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The relevance of climate-related information to analysts
No full textWe investigate the usefulness of emission information and climate-related annual report disclosures to financial analysts. We extract climate disclosures from annual reports using a state-of-the-art machine learning model, ClimateBert, and automatically identify and quantify the underlying disclosure topics using a structural topic model. For a large international sample of firms subject to a European nonfinancial disclosure mandate, we find that analysts face greater uncertainty while forecasting future earnings for firms with greater emission intensities and for firms that show weaker commitment to reducing emissions. We also show that the aggregate level of climate disclosure does not significantly reduce this uncertainty. However, we do find that disclosure on a specific set of topics improves analysts’ ability to forecast future earnings. Nevertheless, for firms with greater emission intensities, this relationship reverses. These findings suggest that, overall, current climate reporting practices are not informative to analysts since they do not mitigate the uncertainty inherent to the potential impacts of climate change
Solidarity in the age of environmental challenge: How to govern a socially just transition toward a more sustainable Europe
No full textDigital transformation - An exercise in paradox management
No full textLeading consulting and engineering firm Arcadis is undoubtedly one of the digital leaders in its sector. Its digital transformation has been impressive: from an organisation providing consultancy projects on an hourly basis, it has morphed into a company that combines project work with a portfolio of digital products and services. ‘We could not have taken this step had we not partnered up with Vlerick back in 2017 in order to get everyone on board digitally’, says Bram Mommers, Global Technology Officer at Arcadis. Indeed, Vlerick has been part of Arcadis’ digital transformation right from the very beginning. In this case study, Bram and Vlerick professor Stijn Viaene talk about how this process was put on the right track. Why did Arcadis decide to partner up with Vlerick? How did the awareness raising and training process work out? What are paradoxical tensions and how can you best deal with them? What obstacles and paradoxes did Arcadis face and how did it deal with them? What did the organisation learn along the way and what advice have Bram and Stijn got for other organisations going through their own digital transformation? Discover the answers to these questions in the case study
Breaking truck dominance in supply chains: Proactive freight consolidation and modal split transport
Get PDFEnvironmental concerns and a shortage of truck drivers motivate a paradigm shift in truck-dominated supply chains. To alleviate the pressure on truck transport, one can consolidate freight with other companies. Freight consolidation can be facilitated by third-party logistics service providers, who combine shipments that require delivery to the same destination on the same day. More gains can be realized through “proactive freight consolidation”, by proactively synchronizing the timing of shipments prior to placing orders. This is facilitated by a joint replenishment policy. The truck intensity of supply chains can be further reduced by shifting freight from road towards alternative transport modes, such as train. Modal split transport combines two complementary transport modes by using both modes in parallel. We analyze how proactive freight consolidation can be combined with modal split transport. We propose a heuristic that combines a can-order joint replenishment policy to consolidate freight orders proactively via truck, with a tailored base-surge policy to coordinate shipments via train. We develop a lower bound on the optimal cost to validate our heuristic. By comparing the truck usage and cost performance of our policy against alternative replenishment strategies, we show how the combination of proactive freight consolidation and modal split transport can shift freight towards alternative transport modes, without negatively impacting costs or service
Research Handbook on Diversity and Corporate Governance
No full textChallenging existing research and concepts, this Research Handbook presents cutting-edge new research on diversity and corporate governance. Going beyond the surface of diversity, global expert contributors present a diverse range of chapters offering a wide range of perspectives on the use of theories and methodologies
When do finance offices create more organisational value? How does the finance function’s digital maturity affect organisational performance?
No full textDigital maturity can be defined as the measure of an organisation’s ability to respond to, take advantage of, and create value through digital technologies. It is commonly accepted that companies with high levels of digital maturity have a competitive advantage along multiple performance indicators: revenue growth, time to market, cost-effectiveness, product quality and customer satisfaction. In contrast, organisations with low levels of digital maturity struggle to exploit the benefits of digitalization. In this white paper, we discuss the possible benefits of an increase in the finance office’s digital maturity level. To do this, we develop a construct that represents the digital maturity of the finance office. Further, we examine the impact of the finance function’s digital maturity on the organisation’s performance, and we discuss the finance function’s ability to take on a strategic role in steering the organisation. We believe that the findings in our white paper, based on a survey among CFOs and finance leaders of Belgian firms, are highly relevant for all finance leaders who want their finance office to become true value generators for their organisations. The study is part of a master’s thesis by Jan Foncke and Anouck Willemoons (Master students, KU Leuven), together with supervisor Kristof Stouthuysen (Professor of Management Accounting & Digital Finance, Vlerick Business School) and coach Lennert Van der Schraelen (doctoral researcher, Vlerick Business School)
A DEA-based approach to customer value analysis
No full textFirms have become increasingly customer-centric, implying that customers, rather than products, are treated as the most important asset of a firm. The switch to customer-centric strategies also implies that firms are collecting an enormous amount of customer-related data. The purpose of this paper is to propose a DEA-based methodology to determine the contribution of customer segments to firm value. We show the practical usefulness of our methodology through an application to Activity Based Costing (ABC) data collected from a large European telecom provider, which offers fixed telephone, mobile telephone, digital television and internet subscriptions. Our analysis reveals that the average cost reduction potential across all customer segments amounts to 1.26 % of the total controllable costs, which represents approximately EUR 5 million when expressed in monetary terms. We also document substantial variation in the cost reduction potential across customer segments.Laurens Cherchye gratefully acknowledges the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (FWO) and the Research Fund KU Leuven for financial support. Bram De Rock gratefully acknowledges FWO and FNRS for their support
The role of stakeholder involvement in the evolving EU HTA process: Insights generated through the European Access Academy’s multi-stakeholder pre-convention questionnaire
No full textInvolvement of all relevant stakeholders will be of utmost importance for the success of the developing EU HTA harmonization process. A multi-step procedure was applied to develop a survey across stakeholders/collaborators within the EU HTA framework to assess their current level of involvement, determine their suggested future role, identify challenges to contribution, and highlight efficient ways to fulfilling their role. The 'key' stakeholder groups identified and covered by this research included: patients', clinicians', regulatory, and Health Technology Developer representatives. The survey was circulated to a wide expert audience including all relevant stakeholder groups in order to determine self-perception by the 'key' stakeholders regarding involvement in the HTA process (self-rating), and in a second, slightly modified version of the questionnaire, to determine the perception of 'key' stakeholder involvement by HTA bodies, payers, and policymakers (external rating). Predefined analyses were conducted on the submitted responses. Fifty-four responses were received (patients 9; clinicians: 8; regulators: 4; HTDs 14; HTA bodies: 7; Payers: 5; policymakers 3; others 4). The mean self-perceived involvement score was consistently lower for each of the 'key' stakeholder groups than the respective external ratings. Based on the qualitative insights generated in the survey, a RACI Chart (Responsible/Accountable/Consulted/Informed) was developed for each of the stakeholder groups to determine their roles and involvement in the current EU HTA process. Our findings suggest extensive effort and a distinct research agenda are required to ensure adequate involvement of the key stakeholder groups in the evolving EU HTA process.(Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology