Suchergebnisse

Purpose
This study aims to include two primary goals. First to determine the board characteristics of listed companies in Turkey and second to investigate the effect of board gender diversity on the performance of these companies.


Design/methodology/approach
This study uses an instrumental variables regression analysis to investigate the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance using the data from 2008-2012 of the entities listed on the Borsa Istanbul.


Findings
The results indicate that the boards of these companies in Turkey are male-dominated. Moreover, this study shows that the inclusion of female directors is positively related to the financial performance of firms, as measured by the return on assets, the return on equity and the return on sales.


Originality/value
Limited empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance in emerging economies. Therefore, there is still no consensus regarding the link between board gender diversity and firm financial performance based upon the mixed and sometimes contradictory results in prior research. Therefore, this study extends the current literature in the context of Turkey, showing that a female member on the board can enhance the financial performance of a company.

AbstractThe crisis period of 2008 triggered European firms to undertake more corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities than during non‐crisis periods in all four dimensions, governance, economic, environmental, and social. The exogenous shock of 2008 significantly reduced European companies' profitability. The crisis period triggered firms to undertake more CSR activities than non‐crisis periods in all four dimensions, governance, economic, environmental, and social. Compared to other dimensions, corporate governance received more attention, implying that firms tried to alleviate the shock's disadvantages by strengthening their governance structures.

PurposeDrawing on financial slack resources theory, stakeholder theory and signaling theory, the purpose of this study is to explore the two-way causality between liquidity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) by using the cash conversion cycle (CCC) as liquidity proxy and composite and individual CSR metrics.Design/methodology/approachThe data were retrieved from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database covering the period between 2013 and 2019 and 20,016 firm-year observations affiliated with ten business sectors and 60 countries. The fixed-effects panel regression analysis is executed in the empirical part.FindingsThe results indicate that firms with greater liquidity proxied by shorter CCC engage with greater CSR initiatives. They also reveal that firms with greater liquidity proxied by CCC do not regard all the dimensions of environmental and social performance equivalently; they do discriminate them. In the environmental pillar, firms funnel their cash derived from shorter CCC toward eco-innovation and resource use, respectively, but not to emissions reduction. In the social pillar, higher liquidity fosters community and human rights dimensions, respectively, but not workforce and product quality. These outcomes are largely robust to alternative CSR measurement, alternative sampling and endogeneity concerns. The reverse causality confirmed that CSR promotes higher liquidity (shorter CCC). Thus, the bidirectional relationship between CSR and liquidity is confirmed.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the authors wanted to consider a longer study period, they were obliged to choose 2013 as the starting period because particularly CCC data together with environmental, social and governance (ESG) data were not available in the earlier years.Practical implicationsAmong environmental indicators, fueling eco-innovation most with greater liquidity shows that firms make a strategic choice for their long-term growth and legitimacy. Besides, greater liquidity induces greater community development and more respect for human rights rather than investing in workforce and product quality. Although this might be an outcome of the realization of a deliberate strategy and good for the society, not investing in the workforce and product quality may impair the long-term survival and competitive position of the firm in the long-run in the marketplace. The implication of reverse causality is that customers purchase products and services of firms that do good for the ecology and the community and they pay faster to those companies.Social implicationsThis study highlights that liquidity management and CSR are closely interrelated confirming a chicken and egg story. Firms with better liquidity management are more likely to care environment and community. Besides, doing good for society pays back in the form of enhanced firm liquidity triggering customer sympathy.Originality/valueThis research provides new insight by examining the two-way causality of the relationship between CSR performance and liquidity, which helps highlight the impact of CSR performance on the company's ability to manage its cash and the benefits of having high liquidity on enhancing the company's concern about the society and environment.

Purpose– The aim of this study is twofold. The first is to analyze the nature, extent and trend of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the Turkish banking industry under five sub-themes, namely, environment, energy, human resources, products and customers and community involvement. The second is to investigate the impact of ownership and board structure on CSR reporting by the banks.Design/methodology/approach– The annual reports of the banks were examined for the period between 2008 and 2012 to analyze the CSR reporting of the banks, using content analysis and panel data analysis.Findings– The results show that CSR reporting of the banks improved during that period of time. The findings of the study also revealed that there is a significant positive effect of size, ownership diffusion, board composition and board diversity on the CSR disclosure of the banks.Originality/value– This study contributes significantly to the existing literature because the banking industry is generally excluded from the CSR studies. Further, there are few studies analyzing the effect of the ownership and board structure on the CSR disclosure. Finally, this study was conducted in a developing country with different regulations and socio-economic aspects as compared to developed countries. This study outlines important implications for regulatory bodies, organizations, the banking industry and other stakeholders.

AbstractThis paper examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) and advertising as two firm visibility channels and tests their complementarity/substitution. The study extends the investigation with moderating variables, including board gender diversity, CSR committees, and financial slack. Using a sample that includes 53,835 firm‐year observations worldwide associated with 10 business sectors from 2007 to 2019, we find that CSR performance is negatively associated with advertising; this holds for the aggregate CSR score as well as for environmental and social pillars but not for the governance pillar. This implies that two visibility channels—namely CSR and advertising—are substitutes except for the governance dimension. Furthermore, female directors do not advocate for the two visibility channels but instead are proponents of one, in line with the agency cost approach. However, CSR committees fully promote two communication channels supported by the composite and three individual pillars of CSR. Finally, financial slack matters in utilizing two publicity channels concurrently. The findings show that several contingencies must be taken into account to improve companies' visibility while avoiding exacerbating agency costs for better business management.

PurposeThis study aims to examine the roles of board gender and cultural diversities in driving social sustainability practices through the moderating effect of board structure policies in the logistics and transportation sector.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted fixed-effects regression with 2005–2019 data from Thomson Reuters Eikon.FindingsThe results showed that female directors are significant predictors of social sustainability across the four dimensions of human rights, workforce, product responsibility and community development. Additionally, directors with different cultural backgrounds (but not the workforce) are significant determinants of community development, human rights and product responsibility. Furthermore, although board structure policies positively moderate the relationship between board gender diversity and social sustainability, they fail to moderate the relationship between board cultural diversity and social sustainability.Originality/valueThe findings have crucial implications for the logistics and transportation sector's social sustainability and may help the sector align with employees' and society's expectations. The incorporation of board gender and cultural diversities into the research design was a response to calls by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) to address board configuration and stakeholders' concerns.

PurposeDrawing on legitimacy theory, this study aims to investigate whether the benefits of the external assurance process pass beyond the current period and help firms improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the subsequent periods. Furthermore, the authors examine whether corporate governance (CG) and firm visibility moderate the relationship between assurance and CSR performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors retrieved data from Thomson Reuters from 2002 to 2019 and executed a fixed-effects (FE) panel regression analysis. The country-level sample distribution includes 63 countries with 4,625 unique firms and 29,054 data points within these countries. The authors run several robustness tests using an alternative subsample, instrumental variable regression analysis, country-industry-year FE regression analysis, excluding the financial sector and including additional control variables and regression analysis based on propensity score matching.FindingsThe findings indicate that external assurance helps firms achieve greater CSR performance in the current period and the subsequent two periods following external assurance. However, external assurance exerts its strongest positive impact on CSR performance in the current period, and its influence extends, albeit at a weaker level, to the following two periods. Furthermore, the first moderation analysis reveals that governance structure helps firms translate the assurance process into the greater social performance but does not help to achieve higher environmental performance. The second moderation analysis reveals that firm visibility/size positively moderates between the assurance process and governance and social performance but not between the assurance process and environmental performance.Originality/valueDespite the concurrent association between CSR performance and assurance being examined before, the lag-lead relationship is the novelty of the study to highlight the long-term effect of assurance on CSR performance. Besides, although the direct effect of both CG practices and firm visibility on CSR performance and the external assurance process has been investigated before, the authors extend the literature by examining the moderating effect of CG practices and firm visibility on the external assurance and CSR performance relationship. This provides a better explanation of the extent to which the effect of external assurance on CSR performance is constructed and conditioned by CG practices and firm visibility, thereby drawing attention to contingencies' role in firms' practices.