Sanil S. Hishan

An interactive environmental model for economic growth: evidence from a panel of countries

This study aims to determine an interactive environmental model for economic growth that would be supported by the “sustainability principles” across the globe. The study examines the relationship between environmental pollutants (i.e., carbon dioxide emission, sulfur dioxide emission, mono-nitrogen oxide, and nitrous oxide emission); population growth; energy use; trade openness; per capita food production; and it’s resulting impact on the real per capita GDP and sectoral growth (i.e., share of agriculture, industry, and services in GDP) in a panel of 34 high-income OECD, high-income non-OECD, and Europe and Central Asian countries, for the period of 1995–2014. The results of the panel fixed effect regression show that per capita GDP are influenced by sulfur dioxide emission, population growth, and per capita food production variability, while energy and trade openness significantly increases per capita income of the region. The results of the panel Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) show that carbon dioxide emission significantly decreases the share of agriculture and industry in GDP, while it further supports the share of services sector to GDP. Both the sulfur dioxide and mono-nitrogen oxide emission decreases the share of services in GDP; nitrous oxide decreases the share of industry in GDP; while mono-nitrogen oxide supports the industrial activities. The following key growth-specific results has been obtained from the panel SUR estimation, i.e., (i) Both the food production per capita and trade openness significantly associated with the increasing share of agriculture, (ii) food production and energy use significantly increases the service sectors’ productivity; (iii) food production decreases the industrial activities; (iv) trade openness decreases the share of services to GDP while it supports the industrial share to GDP; and finally, (v) energy demand decreases along with the increase agricultural share in the region. The results emphasize the need for an interactive environmental model that facilitates the process of sustainable development across the globe.

Corporate social responsibility practice of Malaysian public listed government-linked companies: A dimensional analysis

This paper examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of the Malaysian public-listed government-linked companies (GLCs) using a dimensional analysis. Four dimensions of CSR activities, namely community, employees, environment and governance, are investigated to study the latest CSR practice of GLCs in year 2016. Each dimension is divided into three subcat-egories to further examine the performance of GLCs on a particular CSR area. This is the first paper in Malaysia which uses CSR ratings (obtained from CSRHub database) to proxy for CSR practice. None of the past literature has been found to adopt this approach. The findings show that Malaysian public-listed GLCs performed better in community, employees and environment dimensions, whilst tend to underperform in governance dimension.

The impact of corporate social responsibility on financial performance: Evidence from Insurance firms

The field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been growing very exponentially over the past decade. There are continuous opposing views of the role of the firms in society and disagreements as to whether wealth maximization should be the sole goal of any corporations out there. With Insurance companies facing and fulfilling in the intense demand of diverse stakeholders, this study explores the impact of CSR disclosures on Financial Performance among the listed domestic-owned companies in Malaysian insurance sector. Although CSR is a hot topic in Malaysia and throughout various industries, no detailed study has been conducted to ascertain whether Malaysian insurance companies derive any benefits therefrom. The study examines the impact of CSR on financial performance using an extensive content analysis method on annual reports from 13 domestic-owned Malaysian insurance companies over the past 9 years (2008-2017). The content analysis data is further transformed into GRI CSR Disclosure Index table before matching the findings against the Financial Performance indicators (return on assets (ROA), return on equities (ROE) and earnings per share (EPS)). The relationship between CSR and ROA, ROE and EPS is tested using correlation analysis. The results indicate significant relationship between CSR disclosure and Financial Performance; designates CSR has significant impact on ROA; whereas relationship between CSR and ROE & EPS is found to be insignificant. The study suggests and indicates that insurance companies in Malaysia ought to carry out efforts continually in a bigger scale so that their CSR activities are more aligned with the reporting regulatory standards as well as to bring a positive impact in the current prospect. In addition, the remedial action proposed by Bursa Malaysia from year 2016 is expected to improve the findings of this study and bring a tremendous improvement to the exiting regulatory guidelines.

Measuring the impact of global tropospheric ozone, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide concentrations on biodiversity loss

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the impact of air pollutants, including mono‐nitrogen oxides (NOx), nitrous oxide (N2O), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on ecological footprint, habitat area, food supply, and biodiversity in a panel of thirty‐four developed and developing countries, over the period of 1995–2014. The results reveal that NOx and SO2 emissions both have a negative relationship with ecological footprints, while N2O emission and real GDP per capita have a direct relationship with ecological footprints. NOx has a positive relationship with forest area, per capita food supply and biological diversity while CO2 emission and GHG emission have a negative impact on food production. N2O has a positive impact on forest area and biodiversity, while SO2 emissions have a negative relationship with them. SO2 emission has a direct relationship with per capita food production, while GDP per capita significantly affected per capita food production and food supply variability across countries. The overall results reveal that SO2, CO2, and GHG emissions affected potential habitat area, while SO2 and GHG emissions affected the biodiversity index. Trade liberalization policies considerably affected the potential habitat area and biological diversity in a panel of countries. HighlightsHighlightsTo examine the impact of NOx, N2O, CO2 and SO2 emissions on biodiversity loss.Ecological footprint, forest, and food production are used for biodiversity index.N2O emissions and per capita income both influenced ecological footprints.SO2 and GHG emissions negatively affected biodiversity index.CO2 emissions and trade affected potential habitat area in a panel of countries.

The Review of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Literature in the New Millennium

Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) is one of the most researched topics ever since the first definition of CSR was given in 1953. CSR is a widely researched topic both by the academicians and the practitioners. Although there have been many literature reviews in this topic before, there has been very limited research on the literature review in this topic focusing only on the articles published after the year 2000. The main objective of the study is to review the literature related to CSR in the new millennium. The second objective of the study is to analyze the relationship of CSR and firm’s financial performance based on the literature review of the articles related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance from the year 2000. The study used a systematic way to review the past literature indexed in Web of Science (WOS) database, with a combination of both statistical and content analysis. The articles related to CSR were searched using the keyword CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility. Then the articles related to CSR performance were shortlisted for further analysis. The final analysis included 74 most relevant articles after eliminating those which are not directly related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance. The findings indicated that around 69.4% of the study related to CSR from the year 2000 onwards was related to CSR and firm’s performance. The findings also highlighted that around 57% of the study related to the CSR and firm’s financial performance shows a positive relationship. However, only 5% of the studies under this topic show a negative relationship, 20% show a mixed relationship and the balance 18% shows a neutral relationship. The study gives an understanding on the changing dynamics of the literature related to CSR. The positive relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance is an encouraging signs for the corporations. The results of the studies should convince the managers that the companies with good CSR practices are likely to have a competitive edge over its competitors. Future study may increase the sample size of the articles related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance, or to identify the result differences across different countries and sectors.