Assessing the Influence of Ethical Leadership Behaviours, Leadership Styles and Leader Roles as Determinants of Online Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosures in Malaysia

Currently corporate scandals are making headlines in the news. Stakeholders are demanding transparency through better information disclosure in order to curtail this problem and to regain trust. Businesses must find better and more effective ways of communicating not only financial but also non-financial information to these stakeholders. Information disclosures in both annual reports and on websites are important but the two media are used differently. Online CSR disclosures provide timely information and will meet stakeholders’ demands for greater speed and volume of information disclosure. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the current level of online CSR disclosures among public listed companies in Malaysia, with particular reference to the influence of leadership variables. This study seeks to explain any variations in online CSR disclosures by using the following variables as the explanatory factors: ethical leadership behaviours, consisting of people orientation, fairness, power sharing, concern for sustainability, ethical guidance, role clarification and integrity; leadership styles, comprising transactional and transformational leadership styles; and leader roles. In investigating this issue, a quantitative approach was employed using a sample of 100 top Malaysian public listed companies. The data collection started with examining corporate websites using a disclosure index, followed by a questionnaire survey to grasp employees’ opinions on their leaders’ ethical leadership behaviours, leadership styles and leader roles. Due to the limitations of a quantitative approach, seven semi-structured interviews with managers were conducted to give context to the quantitative findings as well as supplement the data. The results show that Malaysian companies’ level of online CSR disclosure was low and the majority of companies did not fully utilise their websites to disseminate CSR information, although all the companies had websites. The results of the multiple regression indicated that ethical guidance, concern for sustainability and integrity contributed to the amount of CSR information disclosed on the Malaysian companies’ websites but interestingly, these were inverse relationships. Consequently, the interview findings revealed that not all leadership variables were perceived by managers to be determinants of online CSR disclosures. The inverse relationships were possibly due to factors such as leader’s confidence, moral recognition, personal recognition, external factors and cultural factors. This research contributes to the understanding of corporate voluntary disclosure strategies through the focus on online CSR disclosure. Prior disclosure studies emphasize financial, accounting and economic related variables as determinants to online CSR disclosures. This study provides a new insight for company leaders, policy makers and academics on how the behaviours of leaders, who are key corporate players, can impact the setting of CSR goals and enhance transparency by disclosing online

Non-Financial Information versus Financial as a Key to the Stakeholder Engagement: A Higher Education Perspective

In light of the increased demand for greater accountability and legitimacy, new disclosure mechanisms based on non-financial transparency have emerged. Universities cannot be left behind with respect to these social demands. In addition, continuous competition in excellence is driving higher education organizations to exhibit a greater visibility of their results, necessarily incorporating more non-financial aspects to boost stakeholder engagement. The novelty of this work lies in the analysis of the real state of non-financial vs. financial information in both public and private universities and in the exploration of their influence on stakeholder online engagement. To this end, a content analysis of the universities’ web pages and Facebook profiles was conducted, and a multivariable linear regression analysis was performed. The main results show that private and larger universities that lead Webometrics for Google Scholar Citations, and those that have gradually been adopting financial reporting, are the most interested in implementing Facebook as a two-way communication strategy. It seems that stakeholders react more to financial transparency and, therefore, universities still prefer financial disclosure to improve accountability

Institutional Drivers of Voluntary Carbon Reduction Target Setting—Evidence from Poland and Hungary

Governments worldwide have launched climate policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). These policies aim to enhance businesses to be active actors in the process of decarbonisation. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to identify the drivers of voluntary corporate decarbonisation illustrated by climate target-setting practices. In particular, this paper aims at diagnosing whether European Union (EU)-wide and country-level policies foster material corporate commitment to mitigating the carbon footprint in two countries that are exceptionally heavily dependent on fossil fuels: Poland and Hungary, which are characterised by a specific political-economic situation. This analysis focuses on policies related to the EU sustainable finance initiative that enhances companies to voluntarily reduce their GHG emissions: (1) sustainable financial sector, (2) corporate disclosure, and (3) corporate governance policy. At the country level, the national policies for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are analysed. The empirical research is conducted based on the financial and economic data for a group of Polish and Hungarian publicly listed companies exposed to these regulations. The exposure to certain policies is approximated through selected corporate characteristics. Logistic regression analysis is applied to firm-level data gathered from Refinitive and corporate reports. The dataset covers the period 2014 to 2021, with 214 data-points. The response variable is a binary indicator of whether a company sets emission targets. The empirical research proved that state ownership, belonging to the financial sector, and performance-oriented corporate governance factors have a significantly negative impact on the probability of a company setting target emissions. On the other hand, the company’s size and leverage have a strong positive impact on the probability of setting emission targets. Also, it was confirmed that after 2020 the frequency of corporate target-setting in Poland and Hungary increased. Additionally, it was observed that Polish firms are more willing to set climate targets than Hungarian ones. Therefore, from the analysed policies, only the corporate sustainability disclosure policy proved to have a positive impact on the practices of setting climate targets in Polish and Hungarian firms. The policies related to the sustainable financial sector and to state-owned enterprises proved to have a negative impact on the probability of setting climate targets, while for the corporate governance policy, the results are mixed. In this vein, it was shown that, by a majority, policies to stimulate voluntary corporate commitment to decarbonisation are counter-effective in countries characterised by exceptional fossil fuel dependence and particular institutional features. The original value of this study stems from the applied methodology focusing on a mix of policies addressing the deep decarbonisation process in the specific country settings. The presented research contributes to an on-going debate on the drivers of voluntary corporate decarbonisation, in particular the impact that policy mixes framed under the sustainable finance agenda may have on material commitments to GHG emission reduction targets. In this context, the main findings are important for policymakers who are responsible for creating and implementing policy measures devoted to the deep decarbonisation process. It is recommended that policymakers should consider national specificities while designing policies for a Europe-wide net-zero transition and account for potential tensions arising from different goals as they may have impact on the effectiveness of the decarbonisation process. Future research may focus on the verification of the observed relationships between variables on a larger sample of the European firms to identify the key drivers of deep corporate decarbonisation

Universities’ websites : disclosure practices and the revelation of financial information

Despite the social importance of universities and their significance as receivers of public funds, hardly any research exists about their disclosure of financial information. The scarce research that has been done has focused on countries such as the United States, New Zealand, Austria, the United Kingdom and Norway. In addition, the Internet is used widely on behalf of public bodies as a way to improve their relations with citizens, through greater disclosure of information and the possibility of doing administrative business and paperwork online. Considering both topics, this work has a twofold objective: (1) to analyse the disclosure of information revealed online by Spanish universities, focusing on several issues, such as financial information, corporate governance, social responsibility and strategy, teaching and research activities, etc.; and (2) to observe the factors that explain the disclosure of financial information through Spanish universities’ websites, focusing mainly on size, leverage, university profitability, governance, type of university, research orientation, age of the university and its internationality etc. This study takes into account the whole population of Spanish universities (70 universities: 48 public and 22 private). The findings obtained emphasize that university websites mainly disclose information on teaching and research activities and on governing bodies; to a lesser extent, they reveal information on their social responsibility and strategic aspects; and finally, the volume of financial information disclosed remains quite small, mainly including their budgets. Furthermore, the universities with lower levels of leverage disclose more information online, whereas those with higher volumes of debt are more reluctant to reveal their internal situation on the Internet.A pesar de la importancia social de las universidades, y su significado como recibidores de fondos públicos, difícilmente alguna investigación existe sobre sus divulgaciones de información financiera. La escasa investigación realizada se ha centrado en países como EEUU, Nueva Zelanda, Austria, el Reino Unido, y Noruega. Además, Internet se usa ampliamente por las figuras públicas como manera de mejorar sus relaciones con los ciudadanos, mediante una mayor divulgación de información, y la posibilidad de hacer negocios administrativos y papeleo en formato online. Teniendo en cuenta ambos temas, este estudio tiene un doble objetivo. Primeramente, analizar la divulgación de información revelada online por universidades españolas, centrándonos en algunos problemas, como la información financiera, la dirección corporativa, la responsabilidad y estrategia social, actividades de enseñanza e investigación, etc. Y en segundo lugar, observar los factores que explican dicha divulgación a través de las páginas webs de las universidades españolas, enfocándonos principalmente en el tamaño, la influencia, la rentabilidad de la universidad, la dirección, el tipo de universidad, la orientación de la investigación, la antigüedad de dicha universidad y su internacionalidad, etc. Este estudio tiene en cuenta la población de las universidades españolas al completo (70 universidades: 48 públicas y 22 privadas). Los hallazgos obtenidos subrayan que las páginas web universitarias revelan información principalmente de actividades de enseñanza e investigación, y de figuras de dirección; a un menor alcance, desvelan información de sus responsabilidades sociales y aspectos estratégicos; y finalmente, el volumen de información financiera desvelada permanece pequeño, mayormente incluyendo sus presupuestos

Convergence Versus Divergence, Global Corporate Governance at the Crossroads: Governances Norms, Capital Markets & OECD Principles for Corporate Governance

There is growing debate as to whether international corporate governance practices can or should converge. Effective corporate governance has been linked to the ability of corporations to compete in global capital markets. Corporations operating in diverse economies have capital structures that are the result of public and private choices, and the corporate governance issues that arise reflect these structures. There is market pressure for convergence of corporate governance norms. The OECD has formulated Principles aimed at setting standards for corporations as they seek to attract capital. While the shareholder protections proposed are helpful in articulating norms that will attract long-term investment capital, the Principles fail to fully appreciate some of the current tensions between shareholder rights and obligations of corporate officers. Moreover, while the Principles suggest that corporations comply with laws regarding obligations to stakeholders, they fail to adequately discuss why shareholder rights are elevated to a universal norm, whereas accountability to other parties implicated in the corporation, such as creditors and workers, is not

The Effect of Fraud Disclosure, Internal Control, Information Technology on Corporate Governance and Corporate Performance as Moderating Variable

This research is a quantitative causality study that analyzes the effect of fraud disclosure, internal control, information technology on corporate performance and corporate governance as moderating variables. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the existing literature by overcoming some of the limitations articulated from previous studies. First, it offers new empirical insights on company risk and disclosure of fraud by management by basing research in behavioral theories that emerge from the board of directors and corporate governance, where corporate decision making is not only assumed to be underlined by formal approaches and CG mechanisms, but also CG arrangements informal, limited rationality, political bargaining, routine and satisfying behavior. The fixed-effect regression model is used to study the relationship of fraud disclosure, internal control and information technology of financial performance while the random-effect regression model is used from non-financial performance. Panel data of 192 sample observations from public companies in the banking sector which are listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and are included in the Top 50 ASEAN Scorecard. The findings show the disclosure of fraud, internal control and information technology have a positive effect on company performance, both financial and non-financial performance and corporate governances strengthen the financial performance but weaken the non-financial performance Keywords: Disclosure of Fraud, Internal Control, Information Technology, Corporate Performance, Corporate Governance DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-33-09 Publication date: November 30th 2020