Are green and healthy building labels counterproductive in emerging markets? An examination of office rental contracts in India
Anirban Banerjee, Prashant Das, Franz Fuerst
Journal of Cleaner Production, May 2024
Financial prudence compels businesses to improve their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance when the marginal benefits, pecuniary or non-pecuniary, exceed the marginal costs. For many firms, renting green offices is a feasible ESG activity which may increase their willingness to pay higher rents. Analyzing over 17,000 green rental contracts in India between 2010 and 2022, we find that rents in green-labeled assets and those with health certification command significant premiums between 4 and 21%. However, green rents increased much faster compared to their non-green counterparts, and the propensity to rent green varies significantly across industry segments. We further examine how the market for green offices evolved after a mandatory ESG Disclosure Requirement was enacted in India in 2021. We find that suppliers (landlords) benefited from the regulation by disproportionately increasing rental rates. Existing tenants and foreign firms ended up paying higher rental prices while most other firms, including the assumed target groups of the new policy, redirected their green commitment away from green buildings. Although the policy may yield more positive results in the longer run, a reduced propensity to rent green offices is the opposite of what the ESG Disclosure Requirement tried to achieve.
Plural form business strategy and financial reporting quality in hospitality firms
Cédric Poretti, Tiphaine Jérôme, Prashant Das
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, June 2024
This paper analyzes how the plural form of business strategy (i.e., simultaneously pursuing a fee-oriented and an equity-based strategy) impacts financial reporting quality of international hospitality firms. Drawing on the agency theory perspective, we analyze a sample of global hospitality companies over 2010–2019 using OLS, entropy balancing, and Heckman two-stage estimations. Our results suggest that greater use of the plural form is positively associated with higher earnings management (i.e., lower financial reporting quality). The plural form induces financial reporting complexity, which increases the likelihood of earnings management. However, the presence of large shareholders, aiming at reducing earnings management practices for reputation purposes, offsets this effect. This study identifies a specific feature of the hospitality industry, namely the pursuit of the plural form business strategy, as triggering more complexity, which results in detrimental lower reporting quality for investors.
Toward the role of organizational culture in data-driven digital transformation
Arman Ghafoori, Manjul Gupta, Mohammad I. Merhi, Samrat Gupta, Adam P. Shore
International Journal of Production Economics, May 2024
Data-driven digital transformation is increasingly recognized as a crucial element of unlocking new business value, leveraging data-driven approaches in organizational business strategies and operations. Concurrently, organizational culture emerges as a critical factor in the organizational transformation process and success. However, current literature offers sparse insights into how organizational culture affects data-driven digital transformation. To gain deeper insights, this study leverages two complementary organizational culture frameworks to examine their relationship with data-driven digital transformation. Moreover, we investigate the link between data-driven digital transformation and operational performance in a manufacturing context. Utilizing data from 317 surveys, our findings show that organizational culture significantly affects data-driven digital transformation, which consequently impacts operational performance. This study advances understanding of the critical role of organizational culture in facilitating data-driven digital transformation, addressing a previously underexplored area in Operations and Supply Chain Management literature. By employing a dual-framework approach, it provides a more nuanced comprehension of organizational culture’s impact on data-driven digital transformation while clarifying the complex relationship between digital transformation and operational performance within the manufacturing sector. Our study also delivers significant practical contributions, guiding organizations in effectively implementing and benefiting from data-driven digital transformation initiatives.
How consumers evaluate movies on online platforms? Investigating the role of consumer engagement and external engagement
Samrat Gupta, Swanand J. Deodhar, Amit Anand Tiwari, Manjul Gupta, Marcello Mariani
Journal of Business Research, April 2024
This study examines how the causal patterns of consumers’ engagement and experts’ external engagement are associated with their online evaluation of movies. To this end, this study identifies the interplay of two dimensions (personal and interactive engagement) of consumers’ engagement and external engagement in their evaluation of movies and offers four propositions. This study utilizes fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on an original dataset of 264 movies released during 2018–2021 to test these propositions. Findings indicate seven configurations of consumers’ engagement behavior and external engagement that explain high movie ratings. This study presents fresh insights into how two dimensions of consumer engagement behavior and external engagement combine to explain movie ratings better. The findings accentuate the importance of synergies between dimensions of consumer engagement behavior and external engagement in driving the evaluation of movies.
Re-evaluating Corporate Purpose: A Critical Assessment of the Indian Stakeholder Governance Framework through a Historical and Comparative Analysis
M P Ram Mohan and Astha Pandey
IIMA Working Paper, June 2024
The current Indian legal and regulatory framework governing corporate purpose embodies stakeholderism. In sharp contrast to this, the Anglo-American corporate law framework can be characterized as predominantly shareholder-centric. This article seeks to contribute to contemporary discourse on the theorization of corporations by evaluating the stakeholder-oriented corporate purpose framework adopted by India. In doing this, it examines the historical trajectory of the doctrine of corporate purpose in the U.S., the U.K. and India. This comparative analysis provides an opportunity for enhancing discussions on corporate purpose in comparative corporate governance scholarship given the common law heritage of these jurisdictions and the differences between them in terms of ownership patterns, governance structures and philosophies that have guided their experience with corporate purpose. Broadly, this article makes the following arguments: (i) tracing the evolution of corporate purpose demonstrates that there is a need for its re-evaluation; and (ii) despite adopting the pluralistic form of stakeholder governance, the Indian framework governing corporate purpose is lacking in certain fundamental aspects. The article also proposes certain areas for further scholarly investigation to inform the re-evaluation of corporate purpose and the direction of comparative corporate governance scholarship.
