Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Amid Political and Economic Transformation in Europe

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved over time, influenced by political, social, and economic changes, leading to a growing recognition of the importance of addressing social and environmental issues. Many companies now incorporate sustainability and social responsibility into their business strategies, but the role of CSR can vary across regions. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need for businesses to prioritize social and environmental issues. Methodology used secondary data analysis for emphasizing CSR practices of companies and CSR initiatives that proved to be a façade for corporate greenwashing. With this research the author intends to raise awareness over the social and environmental problems that should be seen as a matter of concern for individuals and organizations of all kind. The role of CSR in sustainable development is complex and multifaceted, and ongoing efforts are required to promote responsible business practices. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Technium Social Sciences Journal is the property of Technium Press Constanta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Internet Governance: Social Mentality and Public Emotion Analysis on Online Media during the COVID-19 Epidemic in Mainland China

Based on a systematical discussion of the logical relationship between social mentality as a psychological basis of social actions and institutions and social governance, and the online emotion as the core element of the dynamic tendency of internet-based social mentality to form emotional energy to promote the operation of the internet society, this paper conducts an empirical study on the online social mentality and public sentiment guidance during the COVID-19 epidemic in mainland China. We use more than 1 million Weibo dynamic data of 104 accounts of three different types including official media, self-media, and big V media and conduct emotional calculation and judgment to address our objectives. The results show that the public sentiment presented by Weibo as the carrier is mainly positive, among which the official media play a positive role in guiding emotions, while the role played by big Vs' is limited during the COVID-19 epidemic. There exists different public sentiment stemmed from the regional differences brought by the heterogeneity of social governance, economic and social development beyond the media guidance. The study provides valuable internet governance experience on how the government can guide the public to respond to and deal with the crisis with a positive attitude when major public health emergencies occur in the future. © 2022 IEEE.

Social Resilience Assessment for Urban System: A Case Study of COVID-19 Epidemic

With the surge of deep uncertainties and multi-dimensional impacts of crisis events, social resilience assessment needs to advance the analysis of dynamic influencing process for urban system. To this end, this paper investigates the resilience assessment method of social resilience by using the differences analysis between capacities and demands. A gap analysis-based assessment method for social resilience is developed to quantify the resilience gap and levels, and a systemic resilience analysis framework is proposed to support overall analysis of urban systems. To verify the proposed method, we apply it to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in Shanghai during the period of February to May, 2022. Based on the data analysis of COVID-19-related cases, we compared the capacities and demands in urban medical system of patients transferring, admission and healing procedure. The fluctuations of resilience levels are examined and discussed. In addition, the resilience analysis of social systems and governance capacity in COVID-19 crisis are further carried out, and three-layer measures and procedure optimizations are introduced to build social resilience. The proposed resilience assessment method and systemic resilience management measures have potential implications and applications in the practical epidemic prevention and control. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Supply forecasting and profiling of urban supermarket chains based on tensor quantization exponential regression for social governance.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the accurate forecasting and profiling of the supply of fresh commodities in urban supermarket chains may help the city government make better economic decisions, support activities of daily living, and optimize transportation to support social governance. In urban supermarket chains, the large variety of fresh commodities and the short shelf life of fresh commodities lead to the poor performance of the traditional fresh commodity supply forecasting algorithm. Methods: Unlike the classic method of forecasting a single type of fresh commodity, we proposed a third-order exponential regression algorithm incorporating the block Hankle tensor. First, a multi-way delay embedding transform was used to fuse multiple fresh commodities sales to a Hankle tensor, for aggregating the correlation and mutual information of the whole category of fresh commodities. Second, high-order orthogonal iterations were performed for tensor decomposition, which effectively extracted the high-dimensional features of multiple related fresh commodities sales time series. Finally, a tensor quantization third-order exponential regression algorithm was employed to simultaneously predict the sales of multiple correlated fresh produce items. Results: The experiment result showed that the provided tensor quantization exponential regression method reduced the normalized root mean square error by 24% and the symmetric mean absolute percentage error by 22%, compared with the state-of-the-art approaches.

Emerging research trends of total quality management in the COVID-19 pandemic: a dynamic evolution analysis

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages, the changing trends and emerging areas of total quality management (TQM) research before and after the COVID-19 pandemic are spotlighted, while the links between TQM and environmental social governance (ESG) are deeply discussed in this study. To explore the impact of the pandemic on TQM research, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis is conducted by collecting 1465 pre-pandemic and 76 post-pandemic publications from the WoS database. Further, the fundamental characteristics, conceptual structure and intellectual and social structure of TQM research are statistically analysed through bibliometric tools. Consequently, this article methodically sorts out the evolution, new research areas, primary sources, national collaboration networks and influential themes within an intricate and large TQM research system. The linkages between ESG and TQM are explored by focussing on some emerging topics after the outbreak such as sustainability and environmental management, which advances the innovative attempt towards the goal of cooperating sustainability. Finally, we offer some enlightening new perspectives on economic construction and social life during the pandemic to better cope with the negative effects of the pandemic.

Are ESG-committed hotels financially resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic? An autoregressive jump intensity trend model.

Given that the United Nations views environmental, social, and governance (ESG) as a practical framework for anchoring responsible corporate behavior to achieve its sustainable development goals, this study constructs an autoregressive jump intensity trend (ARJI-trend) model to determine if ESG can improve future resilience and create crisis-resilient value for chained-brand hotel corporations from the effects of COVID-19. The findings indicate that the ARJI-trend model indeed captures both the permanent and transitory components of the hotel corporation's ESG performance related to stock return dynamics. When ESG rating is taken into account, the following conclusions emerge: 1) the transitory component of time-varying return variance decreases but the permanent component does not; 2) the hotel corporation portfolios with a lower transitory component experiences a higher return, implying that the hotel corporations with a higher ESG rating appear to be more defensiveness; and 3) with proper asset reallocation, a portfolio centered on strong ESG-conscious hotel corporations is a safe-haven asset during market turmoil.

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Government Bond Yields

The COVID-19 pandemic is a real shock to society and business and financial markets. The government bond market is an essential part of financial markets, especially in difficult times, because it is a source of government funding. The majority of existing ESG studies report positive impacts on corporate financial performance regarding environmental, social, and governance. Thus, understanding governments’ financial practices and their relevant ESG implications is insufficient. This research aims to value the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different government bond curve sectors. We try to identify the reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in the government bond market and analyze separate tenors of government bond yields in different regions. We have chosen Germany and the United States government bond yields of 10, 5, and 3 years tenor for the analysis. As independent variables, we have chosen daily cases of COVID-19 and daily deaths from COVID-19 at the country and global levels. We used daily data from 02 January 2020–19 March 2021, and divided this period into three stages depending on the COVID-19 pandemic data. We employed the methods of correlation-regression analysis (ordinary least squares and least squares with breakpoints) and VAR-based impulse response functions to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on government bond yields both in the long and short run. Our analysis revealed the impact of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic on government bond yields differs depending on the country and the assessment period. The short-term responses vary in direction, strength, and duration;the long-term response of Germany’s yields appeared to be more negative (indicating the decrease of the yields), while the response of the United States yields appeared to be more positive (i.e., increase of yields). Copyright © 2022 Zhou, Teresienė, Keliuotytė-Staniulėnienė, Kanapickiene, Dong and Kaab Omeir.

Understanding how ESG-focused airlines reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on stock returns.

Incorporating environmental-social-governance (ESG) into a company's operations is an innovation strategy for contemporary businesses and a countermeasure for airline companies under COVID-19's influence. This research employs an autoregressive jump intensity trend (ARJI-trend) model to analyze the effects of COVID-19 and ESG ratings on the stock performance of the U.S. airline industry. We find that the ARJI-trend model captures the short- and long-run impacts of COVID-19 and ESG on stock return dynamics. Moreover, short-run stock return volatility converges to the original equilibrium level faster when a company has a higher ESG score, implying that promoting ESG does offer a defense mechanism to airline companies and that ESG performance is suitable for integration into business operational goals. The results lay the groundwork for understanding how an ESG focus might help airline companies to suffer less of an economic/financial impact during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction and Overview

This overview introduces the general context within which the topics of the following chapters may be viewed. Sustainable development is broadly defined, embracing natural capital and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, especially in the light of the COVID 19 pandemic. Sino-American rivalry, manifested also in competitive infrastructure projects, is seen as impacting on sustainable development in Asia and the initiatives of the two countries are compared. The role of economic integration in ASEAN, particularly relating to digital transformation, is assessed. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

What Breeds Conspiracy Theories in COVID-19? The Role of Risk Perception in the Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy.

Conspiracy theories often emerge during public health crises, and can provide some explanation for the causes behind the crises. However, the prevalence of conspiracy theories also poses a serious threat to public health order and hinders the implementation of disease prevention and control measures. No studies have examined the role of multiple risk perceptions in the formation of beliefs in conspiracy theories from a cognitive perspective in the context of the epidemic. In this cross-sectional study, participants filled in an online survey in order to investigate the relationship between epidemic severity and beliefs in conspiracy theories and the mediating role of risk perception in this relationship. The results showed that COVID-19 epidemic severity positively predicted beliefs in both in- and out-group conspiracy theories. Risk perception mediated the positive relationship between COVID-19 epidemic severity and belief in in-group conspiracy theories. These results suggest that in a major public health crisis event: (1) residents at the epicenter may be more prone to believing in both in- and out-group conspiracy theories; and (2) beliefs in in- and out-group conspiracy theories may have different psychological mechanisms. Therefore, conspiracy theories about public health incidents, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, should be classified and treated by policy stakeholders.

Intelligent System for Distributed Social Governance Based on Big Data

In recent years, promoting the synergy and intelligence of social governance, and improving the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance and sharing are important development directions for the country. As a production factor, data plays an increasingly critical role in social governance. How to realize the secure query, collaborative management, and intelligent analysis of multi-party massive data is the key issue to improve the effectiveness of social governance. In major public events such as the prevention and control of the COVID-19, distributed social governance faces low computing efficiency, poor multi-party credible coordination, and difficult decision-making for complex tasks. In response to the above challenges, this study proposes on big data based distributed social governance intelligent system based on secure multi-party computing, blockchain technology, and precise intelligence theory. The proposed system can support various applications of social governance that provide decision-making support for the improvement of social governance in the new era. © Copyright 2022, Institute of Software, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

The research on propagation modeling and governance strategies of online rumors based on behavior–attitude

Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to achieve effective governance of online rumors through the proposed rumor propagation model and immunization strategy.Design/methodology/approach>The paper leverages the agent-based modeling (ABM) method to model individuals from two aspects, behavior and attitude. Based on the analysis and research of online data, we propose a rumor propagation model, namely the Untouched view transmit removed-Susceptible hesitate agree disagree (Unite-Shad), and devise an immunization strategy, namely the Gravity Immunization Strategy (GIS). A graph-based framework, namely Pregel, is used to carry out the rumor propagation simulation experiments. Through the experiments, the rationality of the Unite-Shad and the effectiveness of the GIS are verified.Findings>The study discovers that the inconsistency between human behaviors and attitudes in rumor propagation can be explained by the Unite-shad model. Besides, the GIS, which shows better performance in small-world networks than in scale-free networks, can effectively suppress rumor propagation in the early stage.Research limitations/implications>This paper provides an effective immunization strategy for rumor governance. Specifically, the Unite-Shad model reveals the mechanism of rumor propagation, and the GIS provides an effective governance method for selecting immune nodes.Originality/value>The inconsistency of human behaviors and attitudes in real scenes is modeled in the Unite-Shad model. Combined with the model, the definition of diffusion domain is proposed and a novel immunization strategy, namely GIS, is designed, which is significant for the social governance of rumor propagation.

Innovative financing of the sustainable development goals in the countries of the Western Balkans.

BACKGROUND: This paper is related to the current stage of development in the Western Balkans. Despite becoming growing instruments to finance sustainable green development, debt swaps and social or sustainability bonds are relative novelties in this region. At the same time, the development needs are huge, especially in the light of the COVID-19 aftermath. RESULTS: The review of both historic financial instruments, such as the debt for nature swaps, and more recent ones, such as sustainability bonds in its variations, highlight the potential for use in developing countries. The relatively recent case from Montenegro and the recent issuance of the green bond in Serbia showcase the possibilities. The focus of this paper is an analysis of the public debt position of Western Balkan countries. The growing level of public debt over the past decade points to a lack of adequate interventions and a relatively imminent need for fiscal consolidation. The research suggests that environmental, social, governance/sustainability-linked bonds and debt-for-climate swap investments as innovative financial instruments that hold promise in leveraging additional finance to support the sustainability goals of the six countries of the Western Balkans. This influx of capital would be particularly advantageous, given their needs relative to EU accession and their economic and structural challenges. The recommendations for policymakers are derived based on the history and features of green bonds as well as debt-for-nature swaps and their diverse underlying mechanisms which are adaptable to the respective countries. CONCLUSIONS: The related countries would benefit from exploring more innovative approaches to finance sustainable societies. In close cooperation with the EU and taking the European Green Deal into consideration, it is recommended that the six countries of the Western Balkans design financing mechanisms that will bring increased transparency to the different policies and more accountability for their implementation. Applying the recommended modality may help keep the problem of the public debt at bay, while additional funds may support implementation of structural reforms.

Sustainability and Society: Do Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors Matter for Foreign Direct Investment?

Sustainable investing allocates investments based on environmental, social and governance factors (ESG). The societal value of sustainable investment is becoming progressively relevant as investors are increasingly recognizing the importance of investing in companies that seek to combat climate change, environmental destruction, while promoting corporate responsibility. Environmental policy and sustainable growth initiatives at a country-level are also being influenced by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Situated within the current trend of declining foreign direct investment flows (FDI), our study examines the role of ESG factors in attracting FDI and enabling progress toward SDGs. We econometrically examine the linkages between ESG and FDI inflows for a sample of 161 counties. We also focus on low- and middle-income emerging economies and low- and middle-income commodity exporters as these countries face unique challenges of mobilizing financing to achieve SDGs and generating sustainable economic growth. Results suggest that FDI inflows to the full sample of countries are positively attracted by good governance in a destination country. We observe that good scores on HDI deters FDI, that higher FDI flows are associated with higher levels of carbon emissions in the case of emerging markets. Sustainability reporting attracts FDI to commodity exporting countries. The study provides possibilities for future research in a post-pandemic future.