Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a much debated and ever changing topic. From a South African context, one of the most recent means of measuring CSR has been through the use of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) socially responsible investment index (SRII). The JSE SRII was first introduced in 2004 and has grown in popularity and effectiveness since. Included amongst the criteria for inclusion in this index is compliance with black economic empowerment (BEE). The index measures companies against the triple bottom line (environment, society&economy). Companies included in the index are deemed to have good CSR practices. This study evaluates the effects of CSR on the corporate financial performance (CFP) of the top 100 listed companies on the JSE over a 10 year period (2002-2011). The findings of the study suggest that companies not included in the SRII, on average, perform better than SRII companies. The basis of this conclusion is on the analysis of the results of the total return index (TRI), return on assets ratio (ROA) and the net profit margin percentage (NPM). / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Financial Management / unrestricted

The current study applies a two-state switching regression model to examine the behavior of a hypothetical portfolio of ten socially responsible (SRI) equity mutual funds during the expansion and contraction phases of US business cycles between April 1991 and June 2009, based on the Carhart four-factor model, using monthly data. The model identified a business cycle effect on the performance of SRI equity mutual funds. Fund returns were less volatile during expansion/peaks than during contraction/troughs, as indicated by the standard deviation of returns. During contraction/troughs, fund excess returns were explained by the differential in returns between small and large companies, the difference between the returns on stocks trading at high and low Book-to-Market Value, the market excess return over the risk-free rate, and fund objective. During contraction/troughs, smaller companies offered higher returns than larger companies (ci = 0.26, p = 0.01), undervalued stocks out-performed high growth stocks (hi = 0.39, p i = 0.01, p = 0.02). The hypothetical SRI portfolio was less risky than the market (bi = 0.74, p i = -0.01, p = 0.03). The hypothetical SRI portfolio exhibited similar risk as the market (bi = 0.93, p

abstract: Employee-owned businesses, benefit corporations, social enterprises, and other sustainability entrepreneurship innovations are responding to challenges such as climate change, economic inequalities, and unethical business behavior. Academic programs to date, however, often fall short in sufficiently equipping students with competencies in sustainability entrepreneurship – from a coherent set of learning objectives, through effective and engaging pedagogies, to rigorous assessment of learning outcomes. This dissertation contributes to bridging these gaps. The first study proposes a process-oriented and literature-based framework of sustainability entrepreneurship competencies. It offers a general vision for students, faculty, and entrepreneurs, as well as for the design of curricula, courses, and assessments. The second study presents an exploration into the nature of sustainability entrepreneurship courses, with a focus on teaching and learning processes. Using pioneering courses at Arizona State University, the study analyzes and compares the links between learning objectives, pedagogies, and learning outcomes. Based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with course instructors, the study identifies cognitive apprenticeship from input processing to experimentation, constructive alignment from learning objectives to assessments, and curriculum-level coordination across courses as key success factors of sustainability entrepreneurship education. The result of this study can inform instructors and researchers in applying and further substantiating effective educational models for future entrepreneurs. The third study addresses the key question of competence assessment: what are reliable tools for assessing students’ competence in sustainability entrepreneurship? This study developed and tested a novel tool for assessing students’ competence in sustainability entrepreneurship through in-vivo simulated professional situations. The tool was in different settings and evaluated against a set of criteria derived from the literature. To inform educators in business and management programs, this study discusses and concludes under which conditions this assessment tool seems most effective, as well as improvement for future applications of the tool. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2020

Increasing awareness of sustainable issues is just one of the ways how modern society has evolved. Due to the growing challenges faced by climate change and societal issues, our world has grown to be more innovative in the fight and support towards initiatives that will contribute to the long-term of the world we live in. Capitalists have exploited the resources, and as such, it is the economy where we can make the most significant changes to reverse the negative consequences. Responsible investment has incorporated various financial tools oriented towards the support of environmental, societal, and governance practices to revert the adverse effects brought on by capitalism. Sustainable bonds are a type of fixed income financial tool to support responsible investment practices. Their motive is to drive the financing of projects oriented towards positively contributing to the environment, society, and governance.   Previous studies on the field of responsible investment have covered the topic of green bonds and, most recently, social bonds. Although this field is relatively new, much of the literature developed has focused on the financial returns of such fixed-income assets. This thesis is the first to attempt the study of a self-created Swedish Sustainable Bond index consisting of 156 sustainable bonds issued in the Swedish market in correlation to three other asset classes. General interests and a lack of research due to its contemporary issuance in this context brought us to study such relation of return characteristics with its conventional bond counterpart, the equity market, and the energy stock section all within the Swedish market. The objective, as such, was to determine whether such an instrument could be used as a diversification tool.   For us to be able to conduct this study, we utilized the returns of each category’s indices. We applied different statistical models and tests, including correlation, univariate, and multivariate GARCH models, to be able to ensure robust results that could yield thought-provoking results for us to analyze. In conjunction with the Modern Portfolio Theory, we were able to determine that sustainable bonds provide investors with some diversification benefit by a positive correlation with the conventional bond and negative correlations with the equity and energy stock market. Volatility clustering and spillover effects within the Swedish sustainable bonds and the identified markets were also present.   We went a step ahead and curious to explore whether the conventional bond market was better off than the sustainable bond market. Such results indicate that the conventional bond is still a better tool for diversification purposes with the other two asset classes selected in comparison to the Swedish Sustainable Bond. As such, we are still wishful that sustainable bonds could potentially change their behavior in the future as a diversification tool, as more regulations and standardization of such asset classes are implemented.

abstract: While artificial intelligence (AI) has seen enormous technical progress in recent years, less progress has occurred in understanding the governance issues raised by AI. In this dissertation, I make four contributions to the study and practice of AI governance. First, I connect AI to the literature and practices of responsible research and innovation (RRI) and explore their applicability to AI governance. I focus in particular on AI’s status as a general purpose technology (GPT), and suggest some of the distinctive challenges for RRI in this context such as the critical importance of publication norms in AI and the need for coordination. Second, I provide an assessment of existing AI governance efforts from an RRI perspective, synthesizing for the first time a wide range of literatures on AI governance and highlighting several limitations of extant efforts. This assessment helps identify areas for methodological exploration. Third, I explore, through several short case studies, the value of three different RRI-inspired methods for making AI governance more anticipatory and reflexive: expert elicitation, scenario planning, and formal modeling. In each case, I explain why these particular methods were deployed, what they produced, and what lessons can be learned for improving the governance of AI in the future. I find that RRI-inspired methods have substantial potential in the context of AI, and early utility to the GPT-oriented perspective on what RRI in AI entails. Finally, I describe several areas for future work that would put RRI in AI on a sounder footing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology 2019

Responsible tourism is tourism which aims at minimizing negative environmental, social, and economic impacts, and benefits the local community. One crucial aspect is being neglected in the context of responsible tourism – the environmental impacts of food consumption. The impacts on the environment may vary depending on the dietary lifestyle. According to research, a vegan diet is generally less taxing on the environment than for example vegetarian or omnivorous ones. In this quantitative study, 161 participants, who consider themselves responsible tourists, were asked about their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour regarding the environmental benefits of veganism. The data were analysed using linear regressions within the mediation model and two-sample t- tests. I found that attitudes partly mediate the relationship between knowledge and behaviour. Vegans are more knowledgeable about the environmental benefits of veganism than omnivores. Besides, vegans showed the most pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour, followed by vegetarians and omnivores. Less than half of the sample perceive veganism as a part of responsible tourism. Those respondents who perceive it so are mainly vegans and vegetarians. A campaign that would raise awareness of the environmental benefits of veganism in the context of responsible travel needs to be implemented. A qualitative study should follow, and further research needs to be done among additional samples, such as typical mass tourists.

Investments in planted forests in emerging markets are increasing and investors are looking for Sustainable and Responsible Investments (SRI) to integrate Environmental, Social And Governance (ESG) into the investment process. This study is presenting a first attempt to develop a framework to evaluate the ESG performance of investments in planted forests and to identify relations between the use of SRI tools and the financial performance of investments in planted forests. The analysis of 121 investments in planted forests allowed the identification of 339 organizations and 50 SRI tools (e.g.: management and investment standards, investment rating) operating with investments in planted forests in emerging markets. The analysis of the 50 SRI tools resulted in the definition of a ESG Reference Document including 155 issues. These issues were organized into an ESG Risk Assessment and have been tested in 12 case studies evenly distributed between Uganda, Cambodia and Vietnam. The results suggest that the most common instruments are management standards (e.g.: FSC), bank investment policies (e.g.: ABN AMRO Forest and Plantation Policy) and investment rating systems (e.g.: FairForest). The majority of the SRI tools have a broad sectoral approach and are managed by business organizations. Investors are using more than 30 SRI tools but these are characterized by a low level of control such as signature and/or participation or at the most a conformity declaration. On the contrary plantation companies are using less instruments but with top level of control such conformity assessment and certification. Aspects related to “Legal and Institutional framework” and “Environment” are the most represented inside SRI tools. On the contrary aspects such as “Minimum percentage of protected areas”, “Poverty reduction” and “Prevention of encroachment” are not only the less frequent issues but also the less controlled issues by SRI tools. The Gold Standard and the Forest Stewardship Council are the SRI tools with the highest performance among the 50 SRI tools analysed. The ESG Risk Assessment allows to identify the most important 25 issues and reveals that SRI tools are focusing on issues that on-the-ground are not the major risk sources. This is the case of “Third party certification” and “High Conservation Value Forests” (HCVFs). Few exemptions where SRI tools are properly identifying the major risks are “Tenure rights”, “Health and safety of workers” and “Social impact assessment”. Climate change impacts, long term financial sustainability, poverty reduction and encroachment are ranked as the most dangerous sources of risk across the 12 case studies. SRI tools are positively influencing the risk mitigation, accounting for a percentage of risk mitigation that ranges from 34.31 till 60.63%. FSC certification was often reported by projects’ stakeholders as a key instrument to mitigate risk of investments in planted forests.

Background: Business schools are one of society’s most influential institutions as they contribute to transforming and influencing the way the business world works. Hence, business schools bear responsibility for the creation of future, socially aware, graduates. Accordingly, the business industry expects business schools to educate future managers enhancing sustainability and ethical standards. Although it is argued that graduates in business schools get taught many professional skills and abilities to gain economic success, ethical and sustainable practices are often neglected. The schools are getting criticism for providing education distant and irrelevant to industry demands. Purpose: This study aims to create a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of responsible management education (RME) in business schools. The research can hopefully provide valuable insights, both practically and academically, for both the investigated school and other business schools while also providing a richer and more holistic view of the subject.   Method: This single-case study uses an exploratory and abductive research approach. Empirical data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with participants from Jönköping International Business School. Data has also been collected through document analysis. To understand and analyze the findings, thematic analysis has been used.   Findings: The findings show that RME has been implemented in various ways, both because the school itself believes it is highly important, but also because of the pressures stemming from various stakeholders and other institutional forces. Progress is found to have been made, yet the effects of that progress were not acknowledged significantly by either students or document analysis which might be due to a lack of a common definition of both RME and sustainability amongst staff and faculty. For the school to remain attractive, it is found important to continue its work towards RME and put equal emphasis on teaching financial, social, and environmental responsibilities.

Over the past decade, sustainability has emerged as one of the foremost issues faced by corporations across all sectors and Corporate Social Responsibility has gained much momentum in the past two decades. This research investigated whether investors in emerging markets are equally concerned about a firm’s social and environmental impacts as their counterparts in developed economies. The aim was to ascertain whether or not a correlation exists between CSR and stock market performance of South African listed companies. This was the first study undertaken in South Africa that specifically investigated the relative performances of SRI listed and non-SRI listed companies. The findings reveal that there are observable differences between the average market returns of the FTSE/JSE Socially Responsible Investment Index and the FTSE/JSE All Share Index, as well as the average price/earnings ratios and average price/book value ratios of all companies listed the JSE Main Board. Although two out of the three hypotheses failed to yield significant statistical outcomes, all the findings were in favour of the SRI. The research has opened up the avenue for future studies to investigate the purported links between sustainability and financial performance in the context of emerging markets. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Much of the existing literature on the social aspects of sustainability in the supply chain has focused on dyadic buyer-supplier relationships. However, supply chains are much more extensive, featuring multi-tiered systems consisting of many interconnected sequential and parallel dyadic relationships; therefore, a more expansive and holistic approach to exploring the management and integration of social sustainability standards across the extended supply chain is desirable. This research attempts to help fill this void and considers the extent to which a series of sequential upstream and downstream supply chain partners, rather than only a focal organization’s immediate suppliers and buyers, influence the formulation process of the social aspects of a sustainability strategy and the deployment of associated practices across the extended supply chain. Findings in the literature indicate that, inter alia, sustainability efforts in the supply chain are likely to be guided by stakeholders’ sustainability desires/requirements, the geographical location of buyers and suppliers and the associated sustainability enforcement regulations and cultural norms, and the volume of trade between the buyer and supplier. This paper uses the results gleaned from a review of the literature to propose a conceptual framework for selection of sustainability strategy across the multi-tiered supply chain. Finally, we introduce a conceptual approach to the process of implementing and deploying the social aspects of sustainability strategies and practices across the supply chain using an integrated social-sustainability information management system (ISIMS).