This thesis discusses environmental partnerships, in which an NGO and corporation collaborate to address mutual goals. I begin by discussing the goals of environmental partnerships before reviewing a brief history of these partnerships, the current state of the partnerships landscape, and partnership trends across industries and within NGOs. Next, I examine the potential benefits and drawbacks to partnering for both public and private participants. Finally, strategies for corporations, NGOs, research institutes, academia, and government to enable the creation and maintenance of successful partnerships are proposed to address critical environmental issues in the absence of effective regulation.

In recent years, many firms have voluntarily taken actions to gradually increase the transparency of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Using data on a sample of U.S. firms, this paper empirically examines the factors that encourage firms to choose different levels of CSR transparency. This adds to the previous literature that has focused only on the binary decision to engage or not to engage in CSR, as opposed to the extent and comprehensiveness of voluntary CSR reporting. Environmental transparency data are collected from the Roberts Environmental Center (REC) at Claremont McKenna College, while data for firm characteristics and toxic releases are collected from Standard & Poor’s Compustat North American and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Robust regression analysis of environmental transparency shows that consumer, investor, and community stakeholders significantly increase the level of environmental transparency. In addition, environmental transparency is higher among firms that compete internationally relative to those with only a domestic presence.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

As the modern world deals with an increasing number of environmental and social crises, corporate sustainability is becoming ever more imperative for business. There is broad agreement that profit maximization can no longer be the exclusive goal of a company, with firms working to align environmental, social, and financial performance. Companies have demonstrated a wide variety of experiences in regards to the financial crisis and its effects on corporate sustainability. While some firms experienced serious setbacks in achieving environmental and social goals others firms claimed to have been ramping up sustainability efforts during the recession. However, most firms report that their corporate sustainability strategies have not been significantly affected by the recession.

This paper seeks to present the moral and ethical frameworks in which to consider the effect of bribing on business and the great community; confront the cultural differences that lie between American businesses and its potential interest abroad, as well as the growing international move to implementation similar to that of the FCPA; analyze prior anti-bribery legislation and the historical events that prompted the need for a policy like the FCPA, discuss the basic elements of the policy’s two pronged approach of anti-bribery and disclosure regulation; examine several cases in the enforcement of the FCPA on American businesses; and consider the advantages and disadvantages of the statute on the performance of American businesses as a factor of total international exports.

Until recently, the role of auditors in the 2008 financial crisis had largely been overlooked by regulators and the general public. Though not responsible for the meltdown, accounting firms have been criticized – and sued – for failing to warn investors about problems at financial institutions before the crisis. Auditors can and should take steps to improve their function as independent overseers in the financial world. But there also is a gap between the expectations of auditors and their true responsibilities. As Lord Justice Lopes at the Court of Appeal in England famously said more than a century ago: The auditor “is a watchdog but not a bloodhound.” This thesis examines the so-called expectations gap and recommends ways to improve the audit quality of financial institutions.

This thesis discusses environmental partnerships, in which an NGO and corporation collaborate to address mutual goals. I begin by discussing the goals of environmental partnerships before reviewing a brief history of these partnerships, the current state of the partnerships landscape, and partnership trends across industries and within NGOs. Next, I examine the potential benefits and drawbacks to partnering for both public and private participants. Finally, strategies for corporations, NGOs, research institutes, academia, and government to enable the creation and maintenance of successful partnerships are proposed to address critical environmental issues in the absence of effective regulation.

No description available.

This paper examines the impact of ethics on financial statement usefulness in 120 publicly traded companies. Because ethics are difficult, if not impossible, to quantify, Corporate Social Responsibility ratings are used as a proxy. The potential implications of this study are vast, though the main idea is that investors would be able to make better financial decisions should the hypothesis come to fruition. Contrarily, investors will also be able to avoid potentially bad investments if they can ascertain certain companies that lack ethical values. In this paper, I will discuss several facets of corporate ethics such as creative accounting in addition to delving deeper into what it means for firms to be sustainable. Using data from the Roberts Environmental Center at Claremont McKenna College in conjunction with financial data from Wharton Research Data Services and panel data techniques, I find that only within the food and beverages industry is there a correlation between ethics and financial statement usefulness. This finding lends distinct support for the hypothesis and also begs the question of how corporate ethics vary between industries.