Critical issues in sustainability - Part III

This booklet is the third of its kind and, as such, the sequel to ‘Critical Issues in Sustainability – Part I’ and ‘Critical Issues in Sustainability – Part II’. It contains several of our reflections as they have appeared in writing throughout 2020, notably but not exclusively through opinion articles. Just as much as we hope this booklet will challenge your ideas and actions and will provide you with the inspiration to change our world for the better, we hope it will be the ancestor of our and others’ future work. In any case, we invite you to let us know what you think about it and how we might join force

On the informative value of the EU-wide stress tests and the determinants of banks’ stock return reactions

We examine the informative value of the 2016 and 2018 supervisory EU stress tests on the basis of the bank stock and CDS abnormal returns they have caused. Our conclusions are based on results from event study analysis and from regressions on the determinants of bank stocks’ abnormal returns. We conclude that the 2018 stress test has been comparatively more informative for investors but only for a sub-group of banks based on sovereign debt-ridden and non-Eurozone countries. The robustness of our results is tested by applying an exhaustive set of event study test statistics on abnormal returns generated from both single and Fama-French factor models. The equity Tier I, leverage and profitability ratios are important determinants of abnormal bank stock returns for the same group of countries as in the event study analysis. Non-linear reactions highlight the fact that investors assign varying degrees of importance on the information they get from the stress tested financial ratios. Overall, our results substantiate the claim that the recent EU stress tests have been calibrated towards revealing the weaknesses of the banking sectors of peripheral Eurozone and non-Eurozone countries

A cost-benefit analysis of ISO26000 : the standard on social responsibility

The International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 26000 on social responsibility supports organizations of all types and sizes in their responsibilities toward society and the environment. The standard's core subjects respect the rule of law as well as international norms on human rights and non-discrimination. ISO 26000 recommends that organizations ought to follow its principles on accountability, transparency, ethical behaviors and fair operating practices that safeguard organizations and their stakeholders' interests. Hence, this chapter presents a critical analysis on ISO 26000. This is followed by a discussion on the trade-offs between the costs and benefits for those organizations who intend following this social responsibility standard’s principles. Afterwards, this contribution posits that the stated purpose of ISO’s non-certified standard on social responsibility is to provide ‘guidance’ to its users as it is not an enforceable instrument. In conclusion, the author has put forward his implications for practitioners and policy makers. This chapter also suggested some future research avenues to academia.peer-reviewe

Faculty Retention factors at European Business Schools. How Deans and Faculty Perceptions Differ.

Developments in the management education environment present business schools with several challenges. Among these, perhaps the most important to address relates to a mission-critical resource for business schools: faculty retention. In this paper, we position and examine this problem within the context of business schools. We present the results of a research project on faculty retention that was conducted in 2003-2004 among European business school faculty and deans. The results identify the most important factors for faculty retention and suggest that there are perception gaps between faculty and deans on these factors that could lead to distorted decision-making and suboptimal resource allocation