In this age of global warming, academics and policymakers are increasingly concerned about firm environmental sustainability success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance impacts sustainability performance through the mediating effect of firm innovation. To this end, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was deployed to analyze data collected from the employees of manufacturing industries in Bangladesh. The results revealed that ESG performance significantly enhances the innovation and sustainability performance of manufacturing industries, indicating that the higher the ESG performance of a firm, the greater its innovation and sustainability performance. Furthermore, the results confirmed that firm innovation performance fully mediates the relationship between ESG initiatives and sustainability performance. The findings of this study provide policymakers and industry authorities with valuable insight into the role of ESG and innovation performance in improving sustainability performance. Specifically, the study sheds knowledge on how firm ESG initiatives and innovation performance impact sustainability performance in the manufacturing sector of an emerging economy such as Bangladesh.

In the age of technology, continuous innovation is the ultimate motto of the financial sector to attract customers. Firms in the financial sector must be innovative in terms of service quality and operational performance to obtain customer loyalty and gain financial stability. A dearth of studies on customer loyalty and financial performance of Islamic Banks motivated the authors to examine the relationship between customer loyalty and financial performance. The study also explores whether the service qualities have any impact on customer loyalty. The study uses both primary and secondary data to conclude the research objectives. A survey of 356 questionnaires was carried out among the customers of the selected Islamic banks of Bangladesh to gather information regarding customer service quality and customer loyalty, while financial performance data were attained from the annual reports. Moreover, the study follows the SERVQUAL model’s five dimensions (tangibles, empathy, assurance, reliability, and responsiveness) to determine the service quality of Bangladeshi Islamic Banks. Rigorous statistical techniques, including exploratory factor analysis, reliability testing, and regression analysis were used to investigate the hypothesis. The study empirically documents a positively significant impact of service quality (tangibles, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness) on customer loyalty, while assurance shows an insignificant relationship. Furthermore, the study does not find any significant relationship between customer loyalty and the financial performance of Bangladeshi Islamic Banks. The findings of the study profoundly denote that the financial performance of Bangladeshi Islamic Banks mostly depends on many other financial and non-financial factors, rather than customer loyalty.

The study examines the impact of corporate governance mechanisms, such as board characteristics on corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD). The data on CSRD items and board characteristics have been collected by content analysis of the annual reports of 30 publicly-listed banks in Bangladesh covering six years, from 2013 to 2018. More specifically, the directors' report, the chairman's statement, notes to the financial statement and CSR disclosure reports included in annual reports were used to collect the CSRD data. The empirical analysis applies the ordinary least square and the generalized method of moments. The results of the study have revealed that board size, board independence, female board member, and foreign directors have a significant positive impact on CSRD. By contrast, political directors and audit committee size have a negative impact on CSRD. Interestingly, accounting experts on boards ensure more CSRD as they curb the influence of politicians on the board. Thus, it is better to increase accounting experts and decrease politicians on the board. These findings provide valuable insights into the process of forming a suitable CSR policy by connecting the efforts of the board, government, and regulatory bodies to enhance the performance of banks to CSR as well as to CSRD.

Limited research in the area of the triple bottom line (TBL) mediation effect on the relationship between organizational strategic performance (OSP) and corporate social responsibility performance (CSRP) has motivated this study. The objective of this study is to investigate how OSP affects CSRP and the mediation impact of TBL elements through the decision-making process of business management. Considering a sample of 250 employees from Bangladesh, this study used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the relevant research hypotheses. Through the lens of stakeholder, institutional, legitimacy and resource-based view theories along with rigorous statistical techniques, this study has found that OSP is positively related to CSRP. In terms of the mediation effect, this study has found that economic responsibility has no intervening role while environmental and social responsibility significantly mediated the relationship between OSP and CSRP. Finally, the full mediation power of the model suggests that OSP affects a firm’s strategic decision and CSR outcomes directly as well as indirectly through TBL.

In compliance with the socioeconomic theory, the study has strived to investigate the impact of economic and non-economic public policies on tax evasion using panel data of 7 SAARC countries covering the period from 1998 to 2015. The study has applied the ordinary least square with fixed effect and random effect models to analyze the data assembled. The result of the study implies that the higher the degree of economic freedoms, the lower the tax evasion. More specifically, the government policies about property rights, monetary freedom, fiscal freedom and investment freedom have a negative influence on taxpayers' choices of tax evasion while financial freedom result shows a positive effect on tax evasion. Additionally, there is a negative impact of public sector governance and religiosity on tax evasion, which implies the higher the public sector governance and the higher the religious faith amid the people, the lower the degree of tax evasion. The findings of the study are supposed to offer the governments, tax authorities, and research scholars the valuable insights into public policies for reducing the tax evasion to a significant extent.

Though remarkable literature exploring productivity and efficiency has emerged since the last half of the previous century, but dearth studies have been found in showing the impact of corporate governance on banks’ productivity. The study aims to investigate the banks’ productivity and its relationship with corporate governance. For this purpose, the study examines the productivity of 30 listed banks of Bangladesh deploying a Malmquist Productivity Index (an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis) with a panel data covering the period of five years from 2013 to 2017. The empirical results show that the average productivity of the banks is 1.03%. Finally, the ordinary least square (OLS), fixed effect (FE), and random effect (RE) regression were run separately. The research outcomes show that the productivity of the Bangladeshi banks is significantly influenced by financial performance, ownership structure, and board characteristics. The study provides the researchers, academicians, management of the banks, and regulatory body a new insight of how corporate governance influences the banks’ productivity so that they can formulate a better policy to generate more productivity.