Performance disclosure on the web, an exploration of the impact of managers' perceptions of stakeholder concerns

Using an exploratory research perspective, we examine how multinational firms' executives' motivations map into corporate website performance disclosure. Our focus is on managements' beliefs about the relevance of financial, social and environmental performance disclosures and how these beliefs relate to the firms' website disclosure practices. For 56 companies, we use managers' perceptions along with data captured from websites. Employing factor and regression analysis, we find that executives' perceptions of stakeholders' importance affect their firms' web-based disclosure practices and foci. Additionally, strategic focus, media, size of organization, profitability, leverage and analyst following are found influential in explaining types of performance disclosures made.Usando una perspectiva de investigación exploratoria, examinamos cómo las motivaciones de los ejecutivos de empresas multinacionales se esquematizan en la revelación del desempeño de las páginas web corporativas. Nuestro enfoque está en las creencias de dirección sobre la relevancia de la revelación del desempeño financiero, social y ambiental, y cómo estas creencias están relacionadas con las prácticas de divulgación del sitio web de la firma. Para 56 compañías, usamos percepciones de directores junto con la información conseguida de páginas webs. Empleando el análisis de factores y de regresión, encontramos que estas percepciones sobre la importancia de los inversores afecta a sus prácticas de divulgación en las páginas webs de la firma, y a sus focos de atención. Además, el enfoque estratégico, los medios de comunicación, el tamaño de la organización, la rentabilidad, la influencia y los analistas financieros siguientes influyen en la explicación de los tipos de divulgaciones de desempeño

Measuring the readability of sustainability reports : a corpus-based analysis through standard formulae and NLP

This study characterises and problematises the language of corporate reporting along region, industry, genre, and content lines by applying readability formulae and more advanced natural language processing (NLP)–based analysis to a manually assembled 2.75-million-word corpus. Readability formulae reveal that, despite its wider readership, sustainability reporting remains a very difficult to read genre, sometimes more difficult than financial reporting. Although we find little industry impact on readability, region does prove an important variable, with NLP-based variables more strongly affected than formulae. These results not only highlight the impact of legislative contexts but also language variety itself as an underexplored variable. Finally, the study reveals some of the weaknesses of default readability formulae, which are largely unable to register syntactic variation between the varieties of English in the reports and demonstrates the merits of NLP in report readability analysis as well as the need for more accessible sustainability reporting

M & L Jaargang 10/4

GeneriekKoen Himpe Historisch-landschappelijke relictwaarden uit het kasteeldomein van Poeke: aandachtspunten voor een creatief parkbeheer. [The castle domain of Poeke: hisstorical landscape-relics and elements for an imaginative park management.]een drydobbel dreve vormden in de 18de eeuw slechts enkele meer opvallende tekenen van welstand van de baronnen van Poeke.Een kortstondig romantisch intermezzo en de terugkeer naar een vertrouwd neoklassiek patroon markeerden dan weer de late 19de eeuw en meteen ook de nieuwe eigenaars.Deze veelvuldige relicten stroomlijnen tot een respectvol parkbeheer lijkt voor Koen Himpe nochtans geenszins onoverkomelijk.Roel De Ceulaer, Willem Aerts en Yvan Maes De wandtapijten van de Sint-Catharinakerk te Hoogstraten - een conserveringsbehandeling. [Conservation treatment of the wall tapestry of the St. Catherines church at Hoogstraten.]Reeds eerder kwamen Antoine de Lalaing en Elisabeth van Culemborg, het hertogenpaar uit Hoogstraten, hier ter sprake.Hun persoonlijk aandeel in s lands 17de-eeuwse culturele bloei blijft dan ook verbazingwekkend.Nu twee reeksen rugtapijten na een heilzame behandeling de ateliers mochten verlaten van de Koninklijke Manufactuur Gaspard De Wit, geven Roel De Ceulaer en Willem Aerts, naast Yvan Maes, nadere details prijs over de historische achtergronden en de restauratieve aanpak.Frans Dopere en William Ubregts De woontoren van Aynchon de Hognoul te Rutten op het einde van de 13de eeuw. [The donjon of Aynchon de Hognoul in Rutten at the end of the 13th century.]Vertrouwd raken met het 13de-eeuwse panopticum waar Frans Dopere en William Ubregts duidelijk vriend aan huis zijn, vergt net iets meer dan de gewone belangstelling.Wat uit deze onzekere tijden aan monumentaal patrimonium bewaard bleef is dan ook betrekkelijk miskend, zoniet bedroevend schaars.Neem nu bijvoorbeeld... de woontoren van Aynchon de Hognoul.Walter Schudel Wij zullen het wel vrijleggen. [Just let us expose it On the restoration of wall-paintings.]Oude witsellagen blijven in restauratie-middens, tegen beter weten in, de gemoederen verhitten.Terwijl nog steeds niet afdoend doorgedrongen is dat muren van oudsher ook van een afwerking werden voorzien, daagt het gevaar nu bij al te doortastende restaurateurs. Een zoveelste pleidooi van Walter Schudel voor meer deskundige schroom.SummaryJubileum-bijlage: "Het Belgische trekpaard. Levend cultureel erfgoed.

Prevention of overweight and hypertension through cardiorespiratory fitness and extracurricular sport participation among South African schoolchildren

Hypertension and overweight are growing public health concerns in school-aged children. We examined whether cardiorespiratory fitness and sport participation contribute to the prevention of hypertension and overweight. We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial with 853 children aged 8-13 years in eight primary schools in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Cardiorespiratory fitness, sport participation, body mass index, and blood pressure were assessed at baseline and after a physical activity intervention, which took place at two time-points (July-September 2015 and February-April 2016) for 10 weeks each. Mixed logistic regressions were employed to analyze the data. At baseline, 18.8% of the children were classified as overweight/obese and 13.5% as hypertensive. High cardiorespiratory fitness and high sport participation were negatively associated with overweight/obesity, while high sport participation was associated with lower risk for hypertension. Longitudinally, normal weight children who initially had higher cardiorespiratory fitness showed less decrease in this variable, while those who participated in the physical activity intervention were less likely to become overweight/obese. High cardiorespiratory fitness and sport participation are linked with children's weight status. Children who are fit and participate regularly in sport outside school hours are less likely to be hypertensive. Our findings highlight the importance of regular extracurricular physical activity and maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness levels

Seasonal variations in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and C:N:P stoichiometry in different organs of a Larix principis-rupprechtii Mayr. plantation in the Qinling Mountains, China

Understanding how concentrations of elements and their stoichiometry change with plant growth and age is critical for predicting plant community responses to environmental change. Weusedlong-term field experiments to explore how the leaf, stem and root carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) concentrations and their stoichiometry changed with growth and stand age in a L.principis-rupprechtii Mayr. plantation from 2012–2015 in the Qinling Mountains, China. Our results showed that the C, N and P concentrations and stoichiometric ratios in different tissues of larch stands were affected by stand age, organ type andsampling month and displayed multiple correlations with increased stand age in different growing seasons. Generally, leaf C and N concentrations were greatest in the fast-growing season, but leaf P concentrations were greatest in the early growing season. However, no clear seasonal tendencies in the stem and root C, N and P concentrations were observed with growth. In contrast to N and P, few differences were found in organ-specific C concentrations. Leaf N:P was greatest in the fast-growing season, while C:N and C:P were greatest in the late-growing season. No clear variations were observed in stem and root C:N, C:P andN:Pthroughout the entire growing season, but leaf N:P was less than 14, suggesting that the growth of larch stands was limited by N in our study region. Compared to global plant element concentrations and stoichiometry, the leaves of larch stands had higher C, P, C:NandC:PbutlowerNandN:P,andtherootshadgreater PandC:NbutlowerN,C:Pand N:P. Our study provides baseline information for describing the changes in nutritional elements with plant growth, which will facilitates plantation forest management and restoration, and makes avaluable contribution to the global data pool on leaf nutrition and stoichiometry

CoRoT photometry and high-resolution spectroscopy of the interacting eclipsing binary AU Mon

Analyses of very accurate CoRoT space photometry, past Johnson V photoelectric photometry and high-resolution \'echelle spectra led to the determination of improved and consistent fundamental stellar properties of both components of AU Mon. We derived new, accurate ephemerides for both the orbital motion (with a period of 11.113d) and the long-term, overall brightness variation (with a period of 416.9d) of this strongly interacting Be + G semi-detached binary. It is shown that this long-term variation must be due to attenuation of the total light by some variable circumbinary material. We derived the binary mass ratio $M_{\rm G}/M_{\rm B}$ = 0.17\p0.03 based on the assumption that the G-type secondary fills its Roche lobe and rotates synchronously. Using this value of the mass ratio as well as the radial velocities of the G-star, we obtained a consistent light curve model and improved estimates of the stellar masses, radii, luminosities and effective temperatures. We demonstrate that the observed lines of the B-type primary may not be of photospheric origin. We also discover rapid and periodic light changes visible in the high-quality residual CoRoT light curves. AU Mon is put into perspective by a comparison with known binaries exhibiting long-term cyclic light changes.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA