With the expansion of business activities around the world and the importance of sustainability in various fields, corporate sustainability has become a strategic imperative for management plans and investment decision. Therefore, this study focuses on examining the contribution of sustainability variables, i.e., economic, social, and environmental (ESG), to corporates profitability at 5936 companies distributed globally in an industry sectors using the data mining methods. The data extracted from Thomson Reuters database (ASSET4 ESG) for the period of 2002-2017 was used for modelling. Different algorithms, such as decision tree, support vector machine, and Na & iuml;ve Bayes, were used for modelling. Since the current study uses a multi-class classification, the Kappa criterion was used to assess the quality of the classification algorithm. The results of the study confirmed that none of the sustainability dimensions had a negative impact on corporate profitability.

Business Sustainability and ESG Sustainability are taking centre-stage in the global competitive business environment and academia. Business sustainability has advanced from branding and greenwashing to strategic imperative with its integration into corporate culture, business models, corporate governance, and managerial decisions in recent years. Business sustainability focuses on financial activities that generate long-term economic sustainability performance (ESP) to create shareholder value as well as non-financial activities that result in the achievement of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability performance to protect interests of all stakeholders. Our educational responsibility is to train the most competent and ethical future business leaders and accountants with cutting-edge, life-long learning, and relevant education including sustainability topics. Businesses worldwide have adopted the concept of profit-with-purpose to create long-term shared value for their stakeholders from shareholders to customers, employees, suppliers, society, and the environment. The European (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has been implemented since January 2023 and the associated EU Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) were adopted by the European Commission on 31 July 2023. The CSRD and ESRS have established detailed sustainability reporting requirements that apply to many EU and non-EU companies and have substantially increased the scope of their sustainability reporting and assurance worldwide. Recent sustainability standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (S1 and S2) provide guidelines for global business organizations to better identify, measure and report ESG performance. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to issue its final rules on climate change disclosure in December 2023.

Utilizing an international setting consisting of 21,039 observations from 43 countries during the years from 2010 to 2019, spanning the period between the global financial and health crises, we first reveal that the two broad legal traditions of the country shape the positive connection between CSR performance and investment efficiency. We find a stronger positive linkage for companies operating under a civil law regime. Our findings also imply that U.S. firms buck the trend among English common law firms and have probably shifted their orientation to a more balanced consideration of stakeholders. Plus, we discover that legal origins are a stronger predictor of CSR perception by showing that stakeholders of the Scandinavian civil law system are more responsive to CSR activities than those in the German, French, and socialist civil law countries. Results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.

Using an international setting consisting of 5410 corporations domiciled in 24 countries, we test the insurance-like effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the era of the pandemic and confirm that CSR performance increases socially responsible companies’ resilience against the adverse effects of the crisis. Comparing stakeholders' responses to CSR activities during the pandemic and normal periods, we observe that the link between CSR performance and firm value is stronger during the crisis period. We also realize that the social aspect of CSR performance is the main driver for the mentioned effects. Finally, comparing the resilience of highly committed socially responsible companies with those with moderate and very low CSR ratings, we observe that best-in-class companies enjoy the greatest buffering effects, implying that the insurance-like effect of CSR performance is non-linear against systematic crises. Findings are robust to ceremonial CSR activities, extreme values of market-based instruments, endogeneity concern, etc. 

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how integrated reporting quality (IRQ), as well as comprehensive disclosure score (CDS) (i.e. incorporating integrated and sustainable reporting quality), impacts value creation differently between companies operating under mandatory versus voluntary adoption of these reporting frameworks. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprises 1,195 firm-year observations (international data set) from 2018 to 2022, which are divided into groups based on mandatory vs voluntary adoption of the international integrated reporting framework (IIRF) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). Furthermore, regression analysis is used in the analyses. Findings: The findings revealed a significant and positive relationship between IRQ and value creation on a global scale. In addition, unlike voluntary adoption of the IIRF, mandatory adoption of it showed a significant and positive relationship between IRQ and value creation. Furthermore, an increase in the CDS had a greater impact on value creation compared to IRQ. Finally, in contrast to companies with voluntary adoption of both IIRF and SASB, companies with mandatory adoption of them exhibited a significant and positive relationship between these reports and value creation. Practical implications: The findings have practical implications for various stakeholders. First, by enhancing the awareness and understanding of integrated reporting and sustainability reporting among users, these results can facilitate more informed economic decision-making and enable a more accurate assessment of a company's potential for value creation. Second, these findings can contribute to the development of more effective and tailored reporting guidelines that align with the nuances of value creation dynamics in different contexts. Ultimately, this research can lead to improvements in reporting practices and regulatory frameworks, benefiting both companies and their stakeholders. Social implications: The study's social implications are significant as it offers insights into the global debate surrounding the adoption of the IIRF and the objectives of the merger involving the Value Reporting Foundation and the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. The findings provide a concrete basis for evaluating the value of adopting the IIRF and inform discussions on the future of reporting standards and practices. Originality/value: Furthermore, it stands as one of the pioneering endeavors to investigate the value creation aspects of CDS. These unique aspects make a substantive contribution by expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the realm of corporate reporting and financial implications, offering novel insights and opportunities for further research in this crucial domain.

This paper aims to analyze the moderating role of debt maturity and the mediating role of information asymmetry in the relationship between financial leverage and investment efficiency and to compare the results between firms domiciled in emerging and those headquartered in developed countries. Using two proxies for investment efficiency, the results showed that debt maturity moderates the association between financial leverage and investment efficiency at both levels of developed and emerging countries. This paper also confirmed that information asymmetry carries the influence of financial leverage to investment efficiency only for those enterprises headquartered in emerging countries.

In recent years, the strategic selection of the most suitable supplier within the supply chain has garnered increasing attention. Incorporating vital criteria like sustainable development further complicates this decision-making process. Companies and manufacturing facilities recognize the pivotal role of suppliers in their overall success and aim for mutually advantageous partnerships. Establishing long-term relationships with suppliers can yield benefits for both parties. However, supplier selection is intricate, often transpiring within an environment of limited information. Consequently, evaluating and selecting organizational suppliers necessitate methodologies yielding more dependable and pragmatic results due to the uncertainties inherent in expert judgments. This study introduces Supplier Life Cycle Value (SLV) criteria for extended partnerships with suppliers and sustainability metrics for selecting “industrial equipment suppliers”. The Hierarchical Best-Worst Method (HBWM) is then applied to determine Sustainable Supplier Life Value (SSLV) criteria weights. Subsequently, employing the PROMETHEE-GAIA approach, suppliers are systematically ranked and comprehensively analyzed. To account for the inherent uncertainty in expert judgments, this study incorporates fuzzy numbers enriched with probability and reliability parameters (Z-Numbers) by introducing novel verbal spectra for supplier evaluation. This facilitates more effective decision making in supplier management. The findings underscore the significance of considering the supplier’s longevity beyond economic metrics, emphasizing the importance of sustained supplier participation. Moreover, the varying outcomes across definite and fuzzy scenarios, accounting for reliability (Z-Numbers), underscore the impact of data uncertainty on decision making. Given that fuzzy numbers incorporating reliability (Z-Numbers) encompass the confidence probability within the unclear number, they offer a more robust and realistic representation of real-world scenarios.

This paper aims to examine the views of managers, accountants, and auditors on the impact of innovation and information technology on financial resilience, and answers the question of whether in today's businesses, which are rapidly changing and evolving and where events are unpredicted, organizations can increase their economic resilience through innovation and information technology. The research population was managers, accountants, and auditors of small and medium-sized companies in Razavi Khorasan in 2024, and the study was conducted with a questionnaire in both paper and electronic forms through in-person visits to the companies under research, where 357 auditors and 371 accountants and managers completed the questionnaire. The findings show that the innovation of products and services and the expansion of information technology increase the financial resilience of organizations. It is suggested that organizations increase the innovation of products and services and use information technology to eliminate and take effective action in dealing with possible risks. The findings suggest exciting facts about the effect of advanced digital space on financial resilience in organizations active in Iran's economy, as well as possible damages in this field that cause delays in digitalization and, as a result, the economic resilience of organizations.

The current study has four main objectives. First, it aims to investigate the effect of the relationship between information technology (IT) dimensions (customer relationship management, knowledge management, and human resource management) and innovative practices on organizational agility in small and medium-size companies (SMEs). Second, it seeks to measure the relationship between IT components and innovative performance. Third, it examines the impact of innovative performance on organizational agility. Fourth it explores the mediating role of innovative performance in the relationship between IT and organizational agility. These objectives provide a clear roadmap for the research and guide the analysis and interpretation of the findings. This paper’s statistical population was composed of senior managers in SMEs in Khorsaran Razavi, Iran. The data were collected using standard questionnaires, 172 which were received in 2023 and analyzed using SPSS version 25 and SmartPLS version 4 software. The results demonstrate that using customer relationships, human resources, and knowledge management as three dimensions of IT and innovative performance can enhance organizational agility. Moreover, innovative performance plays a crucial role as a mediator, strengthening the impact of information IT dimensions on organizational agility. These findings underscore the practical relevance for companies operating in a dynamic economic environment. Special attention to organizational agility and practical factors will increase flexibility, speed of response, etc., and, ultimately, companies’ success in this tense economic environment. The innovation of this research is that the three dimensions of IT, including evaluating customer relationship management, human resource management, and knowledge management, is a growing research field in organizational agility. Therefore, this research is vital in empowering SMEs to increase agility. By evaluating the effect of the four variables of knowledge management, customer relationship management, human resource management, and innovative performance on organizational agility in SMEs, on the one hand, this research expands the theoretical literature and, on the other hand, helps such companies.

Purpose

Considering the standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this study aims to examine whether the link between material sustainability and financial performance depends on the extent to which the company is oriented toward stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the predictions, 13,942 firm-year observations from 43 different countries are used, covering the period from 2010 to 2019. Using a hand-mapping approach to match the indicators suggested by the SASB with those of the ASSET4, the authors realize that there are 170 material sustainability indicators among 466 indicators of the ASSET4. The authors use three different methods to verify if the materiality matters, including the alphas obtained from the Fama and French factor models, comparing the average abnormal returns of the portfolios and the bootstrapped Cramer technique.

Findings

The findings show that companies investing in material sustainability activities perform better than those investing in immaterial activities. Also, consistent with the theoretical foundations, the authors find that the effect of investing in material sustainability activities is more pronounced in stakeholder-oriented countries than that in shareholder-oriented countries. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.

Research limitations/implications

Owing to COVID-19 in late 2019, data from 2020 to 2022 have not been used to obtain reliable results.Practical implicationsThe results obtained in the current research provide valuable guidance for investors to make investments considering the degree of materiality of sustainability activities in different industries. It also helps managers to increase the company’s financial performance, make efficient decisions related to investment in sustainability activities and find investment strategies on the material sustainability issues in their industries.

Social implications

This study provides a clearer understanding of investment in sustainability activities in different industries by separating material and immaterial sustainability activities in stakeholder and shareholder-oriented countries, and the results obtained can change the perspective of investors and company managers regarding investing in such activities in different countries. Investing in more materiality sustainability activities than the immateriality dimension can be new opportunities for companies to achieve predetermined goals, help retain and attract business partners or be a source of innovation for new product lines or services. Internal morale and employee engagement may increase while increasing productivity and firm performance. This discussion opens the way for future research.

Originality/value

This study provides insight into the effect of investing in material and immaterial sustainability activities in different industries on the company’s performance in shareholder and stakeholder-oriented countries.