Water-related sustainability reporting practices amongst South African mining and non-mining corporations

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting plays a key role in management control, particularly in light of the increased demand for non-financial reporting after the financial crisis of 2008–2009. This literature review evaluates 47 empirical studies that concentrate on the influence of several board composition variables on the quantity and quality of CSR reporting. The author briefly introduces the research framework that underpins current empirical studies in this field. This is followed by a discussion of the main variables of board composition: (1) committees (audit and CSR committees), (2) board independence, (3) board expertise, (4) CEO duality, (5) board diversity (gender and foreign diversity), (6) board activity, and (7) board size. The author, then, summarizes the key findings, discusses the limitations of the existing research and offers useful recommendations for researchers, firm practice and regulators.

In the current conditions of the Ukrainian economy, which is characterized by crisis phenomena and frequent changes in legislation, the insurance organizations are facing a number of difficulties in maintaining their financial sustainability. Moreover, these processes take place under the increased requirements for solvency of insurers. However, a significant part of domestic insurance companies is financially unstable, which is conditioned not only by the lack of funds, but also by the low level of management. This situation hinders the further development of the insurance market in Ukraine and has a negative impact on all areas of the domestic financial system and prevents it from successful integration into the European financial field. In order to address this problem, it is necessary to distinguish the key groups of risks that affect the financial sustainability of insurance organizations, among which there are the following: insurance, strategic, market risk, risk of inefficient capital structure, risk of limiting the insurance company’s liquidity, tax risk, investment risk, operational risk, the risk of ineffective organizational structure of the enterprise, and information risk. It should be noted that under conditions of changing environment, the impact of these risks only increases, and therefore the task of minimizing the impact of these risks on the activities of insurance companies is highly important. Accordingly, the authors of the article proposed a four-stage strategy to manage the financial sustainability of the insurance company, the purpose of which is to identify the risks of limiting the insurer’s financial sustainability, their qualitative and quantitative assessment, as well as the development and implementation of appropriate measures to minimize and eliminate unacceptable consequences.

This study focused on corporate governance and performance of selected Nigerian multinational firms from 2012 to 2016. Specifically, the study focused on the effect of board size, activism and committee activism on return on asset and firm growth rate. Secondary data collected from four multinational firms were analyzed via static panel estimation techniques. While board size and board activism exerted significant negative impact on return on asset, committee activism exerted insignificant impact. The results of the study further showed that board size and board activism exert insignificant negative impact on firm’s growth rate, while committee activism insignificantly spurs firm’s growth rate. Decisively, discoveries from this study reflect that corporate governance has significant negative impact on return on asset, but has insignificant influence on the growth rate of Nigerian multinational firms. Based on these findings, the authors recommended that corporate governance dynamics in firms world over should be reconsidered, such that it gives credence to more than just numbers of persons or meetings held, but the main reasons and deliberations in such meetings. It was also recommended that excessive increase in magnitude or frequency of meetings held by board of directors cum committee should be avoided.