Responsabilité sociétale des entreprises

La responsabilité sociétale des entreprises ou responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE, en anglais CSR pour en) désigne la prise en compte par les entreprises, sur une base volontaire, et parfois juridique, des enjeux environnementaux, sociaux, économiques et éthiques dans leurs activités. Les activités des entreprises sont ici entendues au sens large : activités économiques, interactions internes (salariés, dirigeants, actionnaires) et externes (fournisseurs, clients, autres). L'enjeu de la RSE résulte au départ de demandes de la société civile (associations religieuses, écologiques, humanitaires ou de solidarité) d'une meilleure prise en compte des impacts environnementaux et sociaux des activités des entreprises, qui est née, notamment, des problèmes d'environnement planétaire rencontrés depuis les années 1970. Une étude a montré que les engagements pris par les entreprises influencent de plus en plus la prise de décision des consommateurs et des collaborateurs : 80 % et 94 %

Seeking methods for improving sustainability in the extractive sector

Farnaz Eslamishoar

Extractive resources are indisputably a necessary component of international sustainable development. Despite current advancements in the circular economy, world production needs for raw materials are ever increasing, and still a long way remains for it to become rather independent from mineral resources. At the same time, mining has too many negative stories in news headlines about its trade-offs for the environment and human health, which hinders sustainable growth. This thesis deals with this integral dilemma in three chapters. In Chapter 1, I have made an extensive effort to understand the socio-political aspects of the mining business, both internationally and specifically in the context of a developing country, and on the issue of the corporate social responsibility the company requires. I then continued with gathering my primary sources of data for answering my first question: What are the primary social variables contributing to mining sustainability issues? I derived theories from Economic Growth in the Political Economy and Institutional Void from Management Science, trying to place my findings in a broader context. I concluded this chapter with underlying sociopolitical factors interfering with sustainable mining practices. This has led to the shaping of the second chapter of my thesis. Chapter 2 builds on the given that throughout the model of Economic Growth, technological change can happen within a shorter timeline and that new technologies lead to more efficiency in the Process Innovation. The mining industry is no exception. Yet, my quick review at the time revealed that this industry is lagging incumbent mainstream businesses in technological adoption. I therefore made my aim here to discuss conditions for transitions towards a more technologically innovative mining business. I surveyed mining firms internationally and noted the critical criteria for responsible practices. I then made what had been to my knowledge and ability, an exhaustive grouping of innovative technologies for the different sectors of mining firms. These tools granted me the ability to perform different multivariate analyses and decide on the best method for benchmarking different technology groups based on these criteria. In the later part of my thesis (Chapter 3), having these findings in hand and all experiences and observations in place with my assumptions, I decided to take one step back to ask whether the criteria I have for measuring mining sustainability are the correct measures by looking through the question using emerging data science tools. Are the sustainability scopes commonly discussed in the mining community the most crucial sustainability problems of this sector? Having the sustainability reports of all major international mining firms in hand, I evaluated around 3500 documents containing 8 million words discussing current sustainability matters pertaining to mining firms. Through implementing appropriate algorithms of Topic Modeling, I introduced five new main scopes for mining sustainability used to examine the discourse and groupings through this framework to observe any possible differences among the conventional and the generated lists. The results of my thesis are my two conceptual frameworks, technological benchmarking assessment tools, and a data-driven sustainability domains list, as well as the innovation policy recommendations for the mining community.

EPFL2021

Essays in Financial Economics

Kornelia Fabisik

This thesis consists of three parts that study separate subjects in corporate finance and corporate governance. The overarching theme is ownership by CEOs and other insiders. In the first part, which is co-authored work with Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, René M. Stulz, and Jerôme Taillard, we build the largest database of managerial ownership information ever used in the literature. We show that the empirical relation between a firm's Tobin's q and managerial ownership is systematically negative. When we restrict our sample to larger firms as in the prior literature, we confirm earlier findings of an increasing and concave relation between Tobin's q and managerial ownership. We show that cumulative past performance and liquidity can explain these seemingly contradictory results. Better performing firms have more liquid equity, which enables firms and insiders to more easily sell shares after the IPO, and they also have a higher Tobin's q. In the second part, I conduct the first large-scale empirical analysis of the pledging phenomenon among U.S. CEOs. Pledging allows the owner of shares to put them up as collateral to a third party in exchange for cash. I show that between 2007 and 2016, 7.6% of publicly listed U.S. firms disclosed that their CEOs had pledged company stock as collateral for a loan. On average, CEOs pledge 38% of their shares. The mean loan value is an economically sizeable $65 million. CEOs use the funds to either double down (6.0%), hedge their ownership (3.5%), or to obtain liquidity while maintaining ownership (90.5%). My event study results reveal that stock market participants view pledging as value-enhancing. Similarly, I find no evidence of its negative shareholder value consequences, except for CEOs who engage in significant pledging. In the third part, I provide the first in-depth analysis of U.S. pledging CEOs who faced margin calls. A margin call occurs whenever the value of collateral backing a loan falls below a certain pre-specified amount. I find that 15% of CEOs with margin loans have at some point faced margin-call-induced selling. The mean (median) drop in CEO ownership following margin-call-induced sales is 31.2% (22.0%). More than 87% of firms do not introduce any type of an anti-pledging policy post margin-call sales by their CEOs which could explain the absence of any major changes in CEO compensation contracts. Corporate policies in firms with CEOs who lost a sizeable ownership stake are not indicative of weakened incentives.

EPFL2020

Agency conflicts and short- versus long-termism in corporate policies

Erwan Morellec

We build a dynamic agency model in which the agent controls both current earnings via short-term investment and firm growth via long-term investment. Under the optimal contract, agency conflicts can induce short- and long-term investment levels beyond first best, leading to short- or long-termism in corporate policies. The paper analytically shows how firm characteristics shape the optimal contract and the horizon of corporate policies, thereby generating a number of novel empirical predictions on the optimality of short-versus long-termism. It also demonstrates that combining short- and long-term agency conflicts naturally leads to asymmetric pay-for-performance in managerial contracts. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2020