Search Results (42)

Corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting is increasingly envisioned as evidence of accountability in the energy transition, yet persistent gaps remain between commitments and practices. This study applied the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework—specifically indicators 302 (Energy) and 305 (Emissions)—to evaluate the credibility, scope, and strategic depth of disclosures by 20 Wisconsin (WI) firms in the energy, manufacturing, food, and service sectors. Guided by accountability and legitimacy theory, a comparative content analysis was conducted, complemented by Spearman correlation to examine associations between firm size and disclosure quality. Results show that while firms consistently report basic metrics such as total energy consumption and Scope 1 emissions, disclosures on Scope 3 emissions, renewable sourcing, and energy-efficiency achievements remain partial and selectively framed. Third-party assurance is inconsistently applied, and methodological transparency—such as external audit and coding protocols—is limited, weakening credibility. A statistically significant negative correlation was observed between annual revenue and disclosure quality, indicating that greater financial capacity does not necessarily translate into greater transparency. These findings highlight methodological and governance shortcomings, including reliance on generic ESG frameworks rather than climate-focused standards such as Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Integrated reporting approaches are recommended to improve comparability, credibility, and alignment with Wisconsin’s Clean Energy Transition Plan. Full article

Indonesia’s post-mining landscapes require an integrated governance approach to achieve equitable and sustainable reclamation. This study developed and evaluated the TILANG Framework (Triple-Bottom-Line Integrated Land Governance) as a multidimensional model that aligns ecological restoration, community empowerment, and institutional accountability. Based on a meta-synthesis of 773 academic and institutional remarks coded using NVivo 12, the study identified sustainable cacao agriculture as a viable compensation mechanism that supports livelihood recovery while restoring degraded land. The framework draws on six foundational theoretical components—Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Stakeholder Theory, Legitimacy Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Triple Bottom Line, and multi-level governance—and is operationalized through six implementation principles: Trust, Inclusivity, Legitimacy, Alignment, Norms, and Governance. The findings support performance-based land reclamation by embedding behavioral readiness and institutional co-financing into sustainability strategies. This model is particularly relevant to Indonesia’s ongoing land-use transformation, where post-extractive zones are shifting toward agroecological and community-centered recovery. The study found that (1) reframing land compensation as a restorative, performance-based mechanism enables more legitimate and inclusive post-mining governance; (2) sustainable cacao agriculture represents a viable and socially accepted strategy for ecological recovery and rural livelihood revitalization; and (3) the TILANG Framework advances land-use transformation by integrating corporate responsibility, behavioral readiness, and multi-level governance into a cohesive performance model. Full article

Sustainability in post-mining landscapes has left a critical governance challenge in resource-rich countries such as Indonesia, where extraction leaves communities economically vulnerable and environments degraded. This study aims to develop and validate a dual-pathway framework for post-mining sustainability by analyzing the intersection between institutional mechanisms and behavioral readiness. Drawing from a qualitative meta-synthesis of 1339 stakeholder-derived remarks coded across 80 thematic nodes, the framework identifies ten key dimensions, including land compensation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) co-financing, agroecological livelihoods, stakeholder engagement, social norms, and perceived legitimacy. Anchored in Stakeholder Theory and Legitimacy Theory, the findings reveal that sustainability is contingent not solely on technical rehabilitation but also on the synergy between policy reform, community empowerment, and cultural acceptance. While this study is grounded in secondary data synthesis, further field validation is recommended to enhance generalizability across diverse mining regions. The resulting model offers both a conceptual and operational guide for participatory governance and behavioral integration in complex post-extractive contexts with policy recommendations for inclusive, multi-actor planning in Indonesia’s mining regions. Full article

The purpose of this research is to examine how relationships between corporate control environments and stakeholders mediate the different dimensions of pressure on auditor independence. In France, two (joint) auditors are required by law for listed companies. In this context, we analyze the experiences of higher-echelon professionals of audit firms, controllers, and managers who could elucidate the essence of pressure on auditor independence in their lived environment. An interpretative approach and empirical analysis were adopted for this study to expand on the literature and proffer an answer to the following research question: How does the relationship between a control environment and a stakeholder mediate the pressures on auditor independence? Interviews involved seven participants, mainly higher-echelon professionals of Big Four firms, as well as two members of auditee organizations, and a member of an audit committee. In addition, the narratives from the documents gathered from the EU audit legislation implementation database constitute our data corpus. Thematic coding was used to organize the results. The findings reveal that control environment best practices and down-to-earth corporate governance policies, participated in by both auditors and audited organizations, cushion the pressures on auditors. This, in turn, presents a positive and significant impact on auditor independence. Overall, the dimensions that mediate the pressures on auditors are as follows: the consciousness of pressure in itself; the reputation and experience of the audit firm; and the interactions between the auditors and corporate governance. Other factors include the cordiality of the relationship between the auditor and corporate management and the resulting healthy end of the negotiation between auditors and auditees. This study contributes to the theory and practical discussion of the relationships between the corporate control environment, corporate governance, auditing, and pressure on auditor independence. Full article

In order to cope with global warming, the Chinese government is actively promoting the “dual-carbon” target policy, a green and efficient system which will become the future development direction of China’s energy system. As the main body of the carbon emissions of enterprises is bound to be the focus of governance, we must accelerate green transformation. In this paper, we use procedural rooting theory, collect data from field interviews, and use open coding, principal axis coding, selective coding, and a theoretical saturation test to explore antecedent motivation mechanisms and the consequent pathway of the green change in corporate environmental behaviours under the “dual-carbon” goal. We aim to clarify the evolution of “internal and external factors—enterprise green change willingness—green change behavior” to construct a theoretical model. The results show that the influence of and interaction effects among the micro-level, macro-environmental level, and meso-industry level dimensions of enterprise will drive companies to make green changes and adopt green change behaviours in the forms of strategic change and innovation optimisation. This study enriches the theoretical framework of green change in corporate environmental behaviour under the rigid constraint of the “dual-carbon” goal and provides countermeasure suggestions for the successful achievement of the “dual-carbon” goal at the corporate body level. Full article

The prevalence of non-executable malware is on the rise, presenting a major threat to users, including major public institutions and corporations. While extensive research has been conducted on detecting malware threats, there is a noticeable gap in studying document-type malware compared with executable files. The proposed model will solve this gap by detecting and classifying document-type malware families using script codes, including tags, to write documents and script languages to execute malicious functions. These script codes offer insights into how the malware was constructed and operates on the victim’s system. Additionally, we leverage language models in our approach. Initially, we develop MalCode2Vec to learn associations between source codes and represent them as numeric vectors. Subsequently, we design a Transformer-based model for document malware detection and family classification. Detection is conducted at both the stream and file levels. To solve the class imbalance issue in the malware family, we utilize a generative adversarial network to generate malware samples. Our experimental domain focuses on the Hangul (Korean) word processor, a tool notably used by North Korea in targeting the South Korean government. Full article

There are ongoing debates globally regarding excessive executive compensation, the perceived weak link between pay and performance, and the widening inequality gap. The South African corporate governance code King IV’s Principle 14 addresses the need for fair, responsible, and transparent remuneration. At the same time, the newly enacted Companies Amendment Act No. 16 of 2024 in South Africa emphasizes transparency in compensation, shareholder voting, and responding to shareholder feedback. This study conducts a systematic literature review of 30 articles on the transparency of executive remuneration disclosures and their determinants by analyzing Scopus-indexed articles published between 2010 and 2023, selected through specific keyword searches. The findings suggest an increasing focus on research regarding the disclosure of executive compensation, predominantly conducted in the Global North and primarily framed through agency theory. Studies exploring the factors influencing executive remuneration and the relationship between pay and performance are prevalent, with mixed results generally indicating a positive connection. Firm size emerges as a key factor in transparency, and many studies employ binary scoring to evaluate whether executive compensation disclosure is present. This paper provides valuable insights for investors, analysts, and policymakers and adds to the current understanding of executive remuneration transparency. Full article

A CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis to investigate the effects of the installation of a barrier in a hydrogen refueling station (HRS) mock-up facility, with a dummy vehicle and dispensers in the vapor cloud region, during a hydrogen-air explosion using a gas mixture volume of 70.16 m³ was conducted to determine whether the radXiFoam v2.0 code with the established analysis methodology to predict the peak overpressure can be utilized to evaluate the safety of a HRS with such a barrier installed in a large city in the Republic of Korea. The radXiFoam v2.0 code was developed on the basis of the XiFoam solver in the open-source CFD software OpenFOAM-v2112 by modifying C++ source codes in several libraries and governing equations so as to ensure effective calculations of the hydrogen-air chemical reaction and radiative heat transfer through water vapor in a humid air environment and to remove unnecessary warning messages that arise when using the radXiFoam v1.0 code. First, we conducted a validation analysis on the basis of measured overpressure datasets from a near field to a far field of a vapor cloud explosion (VCE) site in the HRS mock-up facility to evaluate the uncertainty in prediction datasets by radXiFoam v2.0. After this validation analysis, we undertook CFD sensitivity calculations by installing barriers with heights of 2.1 m and 4.2 m at a horizontal distance of 2.3 m from the VCE region in the grid model used for the validation analysis to assess the effects of these barriers on reducing the peak overpressure of the blast wave. From these calculations, we judged that the radXiFoam v2.0 code can accurately simulate the effects of the barrier during a VCE, as the calculated overpressure reduction values according to the barrier height are reasonable on the basis of previous validation results from Stanford Research Institute’s explosion test with such a barrier. The results herein imply that the radXiFoam v2.0 code is feasible for use in HRS safety when barrier installation must meet the technical regulations of the Korea Gas Safety Corporation in a large city. Full article

The impact of corporate governance mechanisms has been examined directly and independently, considering that such characteristics compete to explain environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. However, the nexus may be more complex than that suggested by most scholars, and more research is needed. This study applied a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to a sample of Spanish-listed companies in 2018–2020 to explore how good governance practices interact with CEO profiles to promote corporate sustainability practices. Our analysis discovered the importance of establishing sustainability committees and identified five pathways shaping governance practice bundles. Specifically, listed companies with a high code of good governance (GGC) compliance and a sustainability committee improve high ESG performance globally and for each ESG dimension. Furthermore, the effect is more relevant than the effect of the CEO profile, requiring either CEO duality (pathway 1) or extended CEO tenure (pathway 2). Concurrently, findings indicate three CEO profile configurations for GGC-neutral firms, providing companies with more flexibility in CEO selection. Two suggest that younger CEOs with longer tenure tend to be more motivated to engage in the G and S pillars (pathways 3 and 5). The third indicates that CEOs of older age and early tenure improve the E pillar (pathway 4). Full article

Corporate governance is gaining interest not only from investors but companies that want to operate in international markets, prompting a more thorough analysis of the field to prioritise stakeholder interests alongside shareholder value. By adopting a holistic approach that considers stakeholders’ diverse needs and expectations, companies can build resilience, foster trust, and create sustainable value for all stakeholders, ensuring long-term success and societal impact. This paper analyses corporate governance principles applied at the international, European, and national levels, emphasising the importance of the field for the stakeholders. The practical approach of the paper analyses the application and compliance of the corporate governance code of 18 companies in the field of financial intermediation and insurance, which are listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, underlining the crucial role of transparency of operations in instilling confidence and reassurance in stakeholders. The conclusions present proposals for measures to improve corporate governance practices at the level of companies. Full article

Investors are one of the primary target audiences for corporate communication; they seek non-financial as well as financial information from the companies they invest in, and they consider the social and environmental sustainability of these companies in addition to their economic sustainability. Because of this, as a tool for investor relations, annual reports now routinely and regularly incorporate non-financial information. This study examined thirty annual reports from six public airline firms issued between 2018 and 2022. A total of 8115 expressions on social, economic, and environmental sustainability issues—divided into 125 themes—were coded and analyzed in Maxqda 2020. Among the conclusions was the fact that, in 2022, all of the examined companies devoted 9% of their pages to sustainability statements and included them as an individual topic in their reports. It was found that 64% of both the sustainability-related pages of the reports and the messages of the company managers included in the report consisted of social sustainability statements, with the theme of governance playing an important role in these explanations. Additionally, it was revealed that the topics of governance issues (22.6%), the natural environment (21.7%), and human resources development (15.5%) are the most frequently discussed social, environmental, and economic sustainability themes in corporate annual reports. Full article

Faced with the widespread issue of greenwashing, there is a pressing need for an effective approach to assess the extent of corporate involvement in such hypocritical practices. This study aims to address this concern by examining the association between corporate ESG disclosures’ readability and greenwashing. We gauge the readability using a modified Fog Index and construct a company’s peer-relative greenwashing score based on data from third-party databases. The empirical analysis reveals a negative relationship between the level of corporate greenwashing and the readability of its ESG disclosures, suggesting that companies whose ESG disclosures are more readable are less likely to engage in greenwashing. This negative relationship is particularly pronounced in companies characterized by higher levels of information asymmetry. However, the relationship is weaker after 2018, when the “Code of Corporate Governance for Listed Companies” was implemented. In conclusion, our research highlights the significance of ESG disclosure readability in effectively conveying and predicting corporate greenwashing practices. This study provides valuable insights for investors seeking to evaluate corporate performance and make well-informed investment decisions. Full article

Using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as a research sample, this paper examines the relationship between negative media coverage and corporate ESG performance using a two-way fixed-effects model. It is found that, first, negative media coverage can effectively promote corporate ESG performance. Second, the mediation mechanism study shows that negative media coverage positively promotes corporate ESG performance by increasing the degree of corporate financing constraints and information asymmetry and prompting corporations to change their ESG governance level. Third, the results of the heterogeneity test find that the positive relationship between negative media coverage and corporate ESG performance is more pronounced among firms without executives with overseas backgrounds, and the positive relationship between the two is more significant after the promulgation of China’s Code of Governance for Listed Companies in 2018. Fourth, further discussion revealed that negative media coverage has the strongest promotion effect on the performance of corporate environmental governance, followed by social governance performance, and lastly, corporate governance performance. The research in this paper contributes to an in-depth understanding of the impact of negative media coverage on corporate ESG performance and provides empirical evidence to facilitate policy formulation related to the role of media monitoring and to fully utilize the media’s role in corporate ESG governance. Full article

Recent corporate governance failures have heightened stakeholder expectations that the board of directors engage in robust oversight of the firm’s risk management processes. This expectation is in line with widely embraced enterprise risk management frameworks, which assert that strong board risk management is a key component of an entity’s risk management process. We use a hand-coded measure of board engagement in risk management from the recent literature to measure the robustness of that oversight for a sample of large, publicly traded U.S. firms and examine the relationship between robust board risk management (board risk management) and firm-wide strategies for mitigating financial reporting risk. While controlling for board composition-related characteristics, we found a positive association between robust board risk management processes and two avenues for mitigating financial reporting risk (i.e., more effective internal control over financial reporting and the selection of industry specialist auditors). Our results indicate that firms with more robust board risk management are associated with fewer actual instances of materially misstated financial statements and less earnings management. Full article

Embedded within the sustainable development framework, our research leverages proceduralized grounded theory to refine and universalize supervisory governance capabilities, thereby aiming to assess the theoretical saturation of the resultant model and to devise a comprehensive, sustainability-inclusive index of supervisory board governance competence. Focusing on five publicly traded Chinese companies, the research employs a tripartite coding process integral to grounded theory methodologies. By methodically refining case studies, it identifies sustainability-oriented governance capacity indicators. Data are conceptualized and compartmentalized via open coding, then divided into five primary clusters via axial coding, resulting in sustainability-focused governance capacity indicators for supervisory boards. Using selective coding strategies, the study uncovers forty-two competency indicators pertinent to sustainable corporate governance, organized into three domains across eight sustainability-related dimensions. These include individual characteristics, sustainability value judgment, experiential wisdom, collaborative communication for sustainable practices, resource integration, general employment prerequisites, professional application in sustainability, and sustainable business acumen. The findings enhance supervisory board member selection and performance assessment processes, promoting sustainable corporate governance. They also clarify supervisory roles in sustainability, offering a holistic view of supervisory board internal governance mechanisms. By maintaining the objectivity of these indicators, the study advances the field. Full article