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PurposeThis paper examines the level of sustainability disclosures provided by Spanish hospitals using exclusively the information revealed in their institutional websites. Based on different levels of disclosure, the authors try to find the possible reasons why some Spanish hospitals reveal more sustainability information than others.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve this goal, the authors conducted a content analysis of the official websites of all Spanish hospitals identified by the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality.FindingsThe results reveal that Spanish hospitals seem to use sustainability disclosures for different legitimizing purposes. In general, the results indicate that Spanish hospitals may be driven by symbolic rather than substantive actions to achieve legitimacy from stakeholders.Originality/valueDue to the lack of empirical research on the hospital sector, more research is required to improve understanding of why hospitals disclose sustainability information or not.

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PurposeThis paper addresses the link between earnings management (EM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 317 Spanish SMEs to perform: (1) bivariate analysis between EM, CSR and some firm-factors (i.e. size, sector, sector life cycle stage, corporate age, family ownership, profitability and financial risk); and (2) multiple regression analysis for a better understanding of EM behavior and test the influence of sector life cycle stage variable.FindingsResults emphasize the relevance of the sector life cycle stage as an explanatory factor. Firms operating in sectors that are growing or declining in terms of sales are more proactive to EM than those with consolidated sales levels. Stratified regression analysis also confirms that the stage of the industry life cycle influences the EM-CSR relationship. Only for SMEs with stable sales in maturity sectors, lower interest in EM can be significantly explained by higher CSR performance. Firms with regular sales levels show a more outstanding socially responsible commitment and are less pressured to legitimize their operational decisions and therefore show lower levels of EM involvement.Originality/valueThis paper makes a twofold contribution. On the one hand, it examines the relationship between EM and CSR, focusing on SMEs' context, in which EM study could be considered incipient. On the other hand, the controversial empirical evidence on the significance and sign of EM and social responsibility link could be explained by the stage of the life cycle of the sector in which each company operates.

Purpose This paper aims to examine how the Master of Business Administration (MBA) curricula of top-ranked business schools are offering stand-alone courses on ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). To provide additional evidence, this study tests some hypotheses to contrast the effect of different variables on the inclusion of stand-alone courses on ethics and CSR. Also, the paper provides a comparative analysis in two ways: one comparison aims to analyse how the presence of ethics and CSR stand-alone courses in the MBA programmes over the past 10 years has evolved, and the other comparison seeks to explore whether there are differences between different rankings with regard to the inclusion of ethics and CSR stand-alone courses in the MBA curricula. Design/methodology/approach A Web content analysis was conducted on the curricula of 92 of the top 100 global MBA programmes ranked by the Financial Times in their 2013 ratings. Findings The findings show that there is a trend towards the inclusion of stand-alone courses on CSR and ethics as electives. Empirically, the findings suggest that the presence of ethics and CSR elective stand-alone subjects in the MBA programmes is explained by the following variables: public/private, business school’s accreditation and cultural influence. Comparatively, the findings suggest that requiring CSR and business ethics stand-alone courses in the MBA programmes ranked by the Financial Times have not increased over the past 10 years. In addition, when we have compared the results of this study with other rankings, we have appreciated that there are important differences between top MBA programmes in accordance with the aims and scope of rankings. Originality/value The findings of this study seem to suggest that business schools included in the Financial Times ranking have not changed their view based on a shareholder approach, which is focused on providing an economics-centred training.