Future Prospects in Balanced Scorecard Research: Sustainability Perspective

This paper reviews the state of the research on a balanced scorecard (BSC) and sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) from 1990 to 2020. It aims to address the research question, “What are the future prospects in the BSC research from the perspective of sustainability?” using an integrative literature review method with bibliometric analysis. This study also reports the evolution and synthesis of published materials, citation analysis, themes, theories, and the literature gap and future research agenda, including the post coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) sustainability crisis. The findings of this study, which aim to advance the knowledge in the field, include the developed future research framework matrix and the proposed research questions regarding the research gap in the multi­dimensional, multi-disciplinary, and multi-cultural empirical research. This study is considered unique owing to its comprehensive, holistic, and up-to-date structure. Furthermore, such a research design facilitates interdisciplinary, theory-driven research with the review in multiple disciplines, which is new to the accounting literature. One limitation of this study is that it is a conceptual study; however, it can pave the way for future empirical and mixed-method studies in this field.

Corporate Philanthropy Disclosure of State-Owned Enterprises in Indonesia

Corporate philanthropy is becoming big in businesses and a major strategic issue for firms as they actively aim to be socially responsible organizations. This study aims to measure the extent of corporate philanthropy disclosure (CPD) and the impacts of foreign ownership, managerial ownership, the proportion of independent directors, and company size on CPD in annual reports of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Indonesia. The level of CPD in this study was measured using an index adapted from earlier research and regulation. Annual reports of 153 SOEs for 2010–2012 were examined to measure the extent of CPD and investigate its potential determinant factors. Study results indicate that company size has a significant positive effect on CPD and managerial ownership has a moderate effect. In addition, the results also show that the control variable, public company (Perum), has a significant effect on CPD in SOEs in Indonesia. The average CPD rate is only 63.00%, which indicates that CPD has been commonly disclosed in annual reports. The findings regarding corporate philanthropy in annual reports should be a concern to regulatory authorities and standard-setters in Indonesia.

The Moderating Role of Employment in an Environmental Kuznets Curve Framework Revisited in G7 Countries

Anthropogenic activities have resulted in environmental concerns due to the global consciousness for mitigating climate change issues. This awareness is emphasized in the sustainable development goals contained in the seventh and 13th targets. The study investigates the nexus between energy and growth while considering the moderating role of employment and its interaction with energy consumption in G7 countries for the period of 1980–2018. To achieve this objective, a carbon-income function is fitted to ameliorate the problems related to omitted variable bias. Empirical results indicate that all outlined variables are cointegrated over the investigated period, as reported by the Kao cointegration test. The study further validates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the short-run. With emphasis on economic growth relative to environmental quality while in the long run, there is no statistical evidence in support of the EKC phenomenon. Furthermore, a 1% increase in energy consumption increases pollutant emission in the long run by 3.80%. Similarly, a positive elastic relationship is observed between trade and environmental degradation. This outcome is demonstrated in the causality results, which reveal a one-way causality running from trade to pollutant emission. These findings provide insights that can help policy formulations, including decoupling economic growth from pollutant emission and the need to adopt cleaner and eco-friendly technologies.

Impact of CSR on Firm Value: The Moderating Role of Corporate Governance

This study aims to investigate whether the corporate governance (CG) moderates the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm value (FV). For this purpose, anatomization was conducted by extracting data from the published annual reports of non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Correlation, regression, and moderation analyses were conducted to obtain the statistical outcomes. The results showed a significant direct relationship between CSR and firm performance. Additionally, it was found that the interactivity between CSR and FV weakened when CG was included as a moderator. The results of this study could be used by stakeholders to make economically sound decisions since it provides complete guidance regarding how to engage in productive CSR activities. Moreover, this study contributes to future research by examining the association between CSR and FV using CG as a moderator, in a market where, as in other developing markets, this relationship has not been the focus of research. Apart from its theoretical contributions, this study explores the role of CG as moderator, in line with research conducted in under-developed markets, which may be considered a significant contribution.

Effects of Stakeholder Engagement and Corporate Governance on Integrated Reporting Disclosure

Integrated reporting (IR), one of the latest developments in organizational reporting practices, collates important financial and non-financial information in an integrated and concise manner. This study aims to investigate the effects of stakeholder engagement and corporate governance on IR disclosure. In this study, stakeholder engagement was proxied by ownership concentration, the effective tax rate, leverage, and employee compensation, while corporate governance was proxied by the independent board of directors, frequency of audit committee meetings, and gender diversity. Using purposive sampling methods, the sample was selected from a population of companies listed on the LQ45 Index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange. A total of 22 companies that were consistently listed on the LQ45 index during the period 2013–2016 were selected. Panel data regression was employed to analyze the collected data. The results show that only employee compensation had a significant positive effect on IR disclosure while the other variables did not have any significant effect. The results of this study could be used to select the variables that companies must consider when preparing for their IR disclosure to stakeholder.

Green Products: Factors Exploring the Green Purchasing Behavior of South Indian Shoppers

On the basis of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) approach, this exploratory study aims to examine factors exploring the green purchasing behavior of south Indian shoppers. The research study seeks to expand the planned behavior to include three additional variables, namely, environmental concern, knowledge, and media exposure. Data were collected from 429 respondents from three southern Indian states. Purposive and snowball samplings were adopted in the selection of respondents. The data were analyzed using factor analysis, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple regression. The findings concluded that subjective norms have no significant association with the green purchase intention. Variables such as media exposure, environmental concern, environmental knowledge, and perceived behavioral control had a significant impact on the green purchase intention, which, in turn, had a substantial effect on the green purchasing behavior. These results support the TPB model. This research will help green marketers to develop new green strategies and plans to increase sales volumes and build good relationships with targeted green customers.

A Comprehensive Measurement for Sustainability Reporting Quality: Principles-Based Approach

This study presents a comprehensive approach to measure sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) and examines levels of SRQ. It was then used to measure SRQ in Indonesia. Based on reporting guidelines, the new comprehensive measurement for SRQ was developed by not only evaluating the extent of disclosures, but also by examining the quality. The content analysis was conducted to measure the level of SRQ using this comprehensive measurement. The samples are from stand-alone sustainability reports of companies. The results indicate that the overall score for SRQ was moderate. The score was derived using five aspects: the extent of quantitative reporting, the extent of qualitative reporting, the content of the report, the quality of the report, and sustainability reporting accordance. This proposed comprehensive SRQ measurement was used to examine the quantitative and qualitative aspects. This measurement will help academicians to examine the quality of reports and provide more credible assessments that can be used by practitioners to analyze the content of the report. Applying the SRQ measure to Indonesian companies empirically enriches the existing literature and creates a new platform for future studies.

CEO Compensation and Firm Performance: The Role of ESG Transparency

Chief executive officers (CEOs) of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) firms are known to take lesser pay and engage themselves in corporate social responsibility activities to achieve the dual objective of the enhancement of firm’s performance as well as benefit for stakeholders in the long run. This study examines the role of ESG transparency in strengthening the impact of firm performance on total CEO pay in ESG firms. A panel of 67 firms for the period of 2014–2019 has been analyzed using the two-step system GMM model, with NSE Nifty 100 ESG Index as the data sample and ESG scores from Bloomberg database as a proxy for transparency. Findings reveal that environmental and governance disclosure scores have the potential to intensify the negative relationship between firm performance and CEO compensation, while social disclosure scores do not. In addition, various firm-specific, board-specific, and CEO-specific attributes have also been considered controls affecting remuneration. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the effect of exhibiting ESG transparency and its nexus with CEO pay as well as firm performance.

Carbon Emissions Disclosure as Mechanism to Increase Environmental Performance and Control of Idiosyncratic Risk: How They Impact Firm Value

This research attempts to investigate the predictive effect of carbon emissions disclosure on firm value both directly and through environmental performance and idiosyncratic risk. With data collected from all non-financial high-profile companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and testing through path analysis, findings reveal that carbon emissions disclosure has a positive significant effect on environmental performance, but not on idiosyncratic risk and firm value. Further statistics testing showed that both idiosyncratic risk and environmental performance have a positive and significant effect on firm value. We also used Sobel testing to test mediation role of environmental performance and idiosyncratic risk on the effect of carbon emissions disclosure on firm value. The results show that environmental performance plays a mediating role whereas idiosyncratic risk does not. The implications of this research study are discussed from both theoretical and managerial perspectives.

Moderating Effect of Earnings Management in the Relationship between Sustainability Reporting Initiatives and Value Relevance

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether sustainability disclosures are associated with value relevance in Bangladesh. The moderating effect of earnings management (EM) is also examined to observe the right direction in this relationship. Based on prior studies on sustainability disclosure and global reporting initiatives guidelines, this research uses the content analysis approach to assess the magnitude of sustainability initiatives of 30 Bangladeshi banking companies over the period 2009–2017. The Ohlson price model and discretionary accruals are also employed as measures of value relevant of sustainability disclosure and EM, respectively. The findings state that sustainability reports positively affect the equity value, whereas EM negatively moderates the direction of this association. The results also confirm that management should be responsive of the impending capital market effects of voluntary disclosures regarding sustainability issues. These findings could have several implications for banks, investors, and policymakers.