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We examine (i) the impacts of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) on firm efficiency and (ii) how board gender diversity (BGD) moderates these impacts in mining multinational enterprises (MNCs). We first employ a two‐stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to estimate eco‐efficiency (EE) and profitability efficiency (PE), and a network‐based ranking model to rank the mining MNCs. Second, we utilize multivariate regression analysis on 294 firm‐year observations of 49 global MNCs spanning from 2016 to 2021 to achieve our research objectives. Based on our findings, it appears that mining MNCs have a bigger room for improvement when it comes to their profitability efficiency than their eco‐efficiency. The DEA average efficiency scores for EE and PE stand at around 83% and 50%, respectively. Moreover, our regression results reveal that ESG significantly and positively influences EE but insignificantly affects PE. Environmental pillar score (EPS), social pillar score (SPS), and governance pillar score insignificantly influence EE, whereas EPS and SPS significantly affect PE. In addition, BGD significantly moderates the effect of ESG on EE. BGD significantly moderates only the impact of SPS on PE. Overall, this study emphasizes the significance of focusing on BGD when examining the relationship between ESG and firm efficiency, which thus provides crucial insights for stakeholders in the global mining industry, including investors, policymakers, and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance penetration rate in Malaysia is low at only between 40% and 50%. Following the government's policy goal of increasing the rate, this study examined metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (MMPI) and drivers of the MMPI among Malaysian insurers. Over the 2009–2017 period, general insurers and life insurers were technology leaders. General insurers had progressive productivity (MMPI) on average, whereas the MMPI values of the life and general insurers and life insurers were in deterioration. Overall, long-term strategic planning and capital investment alongside government's liberalization to increase competition in the industry are thus necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the association between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and firm performance, taking into account the influence of power distance (PD) cultural orientation among 38 leading technology‐driven global companies between 2017 and 2021. First, we establish an internal network structure through a chance‐constrained network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) model to analyze the R&D investment and eco‐business efficiencies of our sample companies. Among the average DEA score results, eco‐business efficiencies performed better with after COVID‐19 than R&D investment performance. Second, we conduct a truncated regression analysis and find that PD positively (negatively) moderates the impact of social (environmental and governance) factors on R&D investment efficiency (eco‐business efficiency). Overall, we highlight strategic ESG toward their sustainability business success and underline the specific NDEA application in assessing the efficiencies of innovative industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing university resource allocation or misallocation is necessary to understand its impact on research and teaching productivity. To achieve this insight, this study conducts a two-stage data envelopment analysis to judge the "teaching and research efficiency" and "revenue efficiency" of 61 universities in Vietnam. We analyze what variables have the most effect on the efficiencies of the universities through improving results. Moreover, this research applies scale elasticity to distinguish the benchmark performance leader among Vietnam universities. Results indicate that universities are more efficient in terms of "revenue efficiency" than "teaching and research efficiency." The scale elasticity decomposition findings show that multidisciplinary universities perform better than those specializing in science and technology and social science and economics. Finally, the competitive map to performance advancement strategies is exhibited. This map helps the university management to enhance their efficiencies.

Recently, the method of using graph neural network based on skeletons for action recognition has become more and more popular, due to the fact that a skeleton can carry very intuitive and rich action information, without being affected by background, light and other factors. The spatial–temporal graph convolutional neural network (ST-GCN) is a dynamic skeleton model that automatically learns spatial–temporal model from data, which not only has stronger expression ability, but also has stronger generalisation ability, showing remarkable results on public data sets. However, the ST-GCN network directly learns the information of adjacent nodes (local information), and is insufficient in learning the relations of non-adjacent nodes (global information), such as clapping action that requires learning the related information of non-adjacent nodes. Therefore, this paper proposes an ST-GCN based on node attention (NA-STGCN), so as to solve the problem of insufficient global information in ST-GCN by introducing node attention module to explicitly model the interdependence between global nodes. The experimental results on the NTU-RGB+D set show that the node attention module can effectively improve the accuracy and feature representation ability of the existing algorithms, and obviously improve the recognition effect of the actions that need global information.

We examine whether and how research and development (R&D) mediates the association between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillars and corporate efficiency among companies within the supply chain of Microsoft Corporation from 2012 to 2020. An estimation of corporate efficiency using data envelopment analysis (DEA) indicates that companies should first improve their innovational efficiency (mean DEA score = 0.371), then operational efficiency (mean DEA score = 0.659), and finally profitability efficiency (mean DEA score = 0.695). Moreover, a mediation analysis confirms the mediating role of R&D intensity. Overall, R&D should be one of the spotlights in the supply chain amidst the highlights on ESG in this dynamic and challenging business world for companies to achieve sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although environmental, social, and governance (ESG) have been recognized for its overall impact on firm efficiency, research on the effects of the three main and multiple sub elements of ESG, especially in the airline industry, has been lacking. Thus, we analyze the impacts of overall ESG, its three main elements, and each sub elements of ESG on the firm efficiency of 29 suppliers, partners, and customers of Japan Airlines over the period of 2013–2022. First, we employ a two‐stage hierarchical network data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique that assesses the interrelationships and interdependencies among the supply chain players in contributing toward achieving their respective operating and profitability efficiencies. Second, we run ordinary least squares regression analyses with 5000 bootstrap replications and determine that overall ESG and its three main elements are positively linked with firm efficiencies. The sub elements of ESG have different impacts on firm efficiencies. That is, resource use and environmental innovation under the Environmental element and human rights and product responsibility under the Social element show significantly positive associations with firm efficiencies. All Governance sub elements positively affect firm efficiencies. The outcomes of this study will be valuable for managers at Japan Airlines and other policymakers within its supply chain because it highlights the importance of focusing on the three main and sub elements of ESG and employing the accurate firm efficiency measurement method when interrelationships and interdependencies of decision‐making units exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]