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This aim of this paper is to prove that the diversity of board capital is a significant driver of corporate governance. Board capital has increasingly been identified as a key part of governance mechanism that assists businesses to improve their sustainability reporting practices and sustainability performance. In addition, board capital has been recognized as being key to the development of good corporate governance in the private and public sectors.

The paper discusses whether the diversity of board capital is a significant driver of corporate governance.

This paper suggests that the best mixture of board capital for an individual company should be varied between industries and business models. Effective corporate governance assists in the attainment of high-level sustainability and financial performance, which, in turn, bolsters corporate reputation.

This paper presents new strategic insights into diversity of board capital that is pivotal to global leading companies in preparing their sustainability reports.

This paper justifies the need of diversity in board capital because it is one of the means to build strong corporate governance based on the stakeholders’ expectations and interests, and to create greater public trust and the prospects of the respective business.

This paper aims to highlight a limitation of the understanding of agility within organizations, while providing the reasoning and anecdotal example of an effective setting where agility exists, and how this affects firms’ productivity through focusing on the principle of ownership motivation.

The contemporary thoughts and historical research with anecdotal evidence are gathered from small business owners in the insurance industry.

Agility implementation in firms today is mainly top-down team focused. While bottom-up input approaches are prescribed for firm organizational agility implementation, the mantle of ownership and drive are not imparted to employees. The example of a service industry highlights the possibilities of having agility within the organization implemented by direct ownership of most if not all the operations and functions.

This paper shares a working example of implemented agility and proposes the application within the broader scope of firm operations, particularly for smaller firms looking for sustainable advantages.

It re-looks at actual implementable agile practices by re-imaging the role of employees into functional business units from the bottom-up, rather than from the top-down, as a different perspective of agility.

The Malaysian retail industry, which contributes toward almost 45 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is on a downward trend. As such, the main purpose of this study is to improve the performance of the Malaysian retail industry through the incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies. The incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies in the retail industry has led to the emergence of Retail 4.0 which can also be defined as omni-channel retailing.

The adoption of Retail 4.0, which is a combination of omni-channel retailing and also novel technologies, has been proven to improve the performance of retailers in many countries. As such, the authors have given suggestions on how Retail 4.0 can be incorporated by Malaysian retailers for the betterment of the Malaysian retail industry.

Problems faced by retailers these days are boring `brick and mortar' stores, out of stock (OOS) issues, price discrepancy and long queues. Retail 4.0 has enabled retailers to overcome these problems by creating novel shopping experiences, better inventory management, and improved operational efficiency and also more informed decision making in real time.

The incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia is still in the infancy stage. As such, skilled professionals need to be brought in to help implement these technologies in the retail industry.

Omni-channel retailing and the usage of various technologies by `brick and mortar' stores is very appealing to Malaysia's Gen Y and Gen Z who make up 67 per cent of the country's population. The spending power of this young generation can help to boost the performance of the Malaysian retail industry.

To date, no known study has been done on the impact of Retail 4.0 on Malaysian retailers. The results of this study will be very valuable to managers who are keen to improve the performance of their respective retail channels.

This paper aims to illustrate that stakeholder engagement is a fundamental step of the sustainability reporting process, as it assists in defining the materiality and relevance of the information communicated and enhances greater transparency and greater accountability to stakeholders.

In today’s corporate world, the role of stakeholder engagement has been recognized as being significant in completing the process for materiality disclosure in sustainability reporting, and it has become one of the vital elements in advancing sustainable development in the corporate sector. The materiality approach has been recommended as the instrument for scoping and defining the content for sustainability reporting or reports that only disclose issues that are considered material from the perspective of the stakeholders. This is relevant to both businesses and stakeholders.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the leading global companies in preparing their sustainability reports.

The interconnectedness of supply chain processes in the aerospace industry requires companies to operate with excellence and the ability to provide robust technologies such as blockchain technology (BCT) to aid supply chain productivity. This paper aims to examine the existing practices of aerospace supply chain management, identify how BCT is used in the aerospace supply chain and whether it affects environmental sustainability.

The qualitative research approach was used, and an online interview with informants was undertaken to collect data.

The findings demonstrate that BCT has a diverse function in achieving sustainable development goals.

The manufacturing sector can be strengthened by successfully deploying BCT in aerospace supply chain management. It contributes to achieving sustainable development objectives by introducing transparency to the system and bolstering market position. BCT enables organisations to gain a competitive edge by attaining innovative operational excellence in the face of the complexity of the supply chain environment.

The findings can serve as a guide for anticipating the effectiveness of BCT in aerospace supply chain management.

This paper aims to explore social responsibility reporting of full-fledged Islamic banks in two developing countries, namely, Indonesia and Malaysia. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an important aspect of business society. As such, companies have shown a growing interest in reporting their social and environmental initiatives.

Content analysis of the annual reports for three full-fledged local Islamic banks in Indonesia and three Islamic banks in Malaysia was carried out for the period of 2007-2011.

Results of the study revealed that CSR disclosure of Islamic banks has generally grown both in Malaysia and Indonesia. More specifically, it was found that workplace and community dimensions were the most highly disclosed areas by the Islamic banks in both countries.

The current study provides a cross-cultural perspective on social responsibility disclosure in Islamic banks across two countries. The study is limited by investigating a five-year time frame.

By discussing the findings according to the stages of growth model for CSR, the authors suggest that Islamic banks can enhance their responsiveness, and transform their role from being CSR reporters of social responsibility to responders.

While the tenets of CSR have a lot in common with Islamic moral law (Shariah), little is known about CSR disclosure of Islamic banks.

This study aims to explain how board and hotel characteristics affect biodiversity reporting and to test the moderating effect of market diversification.

The annual reports of 105 hotels were examined for the period between 2016 and 2017 to analyse these hotels’ biodiversity reporting using content analysis. The partial least squares technique was used to test the proposed relationships.

The results show that the number of board members who are also on the corporate social responsibility committee, number of board members who are in environmental organizations, the star rating of the hotel, hotel size and hotel location have significant positive effects on the extent of biodiversity reporting. In addition, market diversification moderates positively the effects of number of board members with environmental experience and number of board members from environmental organizations on the extent of biodiversity reporting.

The results of this study will be useful in enabling hotel manager and investors to become knowledgeable about these aspects of boards, which lead to higher biodiversity reporting. This study can also inform policymakers about the types of hotels that are less likely to disclose biodiversity reports and to develop effective enforcement of regulations.

These findings extend the literature on biodiversity reporting by exploring the importance of board and hotel characteristics on the extent of biodiversity reporting and testing the moderating effect of market diversification.

This study aims to explain how institutional, cultural and corporate factors affect the sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) of financial institutions and to test the moderating effect of equator principles (EP).

The annual reports of 100 financial institutions were examined for the year 2016 using content analysis. The multiple regression technique was used to test the proposed relationships.

The results show that the quality of sustainability reports is higher among financial institutions in developed countries. Furthermore, institutions that practice Islamic values and those that integrate corporate social responsibility values into their mission and vision have higher levels of SRQ. Privately owned institutions also have higher quality of sustainability reporting in comparison to government-owned ones. Adopting the EP has a greater effect on the SRQ of non-Islamic financial institutions in comparison to Islamic ones.

The results of the study will be useful in enabling managers of financial institutions to become knowledgeable about the factors that lead to higher SRQ. The findings also have implications for policymakers’ development of sustainability reporting regulations and for the development of effective enforcement of regulations.

These outcomes contribute to the literature on SRQ exploring the importance of institutional, cultural and corporate factors on the extent of SRQ and testing the moderating effect of EP.

The materiality principle is one of the top trends in sustainability reporting globally. Stakeholders have focused on the principle of materiality because of its vital importance in the context of sustainability. Materiality serves as a content-selection principle for determining the most significant sustainability matters to be included in sustainability reports. This has made reports more relevant for various stakeholders. Using the resource-based view and stakeholder theory, this paper aims to examine and uncover the antecedents and outcome of materiality disclosure in sustainability reporting.

To measure the extent of materiality disclosure, a content analysis was performed on the corporate reports of the largest listed companies in Malaysia. The relationships among the variables under investigation were examined using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

While the results show that board activity, board independence and board size play significant roles as antecedents of materiality disclosure, this is not so with nationality diversity and gender diversity. In addition, the results have shown that the outcome of materiality disclosure is not significantly linked to corporate financial performance. The results show that normative stakeholder considerations are the primary motivating factor behind corporate sustainability reporting in Malaysia.

These results are of great interest to regulators, stakeholders, investors and companies alike. Enhancing materiality disclosure in sustainability reports can help in the transition to sustainable development and the successful achievement of the United Nations sustainable development goals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to examine the interplay between board diversity and materiality disclosure, along with their connections to corporate financial performance.

This study aims to illuminate the limited understanding of viable social business among corporate actors in developing countries. It addresses pressing environmental and societal problems, emphasizing the need for corporate participation in sustainable solutions. Additionally, the study explores the transformational business notion linking company achievement with social progress, an increasingly studied concept in management.

Based on a transdisciplinary case study (i.e. a university-industry collaboration [UIC]), this study proposed a structural framework and guiding principles to integrate the academic and practitioners’ different but complementary resources and expertise.

The outcomes could provide insights for social entrepreneurs to perform highly optimal decisions on their organisational strategies, in which the financial-then-social pathway could be an effective social business success mechanism.

Besides, the case study also generates each five learning lessons and challenges coping strategies that provide practical guidance on operationalising an effective UIC. The empirical findings contribute to social entrepreneurship and sustainability science literature.