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Disclosure is an important communication channel that can enhance corporate transparency and accountability and improve engagement with numerous stakeholders. Corporate environmental disclosure has garnered attention globally in recent years across multiple stakeholders groups including businesses, investors, watch groups and legislative branches of governments etc. for its far-reaching social and economic implications. It has become a major challenge for business organizations to address and deal with environmental issues, in particular for multinational enterprises as part of their legitimacy and meeting stakeholders' expectations. Again, the need for stakeholders' response to corporate environmental reports has been reiterated in extant literature; however there remains lack of adequate response from stakeholders for the inability for corporations to identify specific environmental issues that stakeholders expect companies to disclose to assure them of corporate legitimacy. To respond to this gap, this study contributes to knowledge by highlighting specific areas of importance which companies in both developed and emerging economies can address in order to encourage report users and stakeholders to positively respond to their assured environmental reports. This study, therefore, focuses on environmental disclosure in multinational companies in both developed (Australia and United Kingdom) and emerging (South Africa) economies. Building on both legitimacy and stakeholders' theories and Global Reporting initiative (GRI) disclosure guidelines (G3), the study applies hierarchical regression modelling to examine the influences of stakeholder, legitimacy, financial and demographic variables on the 'preservation', 'responsibility' and 'initiatives' aspects of environmental disclose of 67 companies operating in these three countries over a period of two years from 2008 to 2009. Empirical results indicated that return on assets and industry sector were significantly predictive of both preservation and responsibility components. Again, firm age was predictive of preservation and initiatives components, while assurance was predictive of initiatives and responsibility components. On the other hand, firm size and board structure were predictive of only the initiatives component and not the preservation and responsibility components. However, diversification, ownership, internal policy, other financial variables appear to have no influence on any environmental components. These findings have implications for companies, investors, policy makers and stakeholders at large. Environmentally sensitive companies could be encouraged to allocate more resources in order to increase their environmental activities and disclosure. From a policy perspective, the results could form part of the inputs to be considered in the future GRI guidelines. Similarly, policy makers also can take note in formulating environmental policies to address both social and economic implications.

While the fund performance management literature has clearly documented that the fund size, fund family size, and net cash flow are important antecedents of equity fund performance, prior empirical studies have revealed mixed results that have not been adequately explained. Through the lens of the contingency perspective, we developed a conceptual model that examines how the expense ratio and management compensation as contextual factors interact with the fund size, fund family size, and net cash flow to affect equity fund performance. The empirical analyses were based on panel data including 690 equity funds in China over a 7-year period from 2009 to 2015. The results show that the expense ratio and management compensation moderate the effects of the fund family size and net cash flow on fund performance, and management compensation also moderates the relationship between the fund size and fund performance.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) score/index. Specifically, the study describes extant research on theoretical perspectives, and the impact of women on corporate boards (WOBs) on carbon emission issues in the global perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the carbon disclosure scores of the CDP from 2011 to 2013 (inclusive). A total observation for the three-year periods is 1,175 companies. However, based on data availability for the model, the sample size totals 331 companies in 33 countries with firms in 12 geographical locations. The authors used a model which is estimated using the fixed-effects estimator.FindingsThe outcomes of the study reveal that there is a positive relationship between gender diversity (WOB) and carbon disclosure information. In addition to establishing a relationship between CDP score and other control variables, this study also found a relationship with Board size, asset size, energy consumption and Tobin's Q, which is common in the existing literature.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the study mostly revolve around samples and the time period. To further test the generalizability and cross-sectional validity of the outcomes, it is suggested that the proposed framework be tested in more socially responsible firms.Practical implicationsThere are increasing pressures for WOBs from diverse stakeholders, such as the European Commission, national governments, politicians, employer lobby groups, shareholders, Fortune and Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) rankings and best places for women to work lists. The study offers insights to policy makers implementing gender quota legislation.Originality/valueThe study has important implications for putting into practice good corporate governance and, in particular, gender diversity. The outcomes of the analyses advocate that companies that included women directors and had a smaller board size may expect to achieve a higher level of carbon emission performance and to voluntarily disclose the level of carbon information assessment requested by the CDP.

In discussions about the goals we should set for our policies and programs, there are some familiar moral reasons to think that hope and resilience should often be included. In particular, hope and resilience are both widely recognized as moral virtues, and they may be vital for social cohesion. To demonstrate the feasibility of modelling and measuring the relevant variables and of putting them to use, we developed and tested a number of hypotheses. Drawing upon survey data that we collected from 429 participants (211 Indigenous Australians and 218 non-Indigenous Australians'), we found that favourable beliefs about the quality of government support are positively associated with greater levels of hope and resilience. Hope and resilience, in turn, are positively associated with greater satisfaction with life. But most interestingly, we found a strong and widespread positive association between fully recognizing the legacy of historical injustices in Australia and having hope.
Points for practitioners:
• It is feasible to adopt hope and resilience as goals for policies and programs, and to evaluate policies and programs accordingly. Moreover, as indicated here, doing so can provide some interesting results.