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Frontier of Sustainable Management: Transparency, Corporate Reputation and Corporate Governance

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 9279

Special Issue Editors

Department of Business Administration, University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
Interests: sustainability; corporate social responsibility; social impact; social entrepreneurship
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Business Administration, University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
Interests: labor social responsibility; sustainability; human resources; human resources management; corporate reputation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, many companies have rethought their raison d'être, and proof of this is the appearance of new business models in social enterprises and the rethinking of the mission/vision of companies into companies with (social) purposes. Thus, the post-pandemic era is the ideal opportunity to rethink concepts such as transparency, reputation and corporate governance in this new social and sustainable context. In a global environment where information flows (almost) without limits, the challenge is to attract stakeholders with the correct information on management and impacts so that they value and perceive the company as transparent and trustworthy. This forces companies to modify corporate structures and the management of the company, as well as the relationship with all stakeholders.

The objective of this Special Issue is to investigate organizations’ relationships with transparency (certificates, management systems) and changes in management and business approaches (from storytelling to storydoing), giving rise to new structures where sustainability gains weight and new assessments and demands from stakeholders.

Some topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

  • Sustainable transparency;
  • From storytelling to storydoing;
  • Sustainable business models (WISEs, hybrid organizations);
  • Sustainable HRM;
  • Changes in corporate governance
  • Leadership and business change;
  • Social impact of organizations;
  • Organizational behavior.

Prof. Dr. Elisa Baraibar-Diez
Prof. Dr. María D. Odriozola
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable transparency
  • sustainable HRM
  • sustainable leadership
  • sustainable business models

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 301 KiB  
Article
Economic Policy Uncertainty and Bank Stability: An Analysis Based on the Intermediary Effects of Opacity
by Ruiwen Zhang and Shujun Wang
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4084; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su15054084 - 23 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1556
Abstract
With the background of deepening uncertainty about global and Chinese economic policy, the stability of the banking industry is of great strategic significance for promoting the high-quality development of the real economy and maintaining the order of the financial market. This paper uses [...] Read more.
With the background of deepening uncertainty about global and Chinese economic policy, the stability of the banking industry is of great strategic significance for promoting the high-quality development of the real economy and maintaining the order of the financial market. This paper uses the panel data of 32 commercial banks in China during the period of 2007–2020 to test the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bank stability and the mediating role of opacity. The research results show that the economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact on bank stability. Opacity plays a partial intermediary role between economic policy uncertainty and bank stability: economic policy uncertainty indirectly affects bank stability by stimulating banks to reduce market exposure and improve earnings opacity. Full article
21 pages, 585 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Development of Chinese Family Firms: A Perspective from Downward Earnings Management before Successions
by Chan Guo
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9344; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14159344 - 29 Jul 2022
Viewed by 1313
Abstract
Most initial entrepreneurs of Chinese family firms are approaching retirement, and intra-family successions have occurred frequently in recent years. However, both founders and the public have concerns about successors’ ability of assuming the responsibility of long-term sustainable development of their family business. This [...] Read more.
Most initial entrepreneurs of Chinese family firms are approaching retirement, and intra-family successions have occurred frequently in recent years. However, both founders and the public have concerns about successors’ ability of assuming the responsibility of long-term sustainable development of their family business. This paper aims to explore whether and how founders manage earnings before within-family successions for the purpose of smooth successions. Based on a sample of Chinese family firms from 2004 to 2018 and using the ordinary least square (OLS) regression method, this study finds that Chinese family firm founders tend to manage earnings downward in the year before they transfer business to their heirs. Furthermore, founders with poverty experiences and political connections have more incentives to manipulate earnings downward. Firms’ institutional investors and the legal environment inhibit founders’ earnings management behavior before within-family successions, but independent directors do not have any significant impact on the association between successions and earnings management. Finally, it is documented that the downward earnings management leads to more favorable market reactions in the short term but do harm to firms’ long-term sustainable development. The results are robust to the Heckman two-stage analysis and using the alternative measures of earnings management. This study contributes to research on family firm succession and earnings management, and is also informative to policy makers, market participants, and family firm founders. Full article
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15 pages, 2685 KiB  
Article
The Importance of Selected Aspects of a Company’s Reputation for Individual Stock Market Investors—Evidence from Polish Capital Market
by Tomasz L. Nawrocki and Danuta Szwajca
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9187; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14159187 - 27 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1340
Abstract
In recent decades, the company’s reputation has become an important signal and a decision-making stimulus for one of the key stakeholder groups—investors. Reputation includes both cognitive and affective aspects that investors may be more or less guided by. The article examines the importance [...] Read more.
In recent decades, the company’s reputation has become an important signal and a decision-making stimulus for one of the key stakeholder groups—investors. Reputation includes both cognitive and affective aspects that investors may be more or less guided by. The article examines the importance of selected aspects of reputation for individual stock market investors on the capital market in Poland. The research used the method of an internet survey addressed to 417 individual investors, and the survey results allowed the answering of five research questions. The research results showed that from the point of view of individual investors operating on the Polish capital market, the informational aspects of companies’ reputations are slightly more important than the financial and growth aspects, and the least important are the social aspects, although a considerable internal differentiation of the significance of individual sub-criteria was noted. This study is the first to examine the importance of various aspects of reputation among Polish individual investors and one of the few such studies on an international scale. Full article
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Review

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30 pages, 5804 KiB  
Review
What Should Be Focused on When Digital Transformation Hits Industries? Literature Review of Business Management Adaptability
by Yi Zhang, Patrick Sik-Wah Fong and Daniel Yamoah Agyemang
Sustainability 2021, 13(23), 13447; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132313447 - 04 Dec 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4124
Abstract
How traditional industries adapt to the digital economy to achieve sustainable development has attracted scholars and practitioners. Exploring the concept of BMA (business management adaptability) can not only theoretically explain adaptive micro-operation mechanisms but can provide practical guidance for enterprises to form adaptability. [...] Read more.
How traditional industries adapt to the digital economy to achieve sustainable development has attracted scholars and practitioners. Exploring the concept of BMA (business management adaptability) can not only theoretically explain adaptive micro-operation mechanisms but can provide practical guidance for enterprises to form adaptability. To date, although a lot of effort is being spent on detecting the adaptive construction elements, refining the BMA to specific management levels, a comprehensive review combines adaptability construction elements and specific levels have not yet been formed. In this trial, this paper innovatively utilizes a hybrid method that consists of a bibiometric and structural literature review to conduct a comprehensive theoretical study of relevant literatures from 1970 to 2020. By displaying current research conclusions and their defects, this study combines adaptability construction elements and innovatively forms a multi-level BMA framework. In this framework, this paper reveals the importance of setting up performance evaluation systems that focus on corporate profitability, probing and counterpoising relations between internal and external environments. Finally, this paper provides recommendations for practitioners about how to build their own competitive advantages when the digital economy hits the global world. Full article
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