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This paper explores the relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts. The study focuses on gender-diverse boards as effective monitors, which are expected to influence corporate disclosures, reducing information asymmetry positively and improving forecast accuracy. The unique context of India’s gender quota policy on corporate boards and its relatively weak corporate governance structure offers an ideal setting to investigate this relationship.

The study utilises the generalised method of moments dynamic panel regression to address this research objective, analysing data from 217 Indian firms listed on the National Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2019.

The findings reveal that greater gender diversity on corporate boards positively impacts forecast accuracy. Specifically, having more women directors on the board enhances forecast accuracy, with a critical mass of women directors (more than one woman) further amplifying this effect. The study also shows that independent women directors significantly improve forecast accuracy, whereas grey women directors (those with family connections or non-independent roles) negatively affect it.

This study contributes significantly in two key aspects. Firstly, it sheds light on the value of women directors on boards in a country where women’s representation is mandated. Secondly, the research highlights the crucial role of independent women directors in ensuring robust financial oversight, particularly in an emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the motivations for environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk management by agri-food companies and the neutralization techniques used to legitimize the measures taken in this area.

Based on an analysis of the sustainability reporting of 135 companies, this study shows the interdependence between the main motivations for ESG risk management and the neutralization techniques used in disclosing information about their exposure to threats or negative events that could damage their image.

The results of the study allow us to understand the four main complementary neutralization techniques used to obfuscate the negative consequences of risks related to agri-food activities: mitigating ESG threats, addressing global risks through corporate leadership, taking advantage of sustainability trends and turning risks into opportunities.

Managers can use the results of this paper to identify the best management approaches to take ESG risks into account more substantially in their company.

Ultimately, this study is important to improve the practices of agri-food companies and therefore their social legitimacy.

The examination of these neutralization techniques and their underlying motivations makes important contributions to the emerging literature on ESG risk management. The study also contributes to research on the disclosure of negative information that can damage a company’s reputation and on the strategies that companies use to promote the social acceptability of their activities.

This paper examines the moderating role of firms’ litigation environment on the association between gender diversity and financial reporting quality.

This study draws on a sample of US firms to examine the moderating role of firms’ litigation environment on the association between gender diversity and financial reporting quality. Firm-specific financial data come from Compustat. To measure the firms’ litigation environment, we use state-level datasets from the Lawsuit Climate Survey conducted for the US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform by the Harris Poll.

Findings suggest that firm litigation environment moderates gender diversity, as defined by female members on the board to subdue our first proxy for financial reporting quality (accruals-based earnings management), but our second proxy for financial reporting quality (real-activities manipulations) increases in a firm’s litigation environment. To the extent that our results hold after controlling for firms’ reputation indicates that female members on the board are sensitive to reputational loss and protect firms’ reputation in a litigation environment.

The study is based on a specific country, limiting the generalizability of the findings.

The findings provide support for promoters and advocates of gender diversity in corporate boards. Specifically, it shows the importance of gender diversity policies in business and society.

This study is the first to examine the moderating role of firms’ litigation environment on the association between gender diversity and financial reporting quality. The study provides novel evidence and shows that the litigation environment moderates gender diversity to improve financial reporting quality in the short-term (by decreasing accruals manipulation). In firms’ litigation environment, when female members on the board are restrained from engaging in accruals earnings management, they shift to value-destroying and costly real activities to maintain reputation and firm performance. To the extent that we control for the potential effects of firms’ reputation and financial performance, our findings suggest that ethical concerns are likely to drive female members on the board to produce high-quality financial reports.

To argue current calls to address grand challenges like income inequality are unlikely to succeed until the academy acknowledges how accounting is constitutive of these problems. We demonstrate how accounting is part of the problem because of its adherence to a legal model of the corporation erected on false suppositions.

Using multiple disciplines, e.g. history, economics, law and philosophy, pertaining to the nature of the corporate form, we present a logical argument that the official telos of accounting obstructs any fruitful effort to address grand challenges.

The global legal concept governing corporations (an aggregate of members) makes corporations a major cause of the grand challenges humans face. Adherence to a legal theory of the corporation leads accounting policy to rationalize income and wealth inequality by subsuming the legal powers of corporations to expropriate wealth into a singular maximand labeled “earnings.”

Though accounting is essentially “of” law, scholarly efforts to understand accounting’s social role are based on an information metaphor. We provide reasons for skepticism of any efforts addressing grand challenges until accounting acknowledges the legal nature of its social role as a regulator of business conduct. There are no accounting solutions to grand challenges without acknowledging how the accepted legal nature of the corporate form makes the corporation the cause of the grand challenges we face.

This paper aims to investigate whether gender-diverse boards and top management teams (TMTs) reduce undesirable environmental social governance (ESG) behavior and whether a critical mass of women in leadership is necessary to influence this outcome. In addition, the authors study whether differences in the levels of national commitment to gender-equality policies affect the effectiveness of gender-diverse boards and management in curbing ESG misconduct.

This study examines the role of women directors and women executives in ESG misconduct using a European sample of analysis of 2,994 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2020.

The authors find that gender diversity effectively prevents ESG misconduct only in countries with strong national policies supporting gender equality. Specifically, women directors and executives significantly reduce ESG misconduct in these countries, demonstrating the complementary role of gender diversity and national equality policies. In addition, female chief executive officers are more likely to curb negative ESG practices in firms operating within gender-equal corporate environments, noting that female chief executive officers are not effective in reducing irresponsible ESG behavior when they are not supported by a critical mass of women directors or executives.

This paper finds novel evidence that the influence of female representation on ESG misconduct is not linear but conditional on the level of female proportion; women in the minority (usually under 3) can scarcely influence group decisions because their specific female attributes are only evident when the visibility and legitimacy of the female group are high enough. Firms led by female chief executive officers seem to reduce ESG misconduct, especially when their chief suites are above a critical threshold. But queen bee female chief executive officers are not effective in reducing adverse ESG activity if their boards and TMTs are not gender diverse; the joint effect of women in different hierarchical positions contributes to decreasing ESG failures.

These findings are useful for policymakers because they show that although there is growing social concern about business gender equality and increasing regulatory efforts through soft/hard gender quotas, stakeholders will not completely benefit from firm gender diversity without national support for gender equality.

This study contributes to the sustainable development literature by examining the direct effects of gender diversity at multiple levels of a firm’s hierarchy (chief suite, board, TMTs), as well as addressing the gap between firm gender diversity and national gender equality policies as mechanisms to reduce ESG misconduct. It also explores the queen bee phenomenon, noting that female leaders in non-diverse organizations often adapt their leadership style to align with masculine corporate cultures.

The aim of this study is to critically examine the transparency and reporting practice of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) controversies within the pharmaceutical and textile industry. Based on the four core dimensions of transparency, we explore which reporting medium is most frequently chosen for the disclosure of negative ESG contributions, the nature and information content of the disclosed incidents and how voluntary adherence to sustainability reporting standards and independent assurances affect the reporting.

We use conceptual content analysis and employ a counter-accounting approach to analyse the disclosure of 190 ESG controversies in 104 corporate reports from the pharmaceutical and textile industries, covering a three-year period from 2018–2020.

The very large majority of controversies are reported only once in the legal proceedings section of the annual report, but not again in the sustainability report, where it would be necessary to provide a balanced picture. Moreover, companies tend to disclose only those controversies that are either associated with high media attention or are expected to be related to litigation, resulting in 26 per cent of controversies not being disclosed at all. The overall quality of disclosure is unsatisfactory and in need of improvement, but comparably higher in the pharmaceutical industry than in the textile industry. Interestingly, neither the application of sustainability reporting standards nor independent assurance seems to positively impact the disclosure behaviour.

Our paper provides new insights into the shortcomings of current ESG controversy disclosures by revealing patterns of selective reporting practices and the strategic framing of issues. In addition, it contributes to the debates on corporate cherry-picking in the adoption of sustainability reporting guidelines and on the effectiveness of external assurance of sustainability reports. Based on the findings, it offers important implications for practitioners, in particular management, policy makers, rating agencies and assurance providers.

Intensified job demands (IJDs; work intensification, intensified job- and career-related planning and decision-making demands, and intensified learning demands) illustrate the intensification of working life. This study examined relationships between IJDs and work engagement.

Nine diverse samples (n = 7,786) were analyzed separately via regression analysis by estimating linear and curvilinear relationships between IJDs and engagement.

The results showed that certain subdimensions of IJDs, i.e. intensified learning demands, related positively to engagement across several subsamples. Moreover, learning demands showed a curvilinear relationship with engagement in several subsamples; engagement was highest in a moderate level of learning demands whereas low and high levels of learning demands were associated with lower engagement. We also found that other subdimensions of IJDs did not show consistent positive relationships with engagement, and some of them were negatively associated with engagement.

Cross-sectional design.

Organizations should consider what would be the optimal level of learning demands as excessive learning demands can be detrimental to employees’ engagement.

This is a first study focusing on different manifestations of the intensification of working life, operationalized via IJDs, and their curvilinear relationships with engagement by applying a multi-sample design.

The organizational role of diversity management officers (DMO) is intertwined with the human resource (HR) profession and practices. Nonetheless, DMO ideologies, perspectives and challenges from the perspective of strategic human resource partnership have not been adequately addressed. This study aimed to explore the strategic role of DMOs using the comprehensive scholarly research on strategic HR partnerships. We suggest that DMOs’ limited success in promoting diversity may be due to a lack of strategic positioning of their role.

In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 22 DMOs and HR practitioners were used to examine their day-to-day activities and interactions between their diversity-management and HR roles.

The findings indicate that DMOs direct their attention to diversity initiatives that address the personal needs and challenges of socially diverse employees and their managers. Thus, most DMOs operate on an administrative rather than a more strategic and transformational level, which also reflects their organization’s perspective on diversity.

The study was conducted using a medium-sized sample of practitioners in the Israeli business sector. This study focused on practitioners’ descriptions of their daily roles and did not include other organizational stakeholders, such as managers and employees.

According to the findings, the DMO role lacks strategic positioning. To better implement and promote diversity initiatives, DMOs should increase their strategic influence. Based on the strategic HR framework, we suggest four distinct roles that will enhance DMOs’ strategic positioning. We recommend practical improvements in DMOs’ practices and academic education, as well as training for practitioners.

This study adds to the scholarly understanding of DMOs and suggests a strategic framework for implementing organizational diversity.

This study aims to investigate suspects underlying motivations to resist cooperation during investigative interviews. The authors propose a tripartite framework (i.e. concerns for identity, relational and instrumental reasons) for understanding motivations to resist, tested through three qualitative studies.

The authors coded semi-structured debriefs about investigators’ experiences with communicative resistance throughout their careers (n = 40; Study 1), with particularly resistant suspects (n = 18; Study 2) and with both investigators and their suspects (n = 11; Study 3). Coders identified examples illustrative of subcategories within the framework.

The authors found that both investigators and suspects cite various motivations to resist. The participants also highlighted the importance of considering these motivations when devising how to mitigate resistance within an investigative interview.

This research examines the understudied topic of communicative resistance and begins to examine motivations that might underlie the phenomenon. Eliciting and understanding suspects’ resistance motivations should be an important component of mitigating resistance using a rapport-based model.

To maximize the benefits of intercultural mentoring relationships, which are increasing in today’s diverse higher education environment, the current article conceptualizes the connection between intercultural mentoring and cultural competence among mentors and mentees as a learning process.

The conceptual paper discusses the nuanced aspects of intercultural mentoring. Ultimately, the current article presents a framework for a bidirectional relationship between intercultural mentoring and cultural competence through experiential learning theory and intergroup contact theory, resulting in implications for practitioners and actionable research directions.

The article highlights the interplay and interdependence of cultural competence and intercultural mentoring through experiential learning and intergroup contact theory. Cultural competence influences the quality of intercultural mentoring relationships. Conversely, intercultural mentoring relationships can develop cultural competence in mentors and mentees through experiential learning, producing positive intergroup contact behaviors. Findings suggest the need for active learning and unlearning among mentors and mentees in intercultural mentoring relationships to maximize developmental outcomes (e.g. cultural competence).

The proposed framework emphasizes that (1) the possession of cultural competence is a critical success factor for intercultural mentoring relationships, (2) the development of cultural competence is an outcome of successful intercultural mentoring relationships, and (3) intercultural mentoring relationships should be regarded as experiential learning platforms that can produce positive intercultural traits such as cultural competence.