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This concept paper delineates the design of a sociotechnical ecosystem for ethical screening and promotion of mental health and well-being, building on the convergence of digital technologies with modern human-centered design methods. Access to individuals’ health and well-being data will enable the generation of actionable insights with different degrees of granularity, for the benefit of individuals, care providers, and business organizations. Critical to the success of the ecosystem are the proactive involvement of all stakeholders, the definition of incentives to encourage engagement, and the promotion of consistent narratives as public institutional messages. The article posits working hypotheses, including the idea that creative externalization of health and well-being data, augmented by advanced physico-digital interactivity, can sustain positive psychological and behavioral change. The theoretical underpinning consists of the integration of existing frameworks across well-being, behavior change, and sustainable business. The article defines a research agenda for expanding socially inclusive dialogue on data governance and policy implications.

This study explores the role of willingness and membership in global environmental engagement, focusing on how these factors influence environmental action across diverse global populations. Using a combination of latent class analysis and logistic regression models, we examine the impact of the willingness to contribute financially, environmental membership, and trust in people, alongside demographic variables such as gender, age, and education level. Our findings highlight the significant role of environmental membership and the willingness to act in shaping behaviours, with gender and trust further influencing engagement patterns. This promotes the UN’s sustainable goals, primarily Climate Action. These insights contribute to understanding the drivers of environmental activism globally.

A key prediction of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is that idiosyncratic risk is not priced by investors because in the absence of frictions it can be fully diversified away. In the presence of constraints on diversification, refinements of the CAPM conclude that the part of idiosyncratic risk that is not diversified should be priced. Recent empirical studies yielded mixed evidence with some studies finding positive correlation between idiosyncratic risk and stock returns, while other studies reported none or even negative correlation. We examine whether idiosyncratic risk is priced by the stock market and what are the probable causes for the mixed evidence produced by other studies, using monthly data for the US market covering the period from 1980 until 2013. We find that one-period volatility forecasts are not significantly correlated with stock returns. The mean-reverting unconditional volatility, however, is a robust predictor of returns. Consistent with economic theory, the size of the premium depends on the degree of ‘knowledge’ of the security among market participants. In particular, the premium for Nasdaq-traded stocks is higher than that for NYSE and Amex stocks. We also find stronger correlation between idiosyncratic risk and returns during recessions, which may suggest interaction of risk premium with decreased risk tolerance or other investment considerations like flight to safety or liquidity requirements. We identify the difference between the correlations of the idiosyncratic volatility estimators used by other studies and the true risk metric the mean-reverting volatility as the likely cause for the mixed evidence produced by other studies. Our results are robust with respect to liquidity, momentum, return reversals, unadjusted price, liquidity, credit quality, omitted factors, and hold at daily frequency.

Tax evasion is a major issue for authorities worldwide. Understanding the factors that influence individuals’ intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, known as their tax morale, is important for improving tax compliance. This study investigated gender differences in judging tax evasion in the context of cryptocurrency trading. Specifically, a survey study explored whether different moral foundations, financial literacies, and political orientations among females vs. males might explain potential gender differences in judging tax evasion. In an online survey, 243 U.S. adults read a vignette about a friend evading taxes in a cryptocurrency trading context. In a correlational analysis, we found that females judged tax evasion harsher, as being more morally wrong than males. Of the psychographic factors, only individualizing moral foundation values (i.e., fairness and harm avoidance) explained the harsher moral judgment by females. That is, individualizing moral foundation values were at a higher level among females, which further predicted females’ harsher judgment of tax evasion. While females also had, on average, lower financial literacy and knowledge of cryptocurrencies than males, these did not predict their harsher judgment of tax evasion. The findings contribute to research on gender differences in moral judgments and highlight that a given transgression, or a specific crime, may violate different moral values in men and women. The results demonstrate to policy makers that it is important to take into account gender differences, in campaigns promoting tax morale and compliance.

The current marketing landscape faces challenges in content creation and innovation, relying heavily on manually created content and traditional channels like social media and search engines. While effective, these methods often lack the creativity and uniqueness needed to stand out in a competitive market. To address this, we introduce MARK-GEN, a conceptual framework that utilises generative artificial intelligence (AI) models to transform marketing content creation. MARK-GEN provides a comprehensive, structured approach for businesses to employ generative AI in producing marketing materials, representing a new method in digital marketing strategies. We present two case studies within the fashion industry, demonstrating how MARK-GEN can generate compelling marketing content using generative AI technologies. This proposition paper builds on our previous technical developments in virtual try-on models, including image-based, multi-pose, and image-to-video techniques, and is intended for a broad audience, particularly those in business management.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between open banking and tax evasion. As the open banking literature is still evolving, we try to systematically analyze the literature on conventional banking and tax evasion and then extend the discussion in the context of open banking. The popularity of open baking recently raises a question about its relationship with tax evasion. Digital banking and digital taxation contributed positively to mitigating tax evasion in the context of conventional banking. However, in open banking, the customers can decide to what extent they will share any transaction-related data with their bank, while they can also choose to complete direct transactions with third parties. This creates a new challenge in relation to the mitigation of tax evasion, which is the focus of this paper. Due to lack of granular empirical data, we conduct a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis to track the development of the relevant academic debates and identify the arguments that have been presented in relation to this topic. This approach is recognized as well suited for emerging topics in finance research, particularly when data are scarce, as evidenced by studies on COVID-19 and biodiversity. We find that the gaps of the current regulatory framework, at both the national and supranational level, have created challenges and uncertainties at multiple levels. Nonetheless, the findings of the study suggest future research directions and offer valuable guidelines for regulators in utilizing open banking.

Blue hydrogen is a promising low-carbon alternative to conventional fossil fuels. This technology has been garnering increasing attention with many technological advances in recent years, with a particular focus on the deployed materials and process configurations aimed at minimising the cost and CO2 emissions intensity of the process as well as maximising efficiency. However, less attention is given to the practical aspects of large-scale deployment, with the cooling requirements often being overlooked, especially across multiple locations. In particular, the literature tends to focus on CO2 emissions intensity of blue hydrogen production processes, with other environmental impacts such as water and electrical consumption mostly considered an afterthought. Notably, there is a gap to understand the impact of cooling methods on such environmental metrics, especially with technologies at a lower technology readiness level. Herein, two cooling methods (namely, air-cooling versus water-cooling) have been assessed and cross-compared in terms of their energy impact alongside techno-economics, considering deployment across two specific locations (United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia). A sorption-enhanced steam-methane reforming (SE-SMR) coupled with chemical-looping combustion (CLC) was used as the base process. Deployment of this process in the UK yielded a levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of GBP 2.94/kg H2 with no significant difference between the prices when using air-cooling and water-cooling, despite the air-cooling approach having a higher electricity consumption. In Saudi Arabia, this process achieved a LCOH of GBP 0.70 and GBP 0.72 /kg H2 when using air- and water-cooling, respectively, highlighting that in particularly arid regions, air-cooling is a viable approach despite its increased electrical consumption. Furthermore, based on the economic and process performance of the SE-SMR-CLC process, the policy mechanisms and financial incentives that can be implemented have been discussed to further highlight what is required from key stakeholders to ensure effective deployment of blue hydrogen production.

This paper contributes to biodiversity and species extinction literature by examining the relationship between corporate accountability in terms of species protection and factors affecting such accountability from forward-thinking companies. We use triangulation of theories, namely deep ecology, legitimacy, and we introduce a new perspective to the stakeholder theory that considers species as a ‘stakeholder’. Using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) regression, we examine a sample of 200 Fortune Global companies over 3 years. Our results indicate significant positive relations between ecologically conscious companies that are accountable for the protection of biodiversity and species extinction and external assurance, environmental performance, partnerships with socially responsible organizations and awards for sustainable activities. Our empirical results appear to be robust in controlling for possible endogeneities. Our findings contribute to the discussion on the concern of species loss and habitat destruction in the context of corporate accountability, especially in responding to the sixth mass extinction event and COVID-19 crisis. Our results can also guide the policymakers and stakeholders of the financial market in better decision making.

PurposeBased on the essence of the legitimacy and agency theories, this study empirically investigates the influence of corporate governance attributes and ownership structures on sustainability reporting of companies listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), India.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on panel data regression analysis of sustainability reporting practices of 53 environmentally sensitive companies drawn from NIFTY100 Index at NSE. All data pertaining to sustainability information disclosure, ownership structure and corporate governance characteristics were sourced from sustainability report, business responsibility report, annual report and Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database for the years 2015–2019.FindingsThe empirical result reveals that sustainability reporting scenario has been consistently improving in India. This study documents that government ownership and frequency of board meetings are the two most important factors significantly influencing the extent of sustainability information disclosure of companies. However, the present study failed to find any significant impact of board size and big4 auditing on sustainability reporting practices. Unexpectedly, a higher number of independent directors does not improve sustainability disclosure of companies in India.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first studies to investigate how the nature of ownership and corporate governance characteristics contribute to or impede sustainability reporting practices of companies in India. This study offers important insights to regulators, practitioners and investors to analyze whether sustainability disclosure of companies is influenced by corporate governance attributes. It also provides a perspective for regulators and corporate strategists to assess the impact of recent corporate governance reforms in India and consider how corporate governance mechanism can be used to improve sustainability reporting practices.

PurposeThe authors explore the behaviour and perspectives of SMEs' owners towards a greener economy and its implications for net zero carbon emissions target.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on the mirroring concept and 26 semi-structured interviews with SMEs' owners and managers to provide insights and explore the misalignment between SMEs' actions and perceptions and the technical architecture (and requirements) of achieving net zero carbon emissions in the UK.FindingsThe authors find that SMEs lack trust and are sceptical about the government's net zero emissions agenda. The authors also find that lack of understanding and perceived benefits, and supply chain complexities (end-to-end emissions) are the key factors hindering SMEs interests in engaging with better carbon emissions management and environmental management system (EMS). Moreover, pressure from external stakeholders, particularly banks and customers, is a strong driver to draw SMEs more effectively with sustainability and environmental impact disclosure.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample is limited to 26 SMEs' owners operating in seven industries. Future research could explore the result in other industries. Further research could also investigate how the sustainability reports produced by SMEs are useful for different user groups' decision-making. This study reinforces the social constructionist approach to advance our understanding of SMEs' actions towards carbon emission management and EMS.Practical implicationsThis study shows how government policies and SMEs' interests can be aligned to achieve the net zero carbon emissions target.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the perceptions and behaviour of SMEs towards the ongoing pursuit of a greener economy in the UK, including the key factors driving their actions and reasoning.