Nazim Hussain and Monika Wieczorek-Kosmala win IRMBAM Best Paper Award

Nazim Hussain and Monika Wieczorek-Kosmala have won the Best Conference Paper Award at the annual International Research Meeting in Business & Management (IRMBAM) that took place in July in Nice, France. They received the award for their paper titled “Exploring the Nexus between Corporate Governance and Corporate Greenwashing: A Study of Firm and Market Level Determinants”.

Nazim Hussain is Associate Professor of Sustainability Accounting at the Faculty of Economics and Business’ (FEB) Department of Accounting and Auditing. His co-author, Monika Wieczorek-Kosmala is an associate professor at the Katowice University of Economics in Poland. In their award-winning paper, the researchers investigate the relationship between multiple discrete corporate governance mechanisms at the firm level (such as board size, independence, and gender diversity) and market level (such as analyst coverage and institutional ownership), along with examining the joint effect of these mechanisms on the degree of greenwashing practices among firms.

The determinants of greenwashing

The paper draws on agency and legitimacy theory to posit that information asymmetry and pressure from stakeholders and society drive firms to engage in greenwashing practices. Building on this theoretical framework, Hussain and Wieczorek-Kosmala argue that effective implementation of corporate governance mechanisms can reduce information asymmetry and agency conflicts and, as a result, decrease the degree of greenwashing. Based on an international sample of 32,911 observations from 5,451 firms from 69 countries spanning the period 2006-2017, the authors found that board independence and gender diversity, as well as analysts coverage and institutional ownership, decrease the degree of greenwashing, while board size increases it. Hussain and Wieczorek-Kosmala’s results also indicate that the nature of the industry and national differences moderate these effects, and that the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and governance orientation further strengthen the main findings.

The IRMBAM conference was organized by the IPAG Business School (France), Telfer School of Management, University of Ottowa (Canada), University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis (France) and Rice University (United States). It took place at the business school’s campus in Nice. The conference was a networking opportunity for academics, doctoral students, and practitioners to present new research results, and discuss current and challenging issues in their disciplines. The organization welcomed paper submissions in areas of business, finance, accounting, management, family business, and theoretical and applied economics, among others.

Questions? Please contact Nazim Hussain.