Corporate Characteristics and Occupational Injuries by Industry

Background

Recent research on occupational injuries in companies has faced difficulties in obtaining representative data, leading to studies relying on surveys or case studies. Moreover, it is difficult to find studies on how a company's industry characteristics affect occupational injuries. This study aims to address these limitations.

Methods

We collected 11 years of disclosure data from 1,247 listed companies in the Korean stock market and combined it with their occupational injury histories collected by the Republic of Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) to build a dataset. We attempted to analyze a linear panel model by dividing the dataset into manufacturing, construction, and other industries.

Results

The higher proportion of full-time employees and better job skills correlate with lower occupational injuries in other industries. The wage increase reduces occupational injuries in manufacturing and other industries, but the substitution effect produces the opposite outcome in construction. Also, foreign ownership and credit ratings increase effectively reduce occupational injuries mainly in the manufacturing industry.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that in explaining the relationship between corporate characteristics and occupational injuries, it is necessary to consider the nature of the industry more closely, and in particular, employment and labor policies for preventing occupational injuries need to be selectively applied according to industry. In addition, to improve the limitations and increase the usability of the research results, further detailed studies are needed in the future.

The impact of corporate characteristics and external pressure on environmental information disclosure: a model using environmental management as a mediator

Since the beginning of the 21st century, a number of regulations on corporate environmental information disclosure have been issued. Given the bottom-up nature of environmental information disclosure policy, increasing concerns about influencing factors have emerged; however, the specific influencing factors and mechanisms of environmental information disclosure remain unknown. This article explores the influencing factors and mechanisms of corporate environmental information disclosure. Through a random-effect GLS regression analysis of 363 listed manufacturing companies from the Shanghai Stock Exchange for 2012-2018, we find empirical support for our prediction that the link between internal/external factors and environmental information disclosure is mediated by corporate environmental management. Some characteristics of environmental information disclosure are also identified. We present influencing mechanisms from a corporate perspective, which will be useful for top managers and regulators interested in enhancing environmental information disclosure.

Examining the association between quality of integrated reports and corporate characteristics

This paper examines the quality of integrated reports of listed firms in South Africa and the associated factors. Data were obtained from a sample comprising 100 firm-year observations of 20 companies in Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period (2013–2017). Analysis of data involves descriptive statistics, spearman rank correlation analysis and Kruskal-Wallis H test. The result shows a significant relationship between the quality and length of integrated reports. Firms vary in the level of quality of their integrated reports on the account of differences in profitability, board size, gender and firm size. No significant relationship was found between quality of integrated reports and leverage. The result of this study indicates that the length of the integrated report signals the level of quality of such report, which may be necessary in disclosing all material matters to satisfy the needs of a wide range of stakeholders.