This paper aims to examine the stewardship practices of BlackRock, one of the world’s biggest index managers, to highlight a tension and contradictions associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the stewardship practices of BlackRock, one of the world’s biggest index managers, to highlight a tension and contradictions associated with demonstrating sustainability leadership and its actual substance.
Design/methodology/approach
To support its argument, this paper draws on the author’s long-standing industry and academic experience, existing academic evidence and documentary analysis.
Findings
This paper reveals conflicting data, highlighting a tension between BlackRock’s commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) in its public statements and translating this commitment into tangible outcomes through voting, ESG investments and stewardship reporting, which seem to be more assumed than demonstrated.
Research limitations/implications
This viewpoint is based on a review of existing evidence. It offers some critique on current stewardship reporting practices, which has implications for management and policymakers. It identifies areas for future research in the area of stewardship and ESG reporting.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the need for a more critical interrogation of investor stewardship and ESG reporting and a more joined-up policy and regulatory approach to stewardship and sustainability reporting.
Social implications
Improving stewardship practices of asset managers will help enhance the social value created by the financial services sector.
Originality/value
In drawing on personal experience and existing literature, the originality lies in the combination of arguments brought together to highlight the challenges of making sense of the conflicting ESG reporting data to see how this may impact policies, regulation and future practices in the area of sustainability and ESG reporting.
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Carol A. Adams and Frank Mueller
This paper aims to examine the nature of academic engagement with policy and the (lack of) responsiveness by policymakers to the scientific community through the development of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the nature of academic engagement with policy and the (lack of) responsiveness by policymakers to the scientific community through the development of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation Trustees’ Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting (IFRS Foundation, 2020).
Design/methodology/approach
The 577 submissions to the IFRS Foundation consultation were reviewed, and 39 were identified as being submitted by academics. These 39 included collectively 104 academic signatories from 74 organisations or networks and 20 countries. They were analysed using NVivo. Drawing on the literature on techniques used to discredit or credit arguments, we examine the academic responses to the consultation questions, particularly those concerning: the role of the IFRS Foundation; perceptions of the “investor perspective”; the audience for reporting; the definition of materiality; and a climate first approach.
Findings
The majority (72%) of academic submissions were opposed to the IFRS Foundation Trustees’ proposals on key issues. This dissenting majority collectively have substantial research records in sustainability reporting and its outcomes. Those supportive were significantly less likely to reference research or state their credentials and, despite being supportive, nevertheless raised concerns with the proposals.
Practical implications
Senior academics undertaking research in the field have engaged, in unusually high numbers, with a policy development they believe will not work and maybe counter to achieving sustainable development. The findings underscore the importance of highlighting the discrediting strategies and tactics used in this discursive “battle”. The findings have implications for the legitimacy of policymakers on sustainability-related initiatives which are not engaging with the relevant scientific community.
Social implications
Policy initiatives that are judged as potentially harmful to sustainable development attract more intense, activist and sustained engagement supported by research evidence.
Originality/value
The paper identifies the importance of evidence-based academic engagement and highlights strategies that engaging academics need to persist over. It highlights the collective view of academics in the field on the IFRS Foundation consultation paper.
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Jill Atkins, Sharif Khalid and Elisabetta Anna Vincenza Barone
There exists no detailed account of the 40 Australian women teachers employed within the “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal…
Abstract
Purpose
There exists no detailed account of the 40 Australian women teachers employed within the “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies during the Boer War. The purpose of this paper is to critically respond to this dearth in historiography.
Design/methodology/approach
A large corpus of newspaper accounts represents the richest, most accessible and relatively idiosyncratic source of data concerning this contingent of women. The research paper therefore interprets concomitant print-based media reports of the period as a resource for educational and historiographical data.
Findings
Towards the end of the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) a total of 40 Australian female teachers – four from Queensland, six from South Australia, 14 from Victoria and 16 from New South Wales – successfully answered the imperial call conscripting educators for schools within “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies. Women’s exclusive participation in this initiative, while ostensibly to teach the Boer children detained within these camps, also exerted an influential effect on the popular consciousness in reimagining cultural ideals about female teachers’ professionalism in ideological terms.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation of the study relates to the dearth in official records about Australian women teachers in concentration camps given that; not only are Boer War-related records generally difficult to source; but also that even the existent data is incomplete with many chapters missing completely from record. Therefore, while the data about these women is far from complete, the account in terms of newspaper reports relies on the existent accounts of them typically in cases where their school and community observe their contributions to this military campaign and thus credit them with media publicity.
Originality/value
The paper’s originality lies in recovering the involvement of a previously underrepresented contingent of Australian women teachers while simultaneously offering a primary reading of the ideological work this involvement played in influencing the political narrative of Australia’s educational involvement in the Boer War.