Abstract:Developed market economies demonstrate a growing interest in issues concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its effects, confirmed by the sizeable theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. A substantial research proves also the positive relation between CSR commitment and financial results of banks in mature markets. However, there is less evidence on CSR existence and its impact in other geographical areas, especially in the research concerning Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC). In our study we analyze the interrelation between being socially responsible and tangible financial outcome (Corporate Financial Performance-CFP) of banks in the CEEC. The aim is also to empirically verify the relation between efficiency of corporate social-environmental performance (CSP) and the efficiency of CFP for CEEC banks. In our study, we analyze the financial and CSP data of the biggest public banks in CEEC. The researched period is 2012-2016. The empirical part analyzes the interrelation between CSP and CFP based on the panel regression. Moreover, in order to evaluate the CSP efficiency and the CFP efficiency we use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The empirical results reveal that in case of banks in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region being socially responsible is not reflected in the bottom line. The financial condition of the banks also does not impact the CSR engagement. Our study confirms, however, that CEEC banks with better financial efficiency have higher efficiency of CSR activities. The conclusions may lead to the improved decision-making processes concerning CSR activities and their communication in banks in CEEC.
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a crucial role in societies as they enhance the sustainable development of nations. In a context of increasing competition and financial difficulties in higher education institutions, the loyalty of students, faculty and administration staff as well as institutional reputation are key factors for survival and success. They are built upon trust and high quality of services rendered by HEIs. The intentional development of trust serves the purpose of enhancing the quality culture in higher education. The concept of quality culture has become a natural successor of quality management and quality assurance in universities presenting a new perspective for viewing quality at HEIs—as a combination of structural and managerial with cultural and psychological components. This paper provides an elaboration of a novel Trust-Based Quality Culture Conceptual Model for Higher Education Institutions which presents the perceived interconnections between trust and quality culture at HEIs. It can form a source for an inquiry process at HEIs, thus contributing to better contextual diagnosis of the stage where HEI is in the process of building the quality culture based on trust. The findings of this study are important in better understanding the quality culture development in HEIs that is based on trust, loyalty and reputation. It may have an impact on the decision-making processes concerning HEIs’ management. The proposed model contributes to the need for greater clarity, ordering and systematization of the role of trust in the processes of quality culture development.
This paper aims to propose a conceptual model that synthesizes the existing findings concerning universities as culture change agents for sustainable development. The model could serve as a guidance on how universities might get involved in the pro-SD activities. It also underlines the prerequisite of the quality culture that should be introduced within all the activities of universities to successfully act as culture change agents for SD. This paper builds upon the holistic and inter-disciplinary approach to demonstrate that SD does not happen in isolation and that the role of universities in its creation is significant. This study includes a literature review to contextualize the impact of universities on culture and their potential role in SD. The conclusions stemming from the literature review materialize in the proposal of the conceptual model of the university as the culture change agent for SD. The elaborated framework responds to the need for greater clarity, ordering and systematization of the role of universities in the processes of initiating, promoting and modelling the SD-oriented changes while appreciating the role of culture as an enabler, means of social change and a result of SD-focused interventions. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by offering a novel perspective on the assumed interrelations between university, its quality culture, university main operations such as education, research and engagement with the society as well as the culture and the agency of stakeholders in the context of meeting the world’s current demands without compromising the needs of future generations.
Purpose This study aims to verify whether non-financial disclosure in the construction industry (CI) responds to stakeholders’ information needs and explores the most frequent topics disclosed in terms of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillars. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a bag-of-words method and latent Dirichlet allocation to match stakeholders’ expectations with information disclosed by companies. This paper assesses the publicly available non-financial disclosure of the 46 European CI companies covered by the Refinitiv database with ESG scores. Findings This study provides two main findings. First, it shows the mismatch between stakeholders’ information needs and what they get in non-financial reporting. Despite non-financial information in CI disclosure, the information disclosed by many CI companies does not meet their users’ information needs. CI companies commonly focus on their sustainable products and health policy while omitting other topics of interest – the circular economy, unethical business behaviour, migrant policy and human trafficking. Second, this study indicates the defects of simple disclosure analysis based on keywords and highlights the importance of context in information analysis. Practical implications The proposed novel approach to text analysis offers several practical applications. It is a more effective tool for evaluating companies’ sustainability performance. It may be especially important to ESG rating providers. Additionally, the results may be of interest to companies wishing to improve their communication, and, in particular, to regulators and standard setters in two matters. The first is the need for more pressure to increase awareness among issuers to shift from disclosing large amounts of non-financial information to disclosing good quality non-financial information, which would be appropriate for meeting stakeholders’ expectations. The second is the necessity for deepening issuers’ understanding of the diverse stakeholders’ information needs, considering the substantial differences among industries and improving communication to meet them. Originality/value This study introduces text analysis that, apart from keywords, considers the context of these keywords’ appearances in a report’s narration. It allows a significantly improved understanding of the information disclosed and a more stable grounding for reasoning, leading to better and informed decisions. Moreover, this study verifies how the information disclosed matches stakeholders’ needs. Finally, it enriches the literature on sectoral analysis concerning non-financial disclosure.
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