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Official Turnover and Corporate ESG Practices: Evidence from China
In recent years, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) have been extensive concerned. However, few studies have focused on the impact of situational factors on corporate ESG practice decisions. Based on this, using 9428 observations of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this paper attempts to explore the impact of local official turnover on corporate ESG practices, and analyzes the boundary effects of this impact from three aspects: region, industry, and corporate. Our results suggest that (1) official turnover can lead to changes in economic policies and redistribution of political resources, which can stimulate companies’ “risk aversion motivation” and “development motivation” and thus promote their ESG practices; (2) this effect is more significant in the high degree of government intervention, the high level of industry competition and private corporates. (3) Further test finds that only when the official turnover abnormally and the regional economic development well, official turnover can significantly contribute to corporate ESG. This paper enriches the relevant research on the decision-making scenarios of corporate ESG practices from the macro-institutional perspective.
Journal Article
Smart collaboration : how professionals and their firms succeed by breaking down silos
Many professional service firms today face a serious dilemma. Clients are demanding more sophisticated service for complex problems that can only be delivered by interdisciplinary teams of experts. No one consultant or lawyer--or even one functional group--can guide a client through today's challenges, which often span technological, regulatory, economic, and environmental issues on an increasingly global scale. The problem is, most firms have narrowly defined practice areas and partners with specialized expertise. These siloed experts are often \"stars\" who have built their reputations and client rosters independently, not by working with peers. What's more, most firms have grown so large and so fast that their members can't even know--let alone trust--their colleagues around the world. In Smart Collaboration, Heidi Gardner shows that a much more profitable--albeit difficult--path is to push the firm toward cross-partner collaboration. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School professor, now a fellow at Harvard Law School, has spent over a decade conducting an in-depth study of more than a dozen global professional service firms. In a research tour de force, she brings together time sheet records, financial information, and personnel records--literally millions of data points--to uncover the effect of interdisciplinary teamwork in the professional services field. The result: conclusive proof that collaboration pays, both for employees and for their firms. Moving group by group through the ranks of a typical firm, she offers powerful prescriptions for how leaders can foster collaboration, move to higher-end and higher-margin work, increase client satisfaction, attract and retain top-caliber talent, and improve their bottom line.-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji
Background
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in Fiji, a middle-income country in the Pacific. Some food products processed sold and marketed by the food industry are major contributors to the NCD epidemic, and the food industry is widely identified as having strong economic and political power. However, little research has been undertaken on the attempts by the food industry to influence public health-related policies and programs in its favour. The “corporate political activity” (CPA) of the food industry includes six strategies (information and messaging; financial incentives; constituency building; legal strategies; policy substitution; opposition fragmentation and destabilisation). For this study, we aimed to gain a detailed understanding of the CPA strategies and practices of major food industry actors in Fiji, interpreted through a public health lens.
Methods and results
We implemented a systematic approach to monitor the CPA of the food industry in Fiji for three months. It consisted of document analysis of relevant publicly available information. In parallel, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 stakeholders involved in diet- and/or public health-related issues in Fiji. Both components of the study were thematically analysed. We found evidence that the food industry adopted a diverse range of strategies in an attempt to influence public policy in Fiji, with all six CPA strategies identified. Participants identified that there is a substantial risk that the widespread CPA of the food industry could undermine efforts to address NCDs in Fiji.
Conclusions
Despite limited public disclosure of information, such as data related to food industry donations to political parties and lobbying, we were able to identify many CPA practices used by the food industry in Fiji. Greater transparency from the food industry and the government would help strengthen efforts to increase their accountability and support NCD prevention. In other low- and middle-income countries, it is likely that a systematic document analysis approach would also need to be supplemented with key informant interviews to gain insight into this important influence on NCD prevention.
Journal Article
Ensuring America's health : the public creation of the corporate health care system
An in-depth evaluation of the US health care system's development in the 20th century. It shows how a unique economic design - the insurance company model - came to dominate health care, bringing with it high costs, corporate medicine, and fragmented, poorly distributed care.
Book
Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms
This article revives the debate over whether women's upward mobility prospects decline as they climb organizational hierarchies. Although this proposition is a core element of the \"glass ceiling\" metaphor, it has failed to gain strong support in previous research. The article establishes a firm theoretical foundation for expecting an increasing female disadvantage, with an eye toward defining the scope conditions and extending the model to upper-level external hires. The approach is illustrated in an empirical setting that meets the proposed scope conditions: corporate law firms in the United States. Results confirm that in this setting, the female mobility disadvantage is greater at higher organizational levels in the case of internal promotions, but not in the case of external hires.
Journal Article
Assessing the health impact of transnational corporations: a case study on McDonald’s Australia
Background
The practices of transnational corporations affect population health through production methods, shaping social determinants of health, or influencing the regulatory structures governing their activities. There has been limited research on community exposures to TNC policies and practices. Our pilot research used McDonald’s Australia to test methods for assessing the health impacts of one TNC within Australia.
Methods
We adapted existing Health Impact Assessment methods to assess McDonald’s activities. Data identifying potential impacts were sourced through document analysis, including McDonald’s corporate literature; media analysis and semi-structured interviews. We commissioned a spatial and socioeconomic analysis of McDonald’s restaurants in Australia through Geographic Information System technology. The data was mapped against a corporate health impact assessment framework which included McDonald’s Australia’s political and business practices; products and marketing; workforce, social, environmental and economic conditions; and consumers’ health related behaviours.
Results
We identified both positive and detrimental aspects of McDonald’s Australian operations across the scope of the CHIA framework. We found that McDonald’s outlets were slightly more likely to be located in areas of lower socioeconomic status. McDonald’s workplace conditions were found to be more favourable than those in many other countries which reflects compliance with Australian employment regulations. The breadth of findings revealed the need for governments to strengthen regulatory mechanisms that are conducive to health; the opportunity for McDonald’s to augment their corporate social responsibility initiatives and bolster reputational endorsement; and civil society actors to inform their advocacy towards health and equity outcomes from TNC operations.
Conclusion
Our study indicates that undertaking a corporate health impact assessment is possible, with the different methods revealing sufficient information to realise that strong regulatory frameworks are need to help to avoid or to mediate negative health impacts.
Journal Article
How High-Polluting Firms Suffer from Being Distracted form Intended Purpose: A Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective
High-polluting industries are regarded as the main sources of air pollutant emissions and the major factors that significantly destroy the ecological environment. Corporate innovation in high-polluting industries improves the energy consumption efficiency and reduces the emission of air pollutant, which mitigates the conflict between environment and economy. Using the sample of China’s listed firms from 2010 to 2017, this study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financialization on corporate innovation in high-polluting industries. The results show that there is a positive association between CSR and corporate innovation, while there is a negative association between financialization and corporate innovation. Furthermore, the financialization of high-polluting firms can alleviate the promotion role of CSR in the innovation process. The financialization of state-owned enterprises in high-polluting industries may not have a crowding-out effect on research and development (R&D), but it can limit the R&D promotion effect of CSR engagements. In contrast, the financialization of non-state-owned enterprises will hinder corporate innovation, but it will not affect the association between CSR and technology innovation. We also find that the financialization of high-polluting firms with low financial constraints can alleviate the promotion role of CSR engagements in innovation. Meanwhile, the CSR engagements of high-polluting firms with high financial constraints play a stronger role in corporate innovation. During the implementation of environmental policies, the negative association between financialization and corporate innovation has been strengthened. Our findings can encourage high-polluting firms to make more efforts in environmental protection and social stability.
Journal Article
Corporate Social Responsibility: A Real Options Approach to the Challenge of Financial Sustainability
In contemporary complex societies, social values like ethics, corporate social responsibility, and being respectful with the environment, among others, are becoming social requirements. Corporations are expected to fulfill them and, according to empirical evidence, an overwhelming majority aspires to good social valuation. At the same time, the maximization of market share value in the long run continues to be the central corporate goal. Making environmental and social expenses compatible with value creation is a central challenge for corporations since it implies the financial sustainability of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
The value creation capacity of CSR projects, mainly through innovation, is widely acknowledged in economic literature and corporate practice. This fact arouses the need of having a quantitative framework capable of summarizing the value creation capacity of the variables involved in CSR projects. With this aim we build up a sensitivity analysis of real option ratios that studies and quantifies the value creation capacity of CSR projects connected with innovation. Ratio analysis has the advantage of being scale independent. Hence, it furnishes a homogeneous framework to express the interaction of value creation variables and, thus, supports strategic thinking quantitatively. Often, CSR expenses can be regarded as preliminary projects that create the opportunity to undertake a full future project. For them, we obtain the minimum expectations scenario that makes financially sustainable a preliminary project that can be interpreted as a call option. We propose a classification of CSR projects from the decision analysis perspective following a two-fold approach: Their relationship with value creation and their links with existing corporate activities. This classification of CSR projects aims at contributing to choose the best capital budgeting method to study the financial sustainability of the project and identifying those CSR projects that fulfill the required features to be studied from the real options perspective.
Journal Article
Reducing Medical Admissions into Hospital through Optimising Medicines (REMAIN HOME) Study: protocol for a stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised trial
IntroductionA model of general practitioner (GP) and pharmacist collaboration in primary care may be an effective strategy to reduce medication-related problems and provide better support to patients after discharge. The aim of this study is to investigate whether a model of structured pharmacist and GP care reduces hospital readmissions in high-risk patients.Methods and analysisThis protocol details a stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised trial that will recruit participants over 9 months with a 12-month follow-up. There will be 14 clusters each representing a different general practice medical centre. A total of 2240 participants will be recruited from hospital who attend an enrolled medical centre, take five or more long-term medicines or whose reason for admission was related to heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.The intervention is a multifaceted service, involving a pharmacist integrated into a medical centre to assist patients after hospitalisation. Participants will meet with the practice pharmacist and their GP after discharge to review and reconcile their medicines and discuss changes made in hospital. The pharmacist will follow-up with the participant and liaise with other health professionals involved in the participant’s care. The control will be usual care, which usually involves a patient self-organising a visit to their GP after hospital discharge.The primary outcome is the rate of unplanned, all-cause hospital readmissions over 12 months, which will be analysed using a mixed effects Poisson regression model with a random effect for cluster and a fixed effect to account for any temporal trend. A cost analysis will be undertaken to compare the healthcare costs associated with the intervention to those of usual care.Ethics and disseminationThe study has received ethical approval (HREC/16/QRBW/410). The study findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conferences and reports to key stakeholders.Trial registration numberACTRN12616001627448
Journal Article