Andreea Stoian and Delia Tatu-Cornea
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the political partisanship of government in charges of returns on the European stock markets. The authors found a large…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the political partisanship of government in charges of returns on the European stock markets. The authors found a large body of research investigating this issue for the case of US stock market but less evidence for the European stock markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a panel data model with fixed-effects and an additional dynamic panel model using the bias-corrected LSDV estimator on a data set consisting of monthly and quarterly data. The data range from 2000 to 2010 and cover 20 European Union (EU) countries. The authors test several hypotheses, and run distinct regressions using political, financial, and economic variables. The authors also divide the data set into two sub-samples in order to reveal the distinctions between advanced and emerging economies in the EU.
Findings
The authors find that stock markets perform better under right-wing administrations. The result is consistent for the advanced EU economies, but the authors found no robust evidence in that sense for emerging countries. Additionally, the authors show that European stock market preferences for right/left-wing administrations is not necessarily related to the beliefs about the size of unemployment, inflation, deficit, and/or debt, which opens the field for further research in this area.
Originality/value
The study contributes to existing knowledge. It examines if Wall Street folklore, asserting for many decades that stock markets perform better under right-wing governments, also holds for European stock markets given the distinctions in the political and financial systems between USA and Europe. Moreover, the authors underline the introduction in the analysis of the Central and Eastern European countries.
Details
Keywords
Mihai Ioan Roșca, Andrei Claudiu Sarău and Andreea-Angela Vonțea
In recent years, the online environment and the Internet, as a communication platform, have acquired an important role regarding the companies’ activity of communicating their…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, the online environment and the Internet, as a communication platform, have acquired an important role regarding the companies’ activity of communicating their social responsibility. The purpose of this study resides in drawing a typological classification based on analysing the manner in which the world’s greatest companies conduct their communication activities as depicted by their CSR reports published online.
Methodology/approach
A content analysis method was used in order to classify the common CSR activities driven by large global companies depending on their unique approaches in terms of communication.
Findings
About 100 organisations extracted from Forbes Global 2000 Leading Companies (as of 2012) were subjected to the current study. Consequently, their latest CSR reports published on the Internet were analysed according to a series of five variables. The most complex one relied on what type of CSR information have the companies focused on within their reporting activities. Thus occurs the dichotomy between structuring their communication endeavours as filtering them relative to the stakeholders’ needs, or trying to emphasise the different categories of initiatives. The resulted classification is founded mainly on the reality observed in a company’s CSR communication activities.
Research limitations/implications
The chapter argues that the classification is not limited to the proposed framework, but it may vary depending on a corporation’s changes in communication or its interest in supporting new CSR tendencies so that they can be enriched. Although CSR activity is represented under various patterns by the investigated companies, all the subsequent reports can be considered as being an integral part of the system.
Practical implications
Even though not all the highlighted strategic directions have an integrated profile in order to be included in the general CSR reporting, they can be taken into account in the near future.
Originality/value
This new approach on classifying the different communication endeavours paves the way for an overall image on the manner in which companies of all types may align their social responsibility activities with the increasing stakeholders’ demands, given the digital media specifics.