How corporate social responsibility mediates the relationship between corporate governance and sustainability performance in UK: a multiple mediator analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect links between corporate governance and sustainability performance using corporate social responsibility. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a sample consisting of 300 UK firms over the 2005–2017 period. This study applied structural equations models that specify both a direct and an indirect link between corporate governance and sustainability performance. Findings The authors find that corporate governance has a positive effect on sustainability performance. In addition, this study shows that corporate social responsibility fully mediates the relationship between corporate governance and sustainability performance in UK firms. Practical implications This study shows that firms are invited to engage more in sustainability performance and corporate social responsibility activities, which reduces agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, no research studies examined empirically the direct and indirect relationship between corporate governance and sustainability performance. Therefore, the main contribution of this research is to show how corporate governance effectiveness leads to higher corporate social responsibility level and sustainability performance using two analyses methods (mediator analysis and multiple mediator analysis).

COMPARATIVE META-ANALYTIC EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION ON PERFORMANCE: A DETAILED PERSPECTIVE OF MODERATOR AND MEDIATOR ANALYSIS

In an environment with ever changing customers’ needs and intensifying global competition, quality processes and supply chain (SC) are critical for organisational success. To satisfy customers, outsmart competition and improve performance, contemporary organisations are trying to improve on their processes through integrated supply chains. In an attempt to address this question and effectively contribute to this topic, a comparative meta- analytical evaluation along with key moderator and mediator analysis was conducted. In the lens of many theories, SCI from two perspectives; SCID (internal, suppliers, customer integration) with 67 studies and SCIF (information, operational, relational integration) with 25 studies was assessed on overall performance as well as on both operational and business performance. A quantitative meta-analysis based on Hunter and Schmidt (2004) which was performed through Jamovi, revealed the following: The meta-analysis results which were obtained through Jamovi provided significant correlation coefficients for SCID and SCIF respectively (ř = .476, p <.002) and (ř =.508, p <.001). Therefore, indicating that the association between SCID and performance is medium and positive, while that of SCIF and performance is positive and large. This is a clear indication that SCI from the perspective of SCID and SCIF yields different results, with SCIF having a relatively large effect. Moreover, on average SCIF both at aggregate and individual level has a slightly large effect on performance than SCID. Operational performance was the most influenced by SCID and SCIF, although operational and relational integration indicated a significant larger effect on business performance. Thus, individual SCID and SCIF constructs have different effects on business and operational as overall performance. All moderators though with different levels of interactions indicated a significant effect on both SCID and SCIF. Of the three mediators tested, customer integration had a 32% negative effect, SC agility showed an 89.1% full mediation effect with flexibility indicating a 53% significant effect.

Mediation Analysis

Mediation occurs when a third variable, referred to as a mediator construct, intervenes between two other directly related constructs. More precisely, a change in the exogenous construct results in a change of the mediator construct, which in turn changes the endogenous construct. The mediator analysis evaluates the factors related to the cause–effect relationship between an exogenous construct and an endogenous construct. In the simplest form, the analysis considers only one mediator construct, but the path model can also include multiple mediating constructs simultaneously, as well as moderated mediation. We illustrate mediation analysis in PLS-SEM by using the SEMinR package and the corporate reputation model as an example.