Traditional Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)-programs rarely include participatory components that connect CSR-activities of private companies with their local communities. However, there is an increasing demand to include citizens as well as the resources and expertise of the private sector in the design and implementation of local community planning processes. To assess the potential, opportunities, and challenges of including private companies into participatory community planning at a local level, we analyzed the experiences that we collected during the piloting phase and the commercial roll-out of the ‘Bürgercockpit’-application for citizen participation, as well as the results of a digital CSR-questionnaire that we shared with different companies in Austria. Our research indicates that most of the participating companies are interested in including local communities into their CSR-projects using a digital tool, if this tool is easy-to-use, easy-to-access, and provides a flexible structure to address specific project requirements as well as properly designed features for stakeholder communication and user feedback. The findings of both, the ‘Bürgercockpit’-pilot study and the CSR-questionnaire provided us valuable input for designing a prototype solution of a digital CSR-tool for participatory community planning at a local level as well as recommendations for future research in this topic of growing interest.

Traditional travel agencies and tour operators are recognized as relevant stakeholders in the tourism distribution chain, even though their role as transforming agents in the achievement of more sustainable tourism is beginning to be accepted. This document collects the main topics and the most recent approaches from the academic literature in its analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices developed by these intermediaries. The work has been structured around six recurring themes in most of the studies carried out: the new intermediaries that operate on the Internet; the role of travel agencies and tour operators in tourism sustainability; the influence of the size of the company; CSR as a disruptive innovation in this sector; the potential of the sustainable tourism supply chain; and the motivations and attitudes of the managers of these businesses when they engage with responsibility. This last topic is developed in greater detail since it is closely linked to the previous ones and dictates in most cases the meaning and function of the sustainable performance.

The modern technologies require the need to analyze the opportunities for improvement the integration of digital technologies in CSR activities in the context of added values be-tween business and science in perspective, incl. the future digital society. The main goal of this article is to identify the current state of research on the integration of digital technolo-gies in CSR activities in business, as well as to prepare recommendations for further re-search and practice. A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of 129 scien-tific articles published between 2014 to 2023 was performed. The bibliometric analysis was organized in two directions: descriptive and performance analysis, through which we can study the contribution of the analyzed objects to the given scientific area, and science mapping, which studies the relationships among them. The results indicate that the com-panies use more frequently artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things and other technologies to increase the efficiency and impact of their CSR activities. In addition, this research reveals the basis of bringing forward the new trends for future publications, which shall upgrade and enrich the theory and practice.

Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China from 2011 to 2018 and the digital inclusive finance index of Peking University (2011-2018), this paper empirically tests the impact of digital finance development on corporate social responsibility in various provinces of China and its impact mechanism. The results show that: (1) the development of digital finance helps to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility; (2) the influence mechanism of the development of digital finance to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility lies in that it reduces the cost of debt financing and leads to the improvement of corporate social responsibility.(3) Further research shows that the positive relationship between digital finance and corporate social responsibility is more significant in private enterprises. At the same time, the impact is more significant in areas with poor market environment. The above research shows that the development of digital finance has a significant positive effect, which will improve the level of corporate social responsibility.

The study is dedicated to analyzing the complex interaction between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) with institutional structures in the context of sustainable development. This work examines the impact of these technologies on economic and social development, identifying their potential advantages and risks. Methodologically, the research relies on information gathering and case study analysis, assessing the impact of technology in various domains, from smart cities to the manufacturing sector. The findings emphasize the necessity of integrating technological innovations into broader social and environmental initiatives, highlighting the importance of institutional transformations for achieving environmental sustainability.

Knowledge of the motivations of managers to practice Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a critical issue for those who promote its adoption. The understanding of these reasons is complicated by the fact that there are different ways of defining this responsibility, raising the question of whether there is any relationship between reasons for adopting it and how to define it. To address this issue, a classification of these reasons was constructed and related to a classification of the different ways of defining CSR. A self-administered questionnaire was applied to a non-probability sample of Social Responsibility managers, which included indicators for both classifications. It was found that these managers present all types of motives, with proactive outweighing reactive motives and that there is a significant degree of correlation between the ways of defining CSR and the reasons for doing so. This suggests that managers present coherence in their objectives (motives) and means (practices of Social Responsibility.

Early childhood may be a stressful period for families with a significant impact on parents’ mental health and the child’s healthy development. The goal of the SKKIPPI cohort study was to assess the occurrence and determinants of psychosocial stress and mental health disorders in parents as well as in their offspring in early childhood in three German regions. Based on random samples from three residents' registration offices, parents with infants up to 12 months of age at the time of sampling, were invited to participate in the study. A screening online questionnaire was newly developed, available in four languages, to assess common psy-chosocial stressors and mental health problems of parents with small children. The study enrolled 4,984 mothers and 962 fathers. The most common potential psychosocial stressors at baseline were professional problems (mothers 22%, fathers 33%), lack of social sup-port (20%, 14%), and severe, negative experiences in childhood (22%, 16%). Obses-sive-compulsive thoughts (21%, 16%), depressive (9%, 9%) and anxiety symptoms (11%, 7%) were the most frequently reported mental health problems by both parents. Regulatory prob-lems of the child were reported by between 1.5% and 5.1% of parents. The SKKIPPI study showed that a substantial proportion of parents are burdened by psychoso-cial problems and suffer from mental health problems in the first years after birth. Early pre-ventive and low-threshold support measures should be available in the health and social care system. The newly developed questionnaire can be used to screen in the relevant populations in order to avoid disturbances in the mother-child attachment.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between high-performance work systems and a company’s social performance, taking into account the organizational climate as a situational variable. Specifically, this study aimed to analyze the impact of perceptions of a high-performance work system on the perception of a company’s social responsibility (CSR) among employees of Jordanian companies with an organizational size of 300 or more. This study used 175 valid questionnaires, and SPSS and AMOS 24 were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that there was a positive relationship between the perception of a high-performance work system and the perception of a company’s CSR. Furthermore, this study found that a positive diversity climate could enhance the positive relationship between the two. These findings suggest that high-performance work systems can contribute to the development of sustainable human resource management systems and that a positive diversity climate is essential in shaping these systems. Based on these results, it is recommended that companies implement HPWSs and encourage workforce diversity to maximize the value of CSR activities and ensure their sustainability.

At a basic level, entrepreneurship refers to an individual or a small group of partners that intend to create a new business. Entrepreneurship is at forefront of any competitive economy due to the creation of new products and services that comes from new ideas. In other words, entrepreneurship is associated with economic wealth, growth and innovation. The usage of resources in the creation of new businesses needs to be rational because investors normally are risk averse, and nowadays, the purpose of a new business needs to be for a long-term period, and the usage of resources has to take into mind the possible damage to the planet. In other words, entrepreneurs and the sustainability of the planet are interconnected. Beyond this, entrepreneurs need to take care of the corporate social responsibility of each new business, considering the interests of itself, its stakeholders, and the public. Nevertheless, existing research has not shown in full all the research streams, how they interact with each other and their potential knowledge development. Thus, a literature review on social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility in the last decade are opportune. This paper aims to identify research trends in the field through a Systematic Bibliometric Literature Review of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility research. The review includes 69 articles published in the Scopus® database, presenting up-to-date knowledge on the topic.

An increasing number of studies have proposed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance depends on how companies apply their resources and capabilities to implement CSR. A firm’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to respond to environmental changes is its dynamic capability. Implementation of CSR at the strategic level will contribute to a firm’s sustainability. However, the research on strategic CSR is incipient. This study explores possible mechanisms to investigate how dynamic capability influences the performance of strategic CSR in China. By analyzing 134 Chinese listed companies in the period 2017–2019, in this study, we found that firms with a high level of dynamic capability were less likely to adopt strategic CSR practices, and had a low strategic CSR adoption performance. The results confirmed the loss aversion channel, indicating that firms with a high dynamic capability level were loss averse and that managers had a decreasing sensibility in decision-making and allocated fewer company resources in CSR projects. These results can help companies to better understand the dynamic capability and how dynamic capability contributes to the adoption of strategic CSR and performance over time. The policy implications of the study are also discussed.

Numerous researchers acknowledge that occupational pension protects employees. However, the total occupational pension is shared by employees and employers in China, which is a cost. This study aimed to explore the occupational pension on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational resilience. We drew upon insights from cost-stickiness and resource-based theories to develop a model that illuminates how occupational pension affected firms’ stance toward CSR in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and how this, in turn, has result organizational resilience. This study categorized CSR into strategic and responsive activities based on cost stickiness. We selected a total of 34,145 observations of Chinese listed companies over the period 2010-2023 as a sample to investigate whether occupational pension changes CSR strategies. The results showed that the cost pressure to contribute to occupational pension drove firms to reduce their responsive CSR and boost their strategic CSR. Moreover, strategic CSR improved organizational resilience, but responsive CSR did not. This relationship between occupational pension and CSR was significantly and negatively moderated by the minimum wage and population aging. Whereas, the relationship between CSR and organizational resilience was significantly and positively moderated by digital transformation and marketing capabilities. This study has implications for decision-making regarding high-quality firm development.

This study investigates the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dimensions and employees' satisfaction and retention for sustainability in banks. Carroll (1991) proposed a theoretical approach that consists of four components (economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic) to analyze CSR activities and their effects on employee’s satisfaction and retention in the company. Simple random sampling was used to get the information from 221 participants. The entire form of the dataset is utilized to execute regression and correlation analysis using SPSS. In order to find out the relationship between economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic factors and employee's satisfaction and retention, regression beta coefficient and correlation coefficients were used to analyze. This study also examines the relationship between job satisfaction and intentions to retain with an organization. The findings demonstrate that the CSR aspects of ethical and philanthropic have a considerable and favorable influence on employee's satisfaction. The outcome also demonstrates a good and prominent influence of legal CSR on the satisfaction of employee's to retain with the firm. Moreover, this study demonstrates that economic aspect of CSR has no significant impact on employee's retention and satisfaction. Correlation analysis depicts that economic CSR is positively and significantly connected with employee's retention and satisfaction. This research came to the conclusion that enhancing employees view regarding CSR activities such as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic will increase employee's satisfaction. Therefore, executives and managers in the banks should take steps to influence how employees see CSR areas in order to raise employee's satisfaction and retention in the banks for sustainability.

The field of CSR has witnessed considerable growth and established itself as a significant subject in family business literature. However, despite previous reviews exploring this topic from various angles, there remains a crucial gap in understanding the influence of diverse regulatory frameworks and cultural values on the development of literature production and research streams across different regions. This gap holds particular significance for comprehending the latest advancements in this dynamic field, particularly in emerging economies, where cultural norms play a substantial role in shaping the relationship between family firms and CSR. To bridge this gap, this paper conducts a comprehensive review of empirical studies focusing on sustainability in family firms. These studies are organized based on the country of study, and our review encompasses 232 articles published between 1996 and 2023. Utilizing bibliometric software, we systematically group these articles into three distinct clusters: North American studies, European studies, and Asian studies, adhering strictly to our inclusion criteria.

Cooperative organizations try to balance economic viability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) management through strategic policies that involve dialogue, participation and engagement with stakeholders. To measure the impact of CSR management, the electricity sector implements monitoring processes and models, such as the Sustainability Reporting Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which measure contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. This research analyses the strategic management of CSR in the 28 electric cooperatives that market electricity in Spain with the aim of determining their level of commitment to CSR and stakeholder participation in their corporate policies. The analysis is based on the descriptive-exploratory study of the whole population of electric cooperatives. The results indicate that the CSR management of most electric cooperatives is still in an emerging stage within the Value Curve. Importantly, there is a significant percentage of cooperatives that have already advanced towards the consolidating and institutionalized stages. However, most of these social-economy organizations are not developing programs that link their CSR strategies with their priority SDGs and sustainability as commitment to their community.

This qualitative research investigates the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) within the e-commerce sector. Through semi-structured interviews and secondary data analysis, the study explores motivations, challenges, impacts, and strategic outcomes of integrating CSR practices into supplier relationships. Motivations for adopting CSR include ethical considerations, regulatory compliance, and meeting stakeholder expectations, reflecting a strategic alignment with corporate values and societal demands. Challenges such as resource constraints, regulatory complexities, and cultural differences highlight operational hurdles and strategic considerations e-commerce firms face in implementing CSR initiatives effectively. The study reveals that CSR enhances trust, collaboration, and risk mitigation within e-commerce supply chains through transparent communication, shared values, and ethical practices. Strategically, CSR contributes to enhanced brand equity, competitive advantage, and long-term value creation by differentiating firms in competitive markets and attracting socially conscious consumers and investors. However, economic trade-offs, stakeholder divergence, and operational complexities require firms to adopt adaptive strategies that balance short-term financial goals with long-term sustainability objectives. The findings suggest avenues for future research exploring longitudinal impacts of CSR on supplier relationships, cross-sectoral comparisons, and technological advancements in CSR-driven SRM practices. Practically, e-commerce firms should prioritize strategic alignment of CSR initiatives with core business objectives, engage stakeholders in CSR strategy development, and embrace continuous improvement to foster ethical conduct, stakeholder trust, and sustainable business practices.

This paper aims to argue the fundamental significance of education in addressing notable gaps in the constitutive, performance, and evaluation criteria for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and endeavours to showcase the complementarity between education, human security, sustainable human development, and the pursuit of CSR as an ideal normative paradigm. An abstractive approach to studying CSR engages with corporate philanthropy, which has not been helpful outside traditional CSR paradigms without looking at key dynamics that can robustly underpin successful CSR. It relies on the systematic analysis of written data sources to theoretically explore the central significance, and complementarity between human security, education, and human dignity and how they can orchestrate a holistic CSR paradigm. In 1994, the UNDP in formulating the human security doctrine recognised the syncretic correlation between human security, education, and sustainable human development as fundamental elements that should underpin CSR. This paper contends that these are necessary intrinsic components of human dignity as the central factor that justifies a multi-dimensional and proactive approach to CSR. Despite the criticisms against human security, this paper identifies it as an important concept that could instrumentally orchestrate a model of CSR that uniformly mainstreams sustainable human development and human dignity that leverages education which has routinely and traditionally been seen as a constitutive component of CSR. It reveals how a holistic path to CSR can reinvigorate the central pillars of human security and human dignity using education as a springboard and makes a compelling case for supporting explicit references to education in company law with appropriate human security informed constitutive, performance, and evaluation criteria which are absent in existing legally orchestrated CSR.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact on corporate social responsibility when Jordanian banks disclose risks. The main objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between risk disclosure and corporate social responsibility in the banking sector in Jordan. To achieve this goal, data was collected from 23 Jordanian banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) over a period of 10 years, from 2010 to 2019. The data was analyzed using a regression model with four independent variables that represent the risk disclosure; corporate social responsibility was used as the dependent variable. The study also built in controls for the age of each bank, its size, leverage, and ROE, to ensure that the results were not affected by these factors. The results of the study show that all independent variables are positively correlated with corporate social responsibility. This suggests that disclosing risks is an effective way to improve corporate social responsibility in the banking industry. The findings of this study have important practical implications for bank managers, future researchers, and policymakers. The study also highlights the importance of future research in this field in order to understand the relationship between risk disclosure and corporate social responsibility in other countries and within other sectors of industry.

Corporate governance is widely suggested by economists and regulators as a solution to reduce agency problems and improve firm performance. However previous studies have failed to generate consistent results. Using a dynamic panel system GMM estimator to alleviate endogeneity concerns we determine the effect of corporate board structure on the performance of a panel of 1265 Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2010 to 2016. We compare the dynamic system GMM estimator to some commonly used estimators; ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects (FE) and the dynamic OLS, and show that these estimates are biased due to endogeneity. The dynamic system GMM estimator incorporates the dynamic nature of internal governance choices to provide valid and powerful instruments that address unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity. Our results show support for the board model corporate governance mechanism. We find that board size is positive and significantly related to both return on assets and total net profit margin. In addition board independence is positive and significantly related to return on assets but insignificantly related to total net profit margin. Duality was found to have a negative but statistically insignificant relation with firm performance.

The present study finds the association of board characteristics (such as gender diversity, independence, female chairperson or/and female CEO, and board size) and the quality of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure of the top 100 Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) listed companies. Unlike most earlier studies in similar contexts, we have focused on CSR disclosure ‘quality’ and not ‘quantity’. We conducted the content analysis of secondary Corporate Governance (CG) and CSR data extracted from the annual reports of PSX-listed companies across ten industrial sectors from period of 2017 and 2018. Our empirical investigation through univariate and multiple regression analysis with Ordinary least squares (OLS) techniques revealed that all the board characteristics potentially have a significant association in lessening CSR disclosure quality. We acknowledge several research limitations, including the study time period and selected board characteristics. While our study has provided some understanding of the association of board characteristics with CSR disclosure quality of PSX-listed companies, several research gaps still need to be addressed. Future investigators should examine this association through the pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 connections and the inclusion of a systems theory perspective.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly important for companies in recent years. On the one hand, regulatory frameworks require the disclosure of measures for sustainable management. On the other hand, for long-term corporate success, stakeholders must be strategically engaged in the dialog on sustainability aspects. Social media, and Twitter in particular, offer the potential to foster a meaningful stakeholder dialogue on CSR topics. Due to Elon Musk's acquisition in the fall of 2022, this strategic disruption provides an opportunity to systematically capture the platform's past activities and strategies to synthesize practical information that can guide Twitter usage decision making and be used for research to serve as the basis for future comparative longitudinal studies of changes in usage. We conducted a literature review including 42 papers to contribute to the body of evidence on CSR communication strategies on Twitter across industries and countries by deriving interdisciplinary suggestions for strategic CSR-related stakeholder management. Results cover relevant CSR topics, prioritized stakeholder groups for CSR communication on Twitter and successful communication strategies for companies to obtain beneficial results, such as generating social media capital. The results contribute to the strategic planning and implementation of CSR stakeholder management on Twitter and offer starting points for future studies on social media mining and CSR communication strategies.

The study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the corporate life cycle (CLC) of the Chinese pharmaceutical listed companies for the duration of 2010 to 2018. The firm cash flow pattern is used as a proxy for the CLC. The study results indicate that the relationship between CSR and CLC is positive and linear in all the phases of the CLC including, the introduction, growth and maturity stage. Although the relationship is smaller and more significant at the maturity phase. The research further shows that investors incorporating social responsibilities values play a key role in the firm cash flow performance (CFP) across all the firm stages. Whilst, employees espousing social responsibility tenets can only improve CFP in the decline or shakeout stages. Likewise, embedding CSR into the customers group only improves CFP at the maturity stage. Applying the lag effects lead to the same study results. The finding for the bi-directional causality indicates that although CSR can positively influence CFP, CFP is ultimately more associated with the firm unobservable characteristics rather than performance attributed to CSR. On the whole, our study results point to positive causality between CSR and CFP across all the firm life stages and the CSR has a mediating effect on each life cycle.

This paper analyzes the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social impact within the oil industry in an emerging market (Peru). Following the emerging literature on the social impact field, and using the case study methodology, the findings show that the expected positive relationship is diverse depending on several factors. Specifically, the results reveal that companies must focus on community and environmental responsibility, together with stakeholders' involvement to achieve social impact. However, when companies are weak in any of the previous factors, then the social impact is only partially accepted or even withdrawn.

This qualitative research explores the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on supply chain sustainability within the renewable energy sector. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature, key themes and patterns are identified, shedding light on the complex dynamics and interrelationships inherent in CSR practices and their impact on supply chain sustainability. The findings highlight the critical role of CSR in driving environmental sustainability, social equity, economic viability, governance mechanisms, and technological innovation across renewable energy supply chains. Environmental sustainability emerges as a priority, with CSR initiatives focusing on reducing carbon emissions, promoting clean energy technologies, and adopting sustainable sourcing strategies. Social equity is emphasized through stakeholder consultation, transparent decision-making, and investments in community development. Economic viability is addressed through considerations of brand reputation, financial performance, and regulatory compliance. Governance mechanisms and regulatory frameworks play a crucial role in shaping CSR practices, with collaborative partnerships and policy advocacy driving industry-wide change. Technological innovation, particularly the integration of blockchain, IoT, and AI, enhances transparency, traceability, and accountability in supply chains. The study concludes by discussing theoretical implications, practical insights, limitations, and avenues for future research, highlighting the importance of CSR in promoting sustainable development in the renewable energy sector.

We examined how combinations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities lead to high performance in Korean companies. This study addressed two related questions to expand our limited knowledge in this area. The first was what combinations of CSR activities achieve high performance. The second was to identify how CSR activities form an interdependent system, depending on different corporate situations. Korean Economic Justice Institute index data, from 2012 to 2018, were used with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, and the results revealed several effective CSR activity factor combinations under given strategies and management environments. Companies with high performance exhibit complementarity between social contribution, environmental management, fairness, and employee satisfaction. By contrast, companies with low corporate performance show no complementarity between relatively unrelated activity factors. For companies whose CSR activities lead to low financial performance, most of the causal pathways focused only on activities at the primary stakeholder level, with weak diversity of CSR activities’ combinations at the primary and secondary stakeholder levels. These results indicate not only the appropriateness of CSR activity factor combinations for companies’ strategy and management environment contexts, but also their effectiveness, and are expected to provide companies with significant implications for CSR activities.

The commitment of the EU to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is projected in the EU law about annual reporting by businesses. Since EU member states further develop this framework by their own domestic laws, annual reporting with CSR information is not unified and just partially mandatory in the EU. Do all European businesses report CSR information and what public declaration to society do they provide with it? The main dual purpose of this paper is identifying the parameters of this annual reporting duty and studying the CSR information provided by the ten largest Czech companies in their annual statements for 2013-2017. Based on legislative research and the teleological interpretation, the current EU legislative framework with Czech particularities is presented and, via a case study exploring 50 annual reports, the data about the type, extent and depth of the CSR is dynamically and comparatively assessed. It appears that, at a minimum, large Czech businesses satisfy their legal duty and e-report on CSR in a similar extent, but in dramatically different quality. Employee matters and adherence to international standards are used as a public declaration to society more than the data on environmental protection, while social matters and R&D are played down.

This article investigates the impact of the foreign background of women directors on a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and performance. Using a dataset on listed firms on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange from 2010 to 2019, we find that corporate boards with a higher proportion of women directors with foreign education experience tend to disclose more CSR information. CSR performance is also improved when there is a greater proportion of women directors with foreign education and work experience on a board. This study provides new insights into integrating stakeholder, social role, and neo-institutional theories to advance the understanding of CSR engagement in emerging economies.

Although numerous articles have been published to address drivers or barriers of corporate social responsibility (CSR), some parts of the world have received less attention. In this study, I reviewed the literature, from 2010 to 2021, to identify drivers and barriers of CSR in the the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and compare them with the findings in western countries. (2) Methods: For this study, I used a structured literature review method. By setting the inclusion and exclusion criteria, only 28 articles remained from selected database; (3) Results: The findings revealed some CSR drivers, such as leadership styles, profitability, reputation, moral commitment, and environmental conservation are common in both regions. There are also some differences between CSR drivers, for example religious beliefs, low concentration of ownership, and company characteristics are some of the drivers in the MENA region. Maintaining social license to operate, avoiding the risks of community opposition, pressure from the government, and consumer demand tend to be more important in western countries. Common barriers in both regions are lack of financial resources, cost, lack of CSR knowledge and awareness, and ownership concentration. This review also highlighted that lack of law enforcement, lack of stakeholder communication, lack of management commitment, lack of interests, corruption, and financial debts are some of the addressed barriers of CSR in the MENA region, while cost/benefit ratio, lack of customer interest, and lack of scientific frameworks are the special barriers in western countries. (4) Conclusions: While researchers in western countries have more focus on energy sector, there is a lack of research about drivers and barriers of CSR in the MENA region in several industries, including oil and gas.

As the digital era advances, many industries continue to expand their use of digital technologies to support company operations, notably at the customer interface, bringing new commercial opportunities and increased efficiencies. However, there are new sets of responsibilities associated with the deployment of these technologies, encompassed within the emerging concept of corporate digital responsibility (CDR), which to date has received little attention in the academic literature. This exploratory paper thus looks to make a small contribution to addressing this gap in the literature. The paper adopts a qualitative, inductive research method, employing an initial scoping literature review followed by two case studies. Based on the research findings, a simple model of CDR parameters is put forward, and the article concludes with a discussion of a number of emergent issues - fair and equitable access, personal and social well-being, environmental implications, and cross-supply chain complexities - that suggest possible directions for future research.

Accounting studies neglected to link corporate social responsibility to accounting information, the theoretical background revealed the study gap and the paper referred to it in the question: Do the corporate social responsibility CSR dimensions affect the accounting information quality? as the study aimed to reveal the effect of corporate social responsibility dimensions (economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic) on accounting information quality (relevance and reliability) in banks in the Riyadh Governorate in Saudi Arabia. The researcher used a questionnaire to collect data from the study sample, and the data analysis was done using SPSS and smart partial least squares (pls), and its reliability and validity have been confirmed. Result revealed a positive effect of CSR (economic, ethical) dimension on the relevance of accounting information, a negative effect of CSR Legal dimension on the relevance of accounting information, and no effect of CSR philanthropic dimension on the relevance of accounting information, a positive effect of CSR (ethical, philanthropic) dimension on the reliability of accounting information and no effect of CSR economic and legal dimension on the reliability of accounting information.

This study focuses on a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2019 to 2020 to explore the relationships among corporate social responsibility, financial constraints, and financial performance. In addition, we discuss five factors affecting financial constraints. We also analyze the types of enterprises that can improve their financial performance by implementing corporate social responsibility keeping in mind the factors that lead to a high degree of financial constraint. The results indicate that: 1. The degree of financial constraints has a negative and significant impact on financial performance; 2. There is a reverse relationship between the degree of financial constraints and the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility measures; 3. Enterprises with high financial constraints (due to lower financial slack and revenue growth rates) can significantly improve their financial performance through the implementation of effective corporate social responsibility programs. 4. Enterprises with high financial constraints, caused by financial slack and revenue growth rate, can significantly improve their financial performance by implementing corporate social responsibility programs.

This paper aims to assess whether the financial performance of Portuguese companies that publish sustainability reports (SR) differs from the financial performance of companies that do not publish SR. We use two methodological procedures. First, we conducted a univariate analysis to test the differences in the financial performance according to the disclosure of SR. Second, we conducted a multivariate analysis using a multiple linear regression that explains financial performance by the disclosure of SR, as well as control variables such as sector, size, leverage, growth, and liquidity. Findings indicate that financial performance of companies that disclose SR does not significantly differ from the financial performance of companies that do not disclose SR. The results are robust to both methodological procedures, as well as to the sample split by sectors.

This study takes a two-echelon agricultural products supply chain (APSC) composed of an agricultural product processor (processor) and an agricultural product supermarket (supermarket) as the research object. In order to ensure the stable supply of high-quality agricultural products, this paper considers both fairness concern and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and establishes four Stackelberg game models with or without considering fairness concern and CSR, and obtains the influence mechanism of fairness concern and CSR on bilateral quality efforts in APSC through comparative analysis and numerical analysis. Research shows that the supermarket’s fairness concern can take the role of "profit distribution mechanism", but it is not conducive to improving bilateral quality efforts resulting in the inability to improve market demand, and it is not conducive to improving the utility of the supply chain system and consumer surplus; both members of APSC sharing CSR can not only improve the quality of agricultural products and promote the expansion of market demand, but also can achieve Pareto improvement of both profit of all members and supply chain system. Besides, The CSR shared by both members has a greater impact on bilateral quality efforts decision than the supermarket’s fairness concern, and thus the positive effect of CSR can overcome the negative effect of supermarket’s fairness concern.

Without doubt, the social and environmental business impact will become more important as the governments cannot take care about these problems. Thus, launching the EU Green deal rules, World Global Sustainable Development Goals, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and strategies are part of this global commitment. Additionally, CSR is strongly connected to the exploration of (social) market awareness and technology development and application as it focusses on social, environmental and economic business impact. The main goal of the paper is to verify that contemporary greener CSR strategies are beneficiary activity for high-tech companies because of better competitive advantages acquisition through management of corporate reputation risk and patenting innovative technologies. The structure of the paper is the next: 1. Introduction – explanation the previous researches that explore the relation: CSR strategy – high-tech company competitiveness; 2. State of art – exploring the corporate reputation and patent rights as factors in CSR strategy; 3. Patent monopoly and CSR – research the connection between reputation risks of patents rights and CSR strategy; 4. Business performance and CSR reporting – briefly research methodology is presented as some results from Bulgarian companies; 5. Discussion and conclusions – summarizing a methodology for patent rights and reputation risk management for better CSR effects.

This paper examines the relationship between the ratio of independent board member to the financial performance of the company under the mediation of the three pillars of environment, society, and governance (ESG) in Taiwan. The study addresses a research gap between independent directors and corporate financial performance, an issue that is rarely discussed today. The author develops the hypotheses and tests them by applying panel data regression to the data tables taken from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database to analyze data on 173 Taiwanese companies that reported ESG from 2009 to 2021. The results show that the relationship between the ratio of independent directors and financial performance has a positive relationship. At the same time, the 3 pillars of ESG also clearly show the intermediary role in this relationship. Finally, this study provides additional insights into the relationship between the ratio of independent directors and financial performance in the Taiwan context.

Reporting on CSR activities has become the essence of reporting for modern business entities. In this regard, particular attention is paid to public interest companies. Therefore, the following paper aims to answer the question of whether there are differences in the linguistic structure of the studied CSR reports in three selected industry indices on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in Poland, i.e. WIG-energy index, WIG-fuel index, WIG-mining index and their relationship with the performance of selected companies. The study was conducted on a purposely selected sample of companies between 2013 and 2018. A total of 138 CSR reports and 138 annual separate financial statements prepared in accordance with international balance sheet law were collected. The study was carried out based on a panel regression model. It was found that CSR reports contained similar average percentages of parts of speech such as nouns and adjectives. When linking the economic performance of companies, expressed with selected indices, to the information on the implementation of CSR concepts, it was revealed that the results are more likely to describe business performance when it is satisfactory.

This article explores the question of the rate of digital progress in the context of the labor market. Specific features of the current situation are indicated: temporality of socio-technological transformations, which is becoming less and less compatible with the harmonious development of man and society; the pace at which machines acquire intelligence; total devaluation of mental labor; unresolved issue of the role of man in the world of intelligent machines; the criticality of the problem of the labor market, due to its global nature, social significance and the rate of socio-technological changes. It is emphasized that these circumstances in the short term threaten the sustainable development of the global society, whose reactions to the transformation of technological and socio-economic infrastructure are significantly lagging behind. It is concluded that there is an urgent need to strengthen social responsibility, determined by the new ethics of relations between humans and machines with AI, supplemented by the primacy of the dignity of the social role of humans. The authors point out the urgent need to revise ideas about work as the main purpose of a person and about realization in the profession as the main factor that determines the self-esteem of an individual and his social status.

This study examines whether information about the winners of the Sustainability Reporting Award (SRA) contributes to the usefulness of the information in the financial statements. This study used a sample consisting of 110 winners of SRA (SRA firms) and 110 companies that did not receive SRA (non-SRA firms) from 2008 to 2016. The study found that earnings per share (EPS), book value per share (BVPS), and earnings per share change (EPSC) are value relevant information. Results of comparison between SRA firms and non-SRA fimrs, this study found that EPS positive association with stock price and with returns for SRA firms is higher than that for non-SRA firms. Findings of this study also show that, value relevance of BVPS for non-SRA firms is higher than that for SRA firms. When mesures of Price and BVPS are transformed into natural logarithm, the value relevance of BVPS for SRA firms is higher than that for non-SRA firms. Thus, the results are sensitive to measures of the variables. The findings of this study indicate that information about the winners of SRA contributes to the usefulness of financial statements.

Intermittent religious fasting increases a risk of hypo- and hyperglycemia in individuals with diabetes, but its impact in those without diabetes is poorly investigated. The study aim was to examine the effects of religious Bahá'í fasting (BF) on glycemic control and variability and compare these effects with time-restricted eating (TRE). In a three-arm randomized controlled trial, 16 subjects without diabetes were assigned to a BF, 16:8 TRE or control group. Continuous glucose monitoring and food intake documentation was conducted before and during the 19 days of intervention, and 24-hour mean glucose, glycemic variability indices, and glucotypes were assessed. BF and TRE groups, but not the control group, markedly reduced the daily eating window while maintaining macronutrient composition. Only the BF group decreased caloric intake (-677.8 ± 357.6 kcal, p=0.013), body weight (-1.92 ± 0.95 kg, p=0.011) and BMI (-0.65 ± 0.28 kg, p=0.006). Higher maximum glucose values were observed during BF in the within-group (+1.41 ± 1.04, p=0.039) and between-group comparison (BF vs. Control: p= 0.010 and TRE vs. BF: p= 0.022). However, there were no alterations of 24-hour mean glucose, intra- and inter-day glycemic variability indices, or glucotypes in any group. Proportions of time above and below range (70-180mg/dl) and HbA1c values remained unchanged. BF and TRE do not exhibit negative effects on glycemic control and variability in subjects without diabetes.

Colombia has initiated the process of participating in the environmental projects of the United Nations global agenda for the mitigation of climate change and the protection of biodiversity. Consequently, organizations within the solidarity sector have devised projects with the objective of aligning themselves with regional programs and of promoting leadership in the rural development through solidarity-based environmental initiatives. These include the organizations Canapro Ambiental, Cooperación Verde and Cootregua, which have participated in and accompanied local environmental projects. This study has identified the common elements related to the principles of organizational design proposed by Elinor Ostrom as a result of the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the purpose of a sustainable growth. The above findings serve to corroborate the relevance of the principles of organizational design as a qualitative assessment methodology for environmental solidarity initiatives. In particular, the methodology demonstrates the value of supporting the objectives of environmental sustainability and governance in the long term, by means of the strengthening of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the purposes of the solidarity ecosystem.

The present research endeavours to examine the impact of customers' perceptions regarding a firm's dedication to corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their allegiance to particular banking brands. The mediating factors of brand credibility and image help to facilitate the indirect relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand equity, which is the focus of this study. The objective of the research is to investigate the plausible causal association among perceived corporate social responsibility, brand image, brand credibility, and brand equity. The study's data was obtained by conducting a survey among a sample of 320 banking customers in Ethiopia. In order to perform a thorough examination of the data, AMOS version 24.0 and structural equation modelling (SEM) methodologies were employed. The present research endeavours to broaden the conventional comprehension of the advantages that corporate social responsibility (CSR) offers to customers. It aims to address a void in the current literature by scrutinising the impacts of customers' perceptions of CSR, brand credibility, and brand image on their allegiance towards particular banking service brands. The findings of this study carry substantial implications for financial institutions, and the conclusions derived from the results are of considerable significance.

This study investigates the moderating effect of corporate governance on the associations of internal audit and quality of internal audit with quality of financial reporting among commercial banks in the Republic of Yemen. The final sample includes 210 internal auditors, heads of internal auditors, chairpersons, and members of audit committees. Using a survey-based methodology, the results of the Smart-PL4 analysis showed a positive association between internal audit and quality of internal audit and quality of financial reporting. Interestingly, the results showed an insignificant association between internal audit, quality of internal audit, and quality of financial reporting when considering the moderating effect of corporate governance. The findings of this study contributes valuable insights to the existing literature on the influence of internal audit, quality of internal audit, and corporate governance on quality of financial reporting in developing countries, specifically in Yemen.

This study investigates the relationship between authentic leadership and socially responsible behavior among employees in Saudi Arabia's service sector. Utilizing social cognitive theory as the theoretical framework, the research proposes that authentic leadership indirectly influences socially responsible behavior through psychological empowerment and psychological capital as parallel and serial mediators. Additionally, the study examines the moderating effect of CSR perceptions on these relationships. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 349 professionals from the service sector. The results, analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), revealed that authentic leadership does not directly impact SRB. Instead, the relationship is fully mediated by psychological empowerment and psychological capital. Moreover, CSR perceptions significantly moderate the relationship between authentic leadership and psychological empowerment, as well as the indirect effects of authentic leadership on SRB through psychological empowerment and psychological capital. The findings highlight the importance of fostering an authentic leadership style and how psychological resources of empowerment, and psychological capital carry forward this effect to promote SRB in the service sector. Additionally, the study underscores the role of CSR perceptions in strengthening the impact of authentic leadership on employee outcomes. The research contributes to the literature on leadership, CSR, and employee behavior, and offers practical implications for organizations aiming to enhance their social responsibility initiatives.

This study examines the impact of executives implicated in fraud on firms' investment decisions using AAERs in the US, aiming to address the underexplored aspect of rationalization within the fraud triangle. Executives implicated in fraud often display abnormal attitudes to justify accounting irregularities, prompting an investigation into how abnormal investment decisions are used for rationalizing fraud, given their critical role in a firm's long-term sustainability. Analysis of AAERs spanning from 1981 to 2013 reveals that implicated executives, particularly CEOs and CFOs, tend to make abnormal investment decisions, and that collusive fraud exacerbates this behavior. Notably, such executives lean towards overinvestment, particularly in R&D expenditures, to hide or justify fraud; the duration of fraud amplifies its impact on investment decisions. By shedding light on the rationalization aspect of the fraud triangle, this research contributes valuable insights for investors, regulators, and academia emphasizing the significance of public disclosure of fraud to enhance transparency in capital markets and the importance of ethics-focused education in accounting to prevent corporate fraud.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on brand image in the apparel industry in Jordan, using the moderating variable of customer consciousness. The current research uses a quantitative, descriptive, cause-effect, and cross-sectional approach, and also it uses a convenience sampling method. Data was collected from 440 respondents. Results indicate that Jordanian Apparel organizations have medium to highly implementing of all items and constructs of CSR, brand image items, and consciousness items. Moreover, there is a strong relationship between CSR dimensions, a medium relationship be-tween each CSR dimension and brand image, a medium relationship between each CSR dimension and consciousness, a medium relationship between total CSR and brand image, a medium relationship between total CSR and consciousness, and the medium relationship between brand image and consciousness. Results of the first model show that total CSR affects the brand image. Where social responsibility has the highest positive effect, followed by ethical responsibility, then economic responsibility, however, environmental responsibility negatively affects the brand image. The second model shows consciousness moderates the effect of CSR on the brand image. The study recommends longitudinal research on the Jordanian Apparel industry, especially to test the effect of environmental responsibility on the brand image. Moreover, the re-search uses customers’ consciousness as a moderating variable, which improves the effect of CSR on brand image. The Apparel industry organizations in Jordan should revise their daily practices particularly environmental responsibility and/or increase their customers’ awareness of their practices. Finally, the current research contributes to existing studies by using consciousness as a moderating variable.

Nigeria's upstream oil and gas sector is extensively contributing to the economic growth of the country, but the sector is plagued with challenges around corporate social responsibility (CSR) and taxation practices. Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) is introduced to tackle these challenges towards promoting sustainable development in Nigeria. The aim of this study is to explore the PIA’s provisions on CSR and taxation, identify the Act’s implementation challenges and improvement opportunities, propose an integrated framework for monitoring and evaluating the PIA’s impact on CSR and taxation over time, and recommend measures for enhancing PIA’s impact on CSR and taxation support for sustainable development in Nigeria's upstream oil and gas sector. This study adopts the qualitative desk review method to analyze existent literature, reports, and documents regarding PIA’s provisions on CSR and taxation. Findings reveal that the PIA’s provisions greatly emphasize CSR initiatives and taxation transparency in improving responsible ethical business behaviour. An integrated framework for monitoring and evaluating PIA’s impact over time is developed. This study concludes that the PIA's provisions can balance CSR and taxation practices for sustainable development. The study’s recommendations include using the integrated framework as a structured strategy for monitoring and evaluating the PIA’s impact. This study contributes to the discussion on the imperatives of ethical business practices and regulatory frameworks for sustainable development drive in the oil and gas sector.

Developing prosperous and inclusive societies requires a reformulation of the business-society nexus toward sustainability. This means that all economically motivated behaviors of firms need to also consider their social and environmental impact, and all social and environmental policies need to also consider their impact on the economy. With the Companies Act 2013, the Indian government adopted a legislative approach to reconfigure the business-society nexus. Mandating what has been considered discretionary elicited an extensive academic debate. We employ Content Configuration Analysis on 70 local and international English-language book chapters, research articles, reports, reviews, and expert commentaries published between 2013 and 2019 to develop a typology of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the Companies Act 2013. We find that, among the large set of arguments for and against the Act, specific arguments extolling its advantages concurrently appear as disadvantages in other texts. This paradox is indicative of the difficulties of satisfying stakeholder expectations, as well as the complexities corporate responsibility programs face in India. By systematizing the opportunities and challenges associated with the Companies Act 2013, we reveal how, similar to China, context and culture influence India’s socioeconomic development trajectory beyond the conventional market economy canon.

This study delves into the critical domain of public procurement, specifically focusing on Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations within the context of South Korea. The aim of this research is to empirically scrutinize the factors influencing the impact index of SPP, with a particular emphasis on services related to labor standards. The investigation spans three years, from January 1, 2019, to July 31, 2021, encompassing state agency orders and post-implementation legal changes. Leveraging the comprehensive Korea On-line E-Procurement Sys-tem(KONEPS) platform, we meticulously collected data, ultimately culminating in 21,573 services meeting our criteria, from which 250 cases underwent an in-depth analysis. The study sheds light on the influence of social responsibility evaluation cri-teria on overall procurement scores, while also uncovering the moderating effects of various factors. The outcomes of this study offer valuable insights into the impact index of social responsibility evaluation criteria within South Korea's public procurement landscape. Factors including procurement year, classification, service period, and estimated price were identified as significant influencers. Moreover, the number and location of evalu-ation criteria items, inclusion of sincerity elements, and the evaluating agency were deemed pivotal determinants of the influence index. These findings hold profound implications for policymakers, procurement practitioners, and researchers and provide a roadmap for optimizing the utilization of social responsibility evaluation criteria to advance responsible and sustainable procurement practices. Future research avenues include conducting further study of additional moderat-ing variables, expanding datasets to encompass a broader spectrum of procurement contexts, and evaluating the long-term repercussions of social responsibility evaluation on procurement outcomes. These endeavors promise to further refine and advance public procurement practices in South Korea and beyond.

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives have gained increased significance within the restaurant industry during the pandemic, there is a lack of understanding of how customers’ perceived risks influence their dining intentions for effective crisis response. This study investigates the relationship between perceived CSR, restaurant image, and dining intentions during the crisis. In addition, the study examines three types of perceived risks (quality, health, and environmental) associated with restaurants and their influence on perceived CSR, restaurant image, and dining intentions during this period. The results demonstrate that perceived CSR positively impacts a restaurant’s image and concurrently reduces perceived risks among consumers during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Furthermore, perceived health risks have a negative influence on customers’ dining intentions. This study offers valuable insights into the theoretical foundations and managerial implications of CSR’s effects and risk management, particularly in the context of future pandemics within the restaurant industry.

A study analyzed financial statements in the beer sectors of Italy and Spain during 2019-2021 using compositional data analysis (CoDa) to gauge pre- and post-pandemic financial health and aid sector-level decision-making. Geometric averages were employed to mitigate statistical issues, offering more accurate insights than arithmetic averages. The exploratory, quantitative methodology calculated key financial ratios and profitability metrics. Results indicated satisfactory short-term solvency. Returns and margins remained subpar despite pandemic policies. Geometric averages proved essential in portraying sector health accurately, underscoring the need for their use in classic brewing sector ratios. The study also showcased CoDa's efficacy in diagnosing sectoral financial health for informed decision-making. Furthermore, a web analysis revealed varying transparency levels in communicating non-financial indicators, with Spain excelling in waste, water, and energy disclosures, while Italy prioritized energy and waste with less transparency.

Abstract: The aim of this study was to compare the influence of corporate board characteristics on the extent of environmental disclosure quantity of listed firms in two leading emerging economies in Africa, South Africa (integrated reporting framework) and Nigeria (traditional reporting framework). Methods: The sample was comprised of 303 firms including environmentally sensitive companies purposively selected for content analysis study in South Africa (213) and Nigeria (90). We used both descriptive, multivariate and regression models to comparatively analyze the differences about corporate board characteristics as determinants of the extent of their environmental disclosure quantity. Results: The results reveal a more significant positive association between board characteristics and environmental disclosure in South Africa and less relevant association in Nigeria. Also, the results support that board independence arrangement may serve as bonding mechanisms in weak reporting environments, suggesting a substitutive relationship between board independence and the regulatory framework. Quiet revealing a board with environmental committee show a higher tendency to be ecologic transparent in both countries. However, in a traditional reporting framework, the environmental committee is not enough; its effect was insignificant and highly significant in the integrated reporting framework. Further revealed is the significant positive effect of industry membership influence on environmental disclosure. In all estimated models of South Africa sample show that 45% of environmentally sensitive industries significantly influence environmental disclosure, while 51% is environmentally polluting industries in Nigeria show less concern on environmental disclosure. Interestingly, Audit firm size (Big4) positively and statistically significantly associated with overall environmental reporting in both countries. The results are consistent with stakeholder theory, agency theory, institutional and legitimacy theory suggesting that a strong board size, independent members of the board with auditing experience, the active environmental committee in conjunction with solid audit reputation may reduce information asymmetry. Our findings will be helpful for policymakers and other regulators who are interested in environmental impact reporting.

The objectives of the research are to investigate the characteristics of the board of directors on the financial performance of the enterprise. Using a sample data from 52 construction and real estate enterprises listed on Vietnam stock exchange in the period 2006-2020. Using typical regression methods such as pooled OLS, FEM, REM and assessing the defects of the research model, the FGLS method is selected. At the same time, due to the existence of endogenous phenomena and the nature of interdependence among enterprises in Vietnam, research using the instrumental variables two-step generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) in order to correct for cross-sectional dependence, autocorrelation, endogeneity, and heteroskedasticity in the analysis. Research results suggest that board size, female board members, meeting frequency, and board members' education have a positive influence on financial performance. Moreover, the independence of the Board of Directors increases, the business efficiency decreases. The research also found a positive relationship of tangible fixed assets, and a negative relationship between capital structure choice, firm size and corporate financial performance.

Purpose: Social responsibility has been accepted as a core value of nursing profession, particularly in the area of health disparity, but it seems to be difficult to understand for what is meant by social responsibility. The purpose of this study was to explore ways to define the concept of social responsibility of nursing in order to understand the meaning of social responsibility in the field of nursing profession. Methods: The concept analysis process by Walker and Avant was used to clarify the meaning of social responsibility of nursing. Results: Defining attributes of social responsibility of nursing included praxis, as approach to strategizing for social and structural change of inequity, care for an oppressed group which is under social suffering caused by the privilege and power, and action for health policy change in social and political unequal contexts. The antecedents of social responsibility of nursing included reflectivities in identifying personal characteristics, taking seriously the perspective of other vulnerable population, recognizing social environmental status quo (‘fair or unfair’), developing competences in ethical and moral reasoning with social issues. Consequences of social responsibility of nursing were achieving social justice, as equal access to basic human health need in societal level, equal access to effective nursing practice delivery system and development of health promotion policy for world health administrative practices (“health for all”) in nursing. Conclusion: This study provides a guidance to direct future studies through the procedure of identifying conceptual attributes in the context of social responsibility of nursing. Future studies are suggested to develop instruments for social responsibility as well as development of educational programs to promote social responsibility competences in nursing students and nurses.

This research contributes to the development of theories regarding the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and investment decisions. Acquisition of stock returns that exceed normal predictions depends on the successful implementation of Good Corporate Governance (GCG). This study aims to examine investors' reactions to information on CSR disclosure in several countries that are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Furthermore, this study also examines the role of implementing GCG in strengthening the impact of CSR disclosure on investor relations as measured by abnormal stock returns. The sampling technique used was purposive Sampling. The research was conducted on Manufacturing Companies in countries that are members of ASEAN during 2017-2019. The estimation model used to analyze data is a multiple regression model. The results showed that CSR information was able to increase investors' positive reactions. Meanwhile, GCG practice is proven to strengthen the impact of CSR information on investment decisions. Other variables involved in this study, namely audit quality, company size, debt level, and sales growth, are not proven to influence abnormal stock returns.

This study investigated the impact of sustainability reporting on financial performance, with a focus on companies in the Turkish food, beverage and tobacco and textile, wearing apparel and leather sectors. The sustainability reports of 48 companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange for 2022 were studied, and the quality of sustainability practices was determined by using a general index (Sustainability Reporting Disclosure Quality Index (SRDQI)) and three partial indices (Environmental Disclosure Quality Index, Social Disclosure Quality Index, and Corporate Governance Disclosure Quality Index (CGDQI)). To analyze the relationships between financial performance and sustainability practices two types of regression models were developed, based on which eight models were directly examined. The results indicate the complete absence of a statistically significant impact of SRDQI on all financial performance measures used. Among the partial indices, only CGDQI has a significant positive effect on the Assets Turnover Ratio. An analysis of the influence of control variables shows a multidirectional dependence of individual financial performance measures on the size of companies, their age, industry affiliation, as well as on the structure of capital used. Finally, this study provides directions for improving the institutional environment of sustainability reporting for Turkish companies.

The European Green Deal poses a two-pronged challenge for the automotive industry: migrating to solutions based in light structures, requiring light weight concepts and light materials, while at the same time avoiding dependence towards the importation of these advanced materials. Aluminium alloys are lightweight and cost-effective materials that can successfully cover the requirements of many structural applications, however their production requires from bauxite and other Critical Raw Materials (CRM), such as Si and Mg. Aluminium alloys are fully recyclable, but scrap is usually contaminated and its use is related to an increment of impurities, tramp element and undesired inclusions. Traditionally, the use of secondary alloys has been restricted to low performance applications. The present work analyses the effect that the use of scrap has in the quantity of inclusions present in the alloy and in other properties relevant for the material processing. The study was carried out for common alloys belonging to 3 of the most common aluminium processes used in the car manufacturing industry: High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC) (EN AC-43500), extrusion (6063) and sheet metal forming (5754 and 6181). Reference alloy were mixed with different level of scrap (0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100%) trying to keep the chemical composition as unaffected as possible. The inclusions level of the alloy was characterized with the Prefil Foot-printer® test. In addition, the obtained materials, after being cast in an open mould, were subjected to metallographic characterization. Relevant properties to assess the formability quality of the alloys for the corresponding transforming process, were obtained: flowability test for HPDC alloy and high temperature compression for extrusion alloys. The results obtained suggest that the number of inclusions present in the melt highly increase with the amount of scrap used to produce the alloy. These inclusions are also related with an important lost of flowability, but do not have a noticeable impact on microstructure.

The corporate strategic planning of businesses in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) largely focuses on immediate financial performances with minimal credence to social sustainability. Thus, studies on the linkage between corporate governance and sustainability reporting have focused on developed economies. This study therefore investigated the role of institutional ownership in the impact of board committee characteristics on social sustainability reporting. The study involved strongly balanced panel data with 1,969 observations of 275 publicly listed non-financial firms in SSA within the timeframe of 2012 to 2021. Data was analyzed using STATA 14.1. The hypotheses were tested using the two-step system of the generalized method of moment (GMM) using the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel-data estimation method. The rate of social sustainability reporting was 39.4%. Relatively, Mauritius and South African firms had the most effective board committee characteristics and higher levels of social sustainability reporting. Institutional ownership had no significant effect on social sustainability reporting. Institutional ownership moderated the effect of sustainability committee independence and sustainability committee gender diversity on social sustainability reporting negatively. The paper presents a new perspective on corporate governance and social sustainability literature by examining the effect of institutional ownership on board committee characteristics and social sustainability reporting in SSA.

Social Economy institutions seek to provide answers to social problems, given that they naturally have a socially responsible mission. This study aims to answer the research question: how sustainable practices, namely environmental behaviour, have been adopted by Portuguese Private Social Solidarity Institutions (IPSS) with the purpose of contributing to Sustainable Development? To achieve this objective, qualitative research was carried out in 31 IPSS, which was framed within the scope of the TFA project (Theoretical framework for promotion of accountability in the social economy sector: the IPSS case). Semi-structured interviews were conducted, with a script based on the literature review, from May to July 2019, with those responsible for the management of these entities. A content analysis was conducted, using the NVivo12 Version 12.6.0 software, which enables data to be coded and categorised, reducing any researcher bias. The results indicate that most entities carry out activities of an environmental nature, related to the reuse of materials, the recycling of waste, the sale of materials for recycling, and user awareness. Several entities expressed financial limitations to the implementation of Environmental Management Systems and their accomplishment. However, the objections presented are not impossible to overcome, according to studies presented in other countries.

Corporate Diagnosis is now recognized as an important tool by decision makers to predict and correct burgeoning problems that a corporation may face. Methods based on this model stem from the use of mathematics and are increasingly being applied in the analysis of production processes. The goal of this paper is to use a logistic regression to design a scoring model for non-financial corporations in industry. Based on the data obtained from the Registry of the Slovak Republic for 738 non-financial corporations, according to SK NACE 26, SK NACE 27, the proportional financial metrics, using the logistic regression method, were calculated. By applying these methods, two logistic regression models were found to reliably estimate the probability of bankruptcy for a firm.

The changing of banking customer preferences after Covid-19 pandemic encourages banking transformation. Neobanks emerges as innovation in banking that enter the market to compete with the incumbent banks by offering new digital experience for customer. This paper analyzes the neobanks which transformed from traditional bank, specifically its efficiency after they implement digital transformation. Efficiency is measured by using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). This study also uses Pooled Mean Group (PMG) of Panel ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lagged) to investigate digital transformation as one of determinants neobank’s efficiency, as well as to examine the existence of short-term and long-term relationship between digital transformation and efficiency. The SFA results show that the efficiency of the neobanks increase after they carry out digital transformation. Furthermore, from PMG Panel ARDL, it can be concluded that digital transformation is one of determinant of efficiency and there is longevity relationship between digital transformation and efficiency. In the short run, digital transformation has a significant and negative correlation with efficiency and in the long run, it has a significant positive relationship because initially digital transformation cost for operational and risk management innovation decreases the profit efficiency, but afterwards it increases the profit efficiency.

Managing a portfolio whose value closely tracks an index by trading only in a subset of the index constituents involves an NP-hard optimisation problem. In the prior literature, it has been suggested to solve this problem using sequential Monte Carlo (SMC, a.k.a. particle filter) methods. However, this literature does not take transaction costs into account, although transaction costs are the primary motivation for attempting to replicate the index by trading in a subset, rather than the full set of index constituents. This paper extends the SMC approach to index tracking to allow for proportional transaction costs and implements this extended method on empirical data for a variety stock indices. In addition to providing a more practically useful tracking strategy by allowing for transaction costs, we find that including a penalty for transaction costs in the optimisation objective can actually lead to better tracking performance.

The aim of this cross-country research is to examine how the profit and loss sharing mudarabah investment deposits are classified and disclosed in the financial statement of Islamic banks. The cross-country study examined the financial statements of fifty-one fully-fledged Islamic banks. The results of the data analysis show that Islamic banks disclose the mudarabah investment account in different ways. The absence of standardized disclosure for mudarabah investment deposit confuses the stakeholders. This research suggests to the regulators to fully or partially adopt the AAOIFI standards specifically for Islamic financial institutions.

While the importance of corporate governance has been broadly acknowledged in global financial markets and academic research, how to devise a practical evaluation system is relatively unexplored. This paper attempts to refine the Corporate Governance Evaluation System (CGES), constructed by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) since 2014. The current CGES has several debatable issues in its complicated design (e.g., it comprises over 80 indicators in different types). To resolve those issues, this study invited ten senior domain experts (including several CEOs of financial holding companies) to retrieve 13 essential criteria from the CGES in four dimensions. And this study integrates several multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods (i.e., Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), modified VIKOR, DEMATEL-based analytical network process (DANP)) and the fuzzy evaluation technique to rank the exemplary companies. The obtained ranking is consistent with the one released from the CGES in 2017. This study conducted additional experiments to ensure the robustness of the findings. The newly devised model not only supports the ranking decisions but also provides a managerial guidance for companies to pursue systematic improvements. These findings enrich the understanding of corporate governance and contribute to gaining business sustainability for financial holding companies.

Throughout the Covid19 period, families were forced to stay indoors, adapting to online school-ing, remote work, and virtual social engagements, inevitably altering the dynamics within households. There is a notable increase in mental health challenges in terms of anxiety and de-pression in children and adolescents. This study intends to explore the psychosocial effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in Italian families adopting self- and proxy-report questionnaires on anxiety, anger, and health-related quality of life. The results showed that approximately 20% obtained a clinical anxiety score and only 10% obtained a clinical anger score. There was found a difference in the perception of the quality of life reported by the child and that perceived by the parent. The stepwise regression model showed that total anxiety scores were predicted by sex, quality of life scores from the parents' self-report version and total anger score. Another stepwise regression model identified physiological and social anxiety as the best predictors that impact the quality of life. Parental well-being actively influences the well-being of children, so it is fundamental to implement preventive programmes and promote child well-being providing parents the most adequate support possible.

This research aims to analyze the impact of Social Responsibility on the performance of 216 European companies during the years 2017 to 2021. The objective of this research is to determine how the operational, financial and market performance of companies is influenced by social responsibility practices. The methodology adopted is quantitative in nature, using the estimation of dynamic models for panel data. To quantify corporate performance, this study will use, the return on assets, the return on equity and finally the Tobin's Q ratio. On the other hand, ESG (Environment, Social and Government) scores and GC Score scores will be used in order to quantify SR. The results show that SR presents not only a negative influence on the financial and operational performance of companies, but also a positive impact on market performance. This influence is even greater when distinguishing the best from the worst scores. The environment, social and government dimension shows a negative relationship with ROA and ROE, and a positive one with Tobin's Q. On the other hand, the anti-corruption and environment dimension of the GC Score, relates negatively with Tobin's Q, the human rights dimension relates negatively with ROE and ROA, and finally, the labor law dimension presents a positive relationship with ROE. Importantly, firm size positively influences this relationship, while age has a negative influence. This research offers important contributions to the literature, since from the ESG scores and the GC Score, a complete analysis of the impact of social responsibility on corporate performance is developed.

This study examines the effect of market risk on the financial performance of 31 non-financial companies listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) over the period 2000-2016. We utilize three alternative variables to assess financial performance, namely return on assets, return on equity and profit margin. Next, we use the degree of financial leverage, the book-to-market ratio, and the gearing ratio as market risk variables. Besides, we employ the pooled OLS model, the fixed effects model, the random-effects model, the difference GMM and the system GMM models. The results show that market risk indicators have a negative and significant influence on the companies' financial performance. The elasticities are greater following the book-to-market ratio compared to the degree of financial leverage and the gearing ratio, respectively. In most cases, the firm size, the tangibility ratio, and the cash holdings ratio have a positive effect on financial performance, whereas the firms' age, the debt-to-income ratio, stock turnover, and leverage hurt the performance of these non-financial companies. Therefore, decision-makers and managers should mitigate market risk through appropriate strategies of risk management, such as derivatives and insurance techniques.

Many anti-tumor effects of group-specific component-derived macrophage-activating factors (GcMAFs) have been reported; however, the specific mechanisms remain unclear. Controlling tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in the tumor microenvironment is essential for cancer treatment. This study assessed the role of GcMAF in macrophage activation, elucidated the mechanisms by which it exerts its anti-tumor effects, and determined its effects on TAMs in the tumor microenvironment. GcMAF-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages and EMT6 breast tumor cells were co-cultured in a 0.4-µm pore cell culture insert, and gene and protein expression and cell viability were evaluated. DNA microarray analysis of GcMAF-stimulated RAW264.7 cells was conducted. The induction of M2 RAW264.7 cells by interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 was analyzed. GcMAF stimulation increased the tumor necrosis factor-α and inducible nitric oxide synthase mRNA and protein levels in RAW264.7 cells but decreased the viability of co-cultured EMT6 cells. These results were confirmed in the M2 RAW264M2.7 cells, suggesting that GcMAF exerts anti-tumor effects by inducing the differentiation of macrophages into the M1 type and reprogramming M2 macrophages to the M1 type. The anti-tumor activity of GcMAF via M2-to-M1 macrophage reprogramming could aid in developing novel cancer immunotherapies.

Pompeii was connected to the great Serino aqueduct under the principate of Augustus. From that moment on, water became not only a precious resource for the inhabitants but also their true social indicator. It is no coincidence, in fact, that the concentration of sumptuous dwellings is in Regio VI, the district closest to the aqueduct reservoir (castellum aquae in Latin) and the one most equipped with piezometric towers, the first of the network, the ones that would never leave the decorative fountains of the peristyles dry. From this observation follows the original possibility of considering the water network a factor that contributed to designating the morphology of urban neighbourhoods and blocks.

Summary Genome assembly projects have grown exponentially due to breakthroughs in sequencing technologies and assembly algorithms. Evaluating the quality of genome assemblies is critical to ensure the reliability of downstream analysis and interpretation. To fulfil this task, we have developed the AssemblyQC pipeline that performs file-format validation, contaminant checking, contiguity measurement, gene- and repeat-space completeness quantification, telomere inspection, taxonomic assignment, synteny alignment, scaffold examination through Hi-C contact-map visualisation, and assessments of completeness, consensus quality and phasing through K-mer analysis. It produces a comprehensive HTML report with method descriptions, tables, and visualisations. Availability and Implementation The pipeline uses NextFlow for workflow orchestration and adheres to the best-practice established by the nf-core community. This pipeline offers a reproducible, scalable, and portable method to assess the quality of genome assemblies – the code is available online.GitHub: https://github.com/Plant-Food-Research-Open/assemblyqc Supplementary information Pipeline usage documentation, parameter descriptions and example outputs are available on GitHub: https://github.com/Plant-Food-Research-Open/assemblyqc/tree/main/docs. A preview report is also hosted online: https://plant-food-research-open.github.io/assemblyqc

The COVID-19 pandemic had a wide-ranging impact, resulting in a global recession due to weakened purchasing power. This circumstance necessitates business organizations adapting to developments and being more conscious of the risk of financial statement fraud. The intention of this research is to investigate the way corporate governance affected financial statement fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic. To acquire empirical data for examining corporate governance variables on financial statement fraud, the research was examined using quantitative methods. The study takes advantage of secondary data acquired from annual reports of companies under special monitoring listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange of 2020-2021. The logistic regression method was used to evaluate 134 data sets, and financial statement fraud was measured using the Z-Score and F-Score models. The results indicate that using the Z-score, only the board size has a negative effect on financial statement fraud during the COVID- 19 pandemic. Meanwhile, using the F-Score, the corporate governance variables studied are not proven to have an influence on financial statement fraud during the COVID 19 pandemic.

In the field of railroad safety, effective detection of surface cracks is critical, necessitating reliable, high-speed non-destructive testing (NDT) methods. This study introduces a hybrid Eddy Current Testing (ECT) probe, specifically engineered for railroad inspection, to address the common issue of ’lift-off noise’ due to varying distances between the probe and test material. Unlike traditional ECT methods, this probe integrates transmit and differential receiver coils, aiming to enhance detection sensitivity and minimize lift-off impact. The study optimizes ECT probes employing different driver coils, emphasizing three main objectives: a) quantitatively evaluating each probe using signal- to-noise ratio (SNR) and outlining a real-time data processing algorithm based on SNR methodology; b) exploring the frequency range proximal to the electrical resonance of the receiver coil; c) examining sensitivity variations across varying lift-off distances. The experimental outcomes indicate that the newly designed probe with figure 8-shape driver coil significantly improves sensitivity in detecting surface cracks on railroads. It achieves an impressive SNR exceeding 100 for defects with minimal dimensions of 1 mm in width and depth. Simulation results closely align with experimental findings, validating the investigation of optimal operational frequency and lift-off distance for selected probe performance, determined to be 0.3 MHz and 0.5 mm, respectively. The realization of this project would lead to notable advancements in enhancing railroad safety by improving crack detection efficiency.

The Solvency II regulatory framework specifies procedures and parameters for determining solvency capital requirements (SCRs) for insurance companies. The proposed standard SCR calculations involve two steps. The Value–at–Risk (VaR) of each risk driver is measured and, in a second step, all components are aggregated to the company’s overall SCR, using the Standard Formula. This formula has two inputs: the VaRs of the individual risk drivers and their correlations. The appropriate calibration of these input parameters has been the purpose of various Quantitative Impact Studies that have been conducted during recent years. This paper demonstrates that the parameter calibration for the equity–risk module—overall, with about 25%, the most significant risk component—is seriously flawed, giving rise to spurious and highly erratic parameter values. As a consequence, an implementation of the Standard Formula with the currently proposed calibration settings for equity–risk is likely to produce inaccurate, biased and, over time, highly erratic capital requirements.

This study aims to explain individual engagement in sustainable waste management behaviors (SWMBs) based on the application of protection motivation theory (PMT). SWMBs include waste avoidance, green purchasing behavior, reuse and recycle, and waste disposal behaviors. This study applies PMT to explore how individuals’ SWMBs are influenced by their perceived threats caused by environmental contamination from waste disposal and their perceived coping capability. The Bangkok metropolitan area was selected as a case study because it has faced serious waste management problems caused by massively increasing amounts of solid waste during the last ten years. Questionnaire surveys were conducted with 193 public and private officers residing in the city of Bangkok. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to justify the effect of individual threat appraisal and coping appraisal on the engagement in SWMBs. The results demonstrated that respondents’ self-efficacy highly influenced all types of SWMBs. The perceived probability of being impacted from pollutants influenced all of the SWMBs except green purchasing behaviors. Response efficacy did not influence all SWMBs; however, the perceived severity of adverse consequences caused by pollutants highly influenced reuse and recycle behaviors. It could be suggested that PMT is well suited for investigating low-cost and simple SWMBs. It could also be suggested that different communication campaigns should be established to enhance citizens’ engagement in each type of SWMB.

Using a variety of theoretical foundations, this paper examines the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior, investigating the sequential mediation role of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment as well as the moderating role of ethical climate. Hypotheses were formulated to address both the sequential mediation effect of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment on the link between CSR and knowledge-sharing and the moderation effect of ethical climate on the relationship between CSR and perceived organizational support. In order to mitigate the problems of potential common method bias, data were gathered from a sample of 204 South Korean employees at three distinct time points. The results of the study offer compelling evidence that CSR activities exert a positive influence on employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior, an effect that is sequentially mediated by both perceived organizational support and organizational commitment. Furthermore, the research uncovers the positive moderating role played by ethical climate in the relationship between CSR and perceived organizational support. By integrating multiple theoretical frameworks, this study not only advances the extant literature but also offers invaluable insights for organizations striving to bolster knowledge-sharing through the strategic implementation of CSR initiatives.

The purpose of this study is to define destination social responsibility as a multidimensional construct and examine the relationships among DSR, tourists’ emotions, and their satisfaction through the lens of corporate social responsibility. A model was empirically tested with a sample of 359 random foreign tourists caught in Hoi An, Vietnam. The results indicate that all DSR dimensions, including economic, environmental, legal-ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities significantly enhance tourists’ emotions while only legal-ethical and philanthropic responsibilities directly affect tourists’ satisfaction. The findings also confirm the mediating effect of emotions between destination social responsibility and tourists’ overall satisfaction.

The concept of economic self-reliance, widely known by Thai people as the philosophy of sufficiency economy, has been widely promoted in rural Thai societies. By practicing this philosophy, it is expected that the citizens’ quality of life and local environments could be sustainably improved. This study aims to explore the contribution of the community practices of the sufficiency economy philosophy to rural villagers’ quality of life improvement, and to investigate potential factors that determine the trust of villagers in the philosophy. With the purpose to propose strategies which could enhance trust and promote villagers’ practices of the philosophy, the study investigated influences of three relevant factors on trust towards the philosophy. Those factors included factors related to cognitive-based trust, factors related to emotional-based trust, and factors related to demographic characteristics. Questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews with community leaders and local villagers were conducted in the Ban Jamrung community, in Thailand’s Rayong province. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that the residents who applied the sufficiency economy philosophy in their daily lives experienced a relatively better quality of life. Additionally, it was found that trust in the philosophy could be predicted more by rational factors than by emotional factors. These findings could be utilized to develop strategies to maintain and enhance the trust of the people in the philosophy of sufficiency economy.

The service sector, whose value has started to increase in recent years, has gained momentum with the acceleration of economic developments especially after the 2000s in Turkey. In a world where competition is increasing and social purchase perception is changing, companies started to differentiate in the service sector to create a competitive advantage. Companies that would like to grow in the industry and aspire to a greater proportion need credit to extend. There are many factors to consider in order to allocate the credit. Banks make financial and non-financial analysis to make credit decisions. This study has been prepared to assess the effect of financial and non-financial features of middle segment companies that need credit in the service sector on the credit decision to be allocated by banks. The group of variables that explain the credit decision at the highest level in these companies are non-financial variables.

This study investigates the effect of perceived discrimination on the mental health of Afghan refugees, and secondly, tests the distress moderating effects of pre-migration traumatic experiences and post-resettlement adjustment factors. In a cross-sectional design, 259 Afghans completed surveys assessing perceived discrimination and a number of other factors using scales developed through inductive techniques. Multivariate analyses consisted of a series of hierarchical regressions testing the effect of perceived discrimination on distress, followed by a sequential analysis of moderator variables. Perceived discrimination was significantly associated with higher distress, and this relationship was stronger among those with a strong intra-ethnic identity, high civic engagement, and high pre-resettlement traumatic experiences. Discrimination is a significant source of stress for Afghan refugees, which may exacerbate stresses associated with other post-migration stressors. Future research is needed to tailor interventions that can help mitigate the stress associated with discrimination among this highly vulnerable group.

The aim was to implement a value-promoting program (Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, TPSR) and to assess its impact on students. Method: The program was applied for 8 months with 257 students from three secondary school centres (151 boys and 106 girls) with a mean of 15.97 years old (SD = 2.31). They were in three groups, 67 students (control group), 90 students receiving at least 60% of the total teaching time the value-promoting program (experimental group for global education, EG-GE) and 100 students (experimental group only for physical education, EG-PE). As main results improvements were found in the EG-GE for responsibility, psychological mediator index, self-determination index, resilience, climate and prosocial behaviours. In the EG-PE improved were observed in the self-determination index, classroom climate and prosocial behaviours. Female students and from EG-GE improve much more than males and from EG-PE. The outcomes in psychological variables can be higher if TPSR is applied to the whole subjects apart from physical education. These results are even more pronounced for female students in personal and social responsibility. It is worth highlighting the importance of coordinating educational institutions to facilitate the involvement of the greatest number of teachers.

The implementation of management systems has become a strategic advantage in achieving business goals, especially in industrial organizations, but the implementation of social responsibility requirements is especially ethical. Large multinational companies have long been developing and, in particular, implementing their own codes of conduct, which include their suppliers, to demonstrate their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The compliance with CSR requirements from stakeholders is thus extended or intertwined with requirements in established management systems (MSs). The objectives of the study were to (1) analyze the different approaches to CSR in internationally recognized cross-industry and industry-specific standards and codes in different industries; (2) select the most appropriate framework for assessing the degree of applicability of CSR in the selected management systems and develop a methodology for its assessment; (3) apply the proposed methodology (referred to as SRIMS) in the selected areas: automotive industry, research organization, and metallurgical industry; (4) through ANOVA, validate its use for assessing the overall level of CSR applicability in an organization's established management systems. The application of the Bonferroni method confirmed the hypotheses that the developed SRIMS model is a sufficiently appropriate tool for assessing the overall level of applicability of CSR requirements to established MSs.

Previous studies separately addressed the impact of urban expansion on vegetation cover and thermal conditions, as well as its effect on moisture and drought indicators, using geospatial techniques. Some studies, such as those by Malah et al. (2021) and Niu and Li (2020), focused on assessing urban environmental quality using an environmental quality index without considering urban expansion. Meanwhile, other studies, like those conducted by Indrawati et al. (2020), primarily focused on evaluating urban environ-ments using an integrated environmental index consisting of four indicators (greenness, moisture, drought, and cumulative clustering). The study by Zhu et al. (2019) applied the same integrated environmental index (IEI) and, by comparing it with temperature, re-vealed a negative correlation illustrating the effects of the environmental index on land surface temperature (LST). These two studies could be utilized to construct an index assessing the environmental condition in Riyadh. This is the case in the present study, where the addition of a temperature indicator due to the hot desert nature of the study area created the Urban Environmental Thermal Index to evaluate the urban en-vironment and provide results suitable to this region. It is expected that the present study will align with the findings of previous relevant studies, showing a negative im-pact of urban expansion on urban environmental components.

This study aimed to analyse the relationship between environmental, social, and governance disclosure (ESG disclosure) and the performance of Saudi Arabian companies. Looking at the Saudi Arabian context, ESG disclosure guidelines were issued in 2018 to encourage Saudi companies to disclose their ESG practices. Grounded in the frameworks of agency and signalling theory, this study bears profound implications for stakeholders, decision makers, policymakers, and academics alike. Our findings underscore the paramount significance of ESG disclosure practices in enhancing corporate performance and creating long-term value for stakeholders within the Saudi Arabian context. The analysis is based on panel data spanning from 2017 to 2022. Rigorous econometric methods, including fixed effects (FEs), random effects (REs), the Hausman test, and the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), were employed in the analysis. Furthermore, to evaluate corporate performance, we also used vital indicators, such as the return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and Tobin’s Q. To score companies’ sustainability practices, we created an ESG index that was obtained through a principal component analysis of individual environmental, social, and governance scores using a sample extracted from the annual reports of the top 100 non-financial listed companies in the Saudi Arabian stock exchange (Tadawul). The results of this study provide a strong confirmation of the significantly positive relationship between ESG disclosure and companies’ key performance variables. These results are consistent with stakeholder theory, which argues that companies that actively manage their stakeholders through comprehensive ESG practices have better financial performance; this is also in agreement with signalling theory, which argues that the positive relations found in this study can be a signal sent to policymakers and decision makers. This finding should instil confidence in the potential of ESG practices to drive companies’ success. Recommendations include strengthened regulatory frameworks, awareness-raising campaigns for ESG philosophies among investors and potential target companies, capability enhancement programs, arrangements for engagement with stakeholders, and effective reward/confirmation mechanisms in credit/debit plans, if possible, to encourage more companies to adopt ESG disclosure and to help stakeholders, decision makers, policymakers, and academics improve their awareness. These measures, if implemented, can significantly enhance the ESG landscape in Saudi Arabia, inspiring a more sustainable and responsible business environment. This research sheds light on the complex processes by which ESG considerations and corporate strategy remain integrated by using advanced econometric methodologies that suggest important policy implications. The findings of this study underscore the critical role of sustainable business practices in enhancing corporate performance, fostering societal development, and ensuring sustainability within the context of Saudi Arabian enterprises.

Grand challenges represent wicked problems that affect many people globally. To overcome grand challenges and sustain our existence as human beings, issues have become increasingly central, and in recent years have led to an increase in research and literature on grand challenges affecting both international business areas and multinational enterprises. The aim of this study is to assess the status of literature in all areas connected to multinational corporations and grand challenges, which are global issues with significant implications. From 2013 to 2023, the WoS database was used to investigate eight search terms from literature, and bibliometric and thematic analyses were carried out based on the principles of systematic literature analysis. The most focused areas of the research are performance, multinational enterprises, foreign direct investment, management, firms’ innovation, knowledge, international business, and impact. Asian, African, European, and other countries may emerge together in different clusters depending on whether the major challenges they are struggling with are similar or identical. the terms of grand challenges and innovation (open and social), technology transfer, R&D internalization, digital transformation or technology and artificial intelligence in the literature of multinational enterprises indicates that these themes are used as a tool to solve grand challenges.

(1) Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic presented unique challenges for patients and healthcare providers, especially for those working with obesity and related health problems. E-health has emerged as a crucial tool for the follow-up of users undergoing bariatric surgery during this period, allowing remote monitoring of users' health status and providing access to virtual consultation with health professionals. This study aims to analyze the impact of the use of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic on the results of bariatric surgery and user satisfac-tion with this follow-up. (2) Method: Observational study with retrospective data collection. The variables were divided into several groups: health data, associated comorbidities, quality of life, quality of sleep and satisfaction with telemedicine monitoring. (3) Results: Surgery significantly affected weight loss, in general more than 75% loss of excess weight. Comorbidities, like the qual-ity of life, were reversed over time, with 50% of subjects maintaining excellent levels. Although most users were satisfied with the monitoring, the variables had no relationship. (4) Conclusions: The follow-up assured by telemedicine did not alter the results of bariatric surgery, which may allow us to infer that it may be an option to consider for regular monitoring of the post-bariatric surgery process.

Derivatives products have become essential in portfolio diversification, price discovery and risk hedging. Derivatives are complex instruments; their role is twofold, risk management and speculation, and their actual Impact on the underlying assets’ behaviours are not well understood. Little is documented empirically on how these instruments’ two-edged roles influence firms’ financing decisions, firm risk exposures, and stability. Given the growing interest in using derivatives in risk management and portfolio engineering, this study examines the practical impact of derivatives usage on the underlying firm’s financing policy and stability. The paper uses data from South African listed non-financial firms for the period 2000 to 2019. The study employs a dynamic panel model estimated with System Generalised Methods of Moments (GMM). The initial analysis shows that derivatives use reduces the cost of capital and increases firm stability. However, further in-depth analysis provides evidence that extensive use of derivatives increases firms’ capital costs and negatively impacts financial stability. These findings imply that the risk embedded in derivatives’ speculation dominates their risk management function. The results are subjected to numerous controls for robustness, including financial leverage, firm size, cashflows and asset tangibility.

This study uses machine learning to identify key factors influencing the cost-effectiveness of over-the-counter (OTC) medications. By developing a novel cost-effectiveness rating (CER) from user ratings and prices, we analyzed data from Amazon. The findings indicate that FSA/HSA eligibility, symptom treatment range, safety warnings, special effects, active ingredients, and packaging size significantly impact cost-effectiveness across cold, allergy, digestion, and pain relief medications. Medications eligible for FSA or HSA funds, treating a broader range of symptoms, and having smaller packaging are perceived as more cost-effective. Cold medicines with safety warnings were found to be cost-effective due to their lower average price and effective ingredients like phenylephrine and acetaminophen. Allergy medications with kid-friendly features showed higher cost-effectiveness, and ingredients like calcium, famotidine, and magnesium boosted the cost-effectiveness of digestion medicines. These insights help consumers make informed purchasing decisions and assist manufacturers and retailers in enhancing product competitiveness. Overall, this research supports better decision-making in the pharmaceutical industry by highlighting factors that drive cost-effective medication purchases.

The Self-determination theory and The Vallerand's Hierarchical Model has been studied with different types of social factors that can bring different consequences. The purpose of this work was if responsibility and social climate could predict the social and prosocial behaviors and vio-lence. For this, 429 students (M = 11.46, SD = 1.92) participated in this study answering a ques-tionnaire with five variables: school climate, responsibility, motivation, satisfaction of psycholog-ical needs, prosocial and antisocial behaviors and violence. The main results saw that the most part of variables were correlated positive and directly except with antisocial behaviors and vio-lence. On the other hand, prediction model (X2 = 584.145 (98); RMSEA = 0.104 [90% CI = 0.096, 0.112]; TLI = 0.849; CFI = 0.894) showed that responsibility and school climate can predict psy-chological basic needs and these needs, can improve the autonomous motivation and finally have positive consequences improving prosocial behaviors and reducing antisocial behaviors and vio-lence. In conclusion, school climate and responsibility can improve positive consequences to the classroom, specifically, prosocial behaviors and reducing violence and antisocial behaviors.

1) Background: Several studies have shown the benefit of drawing when learning anatomy. Virtual Reality (VR) also appears to be useful to increase the understanding of the location of anatomical structures. This study aims to describe how students in an Operating Room Nursing (OR nursing) master study program perceive the benefit of active learning methods, including drawing and the use of VR. 2) Methods: We combined these two methods in a class of 29 students. 38 half-finished drawings of anatomical structures were made. The students were to complete these during lectures with guidance from the teacher. The students also attended a two-hour VR session where they were to find various anatomical structures. A paper questionnaire was applied to evaluate the teaching program. Data were analyzed statistically. 3) Results: The students highly appreciated these learning methods. They reported that drawing made them work more actively during lectures and increased their learning outcome. They also perceived that the use of VR technology increased their understanding of the location of anatomical structures. 4) Conclusion: The combination of drawing and VR technology may be of benefit to OR Nursing students when learning anatomy by both increasing student activity and learning outcomes.

In this paper it is examined how, if at all, logical laws can be normative for human reasoning, wherein the notion of normativity is analysed with respect to approaches to logic given in works of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Frege and Wittgenstein. During the ancient and medieval period, logic was being considered in terms of discourse and dialogical practice, but since Descartes and especially Kant it has been treated as a system of laws with which the process of individual human reasoning has been compared. Therefore, normativity can be investigated in private sphere (for thinking and reasoning) and in public sphere (for dialogic practices in a community). Wittgenstein discussed both aspects of normativity: in Tractatus, a focus is on laws of logic that are primarily normative for the state of affairs in the world, while in Philosophical Investigations an emphasis is on a social aspect of normativity (which is closer to Aristotle’s view), which is derived from adopted rules that have been applied in a certain community. Taken that way, logic is certainly normative in the public sphere, but the more difficult issue is whether logic is normative for thinking, regarding to the difference between the logical laws and those of thought.

In this paper, the ratio of gross agricultural production (GAP) and agricultural carbon emission is defined as agricultural carbon emission efficiency (ACEE). Considering rural labor transfer (RLT) increases the agricultural machinery intensity (AMI), the two are substitutes for each other and may interact with agricultural carbon emission efficiency (ACEE), we constructed a Simultaneous Equations Model (SEM) of ACEE, RLT and AMI, and analyzed the interaction mechanism of these three variables by using the Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) method to solve the endogeneity of the model. The following conclusions are drawn. First, RLT and AMI significantly promote the improvement of ACEE, while the improvement of ACEE and AMI further promotes RLT. Secondly, the causal relationship and influence mechanism of ACEE, RLT and AMI are interactive and multi-directional. An increase in AMI promotes ACEE, but an increase in ACEE inhibits an increase in AMI, suggesting that the marginal rate of substitution of machinery for labor is decreasing. Finally, China has significant regional heterogeneity. Labor transfer and machinery are only direct factors in increasing ACEE, while factors such as economic base, technology level and farmers' attitudes provide environmental support for the effective improvement of ACEE.

In the current socio-economic context, pension systems have become a crucial topic in the agenda of governments and international bodies. In this paper, an empirical study regarding the economic and social sustainability of pension systems in Central and Eastern European Countries was performed. The goal of the research is to establish the sustainability of pension systems with econometric modeling techniques on three dimensions as the research hypotheses are revealed: first, by strengthening the financial soundness of pension systems; second, consolidating the economic environment of pension systems; third, increasing the degree of social security systems with a direct effect of reducing poverty. The results led to relevant insights emphasizing the need for more inclusive economic, financial, and social reforms. From a policy perspective, these findings could be a starting point for the enhancement of the financial adequacy and economic and social sustainability of pension systems in Central and Eastern European Countries. The econometric techniques in this study highlight those modern pensions systems that need to be addressed in a more complex and empirical context that must encompass the main technical aspects. The conclusions suggest that in the future it needs judicial, economic, and social adjustments for the enhancement of the financial soundness of the pension systems.

Mechanically homogenized composite of expanded graphite and cobalt(II) rhenate(VII) has been described. Cobalt(II) rhenate(VII) was obtained in a reaction of perrhenic acid with cobalt(II) nitrate. A simple mortar homogenization method was used to enhance intercalation of cobalt species within carbon matrix. The specific capacity of composite was enhanced by 50% in comparison to bare expanded graphite. The electrochemical characteristic was significantly improved including better cyclability, lower resistance of electrode material, lower iR drop, with respect to expanded graphite without cobalt(II) rhenate(VII) active species. Expanded graphite with its unique specific surface area and pore size diameter was proved as potential and cheap carbon support.

City marathons have evolved and grown exponentially in type and popularity, managerial complexity, for their financial impact on their host cities and for the attraction of corporate sponsors. Much research has focused on evaluating the broad economic, urban, tourist, social, sporting, and symbolic effects of city marathons on host cities. Research have not examined the importance of the contribution of sponsors to the financial stability and its implications to the overall management and further success of marathons. This article focuses on the cases of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and the Marathon Valencia Trinidad Alfonso and examines how effective has been the contribution of their sponsors to the financial stability and its implications for the management and success of both races over time. Results show that the international success of both events –in terms of sporting participation, performance and economic impact– is closely related to the design and management of the event; the synergies between the political, business and sporting spheres that the organizational leadership of the event has made it possible to implement and, as a consequence, the support received from sponsors, which has not only provided both races with financial stability, but also has contributed to improve the management of the race.

The concept of a Social License to Operate (SLO) has become increasingly important in the sustainability literature in recent years. Having its origins in the business discourse of the mining industry with respect to limiting opposition to mining projects, the notion of a social contract above and beyond legal requirements has since become applied across a number of different industries. Despite the concepts adoption confusion exists over the practices and outcomes of SLO, and particularly the nature of engagement. Given this situation it is surprising that not more attention to the role of marketing, and social marketing in particular, in operationalizing the concept. The paper discusses the potential of social marketing to contribute to SLO. Economic, political and social relations are complex in SLO and exchange is intricate in such relational environments. A community-based social marketing orientation is proposed as a means to improve exchange relations and enhance engagement. Seven models of SLO related social marketing models are discussed with community-based social marketing and adaptive co-marketing models being regarded as the most positive for the achievement of an SLO. Potential barriers to adoption of these approaches are noted.

The study investigates the effect of corporate governance characteristics on the financial performance of 124 Indian-listed companies that have undergone mergers and acquisitions during 2014–2020. It employs several performance measures, such as short-term capital market performance, long-term capital market performance, accounting-based and market-based measures, and firm-level control factors. The study found board size to be a positive and significant factor affecting short-term market performance. Further, it also documents weak linkages with other corporate governance variables like board independence, CEO duality, etc. Regarding control variables, leverage, the company's age, price-to-book ratio, and research and development expenses significantly impact the acquiring companies' financial returns. The study's findings add to our understanding of corporate governance's impact on performance in cases such as mergers and acquisitions.

The philosophy of testing statistical hypothesis is a natural consequence and functional extension of mathematical analysis of Probability. Along with the concept of recurrence when applied to random sequences and functions, it leads to the analysis of a priori and posterior which implies testing statistical hypothesis. Testing statistical hypothesis also involves algebraic, functional and dimensional considerations, which are found in the works of Laplace. Aspects of mathematical analysis such as universality of solutions, Laws of Large Numbers, Entropy, Information, and various functional dependencies are the main factors explained in the five properties that lead to implication of testing statistical hypothesis. Various interesting examples with modern scientific significance from genetics, astrophysics, and other areas give methodological access to answers of different problems and phenomena which are involved in the logic of testing statistical hypothesis.

There is growing adoption of corporate sustainability practice in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. This proliferation is largely due to the increasing concerns for social, environmental and economic factors in which we assume shared responsibility. Despite the growing attention of researchers and practitioners, several corporations failed to meet their sustainability responsibilities. Several reasons could be associated to this phenomenon such as lack of regulatory mechanism, accountability, etc. This review, however, seeks to examine how nongovernmental organizations (henceforth, NGOs) influence corporate sustainability adoption (i.e. sustainability reporting). In the review of prior research, we leveraged the institutional-legitimacy and corporate governance theories. The findings suggest that NGOs have greater potential in sustainability discourse through two salient actions, namely (1) collaborative partnership, and (2) confrontational tactics. While the former promotes stakeholder involvement in corporate decision making through dialogue, joint-projects on CSR, sustainability reporting, the latter, however, is the last resort – involving “naming and shaming” corporations for poor social and environmental performance through public and social media. The objective of such action is to cause reputational damage to businesses. Finally, it is also observed that crucial to NGO power and influence is the collaboration with government and civil society organizations in the fight for environmental sustainability and accountability.

Developing sustainability competences is an important endeavor for education, as competence development can be complex and requires appropriate approaches. In the case of preparing future educators, this becomes even more important, because of their multiplier role. The current study presents how a project, based on living-lab methodology, helped preservice preschool teachers, attending a course on sustainability issues, develop sustainability-specific professional action competence. Students collaborated with an organization and a school and were trained to deliver to 6-year-old pupils, activities concerning the protection of sea turtles. The process included reflection, based on a given template. After the intervention, the preservice preschool teachers reflected upon their role and professional performance and discussed how they, benefited from this project. They further analyzed through a group interview, how the Living Lab methodology raised their professional confidence and self-efficacy, and helped them develop content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and a sense of purpose and motivation for teaching about sustainability. Outcomes indicate that participants felt confident and efficacious to teach about sustainability, and developed their content knowledge, pedagogy content knowledge, motivation, and volition due to a strong sense of purpose and responsibility. The overall process facilitated the development of critical thinking, systemic thinking, reflection, and collaboration..

Despite the importance of influenza vaccination for healthcare workers (HCWs), their uptake remains challenging. This study aimed to measure influenza vaccine hesitancy among HCWs in Nakhon Phanom province, Thailand. A representative cross-sectional survey was conducted at six hospitals during August – September 2020 using a self-administered questionnaire. HCWs delaying getting influenza vaccines, accepting but unsure, or refusing with doubts were categorized as hesitant. Those accepting without any doubts were classified as non-hesitant. Vaccine hesitancy determinants were identified by multivariable logistic regression analysis. A total of 338 participants (97%) completed the questionnaires; most were female nurses working at district hospitals without pre-existing chronic medical conditions. Nearly 60% of participants (197/338) exhibited influenza vaccine hesitancy, and significant factors included age above 50 years adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 3.2, 95% CI 1.3-8.5), fair knowledge of influenza/vaccination (aOR 0.4, 95% CI 0.2-0.8), and negative influence of other HCW (High level– aOR 2.3, 95% CI 1.1-4.8; Moderate level- aOR 2.1, 95% CI 1.1-4.4). Imparting updated information to the HCW combined with positive guidance from influential peers may help reduce this hesitancy.

Sialylated milk oligosaccharides (SMOs) is the most important oligosaccharides in human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and have a multifunctional health benefit, and the most abundant SMOs are sialyllactose (SLs). The previous studies indicate that the growth of tumor cells, and angiogenesis on tumor tissues with Lewis lung carcinoma, melanoma, and colon carcinoma cells could be prevented by SL. Thus, it has been proposed that SL might be an ideal candidate for the development of anti-angiogenic drugs without any side effects. It has been proposed that the Sialic acid (Sia) can be produced through SL’s hydrolysis, and the dietary Sia is further transported to the brain and other tissues though blood for formation of CMP-Sia, the activated precursor of Sia, and then is catalyzed by polysialyltransferases (polySTs) for synthesis of polysialic acid (polySia) or polysialylation of neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM). Thus, it’s necessary to study and develop new inhibitors, which not only modulate a proper balance between the gut health and neuros system development, but also inhibit the overexpression of polySia, and thus block the tumor cell migration. In this study, we proposed that 3’-SL and 6’-SL may be more ideal inhibitors comparing with two previous inhibitors, the low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) and cytidine monophosphate (CMP) in the previous studies.

The authors argue that despite significant numbers of foreign workers present in the Russian labor market Russia remains unattractive for highly skilled foreign workers. The economic crisis the country has faced since 2014 has resulted in a further outflow of foreign nationals from OECD countries. So Russia has to look for employees among newcomers from the former Soviet states, the majority of whom come from Central Asia. Russian politics with regard to immigration is characterized by the collision between “geopolitical” and domestic policy rationales. On one hand, seeking to maximize its influence in the post-Soviet space Russia provides preferential conditions of employment for citizens of partner countries in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union. On the other hand, the Kremlin is afraid to liberalize its approach to immigration and the integration of immigrants through fear of losing popularity among the electorate. The second substantial feature of Russian immigration politics is an extreme level of securitization of migration issues. The government considers these issues primarily through a policing lens. One cannot claim that the Russian state does not take any steps to liberalize “migratory regulation”; however, the effect of these measures is being vastly reduced by new restrictions. In addition, liberally designed laws do not bring the expected results due to the corrupt practices that pervade the whole of migration regulation.