ORCID Profile
0000-0001-9359-8096
Current Organisation
University of Aberdeen
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Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2014
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 2016
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 10-06-2022
DOI: 10.1108/MEDAR-06-2020-0917
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the adoption and diffusion of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based sustainability reporting practices within the global financial services sector. The approach draws on the sociological construct of social contagion theory (SCT) to explain the drivers of diffusion of GRI-based sustainability reporting. Based on a longitudinal study of GRI adoption over a period from 2000 to 2016, thematic content analysis of sustainability reports and media articles was used to refine information gathered that related to nature and spread of GRI-based sustainability practices within the global financial services sector. This study finds that the early adopters of GRI-based sustainability reporting and the accompanying media attention influenced the institutional diffusion of GRI-based reporting in the financial services sector. This growth was isomorphic as companies copied best practice models to reduce uncertainty and maintain legitimacy. This paper focuses on the institutional diffusion of sustainability reporting practices within the global financial sector. It explores the notion of social contagion as an institutional dynamic to understand the drivers for the adoption and diffusion of GRI-based sustainability reporting across national borders. In doing so, the study contributes to the accounting literature on diffusion of innovations in reporting practice, but also, more generally, to the field of diffusion of new ideas in organisations using the unique approach of SCT.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2011
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 26-08-2021
DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-08-2020-4794
Abstract: This article aims to examine how non-governmental organisations (NGOs)' narratives portray the vulnerability of workers in global clothing supply chains during the COVID-19 crisis. The research analyses the rhetoric in global clothing retailers' and NGOs' counter-rhetoric during the first seven months of 2020. During this period, retailers employed rhetorical strategies to legitimise irresponsible actions (corporate hegemony prevailed), while NGOs embraced forms of counter-rhetoric trying to delegitimise the retailers' logic, stressing the role of neoliberalism in worsening the situation. The authors contribute to the literature by providing new insight into the consequences of COVID-19 for retailers' neoliberal practices and the livelihood of workers in global supply chains. Findings of this study extend authors’ knowledge about retailers' COVID-19 measures: These have contributed to the plights of workers working for their supply factories in the global South.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-05-2018
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 04-10-2011
DOI: 10.1108/17465681111170984
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the environmental disclosure initiatives of Niko Resources Ltd – a Canada‐based multinational oil and gas company – following the two major environmental blowouts at a gas field in Bangladesh in 2005. As part of the examination, the authors particularly focus on whether Niko's disclosure strategy was associated with public concern pertaining to the blowouts. The authors reviewed news articles about Niko's environmental incidents in Bangladesh and Niko's communication media, including annual reports, press releases and stand‐alone social responsibility report over the period 2004‐2007, to understand whether news media attention as proxy for public concern has an impact on Niko's disclosure practices in relation to the affected local community in Bangladesh. The findings show that Niko did not provide any non‐financial environmental information within its annual reports and press releases as a part of its responsibility to the local community which was affected by the blowouts, but it did produce a stand‐alone report to address the issue. However, financial environmental disclosures, such as the environmental contingent liability disclosure, were adequately provided through annual reports to meet the regulatory requirements concerning environmental persecutions. The findings also suggest that Niko's non‐financial disclosure within a stand‐alone report was associated with the public pressures as measured by negative media coverage towards the Niko blowouts. This paper concludes that the motive for Niko's non‐financial environmental disclosure, via a stand‐alone report, reflected survival considerations: the company's reaction did not suggest any real attempt to hold broader accountability for its activities in a developing country. This is the first known paper that investigates a multinational company's disclosure behavior in relation to environmental incidents which occurred in a local community.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2013
DOI: 10.1111/AUAR.12009
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2018
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2016
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 06-2021
DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-05-2019-4017
Abstract: This study aims to investigate whether United Kingdom (UK)-based companies have changed their voluntary disclosures on curbing the bribery of foreign officials in response to the UK Bribery Act 2010, and if so whether and how such disclosure changes substantively reflected allegations of bribery of foreign officials by news media. By using the notions of institutional pressure and decoupling and applying content and thematic analysis, the authors examined, in particular, disclosures on curbing bribery by the largest 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange in periods before and after the Bribery Act (2007–2012). News media reports covering incidents of bribery of foreign officials and related corporate disclosures before and after the Act were thoroughly examined to problematise corporate anti-bribery disclosure practices. The study finds a significant change in disclosure on curbing bribery before and after the enactment of the UK Bribery Act, consistent with the notion of institutional coercive pressure. However, decoupling is also found: organisations' disclosures did not substantively reflect incidents of bribing foreign public officials, mostly from underprivileged developing nations. This study acknowledges a limitation stemming from using media reports that focus on bribery incidents in identifying actual cases or incidents of bribery. As some of the incidents identified from news media reports appeared to be allegations, not convictions for bribery, companies could have defensible reasons for not disclosing some aspects of them. Regulators should think why new or more regulations without substantive requirement are not helpful to curb corporate decoupling and injustice. The regulators should address the crisis that multinational companies (MNCs) being suppliers of bribery are much more harmful for the underprivileged communities in developing nations. Accordingly, this paper provides practical insights into how stakeholders ought to critically interpret MNCs' accounts of their involvement in bribery. This study contributes to the accounting literature by problematising MNCs' operations in underprivileged countries. The findings suggest that not only public officials in developing countries as creators of bribery but also Western-based MNCs as the suppliers of bribery contribute to perpetuating unethical practices and injustices to the underprivileged communities in developing countries. This research is imperative as this is one of the first known studies that provides evidence of the actions including disclosure-related actions companies have taken in response to the UK Bribery Act.
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 14-12-2015
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 24-05-2012
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 03-08-2015
DOI: 10.1108/QRAM-10-2014-0061
Abstract: – The purpose of this study is to explore senior managers’ perception and motivations of corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSER) reporting in the context of a developing country, Bangladesh. – In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 senior managers of companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Publicly available annual reports of these companies were also analysed. – The results indicate that senior managers perceive CSER reporting as a social obligation. The study finds that the managers focus mostly on child labour, human resources/rights, responsible products/services, health education, sports and community engagement activities as part of the social obligations. Interviewees identify a lack of a regulatory framework along with socio-cultural and religious factors as contributing to the low level of disclosures. These findings suggest that CSER reporting is not merely stakeholder-driven, but rather country-specific social and environmental issues play an important role in relation to CSER reporting practices. – This paper contributes to engagement-based studies by focussing on CSER reporting practices in developing countries and are useful for academics, practitioners and policymakers in understanding the reasons behind CSER reporting in developing countries. – This paper addresses a literature “gap” in the empirical study of CSER reporting in a developing country, such as Bangladesh. This study fills a gap in the existing literature to understand managers’ motivations for CSER reporting in a developing country context. Managerial perceptions on CSER issues are largely unexplored in developing countries.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2014
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 14-12-2015
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-10-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-01-2017
DOI: 10.1111/AUAR.12130
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-2022
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 16-10-2017
DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-02-2015-1965
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether differences in media exposure regarding corporate corruption appear to influence companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. The authors also examine whether the level of press freedom in firms’ home countries affects disclosure and the impact of media exposure in different ways. The authors use Transparency International’s 2012 ratings of anti-corruption disclosure by the 105 largest multinational firms in the world, press freedom assessments from the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, and media exposure measures based on a search using the Dow Jones Factiva database. The authors assess relations using regression analysis controlling for other firm-specific factors potentially impacting disclosure choices. Finally, the authors consider the potential effect of other country-level factors. The results indicate that media exposure, using either an existence or an extensiveness measure, is positively related to differences in s le companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. The authors also find that disclosure is more (less) extensive where home country press freedom is less (more) restricted and that reduced press freedom appears to reduce the impact of media exposure on the disclosure. The authors further document that press freedom levels explain more difference in anti-corruption disclosures than other country-level factors potentially influencing the practice. Because the investigation is limited to very large international firms for a single year, the degree to which the findings apply to other companies and time periods cannot be assessed. Further, the authors cannot determine how the findings would hold using an alternative disclosure rating scheme. Finally, the authors do not assess whether differences in the source of media exposure impact the findings. The findings suggest that, to the extent that improved anti-corruption disclosure reflects greater corporate attention to corruption issues, the media may be a powerful player in addressing this social ill. Unfortunately, the results also indicate that media efforts may not be sufficient to bring about change in locations where the freedom of the press is limited. Further, the results suggest that disclosure appears to be a function of exposure to social and political exposures, and the authors therefore question whether it will actually lead to improved corruption performance. The study is the first to consider the impacts of media exposure and press freedom on corporate social disclosures.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 17-07-2009
DOI: 10.1108/13217340910975288
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to establish a linkage between negative global media news towards Grameen Bank (GB), the largest microfinance organisation in the developing world, and the extent and type of annual report social performance disclosures by GB, over the nine‐year period 1997‐2005. Content analysis instruments are utilised to analyse GB annual report social disclosure. The study finds that GB's community poverty alleviation disclosures account for the highest proportion of total social disclosures in the period 1997‐2005. The results of this study are particularly significant in relation to poverty alleviation – the issue attracting severe criticism from the Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ) late in 2001. The community poverty alleviation disclosures by GB are significantly greater over the four years following the negative news in the WSJ than in the four years before. The results suggest that GB responds to a negative media story or legitimacy threatening news via annual report social disclosures in an attempt to re‐establish its legitimacy. This paper contributes to the literature because in the past there has been no research published linking global media attention to the social disclosure practices of major organisations in developing countries.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-05-2016
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 17-01-2015
Abstract: This study investigates stakeholder pressures on corporate climate change-related accountability and disclosure practices in Australia. While existing scholarship investigates stakeholder pressures on companies to discharge their broader accountability through general social and environmental disclosures, there is a lack of research investigating whether and how stakeholder pressures emerge to influence accountability and disclosure practices related to climate change. We surveyed various stakeholder groups to understand their concerns about climate change-related corporate accountability and disclosure practices. We present three primary findings: first, while NGOs and the media have some influence, institutional investors and government bodies (regulators) are perceived to be the most powerful stakeholders in generating climate change-related concern and coercive pressure on corporations to be accountable. Second, corporate climate change-related disclosures, as documented through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), are positively associated with such perceived coercive pressures. Lastly, we find a positive correlation between the level of media attention to climate change and Australian corporate responses to the CDP. Our results indicate that corporations will not disclose climate change information until pressured by non-financial stakeholders. This suggests a larger role for non-financial actors than previously theorized, with several policy implications.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 08-2008
DOI: 10.1108/09513570810893272
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export organisation within a developing country. Senior executives from a major organisation in Bangladesh are interviewed to determine the pressures being exerted on them in terms of their social and environmental performance. The perceptions of pressures are then used to explain – via content analysis – changing social and environmental disclosure practices. The results show that particular stakeholder groups have, since the early 1990s, placed pressure on the Bangladeshi clothing industry in terms of its social performance. This pressure, which is also directly related to the expectations of the global community, in turn drives the industry's social policies and related disclosure practices. The findings show that, within the context of a developing country, unless we consider the managers' perceptions about the social and environmental expectations being imposed upon them by powerful stakeholder groups then we will be unable to understand organisational disclosure practices. This paper is the first known paper to interview managers from a large organisation in a developing country about changing stakeholder expectations and then link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of analysis.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2200
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 14-12-2016
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 14-12-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-04-2017
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2015
DOI: 10.1111/AUAR.12064
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2022
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 2015
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 04-10-2011
DOI: 10.1108/17471111111175191
Abstract: The aim of this study is to elicit accountants' perceptions regarding corporate social and environmental accounting and reporting practices in a developing country such as Bangladesh. Members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) were surveyed to determine their perceptions on issues pertaining to social and environmental accounting and reporting practices in Bangladesh. Whilst the findings show that accountants have positive attitudes toward corporate social and environmental accounting, progress is limited, with the absence of ICAB in making any noticeable effort to develop such practices. Unlike prior studies, the implications of this study suggest that without international influence, it is less likely that institutional forces in Bangladesh (ICAB and the government) would be effective in dealing with social and environmental accounting and reporting issues. While prior studies advocate proactive roles of the accounting profession, this study argues that proactive roles are less likely to prevail in the context of Bangladesh without direct intervention from institutional and regulatory authorities in the international arena.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-10-2017
DOI: 10.1111/AUAR.12108
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2012
Publisher: University of Aberdeen
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.57064/2164/19814
Abstract: Based on a survey of 1,000 Bangladeshi factories/suppliers1 producing clothes for global fashion brands and retailers, this research highlights reports of unfair trading practices encountered by manufacturers during Covid-19. Suppliers reported that retailers/brands cancelled orders, refused to pay for goods dispatched/in-process and demanded a reduction in price for orders already placed before March 2020. Since then, they further pressured the suppliers to reduce prices. Suppliers reported that in December 2021, despite the rising costs of inputs and the additional costs of Covid-19 mitigation measures, 70% of brands/retailers were still buying garments at similar prices to those in March 2020 from at least some of their suppliers. More than 50% of factories reported at least one of the following four unfair practices by brands/ retailers: cancellation of orders, price reduction, refusal to pay for goods dispatched/in production and delaying payment of invoices. Such unfair trading practices impacted suppliers’ employment practices resulting in worker turnover, loss of jobs and lower wages. Importantly, one in five factories reported that they had struggled to pay the Bangladeshi legal minimum wages since the factories had reopened following the March and April 2020 lockdown. We recommend countries with large consumer markets where global retailers and brands sell their clothes legislate to curb unfair purchasing practices by outlawing them and appointing an adjudicator or a fashion watchdog. This would ensure that buyers/retailers cannot dump disproportionate and inappropriate risks onto their suppliers and that retailers and brands conform to the norms of fair commercial practices.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 02-08-2011
DOI: 10.1108/17471111111154509
Abstract: This paper aims to examine the tendencies of sustainability reporting by major commercial banks in Bangladesh in comparison with global sustainability reporting indicators outlined in the GRI framework together with banks' predilection toward reporting 16 GRI financial service sector (FSS) specific performance indicators. Based on the GRI G3 guidelines, the paper investigated banks' reporting in five broad areas of sustainability, such as environment, labour practices and decent works, product responsibility, human rights and society. The 2008/2009 annual reports of 12 major commercial banks listed on Dhaka stock exchange were analysed and coded using a content‐based technique. The results show that information on society is addressed most extensively with regard to extent of reporting. This is followed by the disclosures prepared on decent works and labour practices and environmental issues. Furthermore, the disclosures of product responsibility information and the information for human rights are rather scarce in banks' reporting on the subject of FSS‐specific disclosures, only seven items out of 16 are disclosed by all s le banks. The findings of the study indicate that Bangladeshi commercial banks' social disclosures could develop in this style to become more holistic and over time (in association with the country's central bank involvement) to resemble a type of structured reporting to the point where they are properly labelled per se. The study contributes to the social disclosure literature, in particular in a developing countries banking sector context, seeing as it disseminates evidence of the standing on social disclosures practices at the level of GRI with developing countries' banks data.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-10-2018
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 12-09-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-07-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S10551-021-04878-1
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to problematise a particular social transparency and disclosure regulation in the UK, that transcend national boundaries in order to control (modern) slavery in supply chains operating in the developing world. Drawing on notions from the regulatory and sociology literature, i.e. transparency and normativity, and by interviewing anti-slavery activists and experts, this study explores the limitations of the disclosure and transparency requirements of the UK Modern Slavery Act and, more specifically, how anti-slavery activists experience and interpret the new regulations and the regulators’ implementation of the regulation. This research found limited confidence among anti-slavery activists regarding the Act’s call for transparency in relation to the elimination of slavery from global supply chains. The research also found that the limits of the transparency provisions within the Act appear to hinder the attainment of normativity. This study provides new and unique insights into the critical role that social activists play in exposing the lack of corporate transparency and failures of responsibility to protect workers within global supply chains.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 29-12-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2021
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 15-11-2015
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 2015
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2010
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Muhammad Islam.