social pressures
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2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueji Liang ◽  
Lu Dai ◽  
Sujuan Xie

Purpose Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is a widely accepted procedure for firms to disclose their performance in multiple domains, including environmental protection, labour welfare, protection of human rights, community services, contribution to society and pursuit of product safety. This study aims to investigate whether and how board interlocks affect firms’ decisions with respect to CSR reporting. This study argues that board interlocks act as an important source of social pressure and firms are influenced by their peer firms to adopt CSR reporting. Design/methodology/approach This paper sampled listed companies on China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2009 to 2015. The data were collected from Runling database and China Stock Market and Accounting Research database. A multi-period logit model was used to conduct the main regression analysis and the propensity score matching method was used in the robustness checks. Findings A study based on a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2009 to 2015 confirms the argument and shows that sharing a common director on the board with a previous CSR reporter facilitates the firm’s engagement in CSR reporting. Furthermore, this study shows that the influence of board interlocks on CSR reporting depends on the following three characteristics: status of the interlocking director, size of the linked CSR reporter and performance implications of previous CSR activities. Research limitations/implications The interpretation of the current findings should be considered in light of these limitations. First, while board interlocks are an important social aspect of institutional pressure, other types of social pressure exist. Second, the focus is on CSR reporting decisions. However, CSR reporting can also be symbolic, with little substantive quality to improve CSR-related activities. Third, this study argues that both regulatory and social pressures influence the decision to report on CSR. However, this study was unable to determine the weight of each pressure. Future research should follow this direction. Finally, the influence of certain behaviours through interlocks is stronger in the initial stage of the institutionalisation process. Practical implications The findings of this study have important implications for practitioners. First, the messaging role of interlocking directors suggests that director selection should consider the effectiveness of information transfer. Knowing and analysing specific interlock and its links with the firm’s strategy is very important. Meanwhile, firms should be vigilant that the balance between the access to information and loss of autonomy because searching for information related to firms’ strategic decisions might challenge current strategy. Second, the results of the study suggest that to effectively urge companies to engage in CSR reporting, government and policy makers should consider beyond institutional pressure, but also be sensitive to the social pressure exerted upon the companies. Social implications The positive role of board interlocks on corporate voluntary CSR reporting can not only make valuable contributions to the Chinese society but also, as an important participant of global economy and trade, the Chinese interlocking directors’ contribution to CSR reporting have global benefits. Originality/value This study extends the institutional perspective on CSR reporting by uncovering the effect of social pressure. It advances the literature on the antecedents of CSR reporting by linking board interlocks to CSR reporting. Finally, the study enriches the broader interlock literature by delineating three specific characteristics of interlocks that influence CSR reporting.


2021 ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Michael Frede

This chapter addresses the internal history of philosophy. This is the history of philosophy explained in terms of the philosophical enterprise itself, as it is conceived and pursued at each time; that is, the history of philosophy explained in terms of the actual philosophical considerations that made philosophy evolve the way it did, to the extent that the history can be explained this way. It can be called ‘internal’ because it tries, as far as possible, to explain the course of development in terms of considerations internal to philosophy, as opposed to factors outside philosophy; for instance, social pressures of some kind or another. In contrast to the internal history of philosophy, one may call a history of philosophy ‘external’ if it describes and explains the history of philosophy insofar as it is shaped by social factors outside philosophy. This distinction is not supposed to be exhaustive of all work on the history of philosophy, though it could easily be redefined to be exhaustive by just subsuming everything that does not belong to the internal history (e.g. psychological or biological studies) under the heading of ‘external history’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1123-1129
Author(s):  
Hakim Jasim Abdullah ◽  
Muna Qassim Muareje

We often think that escaping is the way to alleviate political and social pressures and problems. The immigrant is forced to leave his homeland, desiring to be rid of tyranny, because a society based on political disintegration was naturally for its children to grow up in awe of anxiety and psychological turmoil. This difficult situation is in the psyche of the Andalusian society, where the difficult political conditions that afflicted the country and spread terror and destruction in the souls had its effect in forcing people to leave their countries and seek refuge in other countries where protection and safety are available, so many Andalusians suffered from a life of misery and homelessness, which was reflected these conditions affect social life in the era of the sects and the Almoravids, leaving negative effects such as poverty, deprivation, destitution and a feeling of psychological alienation. Which we will see in this study.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Peter van Kesteren

<p>Changes in the New Zealand public health sector in recent years, such as heightened political, economic and social pressures to manage and reduce costs while improving the quality of care in conjunction with stringent health care guidelines, have forced district health boards (DHB) nationwide to reassess their approach to health care provision. This has chiefly involved evaluating current practices or institutions; revising health care systems, including locality of treatment; and assessing established accounting systems and mechanisms (or lack thereof) to understand the source of costs and resource consumption. Acknowledging that patient welfare has always held pre-eminence in the New Zealand public health sector, balancing the dual pressures to enhance the utilisation of limited resources and adhere to social pressures to provide sustained high quality health services has been a difficult exercise for DHBs. In recognition of the potential benefits of activity-based costing (ABC), and the fact that the New Zealand public health sector is severely underrepresented in current literature, this multi-site case study examines how sophisticated costing systems (such as ABC), are being used by DHBs. Using an institutional theory framework, this study posits that DHBs will use sophisticated costing systems to (1) improve cost understanding with the goal of managing and reducing their costs; and (2) contribute to more informed National Prices for Inter-District Flows (IDF), the aim of which is to plan and provide services to meet the directives and outcomes outlined by the Ministry of Health. Overall, the findings are compelling and reveal that costing systems are used on three levels to plan and provide health services, including unsophisticated costing systems that are not formally recognised; moderately sophisticated costing systems (such as CostPro) that are formally recognised; and sophisticated costing systems (such as PPM) that are formally recognised. Furthermore, the findings reveal that DHBs with sophisticated costing systems generate event-level information, which directly influences the calculation of National Prices for IDFs. The findings of this exploratory study also indicate a need to examine the nexus between ABC and IDFs in a New Zealand public health sector context further.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Peter van Kesteren

<p>Changes in the New Zealand public health sector in recent years, such as heightened political, economic and social pressures to manage and reduce costs while improving the quality of care in conjunction with stringent health care guidelines, have forced district health boards (DHB) nationwide to reassess their approach to health care provision. This has chiefly involved evaluating current practices or institutions; revising health care systems, including locality of treatment; and assessing established accounting systems and mechanisms (or lack thereof) to understand the source of costs and resource consumption. Acknowledging that patient welfare has always held pre-eminence in the New Zealand public health sector, balancing the dual pressures to enhance the utilisation of limited resources and adhere to social pressures to provide sustained high quality health services has been a difficult exercise for DHBs. In recognition of the potential benefits of activity-based costing (ABC), and the fact that the New Zealand public health sector is severely underrepresented in current literature, this multi-site case study examines how sophisticated costing systems (such as ABC), are being used by DHBs. Using an institutional theory framework, this study posits that DHBs will use sophisticated costing systems to (1) improve cost understanding with the goal of managing and reducing their costs; and (2) contribute to more informed National Prices for Inter-District Flows (IDF), the aim of which is to plan and provide services to meet the directives and outcomes outlined by the Ministry of Health. Overall, the findings are compelling and reveal that costing systems are used on three levels to plan and provide health services, including unsophisticated costing systems that are not formally recognised; moderately sophisticated costing systems (such as CostPro) that are formally recognised; and sophisticated costing systems (such as PPM) that are formally recognised. Furthermore, the findings reveal that DHBs with sophisticated costing systems generate event-level information, which directly influences the calculation of National Prices for IDFs. The findings of this exploratory study also indicate a need to examine the nexus between ABC and IDFs in a New Zealand public health sector context further.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Carter Loftus ◽  
Roi Harel ◽  
Chase L Nuñez ◽  
Margaret C Crofoot

Sleep is fundamental to the health and fitness of all animals. The physiological importance of sleep is underscored by the central role of homeostasis in determining sleep investment – following periods of sleep deprivation, individuals experience longer and more intense sleep bouts. Yet, most studies of sleep have been conducted in highly controlled settings, disconnected from the ecological and social context that may exert pressures on sleep patterns in conflict with homeostatic regulation. Using tri-axial accelerometry and GPS to track the sleep patterns of a group of wild baboons (Papio anubis) at multiple temporal and spatial scales, we found that ecological and social pressures indeed interfere with homeostatic sleep regulation. Baboons sacrificed time spent sleeping when in less familiar locations and when sleeping in proximity to more group-mates, regardless of how much they had slept the prior night or how much they had physically exerted themselves the preceding day. Moreover, we found that the collective dynamics characteristic of social animal groups persist into the sleep period, as baboons exhibited synchronized patterns of waking throughout the night, particularly with nearby group-mates. Thus, for animals whose fitness depends critically on avoiding predation and developing social relationships, maintaining sleep homeostasis may be only secondary to remaining vigilant when sleeping in risky habitats and interacting with group-mates during the night. Our results highlight the importance of studying sleep in ecologically relevant contexts, where the adaptive function of sleep patterns directly reflect the complex trade-offs that have guided its evolution.


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