1,720,956 research outputs found
Sustainability Reporting in Sub-Saharan Africa : a corporate governance and ownership structure perspective
No full textSubmitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management Sciences Specialising in Business Administration at the Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2024.The level of sustainability reporting (SR) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is still
low and unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, studies on corporate governance and
SR in SSA are limited. The immaturity of the capital markets of the SSA limits
the acquisition of valid and reliable sustainability data. Most studies on
corporate governance and SR are therefore, largely within the context of
businesses in the developed world with matured capital markets. There is
also evidence of limited emphasis on the boundary condition of ownership
structure in the relationship between corporate governance and sustainability
reporting. The aim of this study was to investigate the moderating role of
ownership structure in the extent to which the corporate governance
practices of businesses in SSA promote SR. The study focused on SSA's
publicly listed non-financial firms as of 31 December 2021. STATA 14.1 and
GMM were used to analyze secondary data. The Arellano-Bond dynamic
panel-data estimation method was applied to a balanced panel of 1,969
observations from 275 groups spanning 2012 to 2021. The study revealed
ownership structure notably shaped corporate governance's effect on
sustainability disclosure in SSA listed businesses. In addition it was found
that government ownership bolstered board independence's environmental
sustainability reporting (ESR) impact, while foreign ownership weakened
Board female gender diversity (BFGD) influence. Board independence
enhanced social sustainability reporting (SSR), but government ownership
weakened audit committee attributes' SSR link. Foreign ownership amplified
the connection between audit committee size and SSR, but weakened it for
sustainability committee independence. BFGD, board independence,
independent remuneration, and sustainability committees positively
correlated with ESR. Conversely, larger remuneration committees and more
sustainability meetings negatively related to reduced ESR. It is therefore
imperative for SSA firms to establish standard CSR/ESG boards for
functional effectiveness. In a nutshell, the influence of corporate governance
on reporting is moderated by ownership structure, highlighting the importance
of tailored ownership arrangements to enhance sustainability reporting.
Policies should prioritize environmental and social reporting, as it receives
less emphasis compared to traditional financial reporting.
VALIDATING THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF SMMEs IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SMMEs IN GHANA AND SOUTH AFRICA
Full text linkPublished ThesisAuthors who support the notion that the responsibility of businesses goes beyond profit-making to include social and environmental objectives have largely found a positive relationship between business social responsibility (BSR) and firm performance. However, most of these studies have either focused on large firms or have been conducted outside of Africa. This made it necessary for this study to examine the relationship between BSR and small, medium, and micro enterprise (SMME) performance in Africa – particularly so when SMMEs have been found to be significant contributors to the economic development of nations.
The study was conducted within the framework of stakeholder theory where BSR was defined as actions taken by SMMEs to address issues concerning employees, customers, community, and the environment with the view to ultimately affect firm performance positively. To test the hypothesis, a sample of 262 South African SMME owners or managers and another sample of 253 Ghanaian SMME owners or managers were surveyed. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed on the data collected. The empirical findings showed that BSR issues are significantly positively correlated with some performance variables (i.e. expected benefits and realised benefits) but not significantly correlated with other performance variables (i.e. sales growth and profit levels) in the Ghana sample. However, in the South Africa sample, all BSR issues are significantly positively correlated with all four measures of performance considered in this study. A further analysis of the relationship between BSR variables and firm performance variables was undertaken using regression analysis to test the degree to which BSR variables predict the firm performance variables. The results showed that customer and environment issues are significant predictors of realised benefits in the Ghana sample while employee, customer and community issues significantly predict realised benefits in the South African sample. Although the results of the study were mixed, in the sense that not all BSR variables had significant positive relationships with firm performance variables, they do give an indication of how BSR can contribute to SMME performance in the African context. Based on the findings, it is recommended that a formal policy and legislation aimed at bringing about uniformity and clarity in the BSR processes are instituted to regulate SMME BSR in both countries. This is expected to improve compliance and thus increase the benefits of BSR to SMMEs and the economies that they contribute to
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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