Stock Exchanges Sustainability Initiatives and Corporate Environmental Sustainability Commitment

This paper undertook an analysis to decipher the degree to which stock exchanges’ environmental proclivity has influenced companies’ environmental commitment. The paper is pertinent, as stock exchanges have often been criticised as instruments of capitalism hegemony, it thus helps to assuage such criticism given the paper’s findings about the growing environmental advocacy of stock exchanges to blend with their core economic objective to ensure environmental sustainability. The paper adopted a quantitative approach using the ordinary least square (OLS) technique with time series data from the Carbon Disclosure Project archive showing the number of companies engaging in carbon disclosure over the years. Holding other factors constant, and at an alpha of 0.05 significance level, findings from the analysis show that growth in stock exchanges’ environmental initiatives has contributed a positive and significant booster to corporate environmental commitment at P level of 0.020 significance, using number of carbon disclosing companies as a proxy for environmental commitment. The paper also found that the launch of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges in 2009 provided an additional impetus that has accelerated the environmental sustainability momentum of stock exchanges. The paper recommends further research on the extent to which corporate carbon commitments has resonated with pragmatic carbon reduction

Economic benefit assignment in environmental cost allocation

This paper aims to suggest a model to reward a dirty product which has the potential to offer sales promotion services to other clean products in a multiple product firm. The paper suggests a model economic benefit assignment (eba) for apportionment of direct waste costs where a polluting product offers a sales promotion benefit to other clean products of the same company, which proposes that benefiting products should be assigned a proportion of the direct waste cost of the polluting product (as a service charge) based on the proportion of promotion benefit (sales benefit) received from the polluting product. The idea is that, based on transfer pricing theory, such promotion service would be paid for, if offered by an outside agent. Whilst academic debate is expected to ensue from this suggestion model, further case research is imperative to demonstrate industrial applicability

Relating Women in Parliament and Economic Growth in an Emerging Economy – South Africa

As developing nations grapple with the economic challenges of the 21st century, the aptness of new approaches to boost economic growth is more than ever desired. To this end, this paper examined the relationship between the proportion of seats of women in national parliament and economic growth in South Africa; accordingly, the paper is anchored on women and development theory. The research applied a quantitative approach and secondary data on proportion of female seats in South Africa’s national parliament and the GDP growth for South Africa were retrieved from the World Bank development indicators for 1998 – 2017 (20 years); in addition, foreign direct investment (FDI) was used as a control variable. The OLS regression statistics was applied to analyse the relationship at an alpha value of 0.05. Findings from the results showed that whilst the FDI disclosed no significant relationship with economic growth, the proportion of female seats in national parliament indicated a significant positive relationship with the GDP growth for South Africa during the 20 years of study at a P-value of 0.0001. The paper contributes to the literature by examining this phenomenon within the South African context. From the result, the paper makes policy and research recommendations, which includes inter alia, the need to balance the parliamentary seats equitably for females and to increase female political seats in provincial legislators and in municipal managerial seats as this has the propensity to increase economic growth the more. Further research is apposite to examine this relationship at the provincial levels and across countries in Africa in a cross-sectional panel approach.  &nbsp

Corporate Health and Safety Disclosure and Sales Revenue Growth

This paper examined a possible relationship between health and safety disclosure and sales revenue growth in Woolworths Holdings Limited South Africa. The paper became apposite to add a nuance to bourgeoning extant literature on environmental responsibility and firm performance from a health and safety perspective. This is with a view to accentuating the importance of health and safety element of corporate responsibility. In addition to a brief review of literature, the analysis approach was quantitative. Using the SPSS software, a Pearson correlation analysis between health and safety disclosure and revenue growth was conducted. At 5% significance level, a two tailed test showed that P<0.03, this indicates a significant correlation at r = 0.821 and P = 0.03. Similarly a simple regression analysis was conducted and findings show a significant relationship at β = 0.835, F(1, 5) = 0.0235, P<0.03 (R2 = 0.67). Findings therefore indicate that, whilst holding other factors constant, health and safety disclosure correlates with growth in sales revenue in Woolworths Holdings Limited. The practical business implication thus is that given the emerging growth in customers’ product health and safety awareness, the corporate may increase sales revenue by disclosing health and safety information on the face of sustainability reports. The paper suggested an agenda for further research on health and safety disclosure to include multiple companies in South Africa. &nbsp

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Stock Market Values: A Differential Analysis

 Abstract: This paper presents a current analysis of the effect of coronavirus pandemic on select global stock indexes (SSE Composite Index [China], Euronext 100 [Europe], Dow Jones Industrial Average [United States of America]. Objective: the objective of the paper is to evaluate the extent and direction of the differential effect of COVID-19 pandemic on select world stock index. Method: data on stock value performance were gathered for fifty days before and fifty days within the Coronavirus epidemic; data were analysed using the paired t-test of difference in mean stock values at an alpha level of 0.05(5%). Findings: Results reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has different effects on the stock markets. Dow Jones Industrial Average showed a significant reduction in mean stock value during the coronavirus period, Chinese Stock Exchange Composite Index experienced a significant increase in mean stock values during epidemic higher than before the epidemic. On the contrary, the S&P 500 and the Euronext 100 indexes show a non-significant difference in mean stock price. Implications: The paper provides direction to stock market participants, investors and speculators regarding a safer investment destination during this time of COVID-19 pandemic; the paper serves a good case study for class room teaching and also provides direction for further research.  Value: this paper provides the first empirical research on the early effect of COVID-19 pandemic on three global important regional stock indexes, which finds that some stock markets such as the Shanghai Composite Index is resilient to COVID-19 pandemic. &nbsp

Analysis of the Differential Effect of Brexit on the FTSE Stock and Money Market Performance

The objective of this paper is to analyze the differential effect of Brexit on the British stock market and money market before and after the Brexit referendum. Prior work. Many research articles have emerged on the economic effect of Brexit, but these papers have largely been predictive in nature; this paper builds on these prior research but examines what exists than being predictive. Approach. Stock market data and exchange rate data were collected from the London Stock Exchange. The data were analyzed with the usage of paired t-test of difference in means. Results: Findings from the analysis show a negative stock value within three days after the referendum, but further analysis show a positive stock value increase within twenty one days after the Brexit referendum. Additionally, the t-test results show that the British Pound fluctuated toward a weaker trajectory than the pre-Brexit period. Implications: Policy makers should shorten the negotiation period for exiting international integrations to reduce protracted loss of investments. Future searchers should observe more days to expand this paper’s new result between stock and money market fluctuations. Value: This paper contributes by examining the difference in fluctuation between stock and money market effects of Brexit.&nbsp

Teaching Staff Self-efficacy and Exercise Behaviour in Tertiary Institutions in Southwest, Nigeria

Health challenges and general wellness could arise due to non-indulgence in physical exercises. Teaching staff job schedules of teaching, research and supervision predispose them to life of less indulgence in strenuous physical exercises. The self-belief that they may not be able to improve on the regimented lifestyles occasioned by their job schedules is the root cause of this sedentary lifestyle. This study therefore sought to determine teaching staff self-efficacy and exercise behaviour in tertiary institutions in Southwestern Nigeria. Self-efficacy scale r = 0.63 and exercise behaviour scale r = 0.61 were used to collect data from one thousand five hundred and thirty-six (1536) teaching staff. It was observed that self-efficacy significantly predicted the exercise behaviour of the teaching staff of tertiary institutions. It was therefore, recommended that considering the sedentary lifestyle of these teaching staffs’, the tertiary institutions authorities should provide good quality facilities, equipment and recreational programmes for the enjoyment values of their teaching staffs. Keywords: Teaching staff, Self-efficacy, Exercise behaviour, Tertiary institutions, Southwestern Nigeri

Analysis of the Role of Export Value on the Reserve of South Africa

South Africa's reserve played a vital economic defence role during the economic crises of the recent past. however little research has examined the relationship between export value and the reserve of South Africa. This paper contributes by assessing the impact of four independent variables (export value, government effectiveness, foreign direct investment and GDP) on the reserve of South Africa. Data were from the World Bank Archives of Global Financial Indicators and from the World Bank Archives of Governance Indicators covering from 1996 to 2014. A cointegration and the OLS regression tests showed a long run relationship between export value, government effectiveness, foreign direct investment and the reserve of South Africa. The Granger Causality test revealed that foreign reserve may influence export value (unidirectional), and that reserve may enhance government effectiveness. The paper offers policy recommendations that may improve the level of reserve and provides an agenda for further research

Searching for Correlation between Global Sustainability Policy Growth and Growth in Sustainability Accounting Research

Abstract: This research examined whether accounting research responds to changing world policies toward sustainability ideology to remain relevant as a dynamic discipline. The paper became pertinent to highlight the extent to which accounting profession is imbued with the resilience to respond to sustainability through research. The paper applied a mixed method of review and quantitative empirical analysis. Sustainability-accounting research output data were collected from the Google Scholar. Sustainability policy initiatives were collected from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate policy archive from 1989 - 2015. The co-integration and OLS regression statistics were applied to evaluate if the growth in sustainability accounting research correlates with the global growth in sustainability policy initiatives. The co-integration test showed a long-term correlation between the variables. Also, tested at an alpha of 0.05, results from the OLS regression analysis showed that an increase in sustainability and/or environmental accounting research has a significant correlation with the growing trend in global sustainability policy initiatives at a P=0.005 which is less than 0.05. The paper concludes that accounting research is being resilient to growing sustainability policy initiatives. The paper recommends further research to examine the extent to which sustainability accounting research has influenced a pragmatic change in corporate sustainability behaviour. Key words: sustainability accounting; accounting research; sustainability policy; sustainable development JEL Classification: M40; M41; M42