Financial Performance of Retail Industry Before and After E-Commerce Booming in Indonesia: A Study of Altman Z-Score Model

In recent years, many modern retail outlets are reported to close down their operation due to the financial downturn. Changes in a shopping behavior pattern that consumers prefer shopping online were blamed for the closure of the store. This article aims to examine whether there is any difference in the performance of the retail industry before and after e-commerce booming in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. This study observes the financial statement of the industry in the period 2013-2017 using the Altman zscore model where 2015 onward represents the period of E-commerce booming. The descriptive statistic results indicate that Z-Score after the e-commerce boom is lower than those in the period before the e-commerce boom on average. However, the results of the Wilcoxon signed rank-test showed that the performance of sample companies before and after the e-commerce boom did not show a significant difference. This article may give insight into the impact of online shopping booming on the financial performance of the retail store.

INTRODUCTION
A prospective new segment has grown in the Indonesian retail industry over the last few years. The new segment is called e-commerce as an addition to conventional markets and modern retail stores. It has been getting bigger and becoming an important retail segment specifically in the "lockdown" era due to spreading disease.
In 2015 investment in the e-commerce sector reached US$19 million according to the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) [1]. In terms of project operation, investments increased from 65 in 2014 to 67 in 2015. In the first half of 2016, e-commerce investment amounted to $5 million, which include 24 operations. Many local e-commerce brands like Lazada.com, Tokopedia.com and Shopee.com are quickly gaining the public's trust, contributing to higher transaction value.
Owing to their tremendous growth potential, many international investors have concentrated on local e-commerce players. For example, Lazada.com was acquired by Alibaba.com at $1 billion, and Tokopedia.com received $247 million in investment funding from a variety of investors, including Softbank and Sequoia Capital [2]. Many estimate that in the next four years, e-commerce will take on 20% of the share in retail Indonesia. Currently, only 5% of all domestic retail sales are in digital retail. The Minister of Communication and Informatics Mr Rudiantara says ecommerce booming starts in 2015 and expects to grow and reach USD 20 billion in the transaction values in 2016 [1]. This optimism is encouraged by the massive number of internet and smartphone users in the country. According to SingPost, a worldwide logistics company, 5.9 million people made online transactions in Indonesia in 2015. The Indonesian E-commerce Group, meanwhile, predicts domestic ecommerce payments to triple from US$ 8 billion in 2014 to US$ 25 billion in 2016 [1].
The shine, bright, and increasing trend of e-commerce is likely to be opposite with the trend of offline stores. Several large modern retail outlets have announced their stores' closure in the last few years. HERO, for example, has closed at least 32 retail outlets after previously closing 26 Hero Supermarket outlets. In fact, the closure of retail outlets under HERO occurred several years ago. In 2018, HERO owned 445 outlets consisting of 82 Giant Express outlets, 57 Giant Extras, 3 Giant Marts, 32 Heroes, 270 Guardian, and 1 IKEA outlet. This figure is down compared to 2017, where the company has 449 outlets. In 2015, the number of HERO outlets had touched 610 [3].
Judging by HERO's finances, the company's total revenue has sloped since 2016. The company's revenue growth started to be negative until it reached its lowest point in 2018, with a total value of IDR 12.97 trillion [4]. In fact, in previous years HERO has always scored double-digit revenue growth and touched IDR 14.35 trillion in 2015.
The similar condition also faced by HERO's closest competitor, namely PT Matahari Putra Prima Tbk. (MPPA). The number of outlets of the retail company under the auspices of the Lippo Group has also declined in the last three years [3]. The number of MPPA outlets in 2018 was 219 outlets consisting of 107 Hypermart outlets, 24 Foodmart, 74 Boston, 12 Foodmart Xpress, and 2 Smartclubs. This figure has also decreased compared to 2017, which was 259 outlets, and 2016 as many as 299 outlets. In the past two years, MPPA closed at least 80 outlets.
The present study aims to examine whether there is any difference in the performance of the retail industry before and after e-commerce booming in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The study uses Altman distress prediction model [5] to assess the financial performance of the retail companies. Financial statements from 2013 to 2014 represent the period before e-commerce booming while those in 2015-2017 represent the period after e-commerce booming.
There are some studies which investigate the financial performance or financial distress of retail industry, for example [6] in the United Kingdom (UK), [7] in the United States (US) retail-apparel industry, [8] In the US high-low net operating income retail industry, and [9] also in the US due to the adoption of e-business in the company. Those studies use a variety of techniques to assess performance. [7] for example, use data envelopment analysis, [6], [9] utilize a set of financial ratios, while [8] use Du Pont model, [10] utilize Altman's model.
As stated earlier, the present study attempts to analyze whether the massive increased of e-commerce buyer would affect the financial performance of the retail industry. This study posits that after e-commerce booming, the financial performance of retail companies is worse than those in the period before booming. Given the fact that the majority of retail companies listed on IDX are offline seller, the increase of internet user in the country combined with the convenience of online shopping platforms would impact on the lower sales revenue. Such condition is different than those in [9] study where the sample is the early adopter of e-business in the retail industry.
There are also some studies which use Altman Z score to predict bankruptcy, for example [10]- [12]. However, to the best of author knowledge, none of previous studies or minimum if there is any which specifically investigate the financial performance of the retail industry due to the ecommerce booming. Therefore, this present study seeks to fill this gap.

A. Population, Sampling, and Sample
The population of the study is the twenty-five companies listed on IDX in the retail industry in the period 2013-2017. This study uses purposive sampling to choose the sample based on the following criteria. First, the company publicize annual report in the period 2013-2017, and the report is available. Second, the report contains complete data related to the research variable. There are eighteen companies suitable for the above criteria. The list of the sample is provided here due to the need of company name in the discussion section. The list is as follow. (1)

B. Data
Data were obtained from the company's annual report or audited annual financial statement that available on the IDX website, company's website, or IDN financials' website (www.idnfinancials.com).

C. Financial Performance Measurement
To evaluate the performance of the sample companies, this study uses Altman's Z-score bankruptcy model [5]. Altman's Z is one of the best known statistically-based predictive models for predicting the imminent bankruptcy of a company [10]. The equitation is presented as follow.
Where X1 = working capital / total asset X2= retained earnings / total asset X3= earnings before interest and taxes / total asset X4= market capitalization / book value of debt X5= sales / total asset According to [5], the higher the Z-score, the better the financial performance of the company. The classification of the Z score is as follow.
If Z > 2.99, the company is not distress or financially healthy.
If Z = 1.81 to 2.99, the company is included in the grey area.
If Z < 1.81, the company is financially distressed.

D. Data Analysis Technique
To examine whether there is any difference in the Z-score in the period before and after e-commerce booming, the present study utilizes the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. The year 2015 is the period of e-commerce booming starts. It is based on the data gathered and the statement of The Minister of Communication and Informatics, Mr Rudiantara, as explained in the introduction section. Therefore, the Z-score during 2013-2014 represents the period before and the year 2015-2017 represents the period after e-commerce booming.  Table I shows the descriptive statistics of the Z-score value of the sample companies in the period before the e-commerce boom (2013-2014) and after the e-commerce boom (2015-2017). The average Z-score before the e-commerce boom was around 3.9, which means the companies are financially healthy. Meanwhile, the average Z-score in the period after the e-commerce boom was -0.24, 0.55, and 1.51 in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. According to the Altman Z-score classification, the companies' financial condition is bankrupt. Table I suggests that the Z-score dropped dramatically after the e-commerce boom as compared to those in the period before.

A. Statistic Descriptive
The lowest z-score was obtained by MAPI at 2.07 and 2.33 in 2013 and 2014 respectively. The Z-score indicates that the company's financial condition is in the grey area. MAPI is a company that sells world-famous brands, such as Zara, Swatch, Lotus, Sogo, Adidas, Reebok, Calvin Klein, Converse, Sports Station, and Starbucks. In the period after the e-commerce boom, the minimum Z-score was negative, i.e. -45.22, -35.11, and -36.94 in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. The lowest Z-score was consistently obtained by TRIO, a company that sells various types of telecommunication equipment, cellular phone and its accessories. These numbers indicate the company's financial condition is distressed. In other words, in the period after the e-commerce boom, the company faces bankruptcy as suggested by the negative value of Z-score.
Meanwhile, the highest Z-score in the period before the ecommerce boom was obtained by RALS in 2013 (6.49) and ECII (7.05) in 2014. RALS is a fashion retail company famous with Ramayana brand, while ECII is an electronic goods selling company called Electronic City. The Z-score of the two companies indicates the companies are financially healthy.
The highest Z-score in the period after the e-commerce boom also shows that the company is in a healthy condition. The maximum Z-scores in 2015 and 2016 were 9.51 and 8.54 respectively. The ECII has consistently obtained these values. Whereas in 2017, the highest Z-score was obtained by SKYB (21.31). SKYB is a seller of multimedia hardware and software, telco link, content and applications. Whereas in the previous year the Z-score SKYB was negative. This is because SKYB in 2017 managed to restructure its debt.
The following Table II presents the overall average Zscore in the period before and after the e-commerce boom. As can be seen in Table II, the average Z-score for the period before the e-commerce boom was higher than those after the e-commerce boom (3.92 versus 0.61). The interpretation of the results is the same as that shown in Table  I. The decrease in the mean Z-Score value is contributed by TRIO and GLOB which come up with highly negative Z-score values, i.e. -39.09 and -19.36 by TRIO and GLOB respectively. The Z-score data of the two companies potentially to become outliers. Therefore, Table III seeks to present the Z-score with the exception of TRIO and GLOB in the list. As can be seen in Table III after TRIO (PT Trikomsel Oke Tbk) and GLOB (PT Global Teleshop) were removed from the sample, the average Z-Score before and after the e-commerce boom was almost the same. Specifically, the number increases from 4.02 to 4.33. According to the Altman classification, they are financially healthy. The same pattern applies to the minimum and maximum values in the table whereby the Zscore slightly increases in the period after the e-commerce boom. The results imply that with the booming e-commerce, the retail industry companies manage to perform their finances. Table IV presents the results of the Wilcoxon sign rank test for the Z-score of the sample companies. This test still includes TRIO and GLOB as samples. The Wilcoxon test was carried out several times, namely on the overall mean of the period before and after the e-commerce boom and year on year before and after the e-commerce boom.

B. Mean Difference Test
As shown in Table IV, the sig value of Wilcoxon sign rank test on the overall mean before and after the e-commerce boom and year on year testing is above 0.05. The results suggest that the decrease in the Z-score in the period after the e-commerce boom is not statistically significant as compared to those in the period before. In other words, there is no difference in the Z-score of retail companies before and after the e-commerce boom. The results also imply that the drastic decrease in the mean Z-score does not affect the results of the difference test.  Figure 1 presents the Z-score trend of the sample firms during the observation period. As can be seen from the figure, the majority of sample firms have stable Z-core values during the observation period. The interpretation of the trend results is consistent with the results of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Two companies experienced a drastic drop in their Z-score, namely TRIO and GLOB. One company has a pattern of decline until 2016, then rose dramatically in 2017.

C. Discussion
The descriptive statistics of the sample companies show that the Z-score value in the period before the e-commerce boom decreased compared to the post-boom period from 3.92 to 0.61 (Table II). There are two companies in the sample that the Z-score's dramatically decreased in the year 2015-2017. The two companies, namely TRIO and GLOB, are in the same business, i.e. selling cellular phones. This finding suggests that the e-commerce boom has had a major impact on the mobile phone sales outlet business. The plausible explanation is that the sales volume of cellular phones in the market places such as shopee and Lazada is also very high. Sellers at those market place provide competitive prices. According to [13], smartphone sales are the highest product sales category in Indonesian e-commerce after the fashion. Besides, the competition with small offline retails sellers is also getting fierce.
The results of the Wilcoxon sign rank test (Table IV) show that there is no difference in the Z-score before and after the ecommerce boom. The results suggest that the financial performance of the sample companies are stable. The plausible explanation is that in the midst of the onslaught of ecommerce in the retail industry, industry players who were originally offline are also selling online (omnichannel) to stay afloat and grow. As stated by Chairman of the Indonesian Retail Entrepreneurs Association (Aprindo) Roy N. Mandey, 95% of Aprindo members have transformed and developed online sales. Example of the companies which also adapt to technology and digitalization by opening e-commerce in their sales, are HERO with its IKEA, and LPPF with Mataharimall.com. The finding is somewhat consistent [9], which states that companies who adopt e-business will have better financial performance ratios.

IV. CONCLUSION
This study aims to examine whether there is any difference in the financial performance of retail companies in the period before and after the e-commerce boom. The Z-score after ecommerce boom decreased as compared to those in before boom; however, the difference is not statistically significant. The majority of companies in the retail industry have a stable Z-score except for two companies, namely TRIO and GLOB. The results may imply that the existing companies in the retail industry have been trying to adopt with digitalization and transforming or starting to develop online selling. This study only utilizes Altman Z-score [5] in measuring financial performance. There is other financial distress model that might be used to see the consistency, e.g. [14], [15]. Probably the next research may use these other bankruptcy prediction model.


extfieldsofstudy: Medicine Biology

text:
Shifting away from the business-as-usual approach to research conferences

ABSTRACT To combat the climate crisis, we need rapid, unprecedented social change. Scientists can play a lead role by signaling to society that we recognize the critical importance of redesigning our business-as-usual approach to research conferences. Traditional research conferences have high CO2 emissions as well as significant financial and travel time costs for participants. Using available technology, early career scientists Chelsie Counsell and Franziska Elmer created a global, virtual, coral reef research conference with live talks, recorded contributions, and networking events. Funding from The Company of Biologists allowed this event to be free, supporting attendance of 2700 subscribers and content contributions from 165 participants from diverse backgrounds and career stages. We provide metrics on content viewership and participation in networking activities, note the success of incorporating regionally focused sub-events, and discuss the emergence of a collaborative research project. We highlight the broad accessibility of virtual conferences as well as their increased flexibility in programming, health benefits, and cost savings. Our approach to organizing and hosting a global, low-carbon emission research conference is documented. Finally, we propose a hybrid approach to future conferences with virtually connected remote (sub-regional or local) hubs.

Introduction
Research conferences provide opportunities to share science, network, and reach innovative solutions through synthesized ideas. We discover collaborators, obtain positions, present our research, and feel inspired by plenary talks. Conference attendance is considered vital for the growth of scientific fields and for the career trajectory of most scientists. Unfortunately, the traditional approach to research conferences, often involving travel over great distances (including intercontinental flights), can have a large CO 2 footprint. Global Coral Reef Week (GCRW) was designed to rethink this paradigm by organizing a global coral reef research conference with low CO 2 emissions and high accessibility.
The average amount of CO 2 emitted from travel to a research conference has been calculated at ∼800 kg per presenter (Spinellis and Louridas, 2013). Long-distance travel is particularly problematic: a seat on a one-way intercontinental flight is estimated to release more CO 2 (3000 kg) than the average annual emissions for one person living in Britain or ten people living in Ghana (Klöwer et al., 2020). We know the climate crisis is real. Its effects occur globally through increased risk of deadly heat waves (Mora et al., 2017), intensified weather patterns, land degradation, increased food insecurity (IPCC, 2019a), loss of ice sheets and glaciers, marine heat waves, and ocean acidification (IPCC, 2019b). Coral reef scientists personally experience the high costs of climate change, as our study sites bleach with an increasing frequency in overly warm oceans, such that their continued existence is threatened (IPCC, 2019b).
To reduce the effects of climate change, we need to stop burning fossil fuels (IPCC, 2019a). The climate crisis is not a technological or scientific problem. The climate crisis is a problem of inadequate willpower, resulting from capitalism and institutionalized definitions of growth and success at all levels, from the global community to the individual (Jewell and Cherp, 2019). Scientists cannot save coral reefs through research alone. We can lead by example, through rapid shifts in our collective actions by redesigning our business-as-usual approach to both our professional and personal lives. We should be part of the energy that drives necessary, unprecedented social change.
International, in-person coral reef conferences are intended to help study and save coral reefs, but, paradoxically, the long-distance air travel of participants to these events directly contributes to their demise (Nevins, 2014). GCRW was designed to pilot an approach to research conferences that removes long-distance flights while retaining the ability to network and share science. This dramatically reduces conference CO 2 emissions and increases conference accessibility (Hiltner, 2019). We originally envisioned a collection of inexpensive, virtually-connected, remote meeting 'hubs' organized at local and sub-regional scales. This approach would blend in-person interactions with access to live-streamed plenary talks (including interactive questions and answers) and include the curation of a digital content repository. Our vision was enthusiastically received by colleagues, particularly in the Caribbean, Brazil, Hawai'i, the continental US, and parts of Europe.
From January to March, we confirmed local hosts for remote meeting hubs in 16 locations. When COVID-19 then restricted faceto-face meetings and group gatherings, we pivoted to create an entirely virtual conference. GCRW thus became an opportunity for coral reef scientists to share their research, network with new colleagues, and try the virtual conference experience.

Conference components and metrics
When organizing GCRW, we strived to retain the key components of an in-person conference, i.e., research talks, plenary talks, workshops, networking, and other social events. Contributed talks were uploaded as recorded presentations to a GCRW conference YouTube channel divided into nine topical playlists. Our conference website included advice on how to use freely available software to create a digital recording of a presentation and tips for producing engaging science communication videos. The 108 research talks that were contributed from participants across the globe featured reefs in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Red Seas. Early career scientists and students submitted over 45% of the presentations. Reef scientists, resource managers, and coral reef enthusiasts submitted the remainder. On the final day of the conference, recorded research presentations had an average of 101 views per video. One month after the end of GCRW, this average had increased to 165 views per video for a total of over 17,500 views.
For our ten live-streamed plenary talks, we invited a diverse group of speakers who collectively represented seven countries, five of whom were within eight years of their PhD (two within two years). Plenary talks were divided into five thematic sessions that attendees could join via Zoom to participate in questions and answers. All plenary talks were also live-streamed on our YouTube channel, and the recordings are digitally archived on our website. An average of 141 attendees watched the plenaries live, with an average additional 281 views on YouTube at the end of GCRW.
After COVID-19 restrictions forced the shift to an entirely virtual format, the local hosts for three hubs requested virtual support to live-stream regionally focused research talks and discussions. We therefore added live-streamed sessions for Brazil (four speakers, hosted by Cesar Cordeiro), Cayo Arcas (five speakers, in Spanish, hosted by Eduardo Cuevas), and the Mesoamerican Reef (11 speakers, hosted by Healthy Reefs for Healthy People). On average, 127 people watched these live-stream regional sessions and 256 people viewed each recording. Furthermore, Cordeiro and his team hosted a 3-day sub-event in Portuguese, Encontro Recifal Brasileiro, with its own YouTube channel, website, and social media marketing (Box 1).
As part of our call for abstracts, we welcomed contributions of virtual workshops. We suggested a recorded format with an introduction, guided activities, and a wrap-up. We received two virtual workshops contributions, one focused on designing and implementing creative ways to combat the climate crisis, from Chelsie Counsell, Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology, which received 223 views by the end of GCRW, and another designed in four sequential episodes from Alizee Zimmermann, Turks and Caicos Reef Fund, showing citizen scientists how to identify the coral species susceptible to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, which received an average of 56 views per episode. In response to participant requests shared during GCRW, conference organizer Franziska Elmer partnered with plenary speaker Robby Thigpen (Marine Conservation without Borders) and participant Neus Figueras (University of Barcelona) to lead a live workshop on ways to strengthen outreach and communication. Forty-four conference participants attended this live workshop and the recording had an additional 27 views.
For social activities, GCRW included two networking sessions and a trivia event. The networking sessions included rotation through breakout rooms and icebreaker questions for a total of 49 participants. Our virtual trivia event, led by a team of research interns from the School for Field Studies' Center for Marine Resource Studies, had 54 registered participants. While casual networking is a challenging element of conferences to recreate virtually, our participants provided positive feedback for these sessions, noting that much of the challenge of inserting oneself into an ongoing in-person conversation was removed. Excitingly, enough science and ideas were shared at GCRW to catalyze a new research collaboration. Building from live-streamed plenaries and conversations in networking sessions, participant Tatiana Becker (Wageningen University) and plenary speaker Phillip Box 1. Cesar Cordeiro (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) and his team hosted a 3-day sub-event, Encontro Recifal Brasileiro, in Portuguese as part of Global Coral Reef Week.
The Brazilian Reef Meeting, Encontro Recifal Brasileiro -EReBra (Portuguese), held as a regionally focused component of GCRW 2020, was the first event dedicated to reef environments in Brazil. The lack of such events in the past has made the local audience seek out international events, involving long distance travel at high economic and environmental costs (Sarabipour et al., 2020 preprint). Traveling is the main cost associated with scientific events for attendees (Rowe, 2019), especially in a large country like Brazil. Being part of GCRW provided the EReBra audience with access to global coral reef research content and a wider network of collaborators. In return, EReBra contributed a live-streamed session focused on technology innovation in reef research to the core GCRW program and access for all GCRW attendees to EReBra's regionally focused recorded talks. EReBra had 1293 registered attendees from all 17 coastal states and five inland states in Brazil. The majority of participants were students (90%), followed by non-academic (4%), academic professionals (3%), and coral reef enthusiasts (3%). While EReBra's regional program was only available in Portuguese, participants were from Portugal, Chile, México, Guatemala, the USA, and Ireland. From a feedback poll, 99% of respondents (n=188), rated the event format and content as 'very good' or 'good.' EReBra was supported by Projeto Costão Rochoso, Projeto Conservação Recifal, Projeto Coral Vivo, & Projeto Budiões.
Dustan (College of Charleston) are leading a global effort to study the effects of the return of tourism on reefs when COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted. To date, GCRW has hosted six meetings, providing digital and administrative support for the 30 collaborators participating in this project.
A week before the conference, 167 people had subscribed to GCRW. This number increased to 639 people by the day before GCRW and to 2700 people at its end. The incredible jump in email subscriptions for an inaugural research conference not affiliated with any specific program or society demonstrates the ease with which digital content can be shared across social networks (Box 2).

Added benefits of the virtual conference format
While GCRW was designed to decrease conference CO 2 emissions, we quickly recognized a multitude of other benefits of a global virtual research conference. The public, digital archive of content increases access compared to an in-person conference by eliminating scheduling conflicts, enabling rewinding, pausing and re-watching, facilitating content sharing, and providing anyone with internet access an opportunity to learn about current coral reef science. The increased accessibility of digital content is of particular importance for participants who are experiencing personal life events or have certain disabilities that make travel to conferences unfeasible. For example, an attendee of GCRW had just finished cancer treatment, yet was able to join our virtual conference and even to contribute a presentation. Conference content in the form of YouTube recordings provides access to researchers who are deaf or who have limited understanding of the language through autotranslation subtitles. When contributors choose to keep their videos available online, these benefits of increased access to virtual content continue beyond the end of the conference. Broad sharing of science with current or future colleagues, employers, advisors, and students, as well as resource managers, politicians, the media, and community partners is enabled.
Hosting a research conference on virtual platforms affords additional flexibility for programming and content compared to inperson conferences. Without temporal and spatial restrictions on the number of conference rooms, we could accept all topically relevant research contributions. We were able to adjust the thematic sessions, i.e., YouTube playlists, to match the interests of conference participants revealed in their contributed talks. Although we asked for 3-5 or 12-15 min presentations, when presenters took an additional minute or ten, the talks could be included in their entirety without disrupting the conference schedule. Alternatively, when a subset of contributed abstracts did not result in video submissions, these gaps in content were easily removed from our digital program. No attendees arrived expecting a speaker, only to find an empty room. Another powerful aspect of high flexibility in virtual programming is the ability to respond to participant requests in real time. We deliberately did not schedule live events on the last two conference days, which enabled us to organize and host additional programming (i.e., live-streamed workshops and collaborative research-project-development meetings) in response to the expressed interest of our participants.
Virtual conferences incorporate a variety of health benefits for attendees as a result of minimizing long distance air travel. Personal benefits of flying less include reduced exposure to germs and misalignment of the circadian rhythm. Jet lag affects gene expression connected with aging processes and immune system functioning (Cohen and Kantenbacher, 2020). Chronic jet lag can lead to memory impairment and increase the risk of stroke and heart attack (Cohen and Kantenbacher, 2020). In addition, flying exposes travellers to radiation at exposure levels hundreds of times higher than other travel options and chronic exposure to engine noise at levels within passenger cabins is linked to increased risk of heart disease and hearing loss (Cohen and Kantenbacher, 2020). The health impacts of traveling to conferences can also include social strain from leaving families and stress from postponing other work activities (Høyer and Naess, 2001).
The cost benefits of GCRW were enormous. In-person conference organizers with a similar number of speakers to GCRW need to raise around $20,000 to $60,000 for non-labor related costs, whereas our non-labor costs were <$1000 (all estimates in USD). In-person conference attendance can cost participants >$1000; registration for GCRW was free and participation did not require travel or lodging. Researchers from diverse social-economic backgrounds attended GCRW, including those who are unable to afford in-person conferences. GCRW cost <$10 per presenter and <$0.50 per attendee, expenses that were covered through the support of a grant, sponsors, and donations. In terms of the time required of the organizers, this virtual experience was similar to in-person conferences. However, the time commitment will likely be reduced Building a social media presence is crucial for promoting research conferences. For GCRW, we used three different platforms: Instagram (609 followers), Twitter (371 followers), and Facebook (674 followers). To create content, we built a photo bank by reaching out to scientists and photographers around the globe, and then used Canva to design promotional graphics. Posts included conference details (abstract deadlines, subscription information, program scheduling), interesting facts about coral reefs, and details on the research of GCRW participants. To increase interest in our educational content as a mode of informal outreach, we used creative hashtags e.g., #WeirdFactWednesday, #SharkySunday, and #FunFactFriday. Our content also included Instagram 'takeovers' where invited scientists shared photos and brief summaries of their research through posts on the GCRW account. On all three social media platforms, people interested in GCRW shared and promoted the conference with their networks by re-posting our content. This chain reaction expansion in reach greatly boosted our audience. On Facebook, >20,000 individuals saw our posts in their feed from 24 June to 19 July 2020.
for future GCRW events as it included concept development, building a website, familiarizing ourselves with the capacity of various virtual platforms, and writing guides to help participants navigate the virtual milieu.

Steps to organize a virtual research conference
To guide others who are interested in organizing research conferences with virtual components, we have documented the key steps required to host a meeting like GCRW along with a timeline that reflects our process. In total, >530 h were required to organize GCRW.
1. Clarify event-specific details (>6 months before conference, 90+ h of organizer time). This includes selecting the event name, creating a logo, defining a target audience, scoping potential research themes, selecting event dates, and building a website (we created a Wix website linked to a Google domainwww.coralreefweek.org). Assessing finances and technological support capacity can help guide platform selection: for live-streaming content we used Zoom, for sharing recorded videos and creating a digital archive we used YouTube, for developing a mailing list to share content links and updates we used Wix built-in tools and Mailchimp, and for promoting the event on social media we used Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook (Box 2). 2. Develop core meeting content (4 months before conference, 40+ h). Invite and confirm participation for plenary speakers. Develop plans for social and networking events, include protocols alerting participants how their contact information may be used (e.g., for email updates) or shared (e.g., with fellow participants). Strategize effective techniques for virtual workshops and begin conversations with potential workshop hosts. 3. Marketing/outreach to solicit for contributed content and conference attendees (start as soon as possible, 40+ h). We created a Google form to collect abstract submissions for contributed talks and workshops. The link to this form and a subscribe option, for people interested in attending the conference without contributing content, were provided on our website. We started marketing the event on email lists for our affiliate research organizations. We contacted individuals acting as local organizers for remote hubs and/or research sessions regarding support needs and programming ideas. We sent newsletter and email templates to local organizers for marketing the event. We used social media accounts to market the conference and abstract submission deadline. 4. Conference administration (1-4 months before conference, 50+ h). Even if content is virtually collected using built-in platform tools, organizers will need to curate the contributions. It is also critical to maintain regular communication and logistical organization with plenary speakers and local partners. 5. Technological support (

Future directions
Our vision for a conference of virtually connected, in-person regional hubs would build on the success of the inaugural GRCW. In addition to low CO 2 emissions, low cost, and high accessibility, remote hubs would provide additional opportunities for face-toface interactions with local colleagues, educators, students, policy makers, politicians, and the media, greatly strengthening the dissemination of science. Each hub could incorporate a day of environmental or societal service to strengthen engagement with local communities. Virtual connections across the remote hubs would enable participants to network with global community members. We remain energized by local organizers who volunteered to host remote events in 16 international locations and hope someday to realize this vision. Completely free participation for all attendees of GCRW was possible because of the copious volunteer time contributed (in particular from Elmer and Counsell), a grant from The Company of Biologists, institutional infrastructure support, donations, sponsorships, and merchandise sales. However, there may be good reasons to charge a small conference fee for future events. Attendees and participants may be more actively engaged in paid events to get 'value' from their investment. The funds raised could be used to outsource components of the conference organization process and to provide support for virtual platform software and in-person meeting venues.
Without prior experience and without everyone having met faceto-face, we saw a way to provide an option for a collective shift in professional behavior, and we worked hard to make our vision a reality. Along with many others during this difficult pandemic year, we took quick action to create a successful virtual research experience for our colleagues. We have shown that virtual conferences have many benefits and strong potential for growth. To solve the climate crisis, we must embrace creative new approaches for achieving our personal and professional goals with dramatically reduced CO 2 emissions.


s2fieldsofstudy: Business Economics

text:
Revisiting Stakeholder Theory and Environmentalism: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

: In this study, we evaluated corporate environmental activities within the framework of stakeholders’ concerns and taking an emerging economy as the ﬁeld of study. This paper integrates the stakeholder theory and corporate environmental behavior to develop a model and then tests this model in an emerging economy context. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from managers operating in a variety of industries in Pakistan. A structural equation modeling technique has been used for data analysis. Results revealed that regulatory bodies are the most signiﬁcant while media, customers, and activists are insigniﬁcant stakeholders. Top management commitment is identiﬁed as an important endogenous and exogenous variable.

Introduction
It has now widely been accepted that corporations have a responsibility beyond ensuring a return to their shareholders. The increasing attention toward environmental matters calls on the company to react and adapt its strategy to this issue. The growing concern about the environment arising from scientific debates (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), global conferences (such as the Kyoto Protocol), and governmental responses has sharpened the focus on the role of corporations in dealing with the environment. Starting from the Global Compact [1] introduced by the UN, environmental responses are increasingly being considered as a part of a corporation's strategy and governance, rather than merely an operational issue.
The climate change issue is forcing firms around the world to give priority to these issues and carefully create and implement environmental strategies [2,3]. The concept that being good and being profitable cannot run side by side is an outdated one. Response of firms to climate change ranged from purchasing carbon credits to offset their emissions to voluntary environmental strategies that exceed the regulatory requirements [3]. The natural environment which was once considered as the external environment only has become a major influential factor in managerial decision making and is viewed as central to the marketing and management strategy nowadays.
Starting from Polonsky [4], the stakeholder theory has been repeatedly used by many researchers [5][6][7][8][9] in the corporate environmentalism area. As the concern for environmentalism continues to grow, managers need to understand their relationship with different stakeholder groups and the impact of these groups on their ability to incorporate environmental strategies [10]. Hence, we have proposed an extended model based on the corporate environmentalism model [8] by integrating internal and external stakeholders' perspectives. Internal stakeholders are the ones present inside the organization while external are outside the organization. We have integrated the stakeholders' concern and strategic environmental disposition of firms to develop a model and then tested this model in an emerging market, Pakistan. Our results show that not all but few stakeholders are important drivers for corporate environmental strategies in the emerging market, Pakistan.
The contribution of this study is three-fold. First, we have considered a list of internal and external stakeholders whereas previous studies [5,[7][8][9] have focused on a limited number of stakeholders' impacts on the environmental disposition of organizations. Second, we have taken top management commitment as mediating construct by putting it at the center of nexus. Lastly, we have tested the proposed model from an emerging economy perspective. It is also being increasingly recognized that the nature of environmental issues and responses vary between the developed and developing/emerging countries due to differences in the pressure from different stakeholder groups [7]. The majority of the literature, with very few exceptions, on corporate environmentalism has arrived from the USA and Europe; however, according to Spencer [11] developing and emerging markets should be brought into the picture due to the increase in the industrial development in these markets. The major focus of this research is to identify the important stakeholder groups that can have an influence on the environmental strategies of firms from an emerging market.

Literature Review
According to the traditional view of the firm, shareholders are the owners; the firm has a duty to give them primary importance and must address the needs of only four parties: investors, employees, suppliers, and customers. On the other hand, stakeholder theory argues that there are other parties who should be involved in this process including the public, government bodies, political groups, communities, trade unions, and even competitors.
The turning point of the stakeholder approach to strategy was the publication of R. Edward Freeman's Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach in 1984. Freeman defines stakeholders as "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization's objectives" (1984:46). According to Alkhafaji [12], stakeholders are "groups to whom the corporation is responsible" (1989:36). Similarly, Clarkson [13] defines stakeholders as those who have placed something at stake/risk in a relationship with the firm. Whereas, according to Savage et al. [14], stakeholders are individuals or groups who have some kind of interest in the actions of an organization; they have the ability to influence the practices of an organization through direct or indirect pressures. There is a significant debate in stakeholder theory (SHT) literature about which parties qualify as a corporation's stakeholders. Two foremost themes are evident, namely, (1) a narrow view, focusing on the groups that have direct influence on the corporation economic interests [15] and corporation survival is dependent on them [13,16]. Clarkson [13] identified them as primary stakeholders while Phillips, Freeman, and Wicks [17] tag them as normative stakeholders. and (2) the broad view that is derived from a more general definition of stakeholders by Freeman [18].
The normative approach on how managers should deal with stakeholders, based on a moral commitment rather than using stakeholders to maximize profits, was introduced by Donaldson and Preston [19]. According to this view, firms establish certain fundamental principles on how to treat stakeholders and guide them in doing business and decision making. This approach has been derived from principles of ethics according to which decisions that are made without considering whether their impact on others is unethical. According to Donaldson and Preston [19], stakeholders have intrinsic worth; certain claims by them are based on fundamental moral principles that are not related to the instrumental value to a corporation. Honoring these claims may not serve the strategic objectives of a firm but they should be addressed prior to the corporate strategic considerations.
Mitchell, Agle, and Wood [15] have derived a typology of stakeholders which includes attributes of power (coercive-force, utilitarian-incentive, and normative-symbolic influences), legitimacy (individual, organizational, and societal), and urgency (time sensitivity-delay in attending the claim is unacceptable to stakeholder and criticality-importance of the claim). This classification helps managers to address a fundamental question about which stakeholder group should be given priority and attention by the organization. They formulate seven classes of stakeholders on the basis of these three attributes.
Polonsky [4] argues that the stakeholders have the ability to either threaten or cooperate. The aim of corporate strategy should be to reduce the threatening behavior or increase the cooperative attitude of these stakeholders. The importance of stakeholders is dependent on the issue which is under consideration. The arguments of scholars like Wood and Jones [20] and Donaldson and Preston [19] put business responsible for only those entities that are directly or indirectly affected by or can affect a firm's operations and activities. Henriques and Sadorsky [21] have identified four critical stakeholder groups with reference to corporate environmentalism, i.e., regulatory stakeholders, organizational stakeholders, community stakeholders, and media. Similarly, Gago and Antolin [22] have used [15] typology (power, legitimacy, urgency, and salience) for stakeholder identification with respect to natural environmental issues and have identified the following stakeholder groups: (1) government regulatory bodies-high power and high legitimacy; (2) owners/board of directors-high power; (3) customers-high power and salience; (4) suppliers-low power, low urgency, and low legitimacy; (5) media-high urgency and low legitimacy; and (6) employees-moderate power, legitimacy, and urgency. Buysse and Verbeke [23], based on empirical analysis, divide the natural environmental stakeholders into external primary, internal primary, secondary, and regulatory stakeholders. These typologies are the true categorization of environmental stakeholders. Buysse and Verbeke [23] used these typologies to check their impact on different levels of environmental strategies and empirically identify the importance of these stakeholder groups. Some researchers have preferred to take a broad range of stakeholder groups while considering their relationship with the organization [4,22]. However, others have preferred to have a smaller number [8].
Most of the studies on the stakeholder perspective of corporate environmentalism considered customers and regulatory bodies [8,9] from the external stakeholder group and employees [5,6,24] from the internal stakeholder group. This study empirically investigated the impact of a few other important stakeholder groups (media, activists, competitors, and boards of directors) in an emerging economy's context. In this study, we have taken boards of directors (BODs) and employees from the internal stakeholder category and regulatory bodies, customers, media, competitors, and activists from the external stakeholder category. The proposed model is presented as Figure 1.

Environmental Strategies
An organization's environmental strategy, here, refers to "a pattern of action over time, intended to manage the interface between business and the natural environment" [24]. The classification of environmental strategies ranged from compliance to voluntary stances adopted by corporations. Similarly, the integration of environmental concerns can be at different levels. The environmental strategy focus has a corporate strategy and business/functional strategy focus (as delineated by Schendel and Hofer [25]). Corporate strategy may include the relocation of plant/production units, investment into R & D for ecologically friendly products, adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, and even decision about entering new markets. Marketing environmental strategies involve decisions at business and functional levels. These strategies are focused on the environment-conscious segments, the customer who wants greener products; they may include the launch of new eco-friendly products or packaging, redesigning of products to reduce or minimize their impacts on the environment, or use of environmental-friendly messages in their advertising [8]. Thus, corporate strategic environmental disposition can be represented through a firm's corporate-and marketing-level environmental strategies.

Environmental Strategies
An organization's environmental strategy, here, refers to "a pattern of action over time, intended to manage the interface between business and the natural environment" [24]. The classification of environmental strategies ranged from compliance to voluntary stances adopted by corporations. Similarly, the integration of environmental concerns can be at different levels. The environmental strategy focus has a corporate strategy and business/functional strategy focus (as delineated by Schendel and Hofer [25]). Corporate strategy may include the relocation of plant/production units, investment into R & D for ecologically friendly products, adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, and even decision about entering new markets. Marketing environmental strategies involve decisions at business and functional levels. These strategies are focused on the environment-conscious segments, the customer who wants greener products; they may include the launch of new eco-friendly products or packaging, redesigning of products to reduce or minimize their impacts on the environment, or use of environmental-friendly messages in their advertising [8]. Thus, corporate strategic environmental disposition can be represented through a firm's corporate-and marketing-level environmental strategies.

Board of Directors' Concern
Every strategy and policy including environmental changes must go through the board; their concern toward environmental preservation can influence and encourage organizations to adopt more progressive environmental policies and strategies. The BOD's concern towards the environment is a critical factor that ensures the integration of the firm's strategy and sustainable development [26,27]. A corporate board of directors is the major decision maker for framing environmental policies and strategies [26]. Seifert and Guenther [28], while studying the voluntary environmental management system implementation in the healthcare sector, concluded that the most significant pressure to implement this voluntary system was from the owners and the management board. Based on the above findings following hypotheses are proposed.

Employees' Concern
Employees are becoming more and more environmentally conscious as they feel comfortable working in an organization that shares the same values [6]. Employees' concern towards environmental preservation can put pressure through "whistleblowing" and it is an important driver for companies to become sustainable [29]. Most of the researchers who have worked on the stakeholder perspective on natural environmental strategies considered employees an important stakeholder [5,6,30]. They can be an important motivating factor behind successful environmental policy. Suman and Das [6] found a positive association between organizational environmental performance and employee retention. Buysse and Verbeke [23] identified employees as the most important internal primary stakeholders. They have also found that the importance attached to primary stakeholders will increase the possibility of environmental strategies shifting toward environmental leadership, rather than reactive or pollution prevention approaches. On the basis of the above results, the researchers hypothesize the following.

Regulatory Bodies' Concern
Researchers have recognized the role of regulatory bodies in initiating environmental response for firms [8,9,31,32]. Comprehensive environmental strategies by organizations are more common in industries that face stricter environmental regulations [8]. Environmental legislations play a very important role in the development and implementation of environmental strategies and can lead to significant environmental improvement [31,33,34]. King and Lenox [35], after studying chemical manufacturers associations, found that explicit sanctions through government regulation and coercive forces, in the form of sanctions by regulatory bodies, are required for proactive environmentalism.
Similarly, regulatory intensity and institutional pressure have forced firms to be environmentally responsive [31,32,34]. After studying the environmental performance of 14 paper and pulp mills in Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia in Canada, and the states of Washington and Georgia in the USA, Kagan et al. [36] have found that regulatory requirements play an important role in improving the environmental response of firms. In the light of the above results, the researchers expect the following relationship.

Consumers' Concern
Green consumerism has played an important role in corporate environmentalism and green marketing [37]. After seeing an increase in the environmentally conscious customers segment, firms have started environmental management and have started viewing environmental management as an opportunity rather than a threat [37,38]. It is more likely that customers will boycott irresponsible businesses compared to supporting responsible businesses [39]. The customers feel that today's ecological problems are severe and corporations are not acting reasonably toward these problems [39,40]. Environmental proactivity by firms is associated with pressures from the customer group [39,41]; as a result, many firms have started turning green due to green consumerism [39,41,42]. The rise of environmental concern among consumers has been viewed as perhaps the biggest opportunity for enterprise and invention the industrial world has ever seen. The difference in customers' concern also explains the difference in industrial response toward the development and implementation of environmental strategies [8,41]. These findings lead to hypothesize the following relationship.

Competitors' Concern
Firms try to mimic the visible and well-defined activities of others, such as environmental audits, certified environmental management systems, and other pro-environmental activities when these activities are part of industry practices or their competitor is doing it. This also saves them from suffering public or financial sanctions because of the legitimacy that is conferred since many players are engaged in the same practice [38,42]. Recognition by market forces will be given to the firms that follow proactive environmental technologies; these recognitions by industry forces put pressure on firms to change their environmental strategy to compete in the industry [7,38,43]. The above findings lead to the following relationships.

Media Concern
Highly publicized events which become the focus of public attention can trigger institutional transformation and industry evolution [44]. Luo at al. [45] have identified media as an important stakeholder which can exert pressure on firms to be environmentally friendly. Polonsky [4] placed media into bridging stakeholder groups (groups which can become bridges between two stakeholder groups): it can exert pressure either directly or indirectly by involving other stakeholders in this process. Media can exert pressure on the firms and can play a positive role in promoting pro-environmental behavior and green consumption [7,46,47]. The media reports about environmental accidents increase public awareness. Hence, it trigger responses from firms to be more proactive in addressing environmental issues. It has been observed that firms that receive negative environmental press are the early adopters of environmental certification [45]. In a more recent study, Shipilov, Greve, and Rowley [48] indicated that media coverage has much deeper and broader consequences for the organizations. From the above theoretical and empirical findings, the following hypotheses are proposed.

Activists' Concern
Community groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have the ability to put pressure on organizations to adopt a pro-environmental plan [32,49]. They can exert pressure on the firm through influencing the legislative process, changing buying patterns, third-party and citizen lawsuits, and closure of future development with the firm [7]. The adoption of pollution prevention programs by firms is positively correlated with firms' active engagement with community stakeholders [50]. There are many examples where companies have changed their environmental practices due to environmental group pressures [51,52]. For instance, Mitsubishi Corporation announced that it would no longer use old-growth forest products due to a protracted consumer boycott led by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) (World Rainforest Movement, 1998) [30].
According to [7] NGOs exert social pressures as they act as effective watchdogs. In dirtier industries, the companies develop pro-environmental strategies for the maintenance of trust and support of local communities and to avoid attention from environmental groups and NGOs. Companies try to become a good neighbor as, according to Seifert, Damert, and Guenther [53], the environmental NGOs and associations have the ability to shape up the environmental response of firms. The above results lead to the following hypotheses.

Top Management Commitment
The upper echelon concept [54] places top management in the center of the nexus; organizational outcomes including both strategies and effectiveness are outcomes of the values and cognitive bases of top management of an organization [55]. As identified by Dutton and Duncan [56], "strategic issues do not activate decision makers in a packaged form. Instead, interpretation of key issues and how they relate to the organization are highly subjective" (1987: 280). The strategic issue interpretation literature has given importance to the "response magnitude" [57] which reflects the level of commitment and effort the top management is willing to put into resolving an issue [56]. The response strategy that managers choose is a reflection of the level of commitment and the importance that managers have attached to those strategic issues [57]. The commitment of top management identifies the action a corporation is going to take to resolve them [56].
Del Brio et al. [58] found a direct relationship between the commitment of managers towards environmental issues, their awareness of the advantages and disadvantages, and tools of environmental management, and the formal importance they give to environmental protection. This might be the reason behind the establishment of environmental departments and/or the appointment of managers to be in charge of environmental issues. Aragón-Correa et al. [59], after comparing managerial view and inertial view, found the upper echelon concept [54] as a valid bridge between strategic choice and determinism. The relationship between environmental commitment and the manager is greater when the manager who is assuming environmental responsibility is a part of top management. Similarly, Shahab et al. [60] found CEO attributes as predictors of sustainable performance and institutionally driven environmental policies. The emphasis of top management on environmental issues make these issues more salient and can result in generating response [42,61]. In the light of the above results following hypotheses are proposed.

Hypothesis 8a (H8a).
Top management commitment will influence firms' corporate environmental strategies.

Hypothesis 8b (H8b).
Top management commitment will influence firms' marketing environmental strategies.
The management of a firm plays an important role in seeking out emerging sources of competitive advantage such as environmental marketing to satisfy customers and other stakeholders and in return increase shareholders' value [62]. Hambrick and Mason [55] put top management in the center of the nexus, and attribute organizational outcomes including both strategies and effectiveness to the values and cognitive biases of the top management. The managers of a firm play a mediating role in the relationship between stakeholders and organizational response to environmental issues [8,9]. Similarly, strategic decisions by the firms are not only affected by the degree of pressures from environmental stakeholders but also by the degree to which these pressures are perceived by the managers responsible for these decisions [32,63]. The literature has identified that top managerial commitment has a direct relationship and it also plays a role of mediator between environmental strategies and pressures from internal and external sources on organizations [8,9]. Hence, based on the above findings following hypotheses are proposed.
Hypothesis 8c (H8c). BODs' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.

Hypothesis 8d (H8d).
Employees' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.
Hypothesis 8e (H8e). Regulatory bodies' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.
Hypothesis 8f (H8f). Customers' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.
Hypothesis 8g (H8g). Competitors' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.
Hypothesis 8h (H8h). Media concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.

Hypothesis 8i (H8i).
Activists' concern will influence top management commitment to the environment.

Data and Sample
We used a questionnaire to collect data from executives. Following the procedure recommended by Dillman [64], we made three contacts with the companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. The first mailing, addressed to the CEO/MD (Managing Director) of the company, included a cover letter, a questionnaire, and a reply envelope. A total of 500 questionnaires were mailed in the first phase, out of which 27 questionnaires were returned due to change of address. Sixty-two companies responded to the first round of mail which is about 12% of the sample. The second mailing, a handwritten reminder on a postcard, was sent ten days later. The third and final mailing was sent after ten more days and was identical to the first mailing, including a cover letter (reminding about the first mailing), a questionnaire, and a reply envelope. In the third round, we contacted 382 companies. Twenty companies responded to the third round, which is about 5% of the sample. The total response rate was 16% and the total number of responses was 82.
Although the low response rate was disappointing, it was not surprising as the practice of survey research in Pakistan is not very common and organizations have not developed a culture of active participation in studies. To improve response, we initiated a second phase of data collection. We expanded data collection to include seven other major cities of Pakistan which are listed as having significant business activity. In this phase, we resorted to personal administration of the questionnaire and used the non-probability convenience sampling technique.
In the second phase, a total of 500 questionnaires were distributed. Direct contact with the CEO/MD and their personal staff was made by visiting the head offices. However, due to the important position of the respondent, it was not always possible to make personal contact. Hence, we left the questionnaire with his/her office and collected it after 3-4 days. This approach was used to reduce time-based response bias. We also made a reminder call before the follow-up visit to collect the questionnaire in order to improve the response rate. Under this strategy, 285 questionnaires were received. Eleven responses were dropped from analysis due to insufficient information and lack of knowledge about environmental activities. The total number of usable responses was 356. The data collection process is explained in Figure 2.
round, which is about 5% of the sample. The total response rate was 16% and the total number of responses was 82.
Although the low response rate was disappointing, it was not surprising as the practice of survey research in Pakistan is not very common and organizations have not developed a culture of active participation in studies. To improve response, we initiated a second phase of data collection. We expanded data collection to include seven other major cities of Pakistan which are listed as having significant business activity. In this phase, we resorted to personal administration of the questionnaire and used the nonprobability convenience sampling technique.
In the second phase, a total of 500 questionnaires were distributed. Direct contact with the CEO/MD and their personal staff was made by visiting the head offices. However, due to the important position of the respondent, it was not always possible to make personal contact. Hence, we left the questionnaire with his/her office and collected it after 3-4 days. This approach was used to reduce time-based response bias. We also made a reminder call before the follow-up visit to collect the questionnaire in order to improve the response rate. Under this strategy, 285 questionnaires were received. Eleven responses were dropped from analysis due to insufficient information and lack of knowledge about environmental activities. The total number of usable responses was 356. The data collection process is explained in Figure 2.

Measurement of Variables
Customers' concern (CC) was measured with the help of three items adopted from Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]. The same variable was measured by Fraj-Andrés, Martínez-Salinas, and Matute-Vallejo [9] by using the items developed by Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]; they have validated these items with data from the Spanish industrial sector. Regulatory bodies' concern (RBC) was measured with the help of five

Measurement of Variables
Customers' concern (CC) was measured with the help of three items adopted from Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]. The same variable was measured by Fraj-Andrés, Martínez-Salinas, and Matute-Vallejo [9] by using the items developed by Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]; they have validated these items with data from the Spanish industrial sector. Regulatory bodies' concern (RBC) was measured with the help of five self-report items adopted from Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]. For the measurement of activists', competitors', media, boards of directors', and employees' concerns, self-report items, in the format of "public concern" [8], were developed. For the measurement of corporate environmental strategies (CES) and marketing environmental strategies (MES), six items and four items were adopted from Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8], respectively. Top management commitment (TMC) was measured with the help of four questions adopted from Banerjee, Iyer, and Kashyap [8]. All items employed a five-point response format (strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, and strongly disagree). All items are listed in Table 1.

Common Method Variance
Self-reported data raise the issue of the potential effect of common method variance (CMV) [65]. Prior to hypothesis testing, CMV was tested using Harman's one-factor test. When all items were loaded in principal component factor analysis, eight factors with "eigenvalue" greater than 1 were formed and the first factor accounted for less than 50% variance. The result revealed that the data are free from CMV.

Multivariate Normality
In Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) programs, multivariate normality can be assessed through Mardia's coefficients of multivariate kurtosis [66]. A sample is considered to be multivariate normally distributed at a 5% level of significance when the multivariate kurtosis value that is Mardia's coefficient is less than 1.96 [67]. One of the common measures for the identification of multivariate outliers is Mahalanobis distance. The most likely candidates to be considered outliers are the cases with the highest Mahalanobis D-square values and should be re-examined for inclusion in data analysis. To reach a multivariate normal distribution, seven observations were deleted, based on the Mahalanobis distance. After the deletion of seven observations, the multivariate kurtosis dropped sharply from 11.825 to 1.140. Table 2 provides information about Mardia's coefficient of multivariate kurtosis and its critical ratio.

Validation of Measures
As for the majority of variables, items were developed so their validation was required. As the first step of validation, exploratory factor analysis [68] of the measurement scale was conducted using SPSS 16. The values of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin parameters and Bartlett's sphericity test justified application of the exploratory factor analysis technique. The factor loading of each item was greater than 0.5. All items were loaded in the underlying variables and the total explained variance for each factor was also greater than 50%. No item was removed at this stage. Similarly, the item to total correlation values exceeded the cut-off value of 0.5 [69]; the values are presented in Table 1.
The next step was the application of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). CFA (measurement model fit) was conducted using AMOS 16. The two steps or incremental approach to structural equation modeling was used. The first step was the fitting of the measurement model also known as CFA and the second step was the testing of hypotheses using the structural model. Both of these steps were run in AMOS 16 using a structural equation modeling technique. Items were considered for deletion from the analysis based on the following criteria which had been identified by Joreskog and Sorbom [70]: (1) having t value less than 2.50, (2) having factor loadings less than 0.5, and (3) having R 2 less than 0.5. One item (MC1) from the media concern (MC) variable was deleted due to its factor loading less than 0.5. One item (RBC5) was deleted due to cross loading of this observed variable.

Discriminant Validity
The model which was presented by Fornell and Larcker [71] for assessment of discriminant validity of two or more factors explains that the average variance extracted (AVE) of each construct should be compared with the shared variance between the constructs and for the support of discriminant validity the AVE for each construct should be greater than its shared variance with any other construct in the model. After comparing these values, it was concluded that there is no issue of discriminant validity in all constructs. The results are presented in Table 3.

Structural Model and Hypothesis Testing
The dimensions which were obtained from the measurement model were used as input in causal path analysis. The SEM results appear in Table 4 and Figure 3. All hypotheses except for H2a, H4a H6a, H7a, H8b, H8f, H8h, and H8i were supported.

Discussion
The importance of internal and external as well as primary and secondary stakeholder groups can be treated as foundational for shaping up the environmental response of firms [61,72]. In general, the influence of stakeholders and their actions make organizations follow some specific environmental response. One of the most important findings of the current study is the insignificant relationship of customers', activists', and media concern with top management commitment and corporate environmental strategies. This result is not consistent with the previous findings of many researchers, i.e., [7,8,28,36,[73][74][75]. Some of the recent studies from China [76], Korea [77], and Pakistan [78] have also found customer pressure as an insignificant predictor of e-commerce adopting intentions to green innovation. We propose here that the difference in the result is due to the difference in the context of developed and developing/emerging economies.
The absence of the importance of customers', activists', and media concern (and public awareness in general) while the significance of regulation pressures appear to be a contradicting result as the voice of government is believed to be the voice of the general public. The result related to regulatory bodies' concern is consistent with another recent study on institutional pressures and corporate environmental responsiveness from Pakistan which has also found coercive pressure (pressures from regulatory bodies) as an indicator corporate environmental responsibility [79]. Similarly, Shin et al. [80] also found government involvement as a positive indicator for corporate social responsibility activities by Indian firms, and Park and Choi [77] found government as a major factor in promoting local CSR activities of multinational firms operating in Korea. These results can be linked to the increased global pressures on national governments to comply with multilateral agreements and standards as well as its link with an increase in productivity and compliance with export regulations [80]. Pakistan being part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol is facing pressure from these

Discussion
The importance of internal and external as well as primary and secondary stakeholder groups can be treated as foundational for shaping up the environmental response of firms [61,72]. In general, the influence of stakeholders and their actions make organizations follow some specific environmental response. One of the most important findings of the current study is the insignificant relationship of customers', activists', and media concern with top management commitment and corporate environmental strategies. This result is not consistent with the previous findings of many researchers, i.e., [7,8,28,36,[73][74][75]. Some of the recent studies from China [76], Korea [77], and Pakistan [78] have also found customer pressure as an insignificant predictor of e-commerce adopting intentions to green innovation. We propose here that the difference in the result is due to the difference in the context of developed and developing/emerging economies.
The absence of the importance of customers', activists', and media concern (and public awareness in general) while the significance of regulation pressures appear to be a contradicting result as the voice of government is believed to be the voice of the general public. The result related to regulatory bodies' concern is consistent with another recent study on institutional pressures and corporate environmental responsiveness from Pakistan which has also found coercive pressure (pressures from regulatory bodies) as an indicator corporate environmental responsibility [79]. Similarly, Shin et al. [80] also found government involvement as a positive indicator for corporate social responsibility activities by Indian firms, and Park and Choi [77] found government as a major factor in promoting local CSR activities of multinational firms operating in Korea. These results can be linked to the increased global pressures on national governments to comply with multilateral agreements and standards as well as its link with an increase in productivity and compliance with export regulations [80]. Pakistan being part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol is facing pressure from these international bodies on environmental protection. Thus, an important policy implication of our study is related to the importance of governmental action for environmental protection which may be treated as an alternative to public concern for initiating a positive response from firms.
After the regulatory bodies' concern, competitors' concern also has a significant relationship with top management commitment and corporate and marketing environmental strategies. These results support the argument of Delmas and Toffel [30] and Bansal and Roth [74]. The organizations try to mimic the activities of their competitors as this helps them to get the social legitimacy to operate in the industry. Competitors can influence the activities of organizations they compete against for the same market. Hence, the environmental activities are affected by the type of the industry in which they are competing. If one company has developed strategies to protect the environment or has gained ISO 14001/environmental certification, the others operating in the same industry will try to follow that company; firms try to keep pace with their competition. Results related to boards of directors' concern are consistent with the previous arguments of Ricart, Rodríguez, and Sanchez [75]; Aragon-Correa, Matias-Reche, and Senise-Barrio [59]; and Kassinis and Vafeas [26]. The BOD's concern plays a critical role in ensuring the integration of the firm's strategy and sustainable development.
The fourth important finding is the significance of top management commitment as both an exogenous and endogenous variable. Top management commitment has a significant relationship with corporate environmental strategies. The only non-significant relationship is of top management commitment and marketing environmental strategies. This finding is consistent with Fraj-Andrés, Martínez-Salinas, and Matute-Vallejo [9], who also found an insignificant relationship between management commitment and marketing environmental strategies. This insignificant relationship is also evident from very little to no environmental marketing in Pakistan. The low significance of customers', activists', and media concern is consistent with this finding. The marketing campaigns are to attract new customers and as Etzion [81] observes, when customers are not knowledgeable, then "playing the environment card" (2007: 652) is not an effective strategy.

Conclusions
The data collected in this study should be interpreted carefully by considering the economic and social conditions of Pakistan. It would not be realistic to think about corporations from Pakistan to be following a proactive approach and adopting a voluntary environmental stance. Similarly, we should be careful about generalizing the situation in Pakistan as being true of all emerging markets. Even within emerging markets, we can see differences in environmental responses by firms.
Moreover, the perceptual nature of the constructs that we have examined here should not be confused with the environmental performance of organizations, which requires actual data from organizations. Most studies on the environmental response of firms have been focused on a limited set of internal factors or external factors, while the complexity of the phenomenon requires a more holistic approach by researchers. A similar pattern has been followed by the literature on environmental management and strategies, which addresses the issue of environmental commitment alternatively from an institutional perspective [44,82] or a resource-based view [83]. There is a need for an integrated approach that has been recognized by many researchers in this area.
This study makes a contribution by identifying stakeholders' concerns transferring into the strategic disposition of firms in an emerging market. Concerns of regulatory bodies, BODs, and competitors are important drivers for Pakistani organizations. Conversely, customers, media, and activists are less effective drivers. However, employee concern appears to have an impact on top management commitment and marketing environmental strategies. The results of this study also indicate that corporations adopting environmental policies are more effectively driven by requirements coming from regulatory bodies rather than voluntary actions coming from their own awareness. However, the majority of organizations in the data set do not tend to use environmental activities as one of the marketing tools. The results also reveal that neither do the customers, media, and activists put pressure on organizations to be environmentally friendly, nor do the organizations try to market their environmental activities.
To conclude, this study makes an important contribution to the literature by developing a model while considering internal and external drivers of corporate environmentalism and testing it in a developing country context. Corporate environmentalism is mainly driven by regulatory bodies, competitors, BODs, and top management commitment in Pakistan. The lack of awareness and interest in environmental issues makes the customers, media, and activists inconsequential antecedents.