132,611 research outputs found
Hamilton K. Redway Family papers, 1825-1916
No full textLetter from Captain N. D. Patten indicating the receipt of two horses from a Sergeant of the 1st Veteran New York Cavalry
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Hamilton K. Redway Family papers, 1825-1916
No full textLetter from Captain N. D. Patten indicating the receipt of two horses from a Sergeant of the 1st Veteran New York Cavalry
Enhancement and obfuscation through the use of graphs in sustainability reports: An international comparison
No full text‘This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/ Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.'Purpose – In this study we investigate the use of graphs in corporate sustainability
reports and attempt to determine, first, whether the use of graphs appears to be associated
with attempts at impression management, and second, whether differences across three
levels of reporting regulatory structure (Leuz, Nanda and Wysocki, 2003) are associated
with differences in the level of impression management.
Design/methodology/approach - Based on a sample of 120 sustainability reports issued
by firms from six different countries, we empirically test for differences in presentation
of favorable as opposed to unfavorable items (enhancement) and for differences in the
direction of materially distorted graphs (obfuscation).
Findings - For the overall sample we find substantial evidence of both enhancement and
obfuscation in the graph displays. We also find more limited evidence that impression
management differs across companies facing different regulatory structures.
Research limitations/implications – We investigate graph use for only one year’s
reports and for a sample of large companies from only six different countries. Further,
our enhancement findings are not evidence that the companies are necessarily providing
misleading information. However, our results show that the way information is being
provided in corporate sustainability reports appears to be manipulated by the firms to
enhance a positive image and to obfuscate negative trends. The reports may thus be less
about increasing corporate accountability across the social and environmental domains
than about managing impressions. Hence, it may be beneficial for advocate organizations
such as the Global Reporting Initiative to provide additional guidance on “how”
information gets portrayed in sustainability reports.
Originality/value – Our study expands prior research into corporate manipulation of
graphs to the domain of sustainability reporting and adds further evidence that the
reporting needs to be carefully assessed
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Measuring csr disclosure when assessing stock market effects
No full textA growing number of studies are using a dichotomous variable indicating the presence of a standalone CSR report to capture impacts of CSR disclosure. Our concern is that, without considering differences in the information provided, such an approach could lead to incorrect inferences regarding those impacts. We extend prior research by examining whether, similar to differences in environmental disclosure, the mere presence of a standalone CSR report also mitigates negative market reactions at times of regulatory cost exposure. We focus on the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster and a sample of international utilities with nuclear power generation. Controlling for other factors related to social and regulatory cost exposures, we find only the environmental disclosures appear to reduce negative market effects. We argue that, in exploring the impacts of CSR disclosure, researchers need to carefully consider, beyond just the presence of a CSR report, differences in the extent of information being provided
Does assurance on CSR reporting enhance environmental reputation? An examination in the U.S. context
No full textCreating Legitimacy for Sustainability Assurance Practices: Evidence from Sustainability Restatements
No full textThis study examines sustainability reporting assurance (SRA) provider use of sustainability restatements as a means to create legitimacy in the developing SRA market. In comparison to financial data, mistakes in sustainability reporting are more likely to be made and less likely to be discovered prior to reporting. A lack of clear reporting standards and ambiguous SRA guidelines create a setting where providers can use restatements in an attempt to demonstrate both a problem in sustainability reporting and assurance as the solution to that issue. Based on a sample of US firms from 2010 to 2014, we find that SRA is associated with an increased likelihood of sustainability restatements, that the association is stronger for error restatements than for restatements due to methodological updates, and that SRA is significantly associated with the disclosure of quantitatively non-material restatements. We also document differences in these relations across provider type, with only consultant assurance significantly associated with methodological restatements and restatements of a non-material amount. Our findings support differences between sustainability report restatements and financial restatements, and provide evidence in support of our argument that assurance providers may be using restatements in an attempt to expand market share in a new professional space
Impression Management in Sustainability Reports: An Empirical Investigation of the Use of Graphs.
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether firms use graphs in their sustainability reports in order to present a more favorable view of their social and environmental performance. Further, because prior research indicates that companies use social and environmental disclosure as a tool to reduce their exposure to social and political pressures (the legitimacy argument), we also examine whether differences in the extent of impression management are associated with differences in social and environmental performance. Based on an analysis of graphs in sustainability reports for a sample of 77 U.S. companies for 2006, we find considerable evidence of favorable selectivity bias in the choice of items graphed, and moderate evidence that where distortion in graphing occurs, it also has a favorable bias. Our results regarding the relation between impression management and performance are mixed. Whereas we find that graphs of social items in sustainability reports for companies with worse social performance exhibit more impression management, no significant relation between environmental performance and impression management in the use of environmental graphs is found. Overall, our results provide additional evidence that corporate sustainability reporting, as it currently exists, appears to be more about fostering positive public relations than providing a meaningful accounting of the social and environmental impacts of the firm
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