New Approaches to CSR, Sustainability and Accountability, Volume II

Biodiversity can be a complex subject. However, ignoring the negative impacts that it has been suffering shows that the current mechanisms for identifying environmental aspects and analyses of significance have been flawing and will eventually confront us in the future with situations which, if not irreversible, will be extremely costly to society. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to discuss adjustments to the existing indicators, and/or insertion of new indicators related to the biological diversity in the sustainable building tool: LEED ND “Neighborhood Development”. Initially, biodiversity and ecosystem services are conceptualized. Then, the conceptual basis for the framework of the existing pre indicators, the four environmental aspects that guided the proposed changes and the validation phase with experts are presented: Mirrored Facade, Green Roofs and Walls, Public Lighting and Wind Energy. Given the achieved results, it is believed that the dissemination of new indicators will support Brazil regarding its responsibility as a very important world player in terms of Biodiversity, besides representing a supporting basis for the national entrepreneurs, through a coherent, constructive and sustainable model.

For two decades, the European institutions have recognized the ability of social entrepreneurship to correct social and economic imbalances and achieve objectives of common interest. The European Parliament has defined it as the basis of the European social market model. The EU’s interest in social entrepreneurship stems from its link with several autonomous development policies: social inclusion, employment policy, the social economy and civil society. According to the European Economic and Social Committee in 2012, social entrepreneurship plays an important role in the EU: • 2 million social enterprises/10% of all European enterprises, • produces 10% of Member States’ GDP, • an employer is 11 million or 6% of the employed, • accelerated creation of social enterprises—1 out of 4 new companies are social enterprises. Contribution of social enterprises to key EU objectives in the social field: active inclusion of people out of the labour market; quality services of general interest; social innovation in the context of social change. Social entrepreneurship is a driver for regional development. It occupies market niches in which the state fails to offer enough services and the market fails to make enough profits. Social entrepreneurship encourages the dissemination of good practices at local level by: reinvesting profits in geographic areas where they are created; mobilizing local actors and local resources; creating an entrepreneurial culture; linking activities to local needs/services in a community/; keeping activities at risk of disappearing because they are not profitable/crafts/; creating social capital. Over the last 10 years, social entrepreneurship in Bulgaria has undergone a strong development. Different forms of social entrepreneurship are implemented in practice, and we can already talk about experience in different sectors. This report aims to present the applied business models of social entrepreneurship in agriculture and small businesses in urban environment. The advantages and disadvantages of used business models are presented and analysed. The report presents the effects and impact of these models on the respective communities and for the development of the region.

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to illustrate the connection between corporate governance and (strategic) management and secondly to explore their inter-relationship. Our analysis indicates that although corporate governance and management are two separate fields, their structures/shapes are intersected at the strategic management level. Based on this argument, we develop a conceptual framework to illustrate the dynamic relationship among three pillars: corporate governance, management and strategic management. Our “mapping” approach explains that strategic decisions are shaped under complex, and non-linear processes. This perspective highlights the important need of future studies to apply multimethodologies to capture the contribution of boards in strategic decision making.

In this paper, we aim to examine the effect of health information orientation on attitudes toward using digital health services and explore the mediating role of e-health literacy in this relationship. We also tested the impact of attitudes toward using digital health services on digital health service use intention. We collected data through an online survey method. A total of 520 respondents participated, and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that people who are health information oriented and capable of finding and utilizing e-health information have positive attitudes and intention toward using digital health service. Variables in the model explain 60% of the variance in digital health service use intention. This study confirmed the partial mediating role of e-health literacy on the relationship between health information orientation and attitudes toward using digital health services. Future research is needed to explore whether these relationships are confirmed in a specific health context. Furthermore, comparing the digital health service usage attitudes and intentions of people who have and do not have chronic illnesses can also be insightful. Cross-cultural comparisons may also add to the knowledge related to the adoption of digital health services. We conducted this study during the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey and explored the digital health service use intention partly within the Theory of Reasoned Action framework. We have also tried to contribute to Sustainable Development Goals with our research results.

In order for the company to be able to ensure its continued existence and development, it must constantly make changes, which may be evolutionary or revolutionary, depending on its actual position. Changing culture extends to both approaches and has some specific features in comparison to other methods. The article deals with the hypothesis that changing the culture due to its direct and indirect influence on ensuring the possibility of further existence and development is an integral part of a comprehensive renewal or restructuring of a company. Empirical data from a local survey show a gap between the declared need to change the culture in conditions of endangered further existence and development on the one hand and the actual implementation of these changes in practice on the other.

It is an important necessity to plan and evaluate the workforce, which is a driving force in the country's economy, in terms of quality and quantity, and to generate solutions oriented toward change and development. The efficiency and productivity of the labor market depend on scientific analysis of working conditions, making legislative regulations and executively applying these regulations. Occupational standards are also an important tool in this respect. Occupational standard is defined as the minimal norm indicating the required knowledge, skills, attitude and manner to successfully profess an occupation. In our today’s world what we call informatics society; the countries restructure education and employment systems due to the positive correlation between education and development. Within this restructuring, particularly giving emphasize to occupational standards, occupational training standards, examination and certification systems, which will provide the coordination between education and employment, they endeavor to ensure the institutionalization also by implementing the active participation of government, labor and employers’ organizations and non-governmental organizations. In this system, important concepts and institutions become prominent and need to be clarified. In this study, these prominent concepts are discussed and tried to be defined, and the functions of institutions that are established for occupational standards have been tried to be introduced.

In a world of rising concerns regarding sustainability, social responsibility, and corporate governance, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics become a critical performance indicator for almost all major stakeholders of the companies ranging from shareholders, lenders, and managers to consumers and institutional investors. This chapter aims to contribute to the ESG literature by testing if the ESG disclosure performance affects the profitability and market valuation of the publicly traded airport companies. Based on a sample of 20 airports from 13 countries over the 2007–2017 period, the findings of the ordinary least squares, random-effect, and fixed-effect regressions reveal that higher ESG disclosure scores lead to both higher profitability and market valuation.

Corporate social responsibility reporting is the presentation of economic, environmental and social performance of enterprises in annual reports or in different reports. The corporate social responsibility report enables the business to communicate with stakeholders and is effective in their learning and decision-making processes. In this study, primarily corporate social responsibility reporting is explained theoretically. Subsequently, corporate social responsibility reports of glass manufacturing companies in Istanbul Chamber of Industry 500 and web pages of non-reporting companies were examined according to content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was determined that the companies of SISECAM Group, the global brand of the glass sector, disclosed their economic, social, environmental indicators and policies in both sustainability reports and annual reports and on the official Web site.

Different issues are identified in literature regarding talent management and human capital such as risk management, the need to be innovative, or attractiveness in the labor market in order to develop a competitive advantage. In this research, we mainly wonder why and how listed companies report and disclose information about their talent management programs. Indeed, social performance has become a major issue for Socially Responsible Investors, and other pragmatic shareholders want to understand how companies use their talent in order to create value. Our sample has been built with IIRC examples database composed of 116 reports, in May 2015. We have selected reports signaled for their remarkable disclosures about intangible capitals. A total of 11 listed companies were found. Then, we built a liked-peer sample, with 11 similar listed companies. Our findings highlight that the quality of reports remains disappointing. Most companies fail to document how they manage their human capital, and which practices are actually implemented in order to manage talents. The efficiency, or performance, of such programs is not disclosed, and one can also wonder if they are truly being properly assessed.

The cost of climate change risk should be analyzed not only from an economic perspective but also based on policies formulated, using climate science forecasts, the allocation of rights, and crucial or behavioral assumptions. The discount rate (pure rate of time preference, growth in per capita consumption, and relative risk-aversion), an indicator of the severity of climate change and desirable climate policy-level, is vital in estimating the social cost of carbon. Moreover, changes in temperature, precipitation, increase in sea level, and the sensitivity to emissions affect the vulnerability of the sectors within climate models. This study identifies social discount rate and cost of carbon within key factors of climate change adaptation and focuses on the range of uncertainty since the uncertainty is often skewed, and the damage function is often nonlinear.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the functioning of the Capital Markets Board rating activities and analyze their effects on our country's economy. At the same time, by taking into account the COVID-19 epidemic, which has been on the agenda all over the world obviously, it is aimed to evaluate the processes of rating activities and their effects on the world market, especially on our country. In a way, under the shadow of the pandemic, by taking the Rating Agencies are under the scrutiny, our article has been shaped within the framework of revealing the predicted economic consequences during and after the epidemic period.

The purpose of this research is to discuss the relationship between eight firms-specific characteristics (e.g., firm size, leverage, firm age, audit firm size, profitability, industry type, ownership, and liquidity), and the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in firms is listed in Bahrain Bourse. A checklist method is used to measure the level of CRS, which include: community involvement, employee information, product/service information, and environmental disclosure. The main results reveal that the disclosure level of community involvement is of 54.55%, employees’ information is of 61.90%, product/services information is of 60.95%, and environmental information is of 16.19%. In addition, the regression analysis reports that compliance level of CSR disclosure is positively associated with audit firm size and industry type. On the other hand, the remaining characteristics, such as firm size, profitability, leverage, firm age, ownership, and liquidity are found to be statistically insignificant in their association to the level of CSR disclosure, but they have a positive direction except firm age.