers “Salvador de Madariaga” (Reference PRX16-0169). Since the publication of the seminal paper by Hwang and Yoon (1981) proposing Technique for Order Performance by the Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), a substantial number of papers used this technique in a variety of applications requiring a ranking of alternatives. Very few papers use TOPSIS as a classifier (e.g. Wu and Olson, 2006; Abd-El Fattah et al., 2013) and report a good performance as in-sample classifiers. However, in practice, its use in predicting discrete variables such as risk class belonging is limited by the lack of an out-of-sample evaluation framework. In this paper, we fill this gap by proposing an integrated in-sample and out-of-sample framework for TOPSIS classifiers and test its performance on a UK dataset of bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) during 2010–2014. Empirical results show an outstanding predictive performance both in-sample and out-of-sample and thus opens a new avenue for research and applications in risk modelling and analysis using TOPSIS as a non-parametric classifier and makes it a real contender in industry applications in banking and investment. In addition, the proposed framework is robust to a variety of implementation decisions. Postprint

As philanthropic foundations take on increasingly prominent socio-political roles, the need for stronger conceptualizations of foundations as an organizational form is articulated widely across academic, policy and practice contexts. Building on institutional research’s tradition of categorizing, classifying and typologizing organizational forms, our paper critically explores the different ways in which foundations have been cast and differentiated in international academic and practice literatures. Examining and integrating these, we propose an integrative framework of foundation types. Incorporating 13 categories – three contextual, five organizational and five strategic ones – the framework allows for clarifying distinctions and identifying commonalities between different foundation forms, offering a basis for developing more reflective and differentiated research and practice knowledge. Postprint

In the absence of a legal foundation form, and with differing national legal contexts, researching U.K. foundations presents major conceptual and practical challenges. This article maps and critically discusses the U.K. foundation landscape; it highlights the blurred boundaries of foundations as an organizational form and outlines the different expressions of charity laws that foundations face across the U.K.’s constituent parts. Examining data on foundation characteristics, the article shows that although data on foundations indicate that the organizational characteristics and activities of U.K. foundations resemble those in Germany and the United States, there remains an urgent need for more, and for more robust, data and insights on U.K. foundations to allow for meaningful comparison. Pointing to increased socio-economic challenges and changes in political perspectives on foundations, the article explores the shifting attitudes towards, and expectations and roles of, U.K. foundations and reflects on the issues ahead. Postprint

This study examines the relationship between CEO risk-taking incentives, measured by the sensitivity of CEO wealth held in options to a change in stock return volatility or Vega, and socially irresponsible activities using a large sample of U.S. firms during the period 1992–2012. Our results for the period before the 2007 financial crisis suggest that CEO risk-taking incentives are positively related to socially irresponsible activities. In addition, we find that a firm's socially responsible actions may act as a moderator, strengthening the aforementioned relationship. The results after the 2007 financial crisis show no evidence of a significant relationship between CEO risk-taking incentives and socially irresponsible activities. This could be due to the increased scrutiny regarding compensation packages and the increased role of reputational issues in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Our results suggest that risk-taking incentives embedded in the CEO compensation scheme have implications for corporate policies toward socially irresponsible activities. Postprint

This article critically analyses the management of public sector austerity. Focusing on the case of UK local government chief executives, we develop the concept of austerity imaginaries. We provide four examples of these based on extensive interviewing. Offered as a theoretical concept, austerity imaginaries involve shared understandings of the role and potential for local government during times of acute fiscal pressure. We contribute empirical knowledge about the local dynamics of austerity and contribute to critical scholarship in this field. We argue that a simple thesis of ruination and destruction can obscure the creative work involved at the front line and we advocate the value of engaging both critically and empathetically with the everyday meanings in action of public managers working in circumstances far from their choosing. At the same time, the imaginaries reveal the insidious ways in which neoliberal assumptions about the public sector appear to delimit the scope for action. Publisher PDF

This paper emerges from an invitation to reflect upon the achievements of social and environmental accounting as well as to identify the challenges that lie ahead as the field continues its engagement with the goal of sustainable development. Three perspectives are developed in pursuit of that aim, namely: exploring the nature of the issues and mode of academic inquiry that is ‘fit for purpose’ given the demands of sustainable development; considering if a de-centring of accounting and the embrace of more holistic versions of accountability would be productive for future scholarship; and an exploration of how we might conceptualise ‘engagement’ with practice in this context (and what is meant by practice and practitioner). Taken together, this paper seeks to provide points of provocation and encouragement to social and environmental accountants, critical accounting scholars and to those seeking to understand sustainable development scholarship and action. Postprint