Using detailed, questionnaire-based ESG data embedded in a broader corporate ranking for 156 public and 317 private Brazilian companies from 2017 to 2023, we examine the relationship between ownership structure, financial performance, and ESG performance. Panel regressions and propensity score matching reveal that public companies have lower ESG scores than private companies due to weaker governance. The gap is most pronounced among large companies with low leverage, high liquidity, and low capital intensity. Transitions from public to private ownership are associated with improved ESG scores. Prior profitability is positively linked to ESG scores, particularly in brown industries and among companies with weaker financial constraints, consistent with financial slack theory. Family ownership is positively associated with profitability, especially in private companies. A difference-in-differences design around an ESG disclosure regulation shows that ESG scores of public companies significantly increased after implementation. Our findings highlight the pivotal roles of ownership structure, financial slack, and disclosure mandates in shaping ESG performance in emerging markets, extending ESG analysis to private companies and identifying a family-ownership premium in profitability.
Insurers increasingly rely on external artificial intelligence (AI) systems, shared model families, data providers and cloud infrastructure. This paper develops a network-based operational risk scenario framework that links these dependencies to annual loss distributions and internal capital analysis. It combines a failure taxonomy, dependency scores, frequency-severity scenarios, centrality, common-model dependence and control adjustments. For the constructed dependency network, the 500,000-year 99.5
Building on organizational justice and creativity research, this study examines how four dimensions of organizational justice, distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational, relate to creativity quantity and creativity quality in digitally enabled workplaces. Using survey data from 392 employees in Saudi Arabia, the results show that procedural and interpersonal justice are positively associated with creativity quantity, whereas distributive and informational justice are not. Creativity quality is positively associated with all four justice dimensions. These findings indicate that justice dimensions are not uniformly related to different aspects of creative performance and highlight the continued relevance of fair procedures and respectful interpersonal treatment in digitally enabled work settings. The study offers practical guidance for managers seeking to support both the generation and development of creative work through fair procedures, respectful treatment, clear communication, and equitable recognition.
The role of hierarchy in organizations is under attack, particularly from those focused on organizational creativity and the digital transformation (DT). The call for flatter structures, reduced bureaucracy and network organizations, with the appropriate dispersion of authority, responsibility and power to achieve high levels of employee engagement, is the current rage. However, according to Elliot Jaques (1990), hierarchy itself is not to blame for our problems. He argued that we need an improved understanding of both hierarchy and human nature. The aim of hierarchy should be the improved deployment of human talent and energy. Despite attempts to reduce hierarchy in modern organizations, formal and informal hierarchies persist, in fact, even thrive in today’s DT environment. We investigated the relationship between creative cognitive climate at three levels of hierarchy: leaders, managers and staff. Exploring creative cognitive climate allowed for examining a deeper level of diversity. Using an assessment of these style differences across multiple industries and organizations, we found distinct gaps in collective style preferences across the three levels of stratification. Those at higher levels tended to prefer more novelty and less detailed structure and concern for authority. Those as lower levels tended to prefer novelty that fits the system and more structure and access to authority in dealing with their tasks. Based on these gaps, we identified four general and interrelated implications for improving communication, coordination, and collaboration across and within levels of various kinds of hierarchy.
Duopoly markets are widely discussed in industrial economics under the assumptions of quantity and price competition in sequential- and simultaneous-move duopoly games with differentiated goods. We compare Nash and Stackelberg equilibria in which the firms endogenously choose to behave as a price or quantity setter. Using the utility function introduced by Dixit (1979), we generalize the model of Boyer and Moreaux (1987) by allowing different market sizes and show that it is always more profitable to strategically set the price (quantity) if the goods are complements (substitutes). For every degree of product differentiation, consumer surplus and total welfare are highest under the standard Bertrand equilibrium, followed by the price Stackelberg, the quantity Stackelberg, and the Cournot equilibrium. In a generalized framework of Boyer and Moreaux (1987), we show that there is no unique ranking of prices, quantities, and profits of the leader and follower depending on the degree of product differentiation and the type of competition. Furthermore, we show that the price (quantity) Stackelberg equilibrium is bounded by the Bertrand and the mixed Nash equilibrium in which Firm 1 sets the price (quantity) and Firm 2 the quantity (price).
