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This study aims to investigate not only the association between corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and the cost of capital (COC) but also its impact on the company’s idiosyncratic risk. Further, it highlights that companies could manage their risk through sustainability initiatives to achieve a cheaper cost of financing.

Using an extensive Australian sample for the 2007–2017 period from the Bloomberg database, this study conducts a panel (data) regression analysis to examine the impact of the corporate ESG performance disclosure score on the COC and idiosyncratic risk. The robustness of the findings is tested and confirmed in several ways, including a sensitivity test. Furthermore, the instrumental variable approach is used to address potential endogeneity issues.

A favourable association was found between a higher corporate ESG performance disclosure score and cheaper resources financing. The evidence also supports the mitigating impact of corporate ESG performance disclosure score on the company’s idiosyncratic risk as a strong complement for access to a cheaper source of funds. The findings strongly support both hypotheses of this study.

This study extends the current body of knowledge addressing these associations. Further studies should expand the investigation to non-listed or small and medium-sized companies. Additionally, future studies could contribute to the literature by including other moderating variables, such as a country’s cultural environment and diverse economic situations.

An extensive literature review suggests that this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first that simultaneously evaluates the impact of corporate ESG performance disclosure on a company’s COC and idiosyncratic risk.

This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran. Technology roadmapping is a tool for decisionmakers to identify, assess and choose between different strategic options to achieve the best technological objectives and help companies and industries to better understand their market and technological choices. As social banking is in its infancy, it could embody different aspects. Therefore, to be successful in field of social banking, banks should define specific capabilities based on their capacities to create their own model. A social banking roadmap provides a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs for their implementation and improvement.

This paper outlines the steps for creating a technology roadmap to develop social banking services of one of Iran’s private banks. Different methods were used to implement each step mainly based on expert panels and carrying out polling and survey research among banking and IT experts.

Technology roadmaps pay special attention to the challenges and the level of capabilities (both technical and social) to develop technologies and services specially for developing countries. The level of capabilities and absorptive capacity will determine the direction of technology development. Hence, banks should design their business plan and roadmap based on their background and capabilities, state of market, their status and goals. Policymakers should help increase cooperation, financial transparency, information and payments security via appropriate legislations.

The number of banks that have entered the social banking field is limited, and as a result, activities that have been carried out in this area in the country are limited too. Therefore, there was limited access to information as well as related studies. This research has tried to extract all the contents of the roadmap. Some sub-topics such as technologies have been dealt with to a lesser depth because of the complexity in identifying and assigning each of technologies to the service features. The technology roadmap experiences in the country are limited, and it was not possible to study the existing roadmaps with regard to their confidentiality. Developing a technology roadmap requires using expert panels and conducting multiple workshops with stakeholders from private sectors, universities and industries. In this research, because of low resources, the panels were confronted with limited continuous attendance as well as the accumulation of different stakeholders.

The research results provided strategies to inform, encourage and finance banks and other businesses to use social networks appropriately and effectively. These strategies can be categorized into the actions banks should take to expand social banking in the country and the actions policymakers should take into account in this regard. They are described as follows. Banks’ strategic actions include: provide training to staff on how employees should interact with customers on social networks encompassing general information and education about services, benefits and how to use social banking services for customers and society; motivate customer participation in social banking networks; convergence and integration of various offline and online channels; focus on core banking to expand competitiveness; pay attention to sustainable and green development in providing social banking services; analysis of the competitive environment in banking and other financial industries; designing a portfolio of social services for customers and allocation of budget and resources for development of social banking services and participation with other institutions and operators in providing financial and non-financial services. Policymakers’ actions include: adopt motivational policies for participation and use of social networks; education and awareness for different stakeholders; review and update the policies and rules of IT and social networks; establish appropriate laws to protect rights of employees and customers; invest in market and university studies on social banking and related services; develop policies for using in-house software and update rules and policies for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Social banking is in its infancy in Iran and few banks deliver services of social banking in a limited scope. There is no technology roadmap for this purpose in Iran. This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran (and can be adopted for banks of other developing countries) and gives a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs to implement and improve them. The application of technology roadmapping in the field of social banking is new.

Examining the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) and expenses spent on food preparation on nutritional intake has always been one of the critical concerns for policymakers. This study aims to investigate the association between household food expenditure as well as SES and dietary nutrient intake in Kermanshah, Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, households were randomly selected from different strict in Kermanshah, Iran. Data were collected with an SES questionnaire, a demographic data collection form, a weekly food purchase checklist and a food record. The authors performed the analysis of covariance to determine the relationship of dietary nutrient intake of study participants across quintile categories of SES and total food expenses per day.

Out of 125 households, 119 households including 401 people finished the study. A significant association was observed between higher SES and higher intake of vitamin B2 (p-value = 0.03). Moreover, the household members at the top level of total food expenses per day had significantly greater dietary nutrient intake of energy (p < 0.001), potassium (p < 0.001), magnesium (p < 0.001), calcium (p < 0.001), zinc (p < 0.001), vitamin B2 (p < 0.001), B6 (p < 0.001), B12 (p = 0.002) and vitamin C (p = 0.04).

In our study, higher dietary nutrient intake was observed in the household members at the highest level of total food expenses daily as well as SES. Therefore, governments and policymakers should pay basic attention to optimizing food costs and improving the economic status of people.

This study aims to investigate the role of social capital in Iranian agricultural students' acquisition of generic skills. For this purpose, the effect of various social capital dimensions on students' generic skills development was examined.

A survey was conducted among 190 third- and fourth-year undergraduate students in one of the colleges of agriculture and natural resources in Iran. The partial least square method was used to examine the relationships among various social capital dimensions (i.e. social values, social trust, social networks, social cohesion, social participation, social communications and information sharing) with students' generic skills.

The findings showed that social networks and social participation are effective factors in the generic skills development of students. A model designed for the development of students' generic skills based on their social capital level predicted up to 33% of generic skills' variances. Furthermore, the multi-group analysis showed that males and females vary on how various social capital dimensions affect their generic skills. In this respect, the social participation dimension had a significantly greater impact on female students' generic skills, whereas the generic skills of male students were influenced more by the social cohesion dimension.

Developing generic skills through social capital can be considered as an effective strategy in countries that do not have formal programs for developing students' generic skills. Additionally, higher education policymakers should present a more supportive approach for developing generic skills of female students through social participation in the campuses.

So far, no study has examined the relationships among various social capital dimensions and students' generic skills in Iran. The picture is even more unclear when it comes to the differences between male and female students. The results of this study confirmed the importance of social networks and social participation in the universities to support students and to improve their generic skills and, consequently, their employability competencies. Furthermore, it could be inferred that male and female students have similarities and also differences in terms of the effect of social capital on developing generic skills that can provide a path for future studies.

This paper aims to study the application of high-tolerance and flexible indigenous bacteria and fungi, along with the co-metabolism in recycled paper and cardboard mill (RPCM) wastewater treatment (WWT).

The molecular characterization of isolated indigenous bacteria and fungi was performed by 16S rRNA and 18S rRNA gene sequencing, respectively. Glucose was used as a cometabolic substrate to enhance the bioremediation process.

The highest removal efficiency was achieved for both chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color [78% COD and 45% color removal by Pseudomonas aeruginosa RW-2 (MZ603673), as well as approximately 70% COD and 48% color removal by Geotrichum candidum RW-4 (ON024394)]. The corresponding percentages were higher in comparison with the efficiency obtained from the oxidation ditch unit in the full-scale RPCM WWT plant.

Indigenous P. aeruginosa RW-2 and G. candidum RW-4 demonstrated effective capability in RPCM WWT despite the highly toxic and low biodegradable nature, especially with the assistance of glucose.

It has been revealed that application of the differential form of Eringen’s nonlocal elasticity theory to some cases (e.g. cantilevers) leads to paradoxical results, and recourse must be made to the integral version of Eringen’s nonlocal model. The purpose of this paper, within the framework of integral form of Eringen’s nonlocal theory, is to study the bending behavior of nanoscale plates with various boundary conditions using the isogeometric analysis (IGA).

The shear deformation effect is taken into account according to the Mindlin plate theory, and the minimum total potential energy principle is utilized in order to derive the governing equations. The relations are obtained in the matrix-vector form which can be easily employed in IGA or finite element analysis. For the comparison purpose, the governing equations are also derived based on the differential nonlocal model and are then solved via IGA. Comparisons are made between the predictions of integral nonlocal model, differential nonlocal model and local (classical) model.

The bending analysis of nanoplates under some kinds of edge supports indicates that using the differential model leads to paradoxical results (decreasing the maximum deflection with increasing the nonlocal parameter), whereas the results of integral model are consistent.

A new nonlocal formulation is developed for the IGA of Mindlin nanoplates. The nonlocal effects are captured based on the integral model of nonlocal elasticity. The formulation is developed in matrix-vector form which can be readily used in finite element method. Comparisons are made between the results of differential and integral models for the bending problem. The proposed integral model is capable of resolving the paradox appeared in the results of differential model.

This study’s main objective is to determine the extent to which social capital and psychological capital can explain differences in career adaptability among higher education students.

The study employed a quantitative approach, utilizing a survey research design. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire completed by 384 fourth-year undergraduate agricultural students in Iran. The inverse square root and multistage sampling methods were used to determine the sample size. The partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) method examined the associations between latent variables.

The results suggest that social and psychological capital significantly influence the career adaptability of agricultural students, highlighting their significance in enhancing career adaptability. Moreover, psychological capital positively mediates the relationship between social capital and career adaptability.

Agricultural higher education institutions must focus on developing students' social and psychological capital to cultivate career adaptability in agricultural students. Agricultural higher education institutions, for example, should help students develop soft skills.

This study offers novel insights into the significance of individual resources, such as social and psychological capital, in enhancing the career adaptability of students. In addition, the key contribution of this study is the researchers' empirical evidence that multiple career resources are interconnected (social capital, career adaptability, and psychological capital).

For the dimensions of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) score, only environmental practices have shown a significant negative link with banking performance. However, the social and government dimensions did not have a significant effect on this variable. The authors also find that the financial performance of banks depends primarily on the financial stability of the bank, in particular, on capital adequacy and on the management of liquidity risk.

The recurrence of banking and financial crises has revealed the complexity and vulnerability of the financial and banking system. In this article, the authors empirically study the impact of CSR on the financial performance of banks as well as the individual effect of each dimension of CSR (social, governance and environmental) with particular attention to the moderating role of financial stability. Based on a sample of 23 French banks over the period from 2010 to 2018, the results indicate a negative and significant effect of CSR measured by the overall CSR score on the performance of banks.

This study provides insight into the essential role of financial stability in moderating the benefits of CSR disclosure while virtually no previous study examines this effect.

This article offers several contributions to the literature. First, this study builds on previous research by providing a more comprehensive view and evidence on the relationship between CSR and bank performance. The authors affirm and show that the financial stability of the bank moderates the effect of CSR on the performance of banks. The link between social responsibility and performance demonstrated in this study is more complicated than the direct–direct relationship as widely assumed in the previous literature.

This study examined the role of green human resource management (GHRM) in the environmental performance of higher education institutes (HEIs). The study also examined the mediating effect of green commitment and green behaviour. Furthermore, the study explored if green self-efficacy (GSE) moderated the relationship between green commitment and green behaviour. The ability, motivation, and opportunity (AMO) theory were employed to explain the relationship between the study's variables.

The study opted for a descriptive study using the convenience sampling technique by collecting data through a survey questionnaire administered to 208 individuals currently employed in Pakistani HEIs. Data collection was undertaken among senior, middle, and top management of the HEIs. The statistical software, partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), was used for data analysis.

The results provide empirical insights indicating the positive relation of GHRM practices with environmental performance in HEIs. Changes in employees' behaviour through human resource management practices can ultimately affect the organisations' environmental performance. Besides, the results also demonstrated that GSE moderates the relationship between green commitment and green behaviour. The findings highlight the role of commitment level and GSE in enhancing the environmental performance of HEIs.

The study proposes that HEIs' management take adequate initiatives to implement GHRM practices.

The current study contributes to the literature by empirically examining the indirect double mediation effect of green commitment and green behaviour on GHRM and environmental performance. Furthermore, the moderating effect of GSE, which is an under-explored area, was also studied.