• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.31-43
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• 2018

Purpose - We examine how a Korean retail firm's social responsibility is related to its financial performances. The traditional view of corporation expects a negative relationship, while the stakeholder theory expects a positive one. Research design, data, and methodology - We adopt the ESG score, published by Korean Corporate Governance Service to measure the level of socially responsible activity for the Korean retail firms. The ordinary least square method is adopted to investigate this relationship. The publicly traded retail firms are examined from 2011 to 2016. Results - We find that the total ESG score is negatively related to ROE but shows no statistically significant relationship with ROA and Tobin's Q value. However, a firm's environmental score is negatively related with both of ROE and ROA. Its social score is no conclusive relationship with the performance measures. The governance score is negatively related to the value of Tobin's Q. Conclusions - This paper generally supports the traditional view of corporate theory, especially in terms of ROE. This evidence is not well aligned with the existing study for Korean corporations generally documenting positive relationships. We find almost no empirical evidence supporting the stakeholder theory of corporation in the Korean retail industry.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.132-152
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• 2005

Today's society requires companies to act more and more effectively for the general good, by respecting human rights and the environment. Innovative and enlightened companies try to meet this need through the adoption of several initiatives. Accordingly, the International Standard Organisation is now working on attempts to unify these initiatives and to formulate an internationally recognised standard, providing guidance to companies on social responsibility. Currently the SA8000 international standard is the most often used tool-based on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) philosophy - which guarantees the respect of fundamental workers' rights. Since 2003, Italy holds the world record for its number of SA8000 certified companies. This paper discusses the findings of a two-stage survey of the Italian SA8000 certified companies carried out over the last two years. The focus of the survey is on both reasons and effects of the implementation of SA8000 standard. In the first stage the rate of response was very high while in the second stage it was satisfactory. The results provide a clear picture of the companies and their degree of achievement and awareness of the fundamental principles of human resource management. A section of the survey deals with some issues related to the Public Sector.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.851-861
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• 2021

The main objective of this study is to examine the government ownership effect on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR). Government ownership is assumed to affect the CSR either directly or indirectly. That is by moderating the association between corporate governance and CSR. Publicly listed companies on the UAE capital markets (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) from 2010-2013 constituted the study sample. Panel data regression analyses and random effect model is used to examine the effects of board size, board independence, and audit committee characteristics on CSR. Government ownership is used as a moderator variable. The result showed that the existence of government ownership has a moderator effect on the association between corporate governance mechanisms and the CSR. Precisely, the research revealed that the audit committee characteristics become more effective in improving the firm's CSR when the government owns shares in the organization. The main contribution of this study is to examine how firm ownership structure influences good corporate governance and CSR in the UAE. The study contributes to the CSR literature by merging between the existence of governmental ownership and the power to enforce the implementation of corporate governance in an emerging country.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.189-199
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• 2021

This study attempts to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and earnings management practices in the context of Saudi Arabia after mandatory IFRS adoption. It is carried out on an unbalanced panel of 277 observations over the period 2017-2019. For this purpose, CSR disclosure is measured by Bloomberg ESG scores, while the residuals from the modified Jones model are considered for earnings management. As control variables, we have retained the firm performance, market-to-book ratio, firm size, financial leverage, board independence, ownership concentration, managerial ownership, and lagged discretionary accruals. Using the system GMM estimator in the dynamic panel, the results show a positive association between CSR disclosure and earnings management practices, thus supporting the perspective of agency theory. Managers engage in socially responsible activities beforehand to conceal their wrongdoing and convince stakeholders that the organization is transparent. They probably use ethical codes as a tool to achieve their own goals rather than the firm's goals. Our contribution is the use of recent data (2017-2019) taking into account the mandatory adoption of IFRS in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, to our knowledge, this study is the first to address CSR disclosure and earnings management practices using GMM system estimates.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.297-308
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• 2020

This study exemines the roles of corporate social activity (CSR) and executive compensation structure on the pricing of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) with special focus on the role of CSR in reducing the level of information asymmetry between managers and future shareholders of issuing firms through SEOs. This study also investigates the interaction between executive compensation structure and CSR on the discounting of SEOs. We use a sample of 2,102 seasoned equity offerings of U.S. firms with CSR scores from 1995 to 2015 in our OLS fixed effect regression analysis. The results show that issuing firms with high CSR are more likely to expericence a lower degree of the SEO discount. The results also document a positive association between CSR and a high proportion of equity-based compensation of issuing firms' executives. The findings of this paper confirm that CSR attenuates the impact of information asymmetry and the pre-SEO price uncertainty on the pricing of the offers and hence the SEO discount. Furthermore, CSR reinforces the impact of executive firm-related wealth on the discounting of seasoned equity offerings. It appears that firm-related wealth motivates managers to actively engage in reducing information asymmetry activities before SEOs, thereby decreasing the SEO discount.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.294-302
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• 2022

The article explores the prospects and trends for the transformation of some basic concepts of law associated with the development of artificial intelligence systems and the problems of liability for harm caused by a robot. The prospects, conditions and consequences of vesting robots with partial (quasi) or full legal personality are explored. This process should lead to a revision of the concepts of will, subjective side and legal responsibility in the direction of their greater universalization. The legally significant signs of will, legal personality, legal liability in relation to robots, artificial intelligence systems and other complex automated information systems are clarified. The author identifies the following essential factors of legal qualification of an act committed by a robot: goals, reasons for setting goals, connections between the planned result and the action taken, the actual result, the reasons for the difference between the actual result and the planned one. The article pays special attention to the preventive function of legal liability, which, when applied to robot subjects, can be expressed in the following basic procedures. 1. Accounting for legal requirements in the behavior of the robot. 2. Timely adaptation of the robot to changes in legislation and other regulatory legal acts that affect its behavior. 3. Accounting for incidents. 4. Destruction of a series of robots whose actions lead to unacceptable consequences.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.21-31
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• 2020

Environmental pollution and climate change in Vietnam are now becoming a major concern. This situation is increasing the pressure on the companies to improve their social responsibility in production and business activities and disclose the environmental information to meet the requirements of stakeholders. This study investigates the internal and external factors of the company that affects the environmental information disclosure of listed companies on the Vietnam stock market as business sector, firm size, corporate manager perceptions, profitability, financial leverage, community pressure, pressures from stakeholders, government pressure influencing environmental information disclosure. Analytical data collected through the survey of 120 listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE). By testing Cronbach's Alpha, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and logistic regression analysis, the results of the study show that the level of environmental information disclosure of listed companies on the stock market in Vietnam depends heavily on government regulations, followed by the pressure from stakeholders, community pressure, views of business managers, companies size, business sector, and particularly profitability and financial leverage factors that have a negative relationship with environmental information disclosure.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.43-50
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• 2020

Disclosure level in interim financial reporting is important for information users to make business decisions. This has received much attention from the information users. The article is aimed at determining the factors of financial ratios, which impact on the disclosure level in interim financial reporting. The authors use the ordinary least squares to test. The sample consists of 418 VN100 over a 6-year period from 2014 to 2019. The results show that there are four factors that positively impact on the disclosure level in interim financial reporting: Enterprise size (SIZE); Liquidity (LIQI); Sales growth (GROW) and Profitability (ROE). The article proposes some policy recommendations to contribute to improving disclosure level in interim financial reporting. Accordingly, State Securities Commission of Vietnam should strengthen the regular inspection of VN100's disclosure level in interim financial reporting and also should enforce strict sanctions or may consider delisting in cases of listed enterprises with incomplete disclosure. The managers of VN100 need to raise the sense of responsibility of information providers to ensure adequate information in interim financial reporting. Investors should also pay attention to the financial ratios of VN100 such as firm size, return-on-equity, liquidity, and sales growth to get useful information and ensure sound business decisions.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.281-300
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• 2023

Recently, the call for better accountability and social responsibility from corporations has been regularly voiced, both in the academic literature and in public discussions. This poses a challenge to the existing literature in understanding consumption behaviors to direct them toward sustainable development. This study investigates the purchase intention of Gen Z consumers in Vietnam with green packaging products. Data were collected from 914 respondents by online questionnaire and then analyzed using OLS. The results suggest the significant influence of customers' income and packaging in driving customers' intention to use environmentally-friendly products. Specifically, consumers in a higher income class participate more actively in green purchases. However, problems associated with inadequate packaging are also illustrated, resulting in the poor perception of green messages and poor practice of ecological actions. Besides, subjective norms and green trust are found to be adversely related to green consumer intention. In addition, gender disparity in green behavior is reported, where female consumers show a higher tendency to ecological consumption than their male counterparts. Other demographic factors are also included in the model as control variables, which are age, education, price, environmental literacy, environmental concern, and psychological awareness, but they do not have a significant impact on green purchase intention.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.71-85
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• 2021

Purpose - Prior studies have found that the characteristics of managers, corporate governance structure, corporate social responsibility and so on affect firm value. This study explores whether managerial overconfidence affects firm value through empirical analysis. Design/methodology/approach - Korean-listed non-financial companies from 2011 - 2017 are collected as the research sample. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q, and managerial overconfidence is measured using a composite index encompassing various financial data. OLS and fixed effect model are used to investigate the relationship between managerial overconfidence and firm value. Findings - Managerial overconfidence is positively associated with firm value. Additional analysis reveals the following: (1) In the three subsamples of large, backbone, and small- and medium-sized enterprises, managerial overconfidence is beneficial to firm values. (2) Managerial overconfidence increases firm value on the t+1 year. Research implications or Originality - We use a comprehensive index with higher trust and feasibility to measure manager overconfidence and empirically confirm that managerial overconfidence can become a factor to improve firm value. Thus, it is necessary for shareholders to adopt an objective and neutral attitude and reasonably understand the psychological characteristics of managers when selecting CEOs. In addition, it is necessary to continue to optimize the measurement method of managerial overconfidence.