Board diversity and strategic orientation: Evidence from India

This study leverages the upper echelons theory to investigate the effect of board diversity (gender, age, education, and tenure) on the strategic orientation of a firm in terms of its exploration- exploitation. It also investigates the moderating role of the technological intensity of the industry for analyzing the relationship between board diversity and exploration–exploitation of the firm. The technological intensity of the industry is classified as high-tech and low-tech. This study brings to light the role of the contingency factors in influencing the board's strategic choice. The study is based on panel data set of Indian Top-200 companies listed on the National Stock Exchange for the period between 2010 and 2015. The present study's findings indicate that an increase in board diversity leads to more exploration than exploitation. Further, the effect of board diversity is more pronounced in high-tech than the low-tech industries.     

Ownership structure and receivables management

In this study, we examine the impact of ownership structure on the receivables management of Indian corporate firms. We argue that owners' incentives to monitor manager's actions increase with the increase in their stake holding. Therefore, firms with concentrated promoter and institutional ownership should have lower receivables in terms of its sales. Our results obtained using a panel of 1,164 firms show a negative relationship between the percentage of promoter holding and the receivables ratio. Further, for growing firms, both promoter and institutional shareholdings have a negative impact. However, the firm size effect did not show any impact on the relationship between ownership concentration and receivables ratio.     

Political environment and voluntary disclosure in the U.S.: Evidence from the Carbon Disclosure Project

We investigate whether the political leaning of the state where a given firm is headquartered is related to that firm's decision to voluntarily disclose climate change information. We study S&P 500 firms that were surveyed by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and find that firms headquartered in more Democratic states are more likely to disclose carbon emissions information to the CDP. Furthermore, firms in more Democratic states are more likely to permit public disclosure of their survey responses and tend to receive higher disclosure scores. We consider two political variables, one based on political power and one based on public political preference. Our results are consistent with political power driving the firm's willingness to voluntarily disclose information about climate change. These results suggest that the relation between the political environment and disclosure is more closely linked to concerns over regulatory threats as opposed to acquiescence to social norms.     

Government Promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from the EU Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme

Governments play an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility and specifically environmental management system (EMS) programs, but few studies have examined the impact of such support on the decision of businesses to adopt EMS programs. We ask two questions in this paper: how does government support for EMS programs affect adoption of such programs? Second, what effect does this government support have on the pace of adoption of such programs? The answer to the first question can reveal how effective government programs are in boosting membership in EMS programs. The answer to the second reveals to what extent businesses within EU member states are converging upon particular EMS standards. We examine these questions in the context of the European Union’s Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), 2010–2014. There is significant variation in government support of EMAS across the EU and at the same time, EMAS competes for business attention with the more established ISO 14001. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses therefore reveal the effectiveness of government programs in boosting adoption, but also to the extent to which such programs cause convergence upon EMAS in the face of a competing standard such as ISO 14001.     

Uniformity as response to soft law: Evidence from compliance and non‐compliance with the Dutch corporate governance code

The objective of the paper is to examine how firms have dealt with the trade‐off between flexibility and uncertainty that is characteristic for the decision‐making of firms in coping with self‐regulatory initiatives in general and the comply‐or‐explain principle in corporate governance in particular. Using unique data for 126 listed Dutch firms, we find that firms respond to this self‐regulatory initiative by largely complying with the code recommendation, possibly out of fear that the firm's reputation may be damaged. Furthermore, we find evidence suggesting that firms confine themselves to adopting a specific set of code recommendations and use similar arguments to explain non‐compliance. Our findings indicate uniformity in adopting the standard of good governance which is not in line with the logic of corporate governance codes and casts doubt on the effectiveness of this form of soft law. Overall, the paper's findings indicate that more restrictive (regulatory) instruments may be necessary to make firms conform to the spirit of codes.     

Chains of Love? Global Production and the Firm‐Level Diffusion of Labor Standards

Under what conditions does the global economy serve as a means for the diffusion of labor standards and practices? We anticipate variation among internationally engaged firms in their propensity to improve labor standards. Upgrading is most likely when a firm's products exhibit significant cross‐market differences in markups, making accessing high‐standards overseas markets particularly profitable. Additionally, upgrading is more likely when lead firms attach a high salience to labor standards. Therefore, while participation in global production induces “trading up” behaviors among firms overall, the effect strength varies across industries. We test our expectations via a survey experiment, which queries foreign firms operating in Vietnam about their willingness to invest in labor‐related upgrading. We find strong evidence for the effect of markups on upgrading choices and suggestive evidence for the saliency mechanism.     

Turkish delight a public affairs study on family business: The influence of owners in the entrepreneurship orientation of family‐owned businesses

Family‐owned businesses (FOBs) are as unique as the families that own and control them. As reported by Miller, Steier, and Le Breton‐Miller (2003, p.513), the founders of many of these businesses try to continue their legacy and ensure continued family control via intergenerational succession, as when they hand over leadership to their children. The initial statistics suggest only approximately one third of FOBs survive into the second generation, with just 12% remaining “viable” by the third, and only about 3% operating into the fourth generation or beyond. Thus, one of the central problems for FOBs is this inability to ensure competent cross‐generational family leadership through successful transfer of ownership and management to the next family generation. This is a core issue for the modern public affairs practitioner and policy maker, nationally and internationally, and the Turkish case is a good example of the multicomplex issues evident in succession planning and leadership for business founders and leaders in these organisations. A firm's strategic orientation is an indicator of the processes developed to integrate new information, to coordinate decisions, to examine the evolution of environmental factors, and to assess new projects (Escriba‐Esteve, Sanchez‐Peinado & Sanchez‐Peinado, 2009). However, few studies have provided a framework that jointly analyses the FOB owner characteristics, the mediating processes and attitudes by which owners shape the direction of their family firms, and the effect of these postures on firm performance. This paper addresses the influence of family business owner, over the behaviour of FOBs. By treating FOB owners' characteristics as predictors of a firm's strategic orientation, we seek to provide a deeper understanding of how the characteristics of FOB owners shape decision making process and FOBs' behaviours in order to successfully survive in generations. This study introduced the concept of FOB's entrepreneurship orientation (EO) as a variable that mediates between FOB owners' characteristics and business performance. The objective of this paper is twofold: (a) to identify the demographic predictors FOBs' EO and (b) to analyse the role of EO as a mediator of the relationship between FOB owners' characteristics and FOBs' performance.     

Russia's energy diplomacy with China: personalism and institutionalism in its policy-making process

ABSTRACT

Russia's growing energy cooperation with China is central to several of Moscow's top foreign-policy objectives. Analyzing what drives Russia's energy diplomacy with China can therefore shed important light on the dynamics of Russian foreign policy-making. We go beyond other recent studies of this topic by examining the role of domestic political influences and the countries’ bilateral interactions. We show that personalist elements influence both Russia's policy-making and its diplomacy with China. The personalism has made it hard for Russia to coordinate the relevant decision-making institutions and get the most from its energy strength. The economic gains from recent energy deals, particularly to Russia's Far East, have been less than expected, and Russia has met only limited success in achieving its foreign-policy priorities in the Asia-Pacific region. Moving forward, Russia must further institutionalize its decision-making process, limit the role of personalism, and better coordinate the activities of its energy firms with the goals of its central agencies and local governments.     

Why Do Foundations Follow the Law? Evidence from Adoption of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act

Employing a large panel of over one million firm‐years, I find evidence consistent with widespread compliance with law among U.S. private foundations despite the absence of many formal deterrence mechanisms. The research design exploits rolling state adoption of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, which lifted some existing limits on firm spending for a fraction of firms within each state. This allows the use of triple‐difference estimates that control for changes in local norms and economic conditions. UPMIFA increases firm spending, on average, implying that firms were complying with the pre‐UPMIFA regime. Interacting the triple‐difference factors with other predictors of compliance reveals no correlation between compliance and enforcement intensity, but some evidence that compliance is correlated with firm culture and reliance on accountants. These findings have potentially important implications for the governance of charitable organizations, and may speak more generally to drivers of compliance among other organizational forms.     

Assessing the role of regulatory quality,favouritism, administrative requirement and licencing restriction in curtailing carbon emissions

The urgent need to achieve the Paris Agreement has compelled countries to set mitigation targets to curtail carbon emissions. Notwithstanding, stakeholders' effort to implement emission-reduction policies is often constrained by institutional challenges. This study provides new evidence about the dynamic relationship between institutional quality and carbon emissions in 63 industrialised economies. Using a reduced-form energy emission model and the system GMM technique, we exploit four institutional quality measures—favouritism, administrative requirement, licencing restriction and regulatory quality—and analyse their impact on carbon emissions. The results show that institutions play a fundamental role in mitigating carbon emissions. However, the abatement effect depends on the regulatory quality, the extent of favouritism, licencing restrictions and administrative requirements. Our findings reveal that stringent regulations such as licencing restrictions reduce carbon emissions in the short and long run. Administrative requirement such as emission reporting inhibits carbon emission in the short and long run, whereas favouritism worsens it. The results are robust to alternative model specifications. The findings from this study highlight the need for policymakers to pay close attention to favouritism, as it tends to reduce the effectiveness of emission policy regulations. Additionally, we argue for the need for stringent administrative requirements given its critical role in internalising carbon emission intensity in industrialised economies.     

Gandhi,citizenship and the resilience of Indian nationhood

This article examines Gandhi's legacy in the shaping of citizenship in India and its implications for the resilience of Indian nationhood. I contend that a conception of citizenship that can be extrapolated from Gandhi, and that persisted as a practice, as well as a political language, instilled in the dynamics of Indian citizenship attributes that played an important role in securing the resilience of Indian unity and its democratic viability. The Gandhian conception of citizenship was developed after independence in conjunction with three other primary concomitant notions of citizenship. The ongoing multifaceted interplay between the four competing conceptions of citizenship, and the tensions and shifting balance of power between them became part of the mechanism that enabled the sustainability of some conflicts within the Indian polity to the detriment of other more threatening divisions. In the effect of this process Indian citizenship has been able to inhibit the tensions that had the potential to break the country apart.     

The diffusion of environmental management standards in Europe and in the United States: An institutional perspective

ISO 14001, released in 1996, provides the basic framework for the establishment of an Environmental Management System (EMS) that can be audited and certified. ISO is not only an acronym for the International Organization for Standardization, but is also a term that refers to its Greek meaning: equal. The main rationale for the creation of ISO 14001 was that its worldwide acceptance should facilitate international trade by harmonizing otherwise diffuse environmental management standards and by providing an internationally accepted blueprint for sustainable development, pollution prevention, and compliance assurance.However, the implementation of ISO 14001 varies significantly across the globe. A significant number of firms have adopted ISO 14001 in Western Europe and Asia. In December 1999, 52% of the 14,106 ISO 14001 certified facilities were located in Western Europe and 36% in Asia. On the contrary, very few American companies have adopted this voluntary standard. U.S. certified facilities accounted for only 4.5% of the total of ISO 14001 certified facilities in the world in December 1999.The U.S. institutional environment seems acting as a deterrent to ISO 14000 adoption as U.S. companies are fearful of the certification process which lays their performance open to public scrutiny. The opposite is true in Europe, where governments have encouraged the adoption of environmental management standards by setting up a trusted certification system and providing technical assistance to potential adopters.This paper offers a conceptual framework to analyze this variation in adoption rates. It is proposed that the regulatory, normative and cognitive aspects of a country's institutional environment greatly impact the costs and potential benefits of ISO 14001 adoption and therefore explain the differences in adoption across countries. The analysis is supported by data collected from a phone questionnaire to 140 firms in Europe and a questionnaire mailed to 152 firms in the U.S.     

Devolution and Innovation: The Adoption of State Environmental Policy Innovations by Administrative Agencies

Do states act as laboratories for reform? Are state administrative agencies likely to adopt policy innovations? This study analyzes the adoption of environmental policy innovations by state administrative agencies in the area of hazardous waste regulation. Four explanations are developed to explain the factors that affect innovation adoption: the severity of the problem, the importance of institutional factors, the role played by interest groups, and contextual factors. Institutional factors, such as state wealth and administrative professionalism, are important determinants of innovation adoption. State agencies are also likely to adopt innovations to deal with problems created by hazardous waste contamination. In addition, state environmental managers are not directly influenced by interest groups, and the inclusion of all stakeholders is likely to lead to greater support for new policy initiatives. Implications for practitioners are drawn based on the study's findings.     

Social citizenship and ethnicity around a public sector steel plant in Orissa,India

This article is about a modern public sector steel plant in the state of Orissa and its promise to set standards for post-colonial India's citizenry at large. These steel plants were to provide their workforces with superior social and economic citizenship rights, which in turn were to serve as exemplary industrial relations for the industrialising nation. The steel plants were also intended to forge multi-ethnic workforces into exemplary Indian citizens by transcending their manifold ethnic differences. The trajectory of the public sector steel plant in the town of Rourkela confirms that enhanced social and economic citizenship rights detached public sector steel workforces from labour at large and produced a ‘labour aristocracy’. The trajectory, furthermore, reveals how in Rourkela policies designed to accommodate ethnic differences constantly recreated these differences and hampered the access of large sections of the local population to these enhanced social and economic citizenship rights.     

The impact of downsizing on the corporate reputation for social performance

This paper investigates the impact of downsizing on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance (RCSP). Drawing on the downsizing, corporate reputation and social responsibility literatures, a number of hypotheses concerning the impact of downsizing, and particularly the types of downsizing, on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance are developed and empirically tested. The main findings of this study are that, while downsizing seems to have a negative impact on the firm's RCSP, when one takes into account the kind of managerial action that led to downsizing (layoffs and/or divestitures), this impact differs between the two stakeholder groups, industry executives and financial analysts, which were investigated. This study also found that a high financial performance prior to downsizing led to a greater negative impact on the firm's RCSP. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Coastal Oil Pollution: Spills,Crisis, and Policy Change1

The federal government's adoption of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 represented a radical statutory departure from past policy. Coastal oil spill control provisions that had languished for decades within the industry-friendly confines of a few select congressional subcommittees suddenly became law. Much popular belief credits the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill crisis for bringing about this radical policy change. Closer examination reveals that postcrisis policy change is much more complex. Crisis events intermingle with other short- and long-term factors that either inhibit or support dramatic change. This study analyzes change within the coastal spill arena over several decades. Particular attention is given to crisis episodes, periods identified with a major catastrophe or a successive series of attention-getting spills over a brief time. Analysis finds that crises can play an instrumental role in eliciting change.     

Innovation traditions,energy conditions,and state energy policy adoption

From 1974 to 1980, many conservation and renewable energy policies were adopted at the state level in the United States. Some states were particularly active in enacting such policies while others were totally inactive. The variation in state policy activity is only modestly related to the states' past policy innovation traditions and conservation/renewable energy opportunities. Differences in energy vulnerability, and the relative hardship imposed by the energy crisis, have apparently had even less impact on the adoption pattern. These weak or insignificant relationships are typical of other efforts to explain state energy policy variations and are attributed to six qualitative factors: Federal preemption and inconsistency, ambivalent public opinion, conflicting values, lack of information on state energy conditions, and ignorance of the impacts of renewable energy and conservation policies. The findings identify several actions to increase sensitivity toward state energy conditions in policymaking.     

Ideals of human rights and socioeconomic realities: The larger context of Pakistan's child-protection policy

After 25 years of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, millions of children still have their fundamental rights violated every day. It is argued in this article that the realization of the rights of these children is heavily influenced by the socioeconomic context of their countries. Taking Pakistan's child protection policy as a case, the argument is built on primary data collected from in-depth interviews with policymakers. Data analysis revealed that the Pakistani policymakers do consider socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, as a causative factor for various child protection issues, and believe that an increased level of socioeconomic development would improve protection and well-being of all children in that country. However, they lacked an appreciation of the interdependent relationship between children's broader socioeconomic environment and their right to protection in terms of policy responses to various child protection issues.     

Testing for environmental racism: Prejudice,profits, political power?

Economic theories offer many explanations for why exposure to environmental risks may vary by race: pure discrimination by polluters or politicians in siting decisions; differences in willingness to pay for environmental amenities linked to income or education levels; and variations in the propensity of communities to engage in collective action to oppose the location of potential polluters. This article tests these hypotheses by focusing on the capacity decisions of commercial hazardous waste facilities. Zip code neighborhoods targeted for capacity expansion in plans for 1987–1992 by commercial hazardous waste facilities had an average non white population of 25 percent, versus 18 percent for those areas without net expansion. Differences in the probability that residents will raise a firm's expected location costs by engaging in collective action to oppose capacity siting offer the best explanation for which neighborhoods are selected for capacity expansions.