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Racial wealth inequality is a significant and growing issue in the USA. Improving the lagging rate of black new venture creation and successful entrepreneurship could help close the gap. The purpose of this paper is to focus needed attention on the financial challenges resulting from institutional and systemic discrimination that black entrepreneurs must deal with. Following this literature review, the paper makes recommendations and broad public policy suggestions.

This study conducts a literature review and discusses the myriad of reasons black entrepreneurs struggle with inadequate access to capital, with special emphasis on weaker entrepreneurial ecosystems that have resulted from systemic racism.

The paper sheds light on several factors which continue to directly impede successful black entrepreneurship including discrimination in lending, distrust in institutions, over-reliance on (inadequate) personal capital and declining black-owned banking and financial institutions, as well as community banking options in black communities.

The paper is conceptual and relies on prior literature. The proposed solutions are just a starting point and are certainly not meant to be all-inclusive or comprehensive. Much future research, particularly longitudinal research, is needed to further develop theory and specific public policies which can close the disparities this study has discussed. This study outlines several key areas in need of further quantitative and qualitative studies to better understand black entrepreneurship.

The US economy will increasingly suffer if the nearly 15% of population (and growing) made up of black communities continues to struggle. The broad-based policy solutions proposed in this paper would allow for increased access to capital that would address the long-term deficiencies and help to close the racial wealth gap.

Through this study’s broad-based potential solutions, entrepreneurial ecosystems can be strengthened to build the environment for successful new venture creation in black communities. The longer-term benefit would be increased tax revenues, improved communities with fewer individuals needing support through government assistance and greater social stability as economic gaps between various racial groups are closed.

Using a broader entrepreneurial ecosystem framework and a systemic racism theory lens, this study discusses the limited capital black entrepreneurs have access to. Following this literature review, this study offers broad-based policy solutions that can strengthen ecosystems and directly address the issues raised in the paper.

This study examines the impact of caste on salary levels and job positions within Kerala’s Information Technology sector, aiming to challenge the meritocratic perception of this critical area for India’s economic growth.

The study utilises a dataset of 24,590 employees from 21 IT firms, classified by ownership into Indian and foreign firms. Caste-based disparities are analysed by identifying employees with upper-caste surnames and distinguishing between Kerala Upper Caste and non-Kerala Upper Caste. Generalised Linear Model (GLM) are used to quantify salary disparities and provide deeper insights into how caste, gender and ownership influence salaries.

The findings reveal significant wage gaps, with individuals bearing upper-caste surnames earning more than their non-upper-caste counterparts, especially in Indian-owned firms. Kerala Upper Caste employees enjoy a salary premium, which is reduced in foreign-owned firms. Moreover, upper-caste individuals are likelier to hold senior roles, indicating potential barriers for non-upper-caste employees.

These results highlight the need for targeted policies to address caste-based inequalities, promoting inclusiveness and fairness in the IT workplace. Wage-setting practices and promotion criteria, particularly the recent trend of employee recommendations for recruitment, may risk amplifying existing disparities if not carefully managed. Industry leaders must recognise and mitigate these risks to ensure equitable employment practices. Limitation: The study’s reliance on surname-based caste identification may underestimate the extent of caste disparities. Further, the absence of additional human capital controls, and focus on Kerala limit the generalizability of findings.

This study is the first to analyse caste dynamics within the IT sector using a rich dataset of corporate firms and wages, offering a novel methodological approach to understanding how social identity intersects with economic outcomes.

This study aims to provide a systematic literature review on contemporary women-centric accounting research through the lens of gender diversity, equity and inclusion.

The authors reviewed 210 papers published in 44 accounting journals between 2015 and 2023, using a modified version of Shields (1997) framework that profiles a detailed analysis of gender accounting topics across research settings, sample settings, jurisdiction, theories, research methods and data analysis techniques.

The review highlights an imbalance in research attention, with a predominant focus on gender diversity in governance, followed by gender equity, leaving gender inclusion relatively underexplored. The studies show notable progress in gender diversity within corporate leadership, demonstrating its positive impact on performance, audit quality, reporting and environmental, social and governance considerations. Nonetheless, women in the accounting profession continue to face challenges to equitable opportunities and inclusion, predominantly driven by gender stereotypes, patriarchal systems and motherhood impacts.

This research offers valuable insights that extend beyond academia, with practical implications for policy and corporate practice. The findings highlight the pressing need to reassess corporate cultures that devalue feminine occupational norms and inclusivity, particularly for women balancing family responsibilities. The authors recommend that firms go beyond increasing gender representation to actively address challenges and adopt policies that foster a genuine equitable and inclusive workplace in accounting.

This research adds to the current gender accounting dialogue by providing an in-depth profiling analysis of existing studies. The authors highlight often-overlooked barriers to gender equity and inclusion, emphasising the need to address them to fully realise the benefits of gender diversity at workplace.

Although the literature on modern slavery (MS) is continually increasing, there remains a paucity of theory-driven research. Hence, this study aims to develop a multitheoretical framework and research agenda for MS.

This study comprised two steps. First, it reviews the literature on supply chain (SC) social sustainability to identify the typically used theories. Six of them were selected for this study: institutional, stakeholder, resource-based, resource dependence, principal agent and transaction cost economics theories. Second, it conducts a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines to analyze relevant literature on social issues in SCs, and thematically synthesizes the findings. The six theoretical perspectives and key themes that emerged from the literature were used to develop future research directions (RDs) for MS.

This study develops a multitheoretical framework and research agenda comprising 20 theory-driven RDs for MS, focusing on the environmental, firm and transaction levels.

This study provides a reference for future MS research. Although the study used only six theories, future studies can develop further research agendas for MS based on diverse theories.

Practitioners can use this framework to understand MS from varied perspectives and identify and mitigate MS risks in SCs.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study presents the first comprehensive and theoretically grounded research agenda that positions MS research onto a stronger theoretical foundation.

This paper aims to explore the influence of a particular label surface texture, i.e. embossing, on consumer purchase intentions and willingness to pay. This paper further highlights the underlying mechanisms explaining this relationship by unveiling the mediating role of willingness to touch and perceived package uniqueness.

Based on the visual salience theory and the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model, this paper tests mediations and serial mediations across two online experiments and evidence from a laboratory experiment.

Study 1 reveals perceived package uniqueness as the mediator, such that embossed elements on the label increase perceived uniqueness, hence leading to greater purchase intentions and willingness to pay. In addition, Study 2 replicates these results and goes further by demonstrating the positive effect of embossing on purchase intentions and willingness to pay through willingness to touch then perceived package uniqueness.

The findings provide insightful managerial implications by drawing attention to the importance of using embossed elements on packaging, particularly when companies seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by stimulating consumers to touch their product packaging and having them perceive their products as unique.

Using visual salience theory and the SOR model, this research is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to shed light on the effect of embossing as a visual element of the packaging design on willingness to touch the product (haptics) and perceived uniqueness, ultimately enhancing purchase intentions and willingness to pay.

This study empirically tests the influence of key elements on intent to use electronic (E)-ticket through the “Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR)” framework and structural equation model. Results highlight factors such as E-trust Technology, Ease of Use, E-satisfaction, Intention to Purchase E-ticket, Price Perception, and Usefulness; the study comprehensively analyzes the factors influencing the decision-making process of consumers when it comes to purchasing E-tickets. The research employs a hypothesis-driven approach and gathers survey results from 408 observants to find out the intention of consumers to use E-tickets for using transportation services, which help transportation providers understand the importance of its platform to benefit customers who are willing to change their perceptions from paper tickets to E-tickets, the reason customers buying E-ticket rather than paper ticket while using digitalization to help firms control their cost and building internal legitimacy by better managing their internal stakeholder.

This study applies the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model and the theory of consumption value to examine the effects of natural content, environmental concern, and availability on consumers' willingness to pay a price premium and purchase frequency for organic food. It also ranks the relative importance of these factors and assesses generational differences.

Using the purposive sampling to survey 435 Gen-Y and Gen-Z consumers in Mainland China. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that natural content, environmental concern, and availability are significant in predicting green consumption value. Additionally, green consumption value significantly affects the willingness to pay a price premium and purchase frequency. Furthermore, the willingness to pay a price premium significantly impacts purchase frequency. Finally, generational differences were confirmed in natural content-green consumption value, green consumption value-purchase frequency linkages.

This study contributes to the organic food literature by exploring how green consumption value influences the willingness to pay a price premium and purchase frequency. Additionally, it enriches the SOR model and the theory of consumption value by identifying generational differences that affect the strength of these relationships.

Governments worldwide are placing a greater emphasis on enhancing ecology and the environment as a result of escalating ecological issues. One possible approach is sustainable governance. This chapter explores the interrelated roles of internal control, environmental accounting, and environmental auditing mechanisms in promoting sustainable governance and green transformation. By looking at these three aspects, the chapter illustrates how integrated approaches can promote sustainable practices and guarantee adherence to environmental standards. The objective of this chapter is to present a thorough knowledge of the ways in which these components work together to support sustainability as a whole.

Social protection states the public-mandated (strategies and programmes) to address the vulnerability and risk among poor and near-poor households. Social protection must not only help people meet their basic needs but also contribute to the long-term well-being and broader societal goals of equity, social justice and empowerment. The role of social protection in achieving these goals has not been adequately documented. This paper examines the performance of the social protection mechanism from the perspective of the regional structural and institutional performance indicators. Social protection outlay dynamics are synthesized in the structural and institutional conducts.

A world regional comparability is made by considering the panel dataset for the time interval 1995–2020. In empirics, the unconditional and conditional ranks are constructed, and regression analyses are made subject to (1) the fiscal constraint of social protection, (2) structural performance indicators and (3) the institutional performance indicators of the targeted regions across the globe. The fully modified-ordinary least square (FM-OLS) method is used to construct the ranks.

The rank analysis demonstrates that the developed regions (i.e. Europe, Central Asia and North America) have relatively good welfare standards and fiscal capacity for social protection drives compared to the developing/underdeveloped regions (i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). The structural/institutional performance indicators have shown their significance in determining/utilizing their budget for social protection and maintaining welfare standards. Interestingly, most developed regions are relatively reluctant to maintain the structural/institutional performance for the determination/execution of the funds for social protection as compared to the developing and underdeveloped regions.

In policy discourse, this research suggests that governments must make some market operations to enhance their regions’ structural and institutional performance to get better outcomes of social protection spending in the form of attractive welfare standards.

Multiple studies have been done considering the social protection dynamics at nano, micro and macro levels, while this study considered the mega dataset across the globe to analyse the social protection dynamics in consideration of structural and institutional performances.

This study aims to determine whether implementation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) rule will achieve the goal of providing data for preliminary analysis of banks compliance with fair lending regulations.

Empirical analysis of the CFPB’s implementation of Dodd–Frank Section 1071.

The data available under the CFPB’s rule will suggest that banks provide less access to minority borrowers, which would be a violation of fair lending regulations. The authors show that the addition of a simple credit risk variable shows that community banks provide fair access for minority borrowers to loans.

The analysis is limited to one year of the Fed’s Small Business Credit Survey (2017). Also, the authors are limited to the data collected by the survey.

Bank regulations tend to be one size fits all, which creates high compliance costs for small (community) banks with questionable benefits. The implementation of Section 1071 appears to be another example of this pattern, as the results suggest that the implementation of the CFPB’s rule for Section 1071 is unlikely to achieve its goals.

The results have significant public policy implications for the design and implementation of banking regulations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first research project on the topic.