IIMS Journal of Management Science
issue front

Sharadindu Pandey1

First Published 26 Jul 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0976030X221083045
Article Information Volume 13, Issue 2 July 2022
Corresponding Author:

Sharadindu Pandey, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462003, India.
Email: spandey@iifm.ac.in

1 Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is largely on a volunteer basis and sometimes compulsive, irrespective of the tangible social cost. The present study attempts to explore a corporate social accountability model where environment and cost to society (after adjusting the volunteer/stipulated mitigation measures by the industry and capturing the just expectations of the stakeholders) are balanced by the push and pull forces like a lever. The study has significance in making shareholders, partners, and stakeholders more satisfied than the traditional approach of corporate responsibility. The study explores that the social costs of industrial activities may be much more than what is being charged through mandatory commitment on ethical terms. A policy delineating the lines of ethical commitment and commitment originating from compliance may be more effective and can promote competitiveness among the corporations to minimize social costs without compromising cleaner production and industrial efficiency.

Keywords

Business accountability, sustainability context, stakeholder inclusiveness, materiality, completeness

Introduction

Recently, a study conducted by Yu and Hui (2016) concluded that the economic losses of Ürümqi (an autonomous province of China) caused by air pollution are amounting to 0.2% of its GDP. One can deliberate whether, for example, in India, the mandatory regime of fixed financial responsibility of the corporations has the potential to compensate for the social costs of the corporations or not. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, in 2011, formulated a national volunteer guideline (NVG) which could drive “responsibility orientation” among all business entities irrespective of size, sector, and location (Ministry of Corporate Affairs, 2017, p. 10). Later on, another regulatory body in India called the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) made these guidelines mandatory for the top 500 companies listed in any stock exchange of India (Securities and Exchange Board of India [SEBI], 2017). SEBI (2017) further mentioned in its circular that the information should be “full, accurate and timely,” as per the International Organization of Security Commissions (IOSCO) principles. While suggesting the strategy for responsible business, the NVG modeled that the business entities would be developing their responsibility strategies for compliance and “beyond compliance.” Murmura et al. (2017) evaluated the company’s motivation towards responsibility to society. The study included 1,081 SA8000 certified Italian companies. Their principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the biggest drivers for these companies to imbibe the “social responsibility orientation” were improvement of working environment, greater impact on suppliers and customers, competitive advantage over competitors, etc.

As far as the self-improvement motif is concerned, it could be the motif for those firms who opted for SA8000 certification on a volunteer basis. In a general context, a study conducted by Carey et al. (2017, p. 244) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in China indicates that the Chinese firms use CSR reporting as a “strategic device for window dressing.” Auditors charge higher fees to increase audit risk in efforts. Rao (2017) mentions that business responsibility reporting (BRR) improves reputation and brand loyalty, understanding, and mitigation of risk and opportunities, streamlining processes, etc. A further evaluative study on sustainability or responsibility reporting in the Indian context indicates (Jain & Winner, 2016) that the top 100 companies provided good coverage on their sustainability information, but bottom 100 out of top 500 Economic Times companies very superficially revealed the responsibility reporting. This indicates that compliance orientation is still the big factor in exploring the business responsibilities, rather than reputation, potential brand loyalty, and the competitive advantage derived from it. A McKinsey study (Keys et al., 2009) also identified levels of business and society relationship as pet projects, propaganda, philanthropy, and partnering. It exhibits that the partnering has the potential to fetch maximum yield to the businesses and society. The article undertook the case study of Unilever’s Project Shakti in India. The study shows how business and society’s benefits go hand in hand, for example, $100 million sales growth and employment to 42,000 rural women in short term. There are tangible and intangible benefits associated with both business and society. McKinsey’s observation was substantiated by the research (Arli et al., 2017) on an Australian beer-making firm. The results concluded that CSR belief and firm reputation significantly influence the consumer’s attitude towards the company. The present study aims to explore the factors or indicators of business responsibility initiatives at the organization and society level, which can establish the causality between the gains of business and society. A business accountability framework can be built on this.

Literature Review

The shareholders are the important intermediary between the interface of business and society. Cai et al. (2017) evaluated whether voluntary social responsibility disclosure is influenced by the economic incentives of the shareholders. They conducted a natural experiment and asked the Chinese state shareholders to trade their shares in the stock market. The empirical evidence collected by this study indicates that the corporate disclosure increased to improve the market value of the firm. Kajackaite and Sliwka (2017) explored the question of the relationship between employee performance and employer’s social behavior. Their laboratory experiment shows that agents perform better when the principal is engaged in the charity. Javed et al. (2017) further mention that the inconsistent findings between responsibility and business performance have made the universal approach of undertaking responsibility initiatives weak. They analyzed 179 publicly listed companies in Pakistan and concluded that responsibility performance is a better predictor of non-financial performance like reputation. Theodoulidis et al. (2017) explored tourism-related industries during 2005–2014 and concluded that a broader definition of performance measure needs to be there, including “competitiveness” (Sainaghi et al., 2017).

The study has to look at the industry-level indicators to assess the competitiveness of responsibility initiatives. Further, even if the business was competitive in responsibility orientation, how would it attain the performance outcome Zhao et al. (2012) suggested the firm-level responsibility indicator system to help the enterprises of the construction industry with the help of international sustainability standards and discussion with the industry experts. The intent was to cover the wide variety of the relevant stakeholders for the industry and optimize the performance as per their expectations. Rather than the company-devised selective indicators on which the business responsibility reports largely rely on, the objectivity in the indicator system elevates the responsibility performance of the company at industry level where companies may compete as well. Recently, IIM Udaipur-based scholars attempted (Majumdar et al., 2021) to rank the top companies of India on their performance on sustainability and social responsibility. The study included 217 companies and studied their 2014–2015 reports. It indicated that only 33% of the companies took the long-term view on responsible business. The commitment to this kind of reputation may cost the companies their competitiveness in the industry. The indices of “responsibility performance” and “industry facilitation” may be re-enforcing each other. (The term “business facilitation” was used by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.) Each industry has its dynamics. An “industry facilitation indexing” is a kind of system which records the impact of the facilitation as the incentives and disincentives to the businesses, who score optimal or suboptimal on the count of responsibility measures.

Just like a citizen who behaves differently in the “loose culture” and “tight culture,” a corporate may also tend to align with an incentive regime which is uniquely supplemented for the firm which outscores the rival on the responsibility parameter. The antecedents of corporate citizenship behavior are known in advance (Maignan & Ferrel, 2001). Based on the empirical study on the sample of 120 French managers, the authors had revealed that “market orientation” is the significant and biggest predictor of corporate citizenship behavior with “humanistic orientation” and “competitive orientation” having no significance. Bertels and Peloza (2008) have indicated that responsibility orientation among firms is at “ratcheting era” (“ratcheting” is when a firm’s ability to perform is constrained by its past performance). Aranda et al. (2014) has already resolved to develop relative targets to improve the performance of the responsibility centers. The relative target setting may be about the industrial governance regime devised by the society mainly through the concerned government and public system. To understand the impact of sound industrial governance on the responsibility orientation, Lund-Thomsen and Pillay (2012) indicated to study “industrial clusters,” where clusters have seen as a unique vehicle for economic development.

Further to conceptualize the industrial facilitation factors, the study reports that in Canada, there has been an instance of the delegation of the part of the governance to the social responsibility department of the industry (Wanvik, 2016). In the Alberta province of Canada, there was a conflict between the Crown and aboriginals regarding the entitlement of rights of extractive resources. In response, the government through its multilayered system encouraged companies to comply with the international standards of stakeholder satisfaction, keeping in view the industry’s better position to consult the stakeholders and negotiate the benefit-sharing regime. It was termed as a change from “government” to “governance.” Karassin and Bar-Haim (2016) summarize it as a research gap in multilevel antecedents for social responsibility performance. These multilevel antecedents include firms and institutions beyond the firm. De Aguiar and Freire (2017) explored how a change in governance can be related to sustainable practices in the Brazilian oil sector. The study used archival data from 1953–2013 of a former monopoly petroleum exploration company Petrobras and found out that breaking the monopoly status resulted in more stakeholder involvement, including giving awards to the private sector players.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2017) has elaborated the “polluter pays principle,” which mentions that a polluter has to bear all the cost of preventing and controlling any kind of pollution. Agreed exemption/assistance may be provided in specific circumstances. Ciravegna (2012) also mentions that the general principle of the environmental regulation is “precautionary principle,” “prevention principle,” and “polluter pays principle.” The precautionary principle might contain certain exemptions, but it needs to extend the scope of the “polluter pays principle.” It seems in the line of precautionary principle and a partial application of “polluter pays principle” when India’s Companies Act 2013 obliges certain corporations to spend 2% of their last three years’ average profits as corporate responsibility activities. Corporate responsibility is a notion, which is ethical in nature, whereas corporate accountability is about knowing whether society and industry are in equilibrium positions. A study (Villarroya & Puig, 2010) was conducted on Spanish companies to know whether the environment impact assessment (EIA) authorities charge enough compensation from the corporations. It revealed that EIA practices do not avoid the losses caused by the damage to the environment. In India, the EIA cycle includes impact prediction by a third party, environment management plan and conditions imposed for the companies. The environment components include air, noise, water, biological, socioeconomic, and health and risk assessment. Usually, there is no compensation for the pollution and hazards done within the permissible limit. Mitigation measures are considered as a substitute of environmental compensation.

Tamvada (2020) concluded that lack of consensus in the understanding of corporate responsibility has inhibited the enforcement of the global corporate accountability regime. The author suggested in her conceptual model that impact relationships and legal responsibilities of the business could lead to the accountability ends. Carrol and Olegario (2020) published her research and developed three perspectives of corporate accountability based on the symposium discussion. She mentions that the first perspective is stakeholder engagement and disclosure; the second perspective is the phenomenological perspective that needs to take the stakeholder’s expectations into account; and the third perspective is effects and consequences. Masiero et al. (2020) published a case study of a listed Italian insurance company that showed how dialogical communication helps in embracing accountability at the company. Grosescu (2019) in his case study also showed how transnational networks where experts and scholars construe the different versions of economic and political justice play role in the accountability for gross human rights violations in Argentina and Columbia. Fisher et al. (2020) studied the multiyear sample of the listed companies. They studied the tone of readability and impression management in the multiple annual reports and standalone responsibility management. They suggested it as corporate accountability approach.

Zyznarska-Dworczak (2019) concludes that accountability in sustainability is about developing accounting in the company. It is considered as a basic manifestation of corporate responsibility. Recently, Charles and Le Billon (2021) published that the Canadian government could not have been come up with an effective accountability framework for its mining companies and these companies are diplomatically allowed to adhere to the laws of the respective countries where they operate. The article suggests and asks for judicial intervention to impose home country norms on all these companies. Martins et al. (2021) criticized the approach of social and non-financial accounting being done by the corporate. They concluded that these accounts are subjective and biased.

Based on the above reviews from the literature, this study finds the following research gap: 

Research Question 1:

How global viscose fiber industry players contribute to business responsibility parameters

Research Question 2:

How business responsibility initiatives can be made more effective by adding a proposed corporate accountability framework in the policy?

The present study aims to develop a corporate accountability model. The study assumed that the global leaders must have embedded accountability in their practice. The approach of the study is developing an inductive model based on the comparison of two global leaders.

Figure 1.Research Gap and Proposed Model

Source: The author.

Methodology

The present study identifies the national business responsibility framework of India, which is stipulated by the government. The framework is adjusted with the global sustainability framework in which global corporations usually report about their responsibility initiatives. The study adopts a comparative case study design. It identifies two big players in the viscose fiber manufacturing industry. One from India and another from China. The study relies on the company’s latest sustainability, which is based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 standards. To make enterprises more effective, benchmarking types are internal, competitor, industry, general, and global (Fong et al., 1998). The scope of this study is limited to industry benchmarking. By the benchmarking technique, it is being explored how performance indicators and reporting can be made more effective on common global reporting tests and frameworks.

The study collects evidence from the reports of the company and the inputs collected from the company sources and provides the author’s reflection on the gaps between standards, practice, and potential.

Finding and Analysis

Birla Cellulosic division (under Grasim Industries Ltd) operates in viscose staple fiber (VSF) industry. The company is a part of Aditya Birla Group (ABG). It labels itself as a “forest to fashion” enterprise. It is located in Bharuch (Gujarat, India). It was set up in 1954, and now it envisions becoming a global leader. The company has its VSF unit in four places in India and in countries such as China, Canada, Sweden, Thailand, and Indonesia. It has a total of five pulp manufacturing and seven VSF manufacturing units. In the year 2015–2016, the company produced 879,111 MT (865,226 ton) of VSF. CS2 is an intermediate good in VSF manufacturing. The company aims to improve the key sustainability indicators and engagement with the stakeholders (ABG). The company has got the international certification under the UK-based OEKO-TEX (Registered trademark) in compliance with STANDARD 100. The company is also implementing the social accountability standard (SA8000) at its unit at Nagda, Madhya Pradesh (India). All the units of the companies have ISO 14001 environmental certification, ISO 9001 quality management certification, and OSHAS 18001 occupation health and safety certification. These certification are there in many of the units, if not in all. The business director of this company, Mr Dilip Gaur, acknowledges that the “evolving technology and the regulatory requirements” are the key challenges for the company.

Sateri is China’s largest company manufacturing VSF. It is a part of the Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group. It has a total capacity of 550,000 tons. Apart from ISO and OEKO-TEX certification, it complies with the European Union regulations. The company was founded in the year 2002.

Table 1. Comparative Stakeholder Inclusiveness

Source: Company data (Birla Cellulosic, 2021, May 22; Sateri, 2017, October 5; Ministry of Corporate Affairs, 2017, October 16).

Abbreviations: BR, business responsibility; GR, global reporting.

Table 2. Comparative Sustainability Context

Source: Company data (Birla Cellulosic, 2021, May 22; Sateri, 2017, October 5).

 

Stakeholder Inclusiveness

Birla Cellulosic defines its stakeholders as value chain partners. These value chain partners include spinners, weavers, knitters, garment makers, and designers. The company partners are based on certain standards. The company accredits its value chain partners. However, the platform to record the inputs of these partners is not mentioned. It has taken initiatives to promote the well-being of employees. However, the report does not mention the employees’ perspective on the impact of these initiatives. It mentions that there is one intranet portal where employee communication is recorded, but the report does not mention the summary of these concerns and the initiatives designed to address them. The report mentions the accident rate, but it does not mention the occupational health indicators. However, encouragement to safety and injuries were there. It does not compare the remuneration obtained by its employees and value chain partners, in either absolute or relative terms. Birla Cellulosic identifies its stakeholders as employees, customers, the local community, and the government. The report needs to include the concerns shared by the stakeholders and the company’s response on that. Sateri conducts open-day sessions with the stakeholders. This could be one of the ways to validate the report. Birla’s report mentioned that they are providing livelihood options to the farmers in the various states of India. This may have detailed out in terms of numbers and the quality.

Table 3. Comparative Practices on Materiality

Source: Company data (Birla Cellulosic, 2021, May 22; Sateri, 2017, October 5).

 

Sustainability Context

Birla Cellulosic included the long-term scenario of challenges and reported, in general terms, the interventions available with them. Reports of both the case companies mentioned the various audit agencies’ certifications. However, the comparative data with deviation could have enriched the report. Birla cellulosic reported the various social initiatives at sites. These activities were different in nature. However, a clear baseline and end-line approaches could have made the impact quite visible. Some of the social initiatives mentioned the input provided by the company. However, the result of the interventions was not fully reporting. The Supreme Court of India and international judicial bodies have propounded (Supreme Court of India, 2021) “precautionary” and “polluter pays principle.” The companies take content in reporting that the air is emitted within the permissible limit. However, permissible limits need to have the component of compensation to increase the accountability and the healthy pressure on the entities to move towards cleaner technologies. Air pollution and land pollution are not compensated. Sateri has mentioned some of the futuristic goals related to their sustainability agenda.

Materiality

At Birla Cellulosic, the materiality principle is mostly understood as materials used. The findings of audit reports and other reports were not provided by either of the case companies. There is no mention of the employee’s expectations through their intranet conversation. Sateri participated in the survey conducted by their supplier and hence knew what kind of challenges suppliers are facing. Apart from its open-day sessions with the stakeholders, Sateri is planning to devise a comprehensive questionnaire by which it can capture the opinion of various stakeholders about the sustainability of the corporation. The simple way is to provide access to the stakeholders and create an online questionnaire, whose findings may be summarized in the sustainability report. There is no review and reporting of discussion by the government and judicial bodies over the operations of the industry. The competitor’s view was not reported by both the case companies. Sateri has identified various kinds of stakeholders and various expectation related to them. This expectation was captured through the survey. However, their report did not include the target set by various stakeholders and the contribution of the company in their larger scheme. Sateri has also reported the medium by which it engages the stakeholders. However, the summary of this engagement and reflection by the company were not provided. Sateri also identified the different degrees of value creation that it is making to the customers.

Completeness

The completeness part could be better assessed once these reports are in the same order where the tests related to the principles are mentioned. Organizations need to balance the privilege they are enjoying by taking exemptions in strict liability principles. They need to report that the amount which they are not contributing to the society is being returned through their social initiatives. Both the companies have reported how they are performing various kinds of social activities, which promote human rights and inclusive growth. However, there is no clear valuation about the liabilities of the corporations and the contribution it is making to the society. It is not about showing it as philanthropic activities. It is about objective assessment of the liability and contribution, which is presently in the hand of the corporate as well as their hired evaluators or auditors.

The Supreme Court of India and various other international conventions have resolved about the “polluter pays principal,” which is a kind of strict or absolute liability in the matter of environmental and social damages. Trehan and Mandal (2017) discuss that the estimation of charges to be imposed on the polluter is extremely difficult. Such complexity may be compared with the income tax regime and practices around the world. It is very difficult for the authorities to estimate the income of the individuals and the pollution by the various industries. However, it may not be difficult for the industries to estimate the cost of making air, land, and noise pollution and the cost of occupation and community hazards caused due to industrial activities. The authorities may easily review the self-assessment done by the industries. This self-assessment will make the environment and social cost of the industries more complete and objective. Periodically, an industry is supposed to file social accountability returns, adjusting the cost incurred due to pollution and hazards, adjusting the cost of various social initiatives. Presently, water disposal and exploitation system in India is somehow based on the “polluter pays principle.” In air, land, and noise environment, the mere falling within the permissible limit is sufficient to get clearance on a new project or sustain the existing project. A “permissible limit” needs to sustain the industry. It should not give impressions, by the practices that economic goods are without adjusting the social and environmental cost. Bodies like the EIA authority, pollution board, and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs are equipped by the legislation and rules to implement the “framework of the social accountability” (Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India 2014 notification, State level EIA authority, Gujarat, India). The social accountability framework makes it mandatory for the industries to tangibalize all environmental and social costs and claim credit for all social good it is undertaking. Just like income tax authorities, the social accountability or environment clearance authorities might exercise their statutory powers to approve the social accountability return of the companies. Such estimation may be conducted by professional third parties.

Table 4. Comparative Practices on Completeness

Source: Company data (Birla Cellulosic, 2021, May 22; Sateri, 2017, October 5).

The Government of India’s EIA authorities have prepared a manual for providing reference to the industries. In the present regime, the industrial practices still leave a lot of room for social cost mitigation (subjected to detailed study). Figure 2 presents how the Birla Cellulosic practices are lying below the expectation level of a regulator, who is the prominent stakeholder. The responsibility report needs to accommodate the prescriptions and stipulations of the authorities in a point-wise manner. Accommodating such content would contribute to understanding the industry’s potential in mitigation measures.

Comparative Financials

The standalone financials of the Birla Cellulosic and consolidated financials of the Grasim Industries are summarized here. The financial conditions of both the firms are good. The following data is reproduced to indicate the industrial efficiency aspect of strict liability on account of pollution and hazards.

Figure 2EIA’s Expectation and Addressable Areas by Birla Cellulosic

Source: Based on the MOEFCC, Government of India (2021).

The critical argument of this study is to provide some model based on the practices of the global leaders from an industry, which is under the high pressure of the stakeholders. This is imperative for the corporate accountability model. For proper accountability, a company has to balance the contrasting forces of responsibilities. Inclusive and materiality have contrasts. Companies may treat them as partners and establish an exchange relation with them. These partners may be very large, so companies assign weight to ensure materiality.

Table 5.Performance of Cellulosic Division and the Company

Source: Grasim Industries (2017).

Abbreviations: EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization; EPS, earning per share.

Table 6.Performance of Sateri

Source: Sateri (2017, October 5).

Figure 3Proposed Lever-Shaped Corporate Accountability Model

Source: The author.

Second, the stakeholders have various contexts based on their location, their type, and responsibility dimension or subdimension in which they are interested. This is also known as subjective norms. This could be, for example, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at local or national levels. The companies for the sake of addressing all sustainability constituencies may open it for the audit. In the present study, the audit job is entrusted to the most prominent stakeholder. A stakeholder audit would be different from a social audit in the sense that a stakeholder audit would use a specific framework, measure, and information. Now the pushing force for the sustainability context is to ensure completeness. If the corporate cannot enable the multiple audits, then at least it could choose objective measures covering all responsibility dimensions across contexts and provide relative performance concerning to its peers. The peer may or may not belong to the sector in which the company is operating.

Conclusion, Contribution, Limitations, and Future Research Avenues

The comparative analysis shows that corporations choose to amend the format of the report on their own. They do not seem to have compelling factors to improve the effectiveness of the responsibility indices and reporting. The purpose of the stakeholder’s engagement is to work with them towards mutually fulfilling priorities. The corporations seem to have done well so far as their value chain partners collaborate with them. However, they passively reported about their collaboration with the regulatory authorities and the community. They have omitted the aspect of joint actions in the future where any performance of one player can increase the potential of the industry. The notion of responsibility appears to be the volunteer, and by unilateral actions of the corporates or at maximum, by their value chain partners.

The present study attempts to develop an accountability framework by which mutually contrasting aspects of the responsibilities are balanced by the corporate. In the proposed accountability framework, the corporate, either on a volunteer basis or by the virtue of any policy intervention by the regulatory authorities, needs to tangibalize the liabilities that concern their omissions/commissions and contribute the society in that respect. This kind of accountability may work at bare minimum. The corporate may, however, choose to contribute in surplus. Social initiatives are largely taken in isolation. It does not seem to have the complementarities with the efforts of the government. The present study suggests that the social contribution of the corporations would be more effective if the corporate entities perform in tandem with the development agenda defined by the concerned local bodies. These bodies can award suitable credit points to the corporate, which they can use in describing their accountability.

The study leads to future avenues of corporate accountability researches, involving the computation of cost and benefits of the project concerning objective measures relevant to the different contexts of the project. Presently, the industries do not mention the tangible cost of complete mitigation of the adverse environmental and social impacts. The first suggested policy measure is to include the complete social and environmental cost estimation in full mitigation in the EIA manuals. As a second measure, the present Indian Companies Act 2013 flatly levy the corporate accountability cost irrespective of the quantum of the injuries incurred by the corporate. The present corporate responsibility laws may be amended, ensuring minimum of 2% expenditures by the corporates, of their net profits, or equal to what actual corporate accountability cost comes out, within prescribed accounting standards. This will promote competitiveness among the corporations to minimize their actual social cost of doing business. This will further clarify the boundaries between the compliance and ethics of the corporations. The corporations get the opportunity to establish clearly whether they contribute or take something from society. Future studies may bring out complete accounts of stakeholder’s expectations, arising from the affairs of the industries and the social cost estimation in tangible terms accommodating various kinds of stakeholders.

The model suggested in the present study is limited to the context of an industry only. Any policy amendment will need the study of other industries as well. The model is attempted to make it generic for larger applicability; however, the practices of other sectors would also be worthy to understand how the corporate justify to the accountability concerns.

Acknowledgment

The study used evidence from industry sources. For which, it acknowledges the administration of the Birla Cellulosic and Sateri. The study used meticulous suggestions from reviewers as well.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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