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This is the application of the Entropy and TOPSIS model to assess the eco-efficiency of European financial institutions using environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies. The aim is to categorize financial institutions based on key factors such as environmental training and management and to examine the alignment between ideal ESG performance and eco-efficiency.

The study uses environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies to identify and categorize eco-entrepreneurs in European financial institutions. The study utilizes data to examine the structure between environmental training, effective management practices, and the green performance of financial institutions.

The study shows that European financial institutions exhibit varying degrees of eco-efficiency as assessed using the Entropy and TOPSIS model applied to ESG strategies. Surprisingly, the study found that institutions with a high ESG performance do not always match those with the highest eco-efficiency.

They emphasize the need for financial institutions to align their operations with sustainable practices. This research provides insights to increase eco-efficiency and improve the ESG performance of financial institutions. It also informs policy and decision-making in these institutions in relation to environmental training and management practices, contributing to the wider dialogue on sustainable finance.

This indicates a discrepancy between ESG ratings and actual eco-efficiency, emphasizing the need to reassess the ESG framework. The study findings are crucial for aligning financial institutions with sustainable practices and improving the effectiveness of the ESG framework, especially for institutions at the lower end of the eco-efficiency spectrum.

Smoke-free prison policies have been introduced in some countries, in part to address very high levels of tobacco use in people in prison. However, relapse rates post-release remain high. This papers aims to improve understanding of post-release smoking and/or vaping behaviour is necessary to inform support for a priority population.

The authors searched health, social science and criminal justice databases for studies about smoking/vaping behaviours among people released from smoke-free prisons. Studies were included if they reported primary data and were published between January 2017 and March 2024 in English; the population was adults/young people (16 yr+) imprisoned or formerly imprisoned, in prisons with comprehensive smoke-free policies; and at least one of the following was reported: pre-release intention to smoke, vape or remain abstinent post-release; smoking/vaping behaviour post-release and factors influencing smoking/vaping behaviour; attempts to quit again following post-release smoking/vaping relapse.

Nine studies met our criteria. The evidence base is small and mainly from the USA or Australia. Evidence continues to suggest that most people resume smoking after leaving a smoke-free prison. No new interventions have been successful in reducing relapse rates. No studies report on vaping post-release, although two studies report on perceived factors affecting smoking relapse post-release from prisons allowing vaping.

Given very high rates of relapse, there remains a significant need to better understand what approaches are feasible and acceptable for reducing return to smoking post-release.

This review updates the limited evidence on smoking behaviours after leaving a smoke-free prison.

This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially distressed firms: the first belonging to the family of organizational restructuring (massive layoffs) and the second to the family of financial restructuring (debt increases).

The authors investigate experimentally the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the decision to restructure leveraged buyout (LBO) firms in financial distress by using either massive layoffs or debt increases.

By investigating the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the restructuring decision of an LBO firm in financial distress, the research reveals that, on average, cognitively loaded managers prefer massive layoffs over increased debt levels. The massive layoffs seemingly provide a relatively easier way to avoid conflict with influential, residual claimants. In contrast, social value–oriented managers actively avoid massive layoffs and prefer to increase debt.

These results imply that the performance mechanisms emphasized to improve agency relations, for example, in LBOs, have their own limitations during periods of financial distress. This study shows that one of these limits is related to cognitive distortions and personality traits.

In this research, the originality lies in understanding how managers’ internal factors affect their restructuring decision-making, in the case of LBO firms in financial distress.

This paper critically evaluates potential barriers to employment opportunities for ethnic minority (EM) individuals in Scottish Local Authorities – both in terms of access to job and development opportunities. It provides a fundamental discussion of concepts around race and ethnicity, and the levels of social injustice, with an explicit focus on institutional racialisation, discrimination and segregation. The paper explores organisational approaches towards recruitment, including positive action and workforce development.

This paper adopts a subjectivist (ontology) and interpretivist (epistemology) stance, based on a small-scale, in-depth investigation. The data have been gathered through semi-structured interviews with equality diversity and inclusion (EDI) officers in four Scottish Local Authorities, utilising thematic analysis.

The finding suggests that participating local authorities have a long way to go to ensure the elimination of barriers to employment for EM people. This is largely based on concerns around limitations in the application of positive action and elimination of disadvantages in recruitment and access to career and development opportunities?

The paper aims to contribute by exploring the availability of employment opportunities for EMs through the eyes of EDI Officers in four local authorities. Their thorough understanding, over- and insight into potential equality issues from an employment perspective are invaluable, focussing on more tangible organisational issues and approaches.

Allocation problems in accounting require joint costs to be allocated among participating agents. In this setting, however, unfair allocations can stifle cooperation and lead to inefficient group outcomes. Then, what qualifies as fair enough for individual agents to agree to cooperate and extract joint benefits? Building on prior analytical literature that has offered perspectives involving joint cost allocations, we experimentally evaluate two common notions of fairness that present competing predictions in the cost allocation context – proportionality and equality. We operationalize two notions of fairness using a behavioral approach and examine which fairness notion prevails in cost allocation problems. More specifically, we examine fairness considerations in the cost allocation context using a modified ultimatum game, where joint cost savings can only be acquired through cooperation between two agents and individual contributions are varied transparently. Our experimental evidence suggests that fairness considerations in cost allocations coincide more with the proportionality notion when individuals make different contributions to create joint benefits. These findings provide important insights on the key rationale underlying the prevalent cost allocation method in accounting practices and the design of fair cost allocations that promote cooperation among agents.

This study examines how asking employees to self-assess their performance during the compensation setting process, when they are unaware of their marginal contribution to firm profit, affects employer welfare. Previous research suggests that giving employees a voice in the compensation setting process can positively affect employee performance and firm profit (Jenkins & Lawler, 1981; Roberts, 2003). However, the study proposes that asking employees to assess their own performance as part of the compensation setting process can have unintended consequences that ultimately lead to higher employee compensation demands. This is because asking employees to assess their performance increases their overconfidence in their own performance and their compensation demands. As a result, employers may face the dilemma of whether to meet these higher compensation demands or risk economic losses due to employee retaliation if their demands are not met. Through experimental evidence comparing a control condition without self-assessments and three self-assessment reporting conditions, the study provides evidence that supports the notion that eliciting employee self-assessments as part of the compensation process reduces employer welfare. Data on employee perceptions of performance further support the notion that asking employees to evaluate their performance leads to an inflated perception of their performance. These findings provide a theory-based explanation of why, in practice, many companies disentangle employee performance assessments from the compensation setting process and that companies are well advised in doing so.

This article aims to explore the impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers’ willingness to cooperate and explore the mediating effect of social capital.

The study investigates farmers’ willingness to cooperate through a framed field approach and surveys the information of individuals and villages, including climate disasters and social capital, using a structured questionnaire from rural communities in Jiangxi and Sichuan, China.

The results show that climate disasters and social capital are significant and positive determinants of farmers’ willingness to cooperate. In specific types of climate disasters, drought is positively associated with farmers’ cooperation willingness. Moreover, the mediation effect of drought on farmers’ willingness to cooperate through social capital has been demonstrated to be significant although negative, whereas the mediation effect of flood on farmers’ willingness to cooperate through social capital is significant and positive.

First, given the limited studies focusing on the impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers’ willingness to cooperate, the authors complement the existing literature through a framed field experiment approach by designing a scenario that every farmer may encounter in their production activities. Second, the study figures out the roles of drought and flood as different kinds of climate disasters in farmers’ decision-making of cooperation and sheds light on the positive impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers. Finally, this paper provides empirical evidence of social capital as a potential channel through which climate disasters could possibly affect farmers’ willingness to cooperate.

The present study aimed to explore the consequences of perceived authenticity in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants and develop a serial-mediation architecture specifying causation of loyalty in human–AI relationships. It intended to assess the predictive power of the developed model based on a training-holdout sample procedure. It further attempted to map and examine the predictors of loyalty, strengthening such relationship.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) based on bootstrapping technique was employed to examine the higher-order effects pertaining to human–AI relational intricacies. The sample size of the study comprised of 412 AI assistant users belonging to millennial generation. PLS-Predict algorithm was used to assess the predictive power of the model, while importance-performance analysis was executed to assess the effectiveness of the predictor variables on a two-dimensional map.

A positive relationship was found between “Perceived Authenticity” and “Loyalty,” which was serially mediated by “Perceived-Quality” and “Animacy” in human–AI relational context. The construct “Loyalty” remained a significant predictor of “Emotional-Attachment” and “Word-of-Mouth.” The model possessed high predictive power. Mapping analysis delivered contradictory result, indicating “authenticity” as the most significant predictor of “loyalty,” but the least effective on performance dimension.

The findings of the study may assist marketers to understand the relevance of AI authenticity and examine the critical behavioral consequences underlying customer retention and extension strategies.

The study is pioneer to introduce a hybrid AI authenticity model and establish its predictive power in explaining the transactional and communal view of human reciprocation in human–AI relationship. It exclusively provided relative assessment of the predictors of loyalty on a two-dimensional map.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opening experience that put to the test our crisis management competencies across many institutions, including those offered by institutions of higher education. This study aims to review the literature on international business (IB) risks and IB education (IBE) to question whether business graduates are equipped to make decisions in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) marketplace.

While the IB literature has discussed the importance of various sources of risks on global business operations, IBE did not effectively adopt an integrative approach to building the needed risk management competencies related to those risks into our education. The authors argue that this integrative approach to teaching IB is critically needed to prepare future global managers for addressing crises, like that of the pandemic and others. Specifically, this study proposes that this integrated risk management competency can be developed through the building of “synergistic mindsets”.

This study presents a conceptual framework for the components of the synergistic mindset, with intelligence that directly links to present IB risks. These components are cultural intelligence (CQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), public policy intelligence (PPQ), digital intelligence (DQ) and orchestration intelligence (OQ).

Insights related to IBE effectiveness in addressing today’s VUCA market demands and IB risks are discussed.