Research@Lincoln

Research@Lincoln is an open access institutional repository collecting the research produced by Lincoln University staff and students. You may also be interested in Data@Lincoln or Lincoln University Living Heritage.

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Recent Submissions

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    Regulating non-financial reporting: Evidence from European firms’ environmental, social and governance disclosures and earnings risk
    (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., 2022-05-26) Arif, Muhammad; Gan, Christopher; Nadeem, Muhammad
    Purpose – Motivated by the enactment of non-financial reporting regulations by the European Parliament, this paper aims to investigate the impact of European Union (EU) directive 2014/95/EU on the quantity of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures by the S&P Europe 350 index firms. This study also investigates whether the implementation of the non-financial information (NFI) reporting regulations influences the association between ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk. Design/methodology/approach – To measure the impact of mandatory regulations on the quantity of ESG disclosures, this study estimates the average treatment effects using a propensity weighted sample. Then this study uses the difference-in-differences method to estimate the differences in the association between ESG disclosures and earning risk before and after implementation of the EU directive. Findings – The results show a significant positive impact of the EU directive on the quantity of ESG disclosures for the sample European public-interest entities, which indicates that the mandatory NFI reporting requirements could boost the availability of increasingly demanded ESG related information. The enhanced association between the ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk during the post-directive period reveals that mandating NFI reporting also increases the quality of ESG disclosures. Originality/value – Using the legitimacy and decision-usefulness theories, this study provides novel evidence concerning the impact of the EU directive on the quantity and quality of ESG disclosures.
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    Spatiotemporal dynamics, regional disparities and economic drivers of agricultural carbon emission in China, 2001–2020
    (John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, 2026) Hu, D; Gan, Christopher; Anh, DLT; Yang, W
    Agricultural carbon emissions are a key source of nonenergy greenhouse emissions in China, yet their spatiotemporal dynamics, regional disparities and structural changes remain insufficiently explored. This study quantifies agricultural carbon emissions in 31 provinces and municipalities in China from 2001 to 2020, and examines their spatiotemporal trends, regional disparities, and structural changes using the spatial Moran index to detect spatial dependence and clustering of agricultural emissions, and Theil index to decompose regional disparities. The results show that total agricultural carbon emissions rose from about 906 million tons in 2001 to a peak of approximately 1021 million tons in 2015, before declining to around 930 million tons in 2020. Spatial analysis with the global Moran's I index reveals a consistent, and at times significant, positive spatial auto-correlation, indicating regional clustering of emissions. The Theil index showed a slight decrease over the study period, reflecting a narrowing of interregional disparities, particularly between eastern and northeastern provinces. Structural analysis identifies livestock and poultry as the largest contributors, accounting for about 44% of total emissions, followed by land-use-related emissions (about 38.5%) and methane emissions from rice cultivation. These results underscore both the spatial concentration and the changing composition of agricultural emissions, highlighting the need for spatial coordinated and sector targeted mitigation policies, especially in livestock-intensive regions, to achieve emission reduction while maintaining agricultural output productivity in China's low carbon transition.
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    Oribatid mite taxa and composition associated with temperate habitats in Great Britain
    (Elsevier B.V., 2025-11) Pravia, A; Barreto, C; Ashwood, F; Keith, A
    Knowledge on the status of soil biodiversity and its variation across habitats is fundamentally important to soil monitoring. Oribatid mites are globally distributed, can be found in all terrestrial ecosystems and, being generally numerous and including various trophic traits, are important components in soil food webs for the ecosystem services they deliver. The Countryside Survey (CS) is an integrated monitoring programme in Great Britain, and here we analyse an existing dataset of oribatid mite records from soil invertebrate assessments of CS in 1998 that covered over 500 one-kilometre squares. Using vegetation-based classification (AVC) to represent broad habitat types, we tested differences in oribatid mite richness and community composition across these, and used indicator analysis to uncover taxa associations with habitats or habitat combinations. Furthermore, we explored links between species and soil properties using richness and prevalence across organic matter and pH gradients. Oribatid mite species richness and composition differed between habitat types. Lowland and Upland wooded habitats had highest species richness per core; richness was lower in the managed agricultural habitats (Crops & Weeds, Tall Grass & Herb, Fertile Grassland) and generally higher in wooded habitats and those typically with organic soils (Lowland Wooded, Upland Wooded, Moorland-Grass mosaic, Heath & Bog). Oribatid mite richness increased steeply to ∼30 % organic matter. We list several species associated with AVCs that can potentially be used as indicators. These findings reinforce the link between oribatid mites, habitat, soil organic matter and pH, and provide a basis for mapping and further analyses.
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    Developing materials for teaching listening-in-interaction: An action research approach
    (2025-09-22) Forrest, Leslie; Ryan, J
    Language learners frequently report a marked disparity between their confident listening performance in the classroom and the confusion they encounter in real-world contexts. Such breakdowns, far from being confined to complex extended texts, occur repeatedly even in very brief conversations and simple service encounters. One explanation for this disparity are shortcomings in current approaches to listening, with both syllabus content and task design often heavily weighted towards a testing approach to comprehension and to the one-way receipt of information. As such, learners often receive inadequate instruction and practise in many of the subskills required for real-life listening in person-to-person interaction, such as recognizing speaker actions and intentions, acknowledging information and speaker emotionality, and actively shaping the speaker’s language choices and delivery. In response, an action research project was initiated to enhance the curriculum of an academic English skills programme for university entry. The project sought to develop an approach to listening-in-interaction, in which routine practices identified within the field of Conversation Analysis would be conceptualised as listening subskills, and that these would be explicitly highlighted, taught and practiced. The project was conducted over a period of 18 months in cycles of designing, using and evaluating tasks and identifying suitable curriculum content, with reference to classroom observations and learner feedback. This revealed that a range of fundamental skills underlying listening in interaction pose substantial challenges for many learners, even at advanced levels. In conclusions and reflections from the study, the most promising directions in this work are identified, while pointing also to remaining gaps and pedagogical challenges
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    Open sesame: Unlocking the keys in making successful requests using insights from conversation analysis and sociopragmatics
    (TESOLANZ, 2024-04-11) Forrest, Leslie
    An essential but often overlooked component of effective communication in tertiary contexts for domestic and international students alike is the ability to make requests in spoken speech acts and e-mails that is considered polite and contextually and temporally acceptable. Although making spoken and email requests are part of many ESOL curricula, they are often taught as formulaic responses, with little consideration of perceived improprieties that potentially occur leading to communication breakdowns among requester and requestee (Ishihara & Cohen, 2022). Using insights from sociopragmatics and conversation analysis (CA), an action research project was instigated with the aim of developing activities for students to make requests in a variety of formal and informal contexts. These include activities designed to make requests to fellow peers and lecturers while considering the social variables of power (Ellis, 2008) and taking into account the empirical evidence of how requests are made in conversation (Wong & Waring, 2020). This talk outlines the objectives and rationale for the project and demonstrates a selection of materials that have been developed and trialled during the project
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