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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of employee resource groups (ERGs) in a multi-national, for-profit corporation. The paper focuses on how ERGs facilitate learning.

A qualitative case study approach was used to examine six social identity based ERGs in one multi-national for-profit organization headquartered in the USA.

The study found that ERGs facilitate learning and development activities in order to support their membership. ERGs, operating as communities of practice, also engaged in informal learning opportunities that were designed to shift perspectives of non-members and executive-level leaders in the organization.

There is a growing body of literature on ERGs across organizations and higher education that examine how these groups engage in activism, advocacy, recruitment, retention and education. This study examines the processes by which these groups facilitate learning and development activities and the benefits perceived by the membership. The paper provides value to human resources professionals and others who are interested in how ERGs function as learning communities and outcomes the membership perceive as most important.

A qualitative study of six employee resource groups (ERGs) in a not-for-profit organization in the USA tested whether they helped minorities to integrate. The positive results showed they act as powerful conduits for learning and development, and help staff well-being.

The researcher carried out 39 semi-structured interviews with people from each of the six groups, including executive sponsors. There were 11 participants from the African-American RG, 2 from the Native American RG, 4 from the Asian-American RG, 5 from the Hispanic-American RG, 7 from the LGBT RG, and 3 from the South Asian-American RG. Seven executive sponsors were also interviewed. All participants were asked to describe the organization’s culture and explain how much support they received on diversity issues.

Members explained how ERGs offered communities for the exchange of ideas. They helped individuals deal with “micro-aggressions” when the dominant social groups indulged in prejudicial stereotyping. Useful activities were both informal and formal. Informal conversations were helpful, especially for younger members. More formal activities depended on member interests. For example, the African-American and Asian-American RGs hosted a lot of leadership development initiatives. There were events aimed at educating the whole workforce about minority issues.

The results are important for businesses, and other organizations, because research shows they perform better when they integrate diverse employees.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between audit quality and value relevance and subsequently ascertain the moderating effect of business ethics on integrated reporting (IR)–value relevance.

This study applied linear regressions with panel data using the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database from European countries to analyse data of 510 companies belonging to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) index between 2010 and 2022.

A significant positive relationship was found between audit quality and value relevance. The results also suggest that IR has significant explanatory power on value relevance, and that business ethics moderate the relationship between IR and value relevance in European ESG firms.

Managers will see IR, business ethics and audit as a business strategy with incremental market value. In this regard, this study tried to provide insights and managerial solutions for managers of international companies to improve their strategy by drawing on the social, moral and business ethics approach. This finding will improve the informational relevance for investment opportunities, thus resulting in improved business performance.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of business ethics in the relationship between IR and value relevance. This paper fulfils a recognised need to study the influence of audit quality on investor decisions. Furthermore, the contribution of this study could be observed in the fact that the market value analysis differs between the contractual and the business ethics approaches. Also, including a moderating variable in the explanation and determination of value relevance remains somewhat underexplored.

This paper aims to examine the environmental awareness, initiatives and performance in the Macau hotel industry.

A mixed research method was adopted involving quantitative surveys with 31 hotels in Macau and 11 face-to-face interviews with the hotel managers, facilities managers and engineers.

Response from surveys and interviews with 31 hoteliers show that hotels in Macau have a high level of environmental awareness. Most hoteliers actively introduce initiatives that contribute to cost savings. Initiatives including using energy conservation light bulbs, having an active system to detect/repair leaking facilities and installing water conserving fixtures are widely implemented, while programs involving using solar lawn light, recycling leftover food and reusing wastewater are not. Major barriers for going green include the lack of government regulations on environmental management (EM), financial constraints, the lack of employees to handle EM and the fear that environmental initiatives may negatively impact the guest’s experience, especially those VIP and hardcore gamblers and customers who expect enjoying the luxuries services in Macau hotels. Lower star hotels experience more difficulties in adopting green approaches.

This paper presents a single case study of Macau; therefore, the results in this research may have limited generalizability.

This paper is one of the very few attempts that investigate EM in Macau – a renowned world tourism and gambling destination, where the vast majority of hotels have their casino facilities. Results show that apart from the financial consideration and the lack of government enforcement to adopt green measures similar to hotels in other destinations, EM practices of Macau’s hotels are also constrained by its customer base and the acute shortage of human resources that is caused by the tourism boom.

This research paper aims to examine the influence of greater female participation on the board of directors on the environmental transparency of companies.

To achieve the purpose of this study, the authors analyzed the environmental transparency of 412 companies in the energy sector, headquartered in 19 countries, during a four-year period (2016 to 2019).

The data reveal that gender diversity has a positive effect on the environmental transparency of companies in developed countries and on the total model. Furthermore, after removing the US companies, the results remained the same, indicating that companies with more women on the board tend to have greater environmental transparency. Regarding corporate governance variables, the results show that companies that have a corporate social responsibility committee tend to have greater environmental transparency, both in emerging countries and in developed countries.

The findings indicate that if companies aim to have greater environmental transparency, they must encourage female participation on boards, giving them equal opportunities for professional growth. Organizations must deconstruct the ideology that women are fewer valuable members of their boards, which limits their contribution to organizational success. Additionally, regulators can encourage greater female participation on boards through the implementation of quota laws.

The authors’ evidence indicates that the presence of women on board is an antecedent of greater quality in the dissemination of environmental information. Thus, managers of companies in the energy sector must understand that diversity on the board affects communication with its stakeholders through environmental transparency.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among green, lean, and global supply chain strategies as found in the literature, with emphasis on the concurrent implementation of these three strategic initiatives, in order to develop a research agenda to guide theoretically based future research that informs managerial decision making.

An extensive literature review is conducted to examine research and practice with respect to the concurrent implementation of green, lean, and global supply chain strategies.

An in‐depth examination of the literature revealed drivers, barriers, converging, and contradictory points across the three supply chain strategies. Future research opportunities fall into four major themes: the need for theoretically grounded research, the need for a multi‐functional approach, the need for a systems approach that adds strategic insight, and the need for integrated measurement application. Managerial aspects are highlighted in the discussion of the metrics across the three strategic interfaces and integrated life cycle management is suggested as a framework for measurement application across the three supply chain strategies.

Separate literature streams have arisen to address issues in green, lean, and global supply chain management, but research has largely neglected the intersection of these three strategies practiced by multinational organizations. The current research synthesizes the literature addressing the intersections of green, lean, and global supply chain management, and suggests a research agenda to redress gaps in the literature.

Not since the Great Depression of the 1930s have the activities of individual corporations come under as much scrutiny as they have over the past decade. With daily headlines about the savings and loan crisis, insider trading, layoffs and plant closures, green marketing, ingredient labeling practices, and influence‐peddling political contributions, the new watchwords in the business world are ethics, accountability, and social responsibility.

Empirical research provides evidence that green supply chain management (SCM) practices positively impact firm performance. Yet, questions remain regarding how firms configure their organizations and design green practices to achieve improved performance, especially in light of a constantly changing business environment. This research uses the resource-based and strategic choice theories to better understand the antecedent roles of two strategic orientations, supply chain orientation (SCO) and environmental orientation (EO), on both the implementation and outcomes of green SCM practices. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Survey responses from 367 supply chain managers are tested through structural equation modeling.

Findings suggest that a combination of SCO and EO capabilities positively influence the implementation of green SCM practices, and positively impact firm performance. Results also suggest that the capability bundle of SCO, EO, and green SCM should be adaptable to the changing business environment.

This research contributes through the combination of the resource-based theory, supported by strategic choice theory, to better understand how managers configure and re-configure valuable green-related capabilities to adapt to the constantly changing business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine managerial perspectives in both buyer and supplier firms implementing environmental initiatives in their supply chains, and explore the impact of environmental initiatives on buyer-supplier relationships.

A qualitative, grounded theory approach is used as the methodological approach to this research, including 15 in-depth interviews with managers from buyer and supplier firms implementing environmental initiatives in their supply chains to gain multiple perspectives of the buyer-supplier relationships.

The results suggest that implementing environmental initiatives within the supply chain changes the buyer-supplier relationship from transactional to collaborative, shifting from a commodity-focused purchase to a more strategic purchase as environmental initiatives are implemented.

Although both buyer and supplier perspectives were considered, matched dyads were not used; researchers should continue to provide a holistic perspective of the phenomenon with dyadic data. Additionally, the use of a qualitative research approach suggests a lack of generalizability of results, and therefore researchers should further test the propositions.

Implementing environmental initiatives within the supply chain may require different approaches to supply management and development for long-term success. Suppliers should recognize that the capability to implement environmental initiatives with their customers is a differentiator. The nuances involved in managing the implementation of environmental initiatives between firms can be better managed by collaboratively developing metrics specifically related to the environment.

Previous research in environmental supply chain management has examined drivers and barriers of implementing environmental initiatives with suppliers, but fails to address the relationship dynamics involved when implementing environmental initiatives between organizations. This research begins to fill that gap.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the mediating factors affecting the relationship between environmental concerns and sustainable behaviors.

The authors survey 467 respondents and use a structural equation modeling approach to assess environmental involvement and willingness to pay more for green products as mediating variables between a multi-dimensional measure of environmental concern and sustainable behaviors.

The findings suggest that environmental involvement and willingness to pay more for green products mediate the relationship between environmental concern and sustainable behaviors. But of the three dimensions of environmental concern, only concern for energy is statistically significant in the model.

The results empirically validate the multi-dimensionality of the environmental concern construct and its relationship with consumers’ sustainable behaviors. Both involvement and willingness to pay more for an environmentally friendly product play an important role in linking environmental concern to actionable behaviors.

To reach green consumers who are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products and ultimately engage in sustainable behaviors, marketers should target those consumers who are most concerned with energy and more involved with the environment.

This paper is the first to study the gap between environmental concern and sustainable behaviors by utilizing involvement and willingness to pay more for an environmentally friendly product as mediators. Results provide critical insight into this often elusive gap. The authors also fill an important gap in the literature by including psychological factors driving consumers’ willingness to pay more for green products.