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Research Purpose. The COVID-19 pandemic was very demanding for business entities which have to introduce new managerial tools and approaches to protect the health of employees and maintained continuity in the company's activities. Most countries worldwide have implemented policies and guidelines that protect employees from potential risks related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study aims at identifying if any difference exists (and what these differences are) between Czech and Slovak companies in the emphasis they pay to the corporate social responsibility (abbreviated: CSR) activities connected with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Generally, corporate sustainability studies focus on identifying the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and corporate financial performance among different companies without measuring the company’s efficiency based on sustainability pillar scores.

Conflict costs can be used to determine conflict outcomes and can be measured among others in terms of lost time. So far, no study has investigated the effects of cultural distances on conflict costs. Our study tries to add new findings by investigating the influence of cultural distances on internal indirect conflict costs. A survey with 226 participants was conducted to measure the time spent on conflicts. Each participant reported on a conflict situation he or she was personally involved in. We used linear regression analysis to test our hypotheses. We did not find support for our hypotheses that the larger a cultural distance was, the more time was spent on a conflict. According to our study, cultural distances do not explain conflict costs and it cannot be proven that the greater a distance, the higher the conflict costs. In a more globalized world, it is positive that despite great cultural distances, time spent on conflicts does not increase. This can encourage leaders to capture the benefits of diversity, whereas the consequences on at least some conflict costs are low.

AbstractThere are legal requirements for a bank to be officially listed on the Vietnam stock exchange; hence by the end of 2020, Vietnam’s banking industry had 43% of banks officially listed on the stock exchange and 57% of banks not officially listed. Accordingly, the difference between these two groups of banks is clear. This study aims to find empirical evidence for a one-way relationship between corporate social responsibility expenditure (CSRE) and the financial performance of Vietnamese commercial banks. In addition, the study also looks for the influence of each component of CSRE, including Community, Government, and Employee Responsibility, on the financial performance of listed and unlisted banks. Using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) controlling for heteroscedasticity, serial correlation, and endogeneity effects, the research results of the study show that CSRE as a cost reduces the bank’s financial efficiency; however, social responsibility spending with the community is a positive factor that increases the bank’s financial efficiency through creating an image and good impression with society and customers. Especially significantly stronger for commercial banks that have been officially listed on the stock exchange. Research results show the need to strengthen CSR implementation in the banking industry.

AbstractThis study is designed to provide empirical evidences on the conditional influence corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate accounting and market performance. This study considers risk management (RM) as a conditional or moderating variable. Accounting performance was proxied by return on assets (ROA), earnings per share (EPS), and net profit margin (NPM), while market performance was proxied by Tobin-Q and stock price. Furthermore, those proxies form corporate performance variable based on factor analysis. CSR measured using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI G4) Index. Meanwhile, RM was measured using total risk management proxy. By applying purposive sampling method, 253 non-financial companies were selected as a sample of this study. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with the WarpPLS approach was used for data analysis. This study found that the corporate social responsibility has a positive effect on corporate performance, and the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate performance will be stronger if corporate risk management is applied optimally. The findings of this study imply that the good corporate performance will be achieved since a company discloses more CSR information and runs effective risk management as well.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to find out how the positive influence of corporate sustainable development on corporate financial performance alters during the two recent crises i.e. the global recession (2008–10) and COVID-19 (2019–20). The fixed effect modeling of panel data is applied in the main analysis of Chinese manufacturing companies ranging from 2008 to 2020. The results of the study disclose that there is an overall positive influence of corporate sustainable development on corporate financial performance. However, this influence becomes stronger during both crises i.e. the global recession (2008–10) and COVID-19 (2019–20). Moreover, this positive influence is even stronger during covid −19 recession as compared to this influence during the global recession (2008–10).

AbstractThis study investigates the association between the corporate life cycle and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in Vietnam. We hypothesize that the ability and motivation of firms to engage in various CSR activities at each stage of the corporate life cycle are different. Data are collected from 218 companies listed on the HOSE and HNX exchanges in Vietnam from 2014 to 2018 to measure the CSR according to the 2016 GRI General Standards, Parts GRI 200, GRI 300, and GRI 400. Using 2SLS estimation, the empirical findings of our study are consistent with our hypothesis. Our findings suggest that the introduction and growth stages are positively associated with CSR disclosure. Firms in the decline and shake-out phases no longer focus much on CSR disclosure, which shows that older firms do not invest in CSR activities as much as young firms. This study has two contributions. First, the research findings help to expand the literature in the Vietnamese context by applying business life cycle theory and aligning CSR with corporate life cycle stages. Second, the results of this study contribute to managerial implications in making CSR dimension decisions.

AbstractCorporate social responsibility (CSR) towards sustainable development has been identified as a marketing philosophy that businesses in developed countries should pursue in the post-Covid-19 era as these practices deal with urgent global social and environmental challenges. Such efforts contributing to sustainable development will enhance corporate image and reinforce strong bonds with customers. In developing countries like Vietnam, how CSR affects consumer behaviour and the mechanism regulating the relationship between CSR and consumer behavior are the research gaps that have not been widely investigated. This study explores the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty, with the emphasis on the mediating role of corporate image. Focusing on the Vietnamese aviation industry, the author surveyed 514 passengers and analyzed them using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that CSR has a positive impact on corporate image and customer loyalty. In addition, CSR also affects customer loyalty through enhancing corporate image. Research results have provided research implications and management implications for the future.

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of various corporate governance characteristics on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information in the context of developing markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used data from the annual reports of the top 100 companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange from 2019 to 2021 to investigate the relationship between board independence, board size, CEO duality, foreign ownership, government ownership, and the disclosure level of CSR reporting. We employed a content analysis to measure CSR disclosure level by using the CSR reporting index (CSRRI) with 17 items. The panel regressions including three techniques like the pooled-ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects model (FEM), and random effects model (REM), were used to analyze the data, and FEM) shows its best fit to the model. The results suggest that board independence and government ownership correlate positively and significantly with companies’ decisions to disclose CSR information. In contrast, board size, CEO duality, foreign ownership and was found to be insignificant. Our study extends the literature on CSR particularly in developing countries where governments play a significant role in promoting economic development. It also evaluates the CSR disclosure level of the top listed companies in Vietnam. Since then, the paper’s results provide several insights to the policymakers to identify the corporate governance characteristics that will promote CSR reporting in Vietnam’s listed companies.

AbstractThis study aims to analyse the diffusion level of non-financial reporting (sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, and integrated reporting) in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and analyse the quality of sustainable reporting standalone. Indonesia, which is one of the emerging market countries, has not yet established independent sustainable reporting regulations, but a small number of companies in Indonesia are committed to following global regulations to support sustainable development. The study was conducted on public companies listed on the Indonesian stock exchange and examined 240 sustainability reports from 2016 to 2019. For the quality of sustainable reporting standalone, we used the disclosure of triple bottom-line items (economic, environment, social) in accordance with GRI and content analysis to analyze the quality of sustainability reporting based on the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) principles to measure quality: clarity and accuracy, timeliness, and engagement, stakeholders, comparability, and reliability. This analysis follows, whos argue that in Indonesia public companies, there do not yet require the preparation of a standalone sustainability report. This study shows that the diffusion of sustainability reports is still shallow compared to mandatory social responsibility reports. The quality of sustainability reports based on disclosure is also still low, but industry groups vary in quality. The quality of Sustainability Reporting is based on timeliness and stakeholder engagement, and comparability, satisfactory. However, for clarity and accuracy, the results are acceptable, while reliability is less acceptable.

Social responsibility issues keep reoccurring despite the popularity of numerous approaches perceived widely as adequate. In this paper, the authors conducted a systematic literature review to explore this phenomenon from a systems thinking standpoint. The findings revealed that each approach is founded on a different systemic paradigm, makes different assumptions on the nature of social responsibility issues, and has different objectives when resolving them. Therefore, employing any of these approaches alone will certainly fail given their underlying systemic limitations. The findings also revealed that these approaches are complementary from a critical systems thinking perspective, hence, researchers and practitioners can use their tools and methods together in the form of tailored interventions to better address efficiency, subjectivity, and fairness when resolving social responsibility issues. This paper concludes by proposing a practical framework based on critical systems practice which encompasses four systemic paradigms allowing the inclusion of a spectrum of perspectives, and assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the voluntary disclosure of earnings forecasts by female CEOs. We find that in the backdrop of increased pressure to perform from investors and other stakeholders, female CEOs tend to issue more earnings forecasts than male CEOs, and those forecasts are more accurate. We also find that while financial analysts generally prefer to follow companies headed by male CEOs, female CEOs' efforts to issue accurate earnings forecasts pay off, as these efforts help them close the analyst coverage gap. We provide complementary evidence on the disclosure efforts of female CEOs with regard to updates to the forecast and the 10-K report. Lastly, we show that financial analysts rely more on the earnings forecasts of female CEOs, possibly because they recognize female CEOs' superior forecasting quality. Our results are robust to the use of alternative research designs, including difference-in-difference, propensity score matching, and entropy balancing. Overall, our study documents gender differences in voluntary disclosure by senior management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of a CEO's social connections to a firm have received much attention. However, less is known on between-CEOs differences in building connections. This paper is a step towards filling this gap by investigating whether CEOs social connections are influenced by China's local alcohol drinking culture. We use the sample of Chinese listed companies to test our hypotheses. We find that CEOs whose firms are located in regions with strong alcohol drinking culture have more social connections, both inside and outside the firms. We further find that the drinking culture only significantly affects the social connections of male CEOs, but not female CEOs. These findings remain robust after accounting for endogeneity by instrumental variable approach and matched sample analysis. Besides, we find CEO's inter-firm but not intra-firm social connections established from alcohol drinking can help firms acquire more trade credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work from home or teleworking, continues to expand not least due to the COVID-19-crisis and poses challenges for employees and companies. In uncertain and dynamic times, organisations wonder what skills make employees successful when working from home and which measures support employees. By performing in-depth research that addresses employee agility as skills and capabilities, a research framework is proposed. Based on an international survey of employees working from home during the COVID-19-crisis (N = 1,016), the impact of agile work characteristics on work from home success and the mediating effect (accounting for 48% of the total effect) of tailored support measures by HRM were investigated. The results of the mediation analysis show that agile work characteristics have a direct, positive and significant effect on the success of working from home. Part of the effect is explained by HRM measures as a mediator. The findings contribute to the research stream of dynamic capabilities by applying the theory to working from home. The comparatively simple research model provides companies with information on how they can best support employees in the dynamics of a crisis and the expansion of work from home and, therefore, has high relevance for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characterization of how entrepreneurial a region or country is, has generally been shaped by a narrow view of what actually constitutes entrepreneurship. In the case of Germany, this has led to a characterization of Germany as not being particularly entrepreneurial. Such a view is at odds with the remarkable, high-performing family business, widely held to be the backbone of the economy. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the interpretation prevalent in entrepreneurship literature is problematic due to a too narrow operationalization of the entrepreneurship concept. As Zahra (2007; 2014) emphasized, context matters for entrepreneurship, especially on a local or spatial level. One particular organizational manifestation of entrepreneurship, family business, may be congruent in specific spatial and institutional contexts but not in others. Other geographic and institutional contexts may be congruent with the contrasting startups. Thus, an important and novel contribution of this paper is to analyze the geography of family business as distinct from startups: two ends of the entrepreneurship continuum, embedded in different kinds of entrepreneurial ecosystems. We generate innovative maps working with official data, showing the distinct distribution of both kinds of entrepreneurship in different ecosystems. These findings are connected with spatial effects, living conditions and lead to recommendations for policy measures. The paper focuses on Germany, because startups as well as family business are prevalent and can be found in all regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]