This study examines the impact of board busyness (i.e. multiple directorships of outside board members) on the performance and financial stability of banks in a dual banking system (Islamic and conventional). We consider banks from 14 countries for the period 2010–2015. The results provide strong evidence that conventional banks with busy boards exhibit high bank performance (i.e. high profitability and low cost to income) and greater financial stability (i.e. low insolvency risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, asset risk, and operational risk). These findings are in line with the reputation hypothesis, which asserts that the expertise and connections of busy outside directors lead to better decision making, more efficient resource utilisation and more effective monitoring. In contrast, Islamic banks’ performance and stability are adversely affected by the presence of busy board members, with Islamic banks show low profitability, high cost to income and high risk-taking. This result might be attributed to the complex governance structure of Islamic banks and the uniqueness of their financial products, which require additional effective monitoring.

The increasing awareness of global climate change puts more pressure on firms to reduce their environmental externalities. Managers long ignored this responsibility, which may erode business profits, going against their traditional goals. In this study, we examine the effect of top management's extrinsic incentives (i.e., reward‐driven motivation) on corporate environmental innovation strategy (i.e., eco‐innovation) using a large dataset of S&P1500 non‐financial firms for 2000–2020. The results indicate that firms with greater levels of top‐management compensation exhibit higher scores of eco‐innovation engagement. The effect holds after we address the endogeneity problem through the quasi‐natural experiment using the difference‐in‐differences analysis on the event of the Paris Agreement 2015. Our further investigations reveal that such a positive impact of managerial incentives on eco‐innovation is less intensified in the more polluting industries but more pronounced in more innovative ones.

This study examines the effect of environmental and social (ES) activities on global banking stability in the shadow of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using a sample of 244 commercial banks across 52 countries from 2002 to 2020, we provide evidence that during the global health crisis, banks with higher levels of ES activities are more financially stable (i.e. lower credit and liquidity risk exposures). Drawing on social capital and stakeholder theories, we find that ES activities increase firm‐level social capital and establish a stakeholder‐centred culture within a bank, strengthening social trust and public confidence in the bank's risk oversight. Accordingly, ES activities constrain excessive and aggressive bank risk‐taking during turbulent times when short‐termism prevails. Our additional analysis reveals that investors value such beneficial effects of ES activities. The findings offer new insights into the increasingly significant roles of social capital creation and stakeholder‐centred culture in maintaining banks’ financial stability.

Electronic peer feedback (e-PF) has offered a number of benefits to English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ academic writing competence and reflective thinking. However, little research has been conducted to examine whether e-PF can be incorporated in Confucian heritage culture (CHC) contexts. With a sample of 40 Vietnamese university students, the purpose of this study was threefold: (a) to explore whether e-PF improved students’ global and local features of EFL academic writing; (b) to investigate whether e-PF provoked students’ reflective thinking; and (c) to determine whether the two core principles of Confucian values, namely, the concept of face and power distance influenced the implementation of e-PF. Data were collected through pre- and post-questionnaires, e-PF content, and reflective logs. The qualitative and quantitative results showed that e-PF improved the quality of global and local writing aspects. Using e-PF also espoused both e-PF providers and receivers to develop reflective thinking by heightening their cognitive processes. Students were found to overcome the Confucian cultural barriers to get engaged in giving and receiving critique from their peers. The study, therefore, adds to the existing knowledge about the significance of e-PF in improving students’ writing skills and nurturing reflective thinking in CHC cultures.