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This study aims to investigate the impact of stakeholders’ nonfinancial resources (NFRs) on companies’ profitability, filling a significant gap in the literature regarding the role of NFRs in value creation.

Data from 76 organizations from 2017 to 2019 were collected and analyzed. Four primary NFRs and their key value drivers were identified, representing core elements that support different dimensions of a company’s performance. Statistical tests examined the relationship between stakeholders’ NFRs and financial performance measures.

When analyzed collectively and individually, the results reveal a significant positive influence of stakeholders’ NFRs on a firm’s profitability. Higher importance assigned to NFRs correlates with a higher return on sales.

This study contributes to the literature by empirically bridging the gap between stakeholder theory and the resource-based view, addressing the intersection of these perspectives. It also provides novel insights into how stakeholders’ NFRs impact profitability, offering valuable implications for research and managerial practice. It suggests that managers should integrate nonfinancial measures of NFRs within their performance measurement system to manage better and sustain companies’ value-creation process.

While the expatriation literature has explored cultural adjustment in considerable depth, it has largely overlooked the influence of cultural diversity in an expatriate’s home country. This study aims to address this shortcoming by investigating how home-country cultural diversity affects expatriate adjustment.

This study adopts a qualitative, inductive approach based on semi-structured interviews with a small number of Malaysian managers on international assignment in the Greater Brisbane area of Queensland, Australia.

The two key and related observations from the interviews are that, firstly, the existence of sizeable and profoundly distinct ethnic groups in an expatriate’s home country serves as an aid to successful adjustment, as it enhances cross-cultural understanding and communicative skills. Secondly, the positive effects of home-country cultural diversity are particularly felt by expatriates from ethnic minority groups in the home country due to their in-group and out-group interactions at home as well as their additional linguistic arsenal.

Multiculturalism is a polarising and contentious topic in the public debate in many countries around the world, frequently used for differing political purposes. But in a globalising world, it is unlikely to disappear any time soon, making it imperative for academic research to develop a better understanding of the phenomenon, from as many angles as possible, including from an international business perspective.

This study addresses an under-researched topic, namely how cultural diversity within an expatriate’s home country impacts adjustment. From the findings, this study also introduces a theoretical model for use in future research.

Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) is strongly purpose-oriented and characterized by a focus on inclusiveness and social and environmental sustainability, with attention to both internal and external stakeholders and their needs. In the attempt to provide new research in this field, this study aims to conduct an empirical investigation within the theory of HumEnt and, in particular, of the Human Resource Orientation (HRO) model among Italian Small and Medium-size Enterprises.

Based on quantitative data, this study used a deductive approach to investigate the relationship between the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness with different types of stakeholders (value chain stakeholders and societal stakeholders, respectively). More concretely, to investigate the relationships between the dimensions of the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness, partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied.

Findings of this study suggest that Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) directly contributes only to value chain embeddedness. However, the results also show that if EO is mediated by an HRO (i.e. companies with a high HRO), a high level of societal embeddedness is also present.

This study represents a first attempt to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the different dimensions characterizing the HumEnt theoretical model, and to highlight their relevance in supporting companies’ relational embeddedness capacity with different categories of stakeholders.

This research aims to define the novel attitude toward social responsibility phenomena from a multi-level governance perspective and, based on the Lithuanian case, to illustrate the territorial perspective concerning the needs and challenges for future responsible governance in rural areas.

This research is organized according to qualitative research principles. The seven-step Delphi technique was applied to reach the aim. The expert selection was done using the two criteria, based on the Quadruple Helix approach (Carayannis & Rakhmatullin, 2014; González-Martinez et al., 2023) and the Stakeholder Salience model (Mitchell et al., 2017). The complementary expertise was accumulated by involving experts from the ministry (government helix) as holding the highest level of legitimacy in the field of building responsible governance in rural areas; business helix representatives hold high urgency attributes; power attributes varied among the experts in different helixes. In total, 15 experts were selected to implement the necessary Delphi steps, where experts’ involvement is relevant. The research work lasted for four months, starting from December 2022, and finalizing in March 2023. Technical support and funding for this research were organized in parallel with part of the activities of the Horizon 2020 programme’s project “SHERPA – Sustainable Hub to Engage in Rural Policies with Actors” (2019–2023).

The number of recently observed issues while realizing the increasingly complicated application of multi-level governance mechanisms, both scientific discussions and practical implementation evidence call for a novel attitude in governance. In particular areas, where imperfections are very sensitive and most evident, scientific elaborations are more demanded from the very top, i.e. from the EU. Throughout recent years, the European Commission started employing cocreative consortiums (e.g. SHERPA), which, as found much earlier in scientific discourse, represent the joint multi-level power, involving the most powerful, urgent and legitimate stakeholders, representing the four helixes – government, society, business and academia, in building innovative cocreative and collaborative policy formation and implementation practices in multi-level governance. However, the core component that might add to future responsible governance is the social responsibility phenomenon. In conjunction, the multi-level governance and social responsibility paradigms might propose the desired novel responsible governance concept, which would work for more responsible policy formation and implementation, especially considering the interests of local communities.

This paper presents empirical findings, based on limited qualitative data, collected in one EU new member state, i.e. Lithuania. International comparative perspectives are given referring to other related papers. Research findings are promising for further research in the field of novel responsible multi-level governance framework by using the Quadruple Helix stakeholder approach to foster collaboration for innovation in socially responsible governance both from theoretical and empirical points of view.

The developed theoretical framework and described methodological approach might be applied to practitioners in any area policy formation process. The Quadruple Helix approach might be used in defining the needs and challenges of any unit of analysis, either a small canton or a metropolitan city. The study suggests a meaningful departing point starting with expert views on better and more responsible governance practices. The study envisages the ways and manners to define the best value for stakeholders that is the general public or citizens of a rural setting, and this could be extended to other levels of government or state.

The research takes into account the public interest from a very broad point of view – how to develop a political course for rural regions in a socially responsible way by using already established innovative methodology.

The article proposes using the novel combination of the three-pillar and stakeholder perspective of CSR, fulfilled by the original Quadruple Helix innovation approach, for establishing proactive stakeholder needs-based responsible multi-level governance practices, enabling the socially responsible policy formation and implementation mechanisms.

This study aims to explore the influence of corporate sustainability on organizational value, specifically focusing on companies ranked in the Just Capital Market ranking. The aim is to establish whether higher sustainability rankings are associated with increased firm value and to investigate how corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities affect both financial and non-financial outcomes.

This study uses the Ohlson model to assess the value-generation potential of the top and bottom ten companies in the Just Capital Market ranking from 2013 to 2018. The analysis involves evaluating stock prices and other financial metrics and incorporating non-financial indicators related to CSR activities to gain a comprehensive understanding of their impact on firm valuation.

The results indicate a strong connection between high sustainability rankings and increased market value. Companies such as Microsoft, Intel and Alphabet, which have robust CSR initiatives, have shown significant improvements in market performance due to greater stakeholder engagement and detailed non-financial disclosures. On the other hand, companies with low sustainability ratings have demonstrated weaker market performance, which indicates the financial risks associated with neglecting CSR activities. This study underscores the critical importance of integrating CSR into fundamental business strategies to create sustainable value.

This study addresses the limitations of traditional financial indicators by incorporating non-financial factors into the valuation process. The study offers a more comprehensive assessment of firm value, reflecting modern business practices and the evolving global economy landscape. Integrating nonfinancial indicators enhances valuation accuracy and provides a holistic view of company performance, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions based on a broader range of factors. This innovative method may reshape firm valuations, leading to more accurate and reliable assessments in contemporary business contexts.

The study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) non-compliance on firm value. It also investigates the moderating roles of ownership concentration and research and development (R&D) intensity in this relationship.

For hypothesis testing, the authors utilized panel data regression models on a dataset comprising 13,760 firm-years listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, covering a period of nine years following the legislation (from March 2015 to March 2023).

Our findings reveal a detrimental effect of mandatory CSR spending on the value of non-compliance firms, consistent with the notion of deterrence theory. Further, we find that the negative impact is more pronounced among widely-held firms compared to closely-held firms, aligning with shareholder activism and information asymmetry theory. Our subsequent tests indicate that R&D intensity mitigates the negative impact, indicating a substitution relationship between CSR and R&D expenditure. Consistent with this finding, we find a lesser negative impact of CSR non-compliance on firm value of widely-held R&D intensified firms. Our findings are robust to the problem of endogeneity and self-selection bias.

Our findings highlight practical implications for managers regarding performance management. Managers should recognize that mandatory CSR spending can negatively impact performance, especially in widely-held firms, leading to shareholder dissatisfaction. To mitigate these effects, increasing R&D investment is likely to buffer against the adverse impacts of CSR mandates. Firm managers should align R&D efforts with CSR obligations to counterbalance costs and manage shareholder expectations, thereby maintaining performance and enhancing the perception of innovation among stakeholders.

It is the first study to consider the degree of compliance within firms while examining the impact of mandatory CSR spending on firm value. Also, the study is among pioneer attempts to investigate the moderating role of ownership structure and R&D intensity on the relationship.

Citizen engagement can promote value creation in urban development projects. This potential stems from the granting of decision-making authority to citizens, labeled citizen enfranchisement in this study. Citizens are focal stakeholders of urban development projects and enfranchisement grants them an explicit say on such projects. Despite this potential for enhanced value creation, there remains limited understanding about how project organizations enfranchise stakeholders in the front end of urban development projects.

In this research, we designed a multiple-case study to analyze two novel citizen engagement processes in Northern-European cities. In these processes, citizens were enfranchised in ideating, designing, and making selections on urban development projects. We followed a multimethod approach to data collection. The collected datasets include document data, interview data and observation data.

Our findings demonstrated a distribution and redistribution of decision-making authority throughout the phases of the citizen engagement processes. Citizens’ voices were amplified throughout the project front end, although episodes of decision-making authority held by the cities took place periodically as well. By granting explicit decision-making authority to citizens, citizen enfranchisement facilitated a more democratic urban development process, promoting value creation.

In contrast to the earlier research, the findings of our study illustrate citizen engagement taking place at so-called higher levels of stakeholder engagement. In particular, our study reveals a granting of de facto decision-making authority to citizens, also known as citizen enfranchisement. These findings contribute to the earlier research on stakeholder engagement in projects, where the influence of stakeholder engagement has often been considered symbolic or limited.

This paper looks at how stakeholders co-create value at mega-events from a service ecosystem perspective. Despite the growing interest, little is known about how value is co-created through such initiatives for individual stakeholders and the community.

Drawing on institutional and stakeholder theory, the study focuses on Cortina 2021, the World Ski Championships held in Italy in February 2021. It investigates how multiple actors co-create value within a service ecosystem through qualitative interviews with key stakeholders combined with the analysis of official documents and reports.

The research established that key stakeholders were willing to get involved with Cortina 2021 if they recognised the value which could be co-created. Such an ecosystem requires a focal organisation with a clear regulative and normative framework and a common cultural basis. The latter helped resilience in the extraordinary circumstances of Cortina 2021 and safeguarded long-term impacts, even though the expected short-term ones were compromised.

From a managerial point of view, the evidence from Cortina 2021 shows how a clear strategy with well-defined stakeholder engagement mechanisms can facilitate value co-creation in service ecosystems. Moreover, when regulative and normative elements are blurred because of an extraordinary circumstance, resource integration and value creation processes need to be entrusted to those cultural elements that characterise an ecosystem.

The study takes an ecosystemic approach to mega-events to explore value creation for the whole community at the macro level, not only at the individual or organisational level, even during a crisis, which greatly impaired the preparation and running of the event.

This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors on job satisfaction within the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), addressing a notable gap in understanding these relationships.

Data were collected from 97 full-time and part-time employees using a tailored survey instrument. Control variables included demographic factors, such as gender, age, marital status and hierarchical position. The study postulated four moderation hypotheses, conducted rigorous significance tests and demonstrated strong model reliability and validity, along with highly satisfactory fit parameters.

The findings confirm a positive association between the E, S and G factors and job satisfaction perceptions. Marital status was identified as a moderator in the relationship between social dimensions and job satisfaction. In addition, the multigroup analysis revealed variations in the associations between ESG dimensions and job satisfaction across different age groups, marital statuses and hierarchical positions.

The main contribution of this research lies in filling a significant gap in the understanding of how sociodemographic variables influence the relationship between employees and socially responsible behavior in SMEs.

Este estudio empírico tuvo como objetivo investigar el impacto de los factores ESG (ambientales, sociales y de gobierno corporativo) en la satisfacción laboral en el contexto de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYME), abordando una brecha notable en la comprensión de estas relaciones.

Se recopilaron datos de 97 empleados a tiempo completo y parcial utilizando un instrumento de encuesta personalizado. Las variables de control incluyeron factores demográficos, como género, edad, estado civil y posición jerárquica. El estudio postuló cuatro hipótesis de moderación, realizó pruebas de significación rigurosas y demostró una sólida confiabilidad y validez del modelo, junto con parámetros de ajuste altamente satisfactorios.

Los hallazgos confirman una asociación positiva entre los factores E, S y G y las percepciones de satisfacción laboral. El estado civil se identificó como un moderador en la relación entre las dimensiones sociales y la satisfacción laboral. Además, el análisis multigrupo reveló variaciones en las asociaciones entre las dimensiones ESG y la satisfacción laboral en diferentes grupos de edad, estados civiles y posiciones jerárquicas.

La principal contribución de esta investigación radica en llenar un vacío importante en nuestra comprensión de cómo las variables sociodemográficas influyen en la relación entre los empleados y el comportamiento socialmente responsable en las PYME.

Este estudo empírico teve como objetivo investigar o impacto dos fatores ESG (ambientais, sociais e de governança corporativa) na satisfação no trabalho no contexto de pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs), abordando uma lacuna notável na compreensão dessas relações.

Os dados foram coletados de 97 funcionários de período integral e parcial usando um instrumento de pesquisa personalizado. As variáveis de controle incluíram fatores demográficos, como gênero, idade, estado civil e posição hierárquica. O estudo postulou quatro hipóteses de moderação, conduziu testes de significância rigorosos e demonstrou forte confiabilidade e validade do modelo, juntamente com parâmetros de ajuste altamente satisfatórios.

Os resultados confirmam uma associação positiva entre os fatores E, S e G e as percepções de satisfação no trabalho. O estado civil foi identificado como moderador na relação entre dimensões sociais e satisfação no trabalho. Além disso, a análise multigrupo revelou variações nas associações entre dimensões ESG e satisfação no trabalho em diferentes faixas etárias, estados civis e posições hierárquicas.

A principal contribuição desta pesquisa está em preencher uma lacuna significativa em nossa compreensão de como as variáveis sociodemográficas influenciam o relacionamento entre funcionários e comportamento socialmente responsável em PMEs.

This study aims to understand the relationship between a company’s sustainability (ESG) disclosures and its valuation. In addition, it also seeks to analyse the moderating effect of firm size on the association between ESG disclosures and firm valuation.

The NIFTY 200 index comprising India’s top 200 companies by market capitalisation from different industrial sectors was chosen for this study. The sample period was from 2017 to 2022. The fixed effect regression analysis was conducted on the panel data for analysis purposes.

A positive influence of ESG disclosures on firm value was observed, primarily owing to the environmental and social disclosures. Interestingly, the moderating impact of firm size on the linkage between ESG disclosures and firm value was found to be negative.

Most extant literature show a positive association between ESG disclosures and firm valuation, which was also observed in our study. However, the study results indicate that larger firms are less likely to benefit from the ESG – firm valuation relationship rather than small firms. This could have key policy-level implications for smaller firms from emerging nations that usually refrain from sustainability disclosures.