Reactivity to sustainability metrics: A configurational study of motivation and capacity

Previous research on reactivity – defined as changing organisational behaviour to better conform to the criteria of measurement in response to being measured – has found significant variation in company responses towards sustainability metrics. We propose that reactivity is driven by dialogue, motivation and capacity in a configurational way. Empirically, we use fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyse company responses to the sustainability index FTSE4Good. We find evidence of complimentary and substitute effects between motivation and capacity. Based on these effects we develop a typology of reactivity to sustainability metrics, which also theorises the use of metrics as tools for performance feedback and the building of calculative capacity. We show that when reactivity is studied configurationally, we can identify previously underacknowledged types of responses. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for studying and using sustainability metrics as governance tools for responsible behaviour

The politics of reactivity: Ambivalence in corporate responses to corporate social responsibility ratings

Organizational ratings exude anxiety and allure, but relatively little is known about how managers balance resisting and mobilizing ratings. We explore this duality with a qualitative study on managerial responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings. Based on interviews focused on CSR ratings with managers of 60 companies, we induce four responses to ratings: grumbling, contestation, cherry-picking and microstatactivism. We further show how managers combine resistance and mobilization in two ambivalent engagement modes. Our analysis contributes to the literature by developing a more nuanced theory of corporate responses to organizational ratings, which demonstrates the importance of ambivalence in managing institutional pressure

High-resolution analysis of the pneumococcal transcriptome under a wide range of infection-relevant conditions.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an opportunistic human pathogen that typically colonizes the nasopharyngeal passage and causes lethal disease in other host niches, such as the lung or the meninges. The expression and regulation of pneumococcal genes at different life-cycle stages, such as commensal or pathogenic, are not entirely understood. To chart the transcriptional responses of S. pneumoniae, we used RNA-seq to quantify the relative abundance of the transcriptome under 22 different infection-relevant conditions. The data demonstrated a high level of dynamic expression and, strikingly, all annotated pneumococcal genomic features were expressed in at least one of the studied conditions. By computing the correlation values of every pair of genes across all studied conditions, we created a co-expression matrix that provides valuable information on both operon structure and regulatory processes. The co-expression data are highly consistent with well-characterized operons and regulons, such as the PyrR, ComE and ComX regulons, and have allowed us to identify a new member of the competence regulon. Lastly, we created an interactive data center named PneumoExpress (https://veeninglab.com/pneumoexpress) that enables users to access the expression data as well as the co-expression matrix in an intuitive and efficient manner, providing a valuable resource to the pneumococcal research community

The institutional and social construction of responsible investment

This paper provides a summary of the symposium on the institutional and social construction of Responsible Investment (RI), held at the 22nd IABS Conference. In the context of the symposium, we propose to move beyond the dominant focus on the financial impact of RI to consider the potential of emergent institutional and sociological perspectives to explain the practices and concepts related to RI. In doing so, our aim is to explore in greater detail the current changes in the RI infrastructure and the impact of these changes on wider issues of corporate sustainability and social responsibility

Refining the Pneumococcal Competence Regulon by RNA Sequencing.

Competence for genetic transformation allows the opportunistic human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae to take up exogenous DNA for incorporation into its own genome. This ability may account for the extraordinary genomic plasticity of this bacterium, leading to antigenic variation, vaccine escape, and the spread of antibiotic resistance. The competence system has been thoroughly studied, and its regulation is well understood. Additionally, over the last decade, several stress factors have been shown to trigger the competent state, leading to the activation of several stress response regulons. The arrival of next-generation sequencing techniques allowed us to update the competence regulon, the latest report on which still depended on DNA microarray technology. Enabled by the availability of an up-to-date genome annotation, including transcript boundaries, we assayed time-dependent expression of all annotated features in response to competence induction, were able to identify the affected promoters, and produced a more complete overview of the various regulons activated during the competence state. We show that 4% of all annotated genes are under direct control of competence regulators ComE and ComX, while the expression of a total of up to 17% of all genes is affected, either directly or indirectly. Among the affected genes are various small RNAs with an as-yet-unknown function. Besides the ComE and ComX regulons, we were also able to refine the CiaR, VraR (LiaR), and BlpR regulons, underlining the strength of combining transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) with a well-annotated genome.IMPORTANCEStreptococcus pneumoniae is an opportunistic human pathogen responsible for over a million deaths every year. Although both vaccination programs and antibiotic therapies have been effective in prevention and treatment of pneumococcal infections, respectively, the sustainability of these solutions is uncertain. The pneumococcal genome is highly flexible, leading to vaccine escape and antibiotic resistance. This flexibility is predominantly facilitated by competence, a state allowing the cell to take up and integrate exogenous DNA. Thus, it is essential to obtain a detailed overview of gene expression during competence. This is stressed by the fact that administration of several classes of antibiotics can lead to competence. Previous studies on the competence regulon were performed with microarray technology and were limited to an incomplete set of known genes. Using RNA sequencing combined with an up-to-date genome annotation, we provide an updated overview of competence-regulated genes

Mirroring and switching authoritative personae: A ventriloquial analysis of shareholder engagement on carbon emissions

We examine how the authority of investors to speak about climate change with corporations is established. Leveraging the ‘communication as constitutive of organizations’ (CCO) perspective, we analyse who speaks on behalf of whom (or what) in shareholder engagement on corporate carbon emissions. Based on access to private dialogues between an engager acting on behalf of a pool of investors with twenty utility corporations, we identify how three authoritative personae—that of diplomat, advocate and coach—convey climate change concerns. We find that the mirroring of these authoritative personae by corporations may lead to deliberation, evasion, or rejection of the suggested courses of action. We theorise how relational authority is communicatively constituted in shareholder engagement through a process of mirroring and switching between authoritative personae. Our framework contributes to the study of CCO and relational authority by highlighting how meta-figures are used by external actors in an attempt to author appropriate corporate actions. We discuss the implications of our framework for the role of shareholder engagement in current attempts at greening financial capitalism

Efficiency of energy transfer, but not external work, is maximized in stunned myocardium

There is no evidence regarding the effect of stunning on maximization of regional myocardial external work (EW) or efficiency of energy transfer (EET) in relation to regional afterload (end-systolic stress, sigma(es)). To that end, we studied these relationships in both the left anterior descending coronary artery (LADCA) and left circumflex coronary artery regions in anesthetized, open-chest pigs before and after LADCA stunning. In normal myocardium, EET vs. sigma(es) was maximal at 75.4 (69.7-81.0)%, whereas EW vs. sigma(es) was submaximal at 12.0 (6.61-17.3) x 10(2) J/m(3). Increasing sigma(es) increased EW by 18 (10-27)%. Regional myocardial stunning decreased EET (27%) and EW (36%) and caused the myocardium to operate both at maximal EW (EW(max)) and at maximal EET (EET(max)). EET and EW became also more sensitive to changes in sigma(es). In the nonstunned region the situation remained unchanged. Combining the data from before and after stunning, both EW(max) and EET(max) displayed a positive relationship with contractility. In conclusion, the normal regional myocardium operated at maximal EET rather than at maximal EW. Therefore, additional EW could be recruited by increasing regional afterload. After myocardial stunning, the myocardium operated at both maximal EW and maximal EET, at the cost of increased afterload sensitivity. Contractility was a major determinant of this shift

Generalized liquid crystals: giant fluctuations and the vestigial chiral order of I , O and T matter

Theoretical Physic

The Impact of Sustainable Investing: A Multidisciplinary Review

We conduct a multidisciplinary review of how sustainable investing impacts the environment and society. Our review starts from the insight that shareholders can create impact not only through (1) portfolio screening and (2) shareholder engagement (two impact strategies most used by mainstream shareholders) but also through (3) field building (an impact strategy most used by shareholders at the periphery of the financial sector). Based on this framework of three impact strategies, we integrate insights from four disciplines (management, finance, sociology, and ethics/sustainability) to reconstruct how each impact strategy influences corporate sustainability. We identify 15 impact mechanisms through which the impact strategies produce three types of impact: portfolio screening and shareholder engagement mostly create direct impact on companies, while field building creates indirect impact via other shareholders and indirect impact via the institutional context. Our review suggests that shareholder impact emerges gradually as different types of shareholders build on each other's efforts, which we use to outline a research agenda on shareholder impact as a distributed process

Tailor-to-Target: Configuring Collaborative Shareholder Engagements on Climate Change

We study collaborative shareholder engagements on climate change issues. These engagements involve coalitions of investors pursuing behind-the-scenes dialogue to encourage target firms to adopt environmental sustainability practices. Drawing on a unique dataset of 553 engagements coordinated by the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)—and an innovative mixed-methods approach integrating fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) with regression analysis and qualitative interviews—we investigate how four coalition composition levers (coalition size, shareholding stake, experience, local access) combine to enable or hinder engagement success. We find that successful coalitions use four configurations of coalition composition levers that are tailored to target firms’ financial capacity and environmental predispositions—i.e., target firms’ receptivity. Unsuccessful configurations instead emphasize single levers at the expense of others. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we identify three mechanisms (synchronizing, contextualizing, overfocusing) that plausibly underly the identified configurations and provide investor coalitions with knowledge about target firms and their local contexts, thus enhancing communication and understanding between investor coalitions and target firms. Our study contributes an emerging “tailor-to-target” theory of collaborative shareholder engagement that extends the literature by showing the importance of designing investor coalitions for effective climate-related engagement; and the value of conceiving coalitions as different configurations of the same levers that can fit a target firm’s receptivity. From a practical perspective, our study prompts investors to move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to instead tailor their engagement strategies to target firms’ receptivity