Are firms that contribute to sustainable development valued by investors?

Artigo em revista científica internacional com arbitragem científicaSustainability reporting contributes to making sustainable development a higher priority for companies, increases the social responsibility of their managers, and reinforces the credibility and trust of their stakeholders. However, prior research about the value relevance of sustainability disclosure for financial stakeholders provides inconclusive results. In this context, the aim of our research is to analyse whether sustainability disclosure provides relevant information and incremental value for investors in the European setting where this practice has been steadily increasing in the period 2001–2013. Our overall results support the belief that conducting business in accordance with ethical norms is value relevant for European investors. However, our results also reveal that there is no homogeneity among markets, even for the periods before and after the global financial crisis. These findings could have several implications for internal and external stakeholders such as managers, shareholders, and policymakers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Encouraging environmental sustainability through gender : a micro-foundational approach using linguistic gender marking

While studies show that organizational diversity is beneficial to organizations’ practice of environmental sustainability, we know very little about the effect that the gender of an individual director can have on sustainability practice. In this empirical paper, we employ a micro-foundational approach to examine whether the number of women on an organization’s board of directors has a direct effect on its attitude towards environmental sustainability, regardless of the national culture in which the organization is located. Culture in this study is measured through grammatical gender marking, a unique approach to measuring female-oriented cultural effects. Previous studies show that certain cultures have more gender roles than others, which in turn affects general and organizational behavior in that society. Grammatical gender marking enables us to study the impact of gender of the individual director on the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability across cultures, by empirically examining data from 71 countries, sampling a total of 4,500 organizations for multiple years and industries. Our findings show that organizations become significantly more proactive in environmental sustainability with the appointment of even one woman to the board of directors, regardless of the local culture. We further show that the organization’s level of disclosure regarding its sustainability activities, increases with the number of women on the board of directors. Our data also show a significantly negative relationship between various gender-based language indices and the presence of women on the board of directors. In cultures defined by a language that has clear grammatical gender markings, there is a tendency to appoint fewer women to boards of directors, thereby influencing indirectly the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability

Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies of Spanish Listed Firms and Controlling Shareholders’ Representatives

This article aims at analyzing how controlling shareholders’ representatives on boards affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies (disclosing CSR matters) in Spain, a context characterized by high ownership concentration, one-tier boards, little board independence, weak legal protection for investors, and the presence of large shareholders, especially institutional shareholders. Furthermore, among controlling shareholders’ representatives, we can distinguish between those appointed by insurance companies and banks and those appointed by mutual funds, investment funds, and pension funds. The effect of these categories of directors on CSR strategies is, therefore, also analyzed. Our findings suggest that controlling shareholders’ representatives have a positive effect on CSR strategies, as do directors appointed by investment funds, pension funds, and mutual funds, while directors appointed by banks and insurance companies have no impact on CSR strategies. This analysis offers new insights into the role played by certain types of directors on CSR strategies

Does it pay to be sustainable? Looking inside the black box of the relationship between sustainability performance and financial performance

The last three decades have witnessed a huge amount of research exploring the linkage between companies' sustainability performance (SP), sustainability disclosure and financial performance (FP). Researchers have applied various methods and techniques to investigate this relationship, yet the results remain equivocal. In this article, we look inside this black box by considering various manifestations of sustainability practices and investigating their link with FP. We apply a manual content analysis technique to analyse the sustainability reports of the 100 best-performing US firms. Our results reveal that fragmentation in the results is caused by the SP measurement. Additionally, we note that the interlinkages between different SP dimensions and sub-dimensions are weak and somewhat contradictory. The results help draw important policy implications for the development of an SP reporting framework

Divulgación de información sostenible: ¿se adapta a las expectativas de la sociedad?

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la coherencia entre los valores de la sociedad, identificados mediante las dimensiones culturales propuestas por Hofstede, y las prácticas divulgativas en materia de responsabilidad social corporativa que los municipios muestran en sus webs. El análisis viene motivado porque en los últimos años se ha asistido a un significativo crecimiento del interés ciudadano en relación con la transparencia de los entes públicos en materia de sostenibilidad.Para conseguir el objetivo propuesto, en el presente trabajo se realiza un análisis del contenido de 25webs de municipios brasileños, colombianos, mexicanos, portugueses y españoles. La aplicación de diversas técnicas estadísticas y gráficas ha permitido analizar la relación entre las prácticas informativas de estas administraciones públicas y las expectativas de la sociedad.Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto que hay varias diferencias entre países en relación con las divulgaciones de información, todas justificadas por los valores culturales relativos al colectivismo, la feminidad, la tolerancia a la incertidumbre y la distancia de poder

El consejo de administración y las memorias de sostenibilidad: The board of directors and the sustainability report

Although the disclosure of sustainability report is not compulsory, the role of the board of directors could be quite important in the publishing relevant information for decision making. Nowadays, and as a result of growing interest in environmental and social aspects of business performance and their impact on the company's long-term survival, the board's monitoring function over the economic and financial information has been extended to include sustainability reporting.This paper analyses the role played by certain features of the board, such as its size, level of activity and independence, as well as the diversity of its members, in the production and disclosure of a corporate social responsibility report.Previous empirical evidence regarding these new responsibilities undertaken by the board is mainly limited to cross-sectional analyses within single countries for a relatively short time period, and so the conclusions to be derived are necessarily restricted. In contrast, the present study involves the analysis of a sample of 690listed companies from 10European countries for the years 2004 to 2009.The results obtained show that large companies with correspondingly large and diverse boards are the most active in publishing significant, comparable sustainable information. This is also true with respect to the frequency of board meetings.Aun cuando la elaboración de memorias de sostenibilidad no es obligatoria, el papel del consejo de administración puede ser importante en la emisión de información relevante para la toma de decisiones. En la actualidad, y debido al creciente interés por el comportamiento medioambiental y social de los negocios y su impacto en la supervivencia empresarial a largo plazo, la función del consejo de monitorizar la información económico-financiera se ha ampliado a las memorias de sostenibilidad.El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el papel que determinadas características del consejo de administración, tales como su tamaño, el nivel de actividad, la independencia y la diversidad de sus miembros, tienen en la elaboración y en la divulgación de un informe de responsabilidad social corporativa.La evidencia empírica previa en relación con las nuevas responsabilidades de este órgano de control es limitada y sujeta a análisis transversales a nivel país y periodo temporal, lo que limita las conclusiones que pueden derivarse de los mismos. En ese artículo, el análisis se realiza para una muestra de 690empresas cotizadas pertenecientes a 10países europeos para los ejercicios 2004 a 2009.Los resultados obtenidos muestran que las grandes compañías que disponen de consejos de administración de mayor tamaño y diversidad en su composición son las más activas en relación con la emisión de información sostenible relevante y comparable. Afirmación que puede extenderse a la frecuencia con que se reúne su consejo de administración

Divulgación de información sostenible: ¿se adapta a las expectativas de la sociedad? Sustainability disclosure: Does it adapt to society's expectations?

The aim of this paper is to analyze the consistency between the values of society, identified by the cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede, and outreach practices in corporate social responsibility that municipalities show on their websites. The analysis is motivated because in recent years there has been a significant growth of public interest in relation to the transparency of public bodies in sustainability.To achieve this objective, in this paper a content analysis of 25municipalities websites Brazilian, Colombian, Mexican, Portuguese and Spanish. The application of various statistical and graphical techniques has allowed us to analyze the relationship between the information practices of these government and the expectations of society.The results showed that there are several differences between countries in thematic preferences disclosures, all of the justified by the society cultural values relating to collectivism, feminity, tolerance and equity.El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la coherencia entre los valores de la sociedad, identificados mediante las dimensiones culturales propuestas por Hofstede, y las prácticas divulgativas en materia de responsabilidad social corporativa que los municipios muestran en sus webs. El análisis viene motivado porque en los últimos años se ha asistido a un significativo crecimiento del interés ciudadano en relación con la transparencia de los entes públicos en materia de sostenibilidad.Para conseguir el objetivo propuesto, en el presente trabajo se realiza un análisis del contenido de 25webs de municipios brasileños, colombianos, mexicanos, portugueses y españoles. La aplicación de diversas técnicas estadísticas y gráficas ha permitido analizar la relación entre las prácticas informativas de estas administraciones públicas y las expectativas de la sociedad.Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto que hay varias diferencias entre países en relación con las divulgaciones de información, todas justificadas por los valores culturales relativos al colectivismo, la feminidad, la tolerancia a la incertidumbre y la distancia de poder

El consejo de administración y las memorias de sostenibilidad

Aun cuando la elaboración de memorias de sostenibilidad no es obligatoria, el papel del consejo de administración puede ser importante en la emisión de información relevante para la toma de decisiones. En la actualidad, y debido al creciente interés por el comportamiento medioambiental y social de los negocios y su impacto en la supervivencia empresarial a largo plazo, la función del consejo de monitorizar la información económico-financiera se ha ampliado a las memorias de sostenibilidad.El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el papel que determinadas características del consejo de administración, tales como su tamaño, el nivel de actividad, la independencia y la diversidad de sus miembros, tienen en la elaboración y en la divulgación de un informe de responsabilidad social corporativa.La evidencia empírica previa en relación con las nuevas responsabilidades de este órgano de control es limitada y sujeta a análisis transversales a nivel país y periodo temporal, lo que limita las conclusiones que pueden derivarse de los mismos. En ese artículo, el análisis se realiza para una muestra de 690empresas cotizadas pertenecientes a 10países europeos para los ejercicios 2004 a 2009.Los resultados obtenidos muestran que las grandes compañías que disponen de consejos de administración de mayor tamaño y diversidad en su composición son las más activas en relación con la emisión de información sostenible relevante y comparable. Afirmación que puede extenderse a la frecuencia con que se reúne su consejo de administración

Fostering Stakeholder Engagement: The Role of Materiality Disclosure in Integrated Reporting

This paper studies the determinants of materiality disclosure among International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Pilot Program companies implementing the IIRC Framework. In other words, it studies which variables influence the way in which such companies provides information about their materiality determination process. In order to test our hypotheses we performed a number of statistical analyses on a unique hand-collected dataset including IIRC and non-IIRC Pilot Program companies for the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years. Our results indicate that industry and some firm-level characteristics (board size and diversity) do play a significant role in the determination of materiality disclosure, whereas the legal environment in which companies operate does not. Also, we found that IIRC Pilot Program companies disclosed more information about materiality than their competitors that did not join the program. This paper provides interesting insights for policy makers (in particular, the IIRC) and extends previous academic literature on integrated reporting. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environmen