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As a consequence of the proposal of the Carbon Neutral and Carbon Peak policy in 2020, the Chinese Government is paying more attention to developing sustainability performance. This study aims to assess the direct influence of country-level and corporate anti-corruption measures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and its three dimensions, besides ascertaining the moderating role of firm size.

This study used the system generalized method of moments on a sample of 820 Chinese listed firms from 2012 to 2021.

The findings show that country-level and corporate corruption negatively affect ESG performance. Corporate anti-corruption measures have a more pronounced positive influence on the sustainability performance of small firms than large firms due to the limited resources, lower political position and weaker refusal power of small firms.

The study has great implications for governments, corporate boards and ESG rating agencies. Government and corporate boards should mitigate the risks of country-level and corporate corruption to attain sustainable development goals. Rating agencies should add country-level and corporate corruption into the ESG evaluation system.

Some empirical results have proven that anti-corruption measures help reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, but few evidence shows how country-level and corporate corruption affect ESG and its three dimensions.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on anti-corruption disclosure (A-CD), paying particular attention to the FTSE 100. Notably, it examines how board and audit committees’ characteristics affect the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

Data from FTSE 100 firms, spanning the period from 2014 to 2020, were analysed using the regression of the Poisson fixed effect and GEE analyses.

The findings show that gender diversity, audit committee expertise and the independence of the audit committee are positively associated with both quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure. Notably, no statistically significant relationships were identified between anti-corruption disclosure and factors such as board size, role duality or board meetings.

The findings provide valuable insights for decision-makers and regulatory bodies, shedding light on the elements that compel UK companies to enhance their anti-corruption disclosure and governance protocols to alleviate corruption and propel efforts towards ethical behaviour.

This study makes a notable contribution to the sparse body of evidence by examining the influence of board and audit committee attributes on anti-corruption disclosure subsequent to the implementation of the UK Bribery Act in 2010. Specifically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study assesses for the first time the impact of board and audit committee mechanisms on both the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

The study aims to examine the association between corporate transparency and firm value (capital market effect) and investigate whether auditor choice moderates this relationship.

This study uses the Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance (2017) data set, which provides scores on anti-corruption commitment, organisational transparency and sustainability of Malaysia’s top 100 listed firms. The methodology entails an ordinary pooled least square regression method for empirical research.

The positive association between corporate transparency and firm value is more evident in anti-corruption and sustainability initiatives. More importantly, government-linked companies have higher scores. Firms with enhanced anti-corruption commitment are more likely to have higher firm value, and this relationship is more evident for politically connected firms. This study also finds that auditor choice is associated with the firm value in the sampled listed firms.

The findings provide implications for investors and regulators on the role of corporate transparency in an emerging capital market.

The study recommends that emerging market regulators continue enhancing corporate governance codes and practices to improve reporting transparency for listed firms.

This study contributes to the growing literature on sustainability disclosures by incorporating corporate reporting transparency, explicitly relating to firms’ commitment to anti-corruption, organisational transparency and sustainability.

In recent years, the role of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure has become crucial. The aim of this paper is to study how corporate governance affects one part of ESG disclosure: anti-corruption disclosure.

This study examined 140 corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from companies listed on the Italian stock markets and 50 CSR reports from other companies, then this study analysed the adoption of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard no. 205.

The results show a low level of disclosure, and that corporate governance issues matter. In particular, the analysis found a positive relationship between the presence of female and outside members, the number of board members and the level of anti-corruption disclosure.

This study acknowledges some limitations. Firstly, the research is based on a one-year sample. Secondly, the research hypotheses are confirmed only when considered in relation to a single section of the GRI standards. Thirdly, this study has a bias towards relatively large enterprises.

It could be worthwhile introducing a soft regulation regarding the composition of the board of directors that requires a certain quantitative and qualitative composition.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies, the first in Italy, that sheds light on anti-corruption disclosure and its determinants.

The purpose of this study is to examine the convergence and determinants of anti-corruption disclosures of extractive firms in Africa.

The study uses an unbalanced panel data of 27 firms operating in 5 African countries covering the period 2006 to 2018. Corporate data is collected from the global reporting initiative (GRI) database. The study uses an index to measure overall disclosure and individual items are coded as binary. The study uses fixed effects, panel logistic and panel-corrected standard error regression, depending on the type of dependent variable used.

The results indicate that the determinants of anti-corruption disclosure are membership in the United Nations global compact (UNGC) and Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, multi-national enterprise status, corruption perception index and human development index (HDI). Specifically, UNGC membership and multi-national status enhance the disclosure on corruption analysis. Countries with a high prevalence of corruption tend to disclose more on corruption analysis. Disclosure on corruption training is high among firms that are UNGC signatories, countries with a high HDI and countries with a high prevalence of corruption. There is a weak effect of firm-level, industry-level and country-level factors on disclosures on corruption response.

The study provides insights on the use of GRI 205: Anti-Corruption, which has relevant implications for practitioners, policymakers and the academic community.

This study is premier in exploring anti-corruption disclosure with a special focus on extractive firms in Africa. It is also unique in providing a test of both beta and sigma convergence among the firms.

The growing international legal agenda and the fast development of corporate governance rules are now prompting firms to put emphasis on anti-corruption procedures. On the other hand, wide-ranging concerns have been raised by regulators and policymakers regarding the effectiveness of audit committees in promoting ethical behavior and safeguarding auditor independence from the adverse consequences of purchasing non-audit services. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the adoption of anti-corruption measures and perceived auditor independence in the context of audit committees.

After conducting the Breusch–Pagan Lagrange Multiplier test and the Hausman test, the random-effect model is used as the most appropriate estimator. Several endogeneity tests are also used to account for the endogenous nature of the corporate governance variables in the models.

Using a sample of UK FTSE 350 firms, this paper provides evidence that anti-corruption efforts are associated with lower purchases of non-audit services and lower economic bonding between auditors and their clients. Furthermore, the findings of this paper reveal that the adoption of anti-corruption efforts substitutes the role of audit committees in enhancing perceived auditor independence and that audit committees do not play a significant incremental role.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to focus on bolstering perceived auditor independence while enhancing the control and ethical environment from the clients’ side instead of the auditors’ side.

This study aims to investigate whether firms involved in a major corruption scandal, with broad ramifications across several emerging and advanced markets, design the content of their corporate codes of conduct to either improve corporate ethical standards and practices or merely manipulate the impression of stakeholders.

This study adopts an impression management perspective. It uses content analysis techniques to examine the codes of conduct adopted by seven Brazilian engineering and construction multinationals accused of corruption. The analysis covered five major themes: (1) forms of corruption, (2) values or principles, (3) interested parties, (4) procedures and routines and (5) punitive action.

The study provides detailed evidence that the codes of conduct adopted by these firms are mere artifices that aimed at meeting legal requirements but do not target the relevant corporate audience involved in grand corruption. At best, such a code may impede petty and bureaucratic corruption.

This research contributes to improving the understanding of how Latin American multinationals adopted codes of conduct after a major scandal and how they failed—at least to some extent—to design codes complying with established corporate governance principles. It shows that management manipulated the impression of stakeholders by selectively adopting or omitting certain terms, examining or concealing various issues and addressing mainly petty crimes rather than grand corruption. It also identifies areas where Western ethical values conflict with established practices and cultural norms in Latin America.

This study aims to investigate why anti-corruption statutes are not efficient in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.

This study is a doctrinal legal research that embraces a point-by-point comparative methodology with a library research technique.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Finally, this study finds that anti-corruption organisations in Nigeria are not efficient due to non-existence of the Federal Government’s political will to fight corruption, insufficient funds and absence of stringent implementation of the anti-corruption legal regime in the country.

Investigations reveal during this study that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operations are characterised with poor record-keeping, lack of accountability as well as secrecy in the award of oil contracts, oil licence, leases and other financial transactions due to non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses contained in most of these contracts. Also, an arbitration proceeding limit access to their records and some of these agreements under contentions. This has also limited the success of this research work and generalising its findings.

This study recommends, among other reforms, soft law technique and stringent execution of anti-corruption statutes. This study also recommends increment in financial appropriation to Nigeria’s anti-corruption institutions, taking into consideration the finding that a meagre budget is a drawback.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Corruption flourishes due to poor enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention by the government.

The study advocates the need for enhancement of anti-corruption agencies' budgets taking into consideration the finding that meagres budgets are challenge of the agencies.

Corporate gift-giving and hospitality are some of the high-risk areas for corruption. This paper aims to see comparisons between the Malaysian Ministerial Guidelines and the UK Guidance and to analyse whether the guideline in Malaysia is adequate in dealing with corporate gift-giving and hospitality.

The methodology used in this paper is qualitative research which is based on data collection through online searches, legal databases, information obtained from articles, books, statutes and related government publications.

The findings show that the statutory guideline in Malaysia is immature, still not adequate, and lacks detailed regulations in determining gifts and hospitality as corruption (unclear boundary), as compared to the UK law which is more detailed.

This paper explains on comparison of corporate gift giving and hospitality practise in Malaysia and the UK based on the statutory guidelines.

Building upon institutional pressures on firms to deal with corruption, this study aims to investigate the association between a firm's engagement with anti-corruption disclosure quality (ACD_Q) and earnings management (EM). Also, this study examines the moderating role of audit quality in the association between ACD_Q and EM.

The authors constructed an ACD_Q index based on the 2010 UK Bribery Act and taking into account a wide range of rules on corruption and bribery, including those of the OECD, World Bank, UNCTAD, UNGC, UNCAC and GRI. Generalized method of moments and panel regression were used to examine the association between ACD_Q and EM.

Using a sample of 2,695 firm‐year observations of the UK’s FTSE-350 from 2008 to 2018, this study finds ACD_Q is negatively associated with EM. In addition, this negative relationship is contingent on audit committee independence and audit committee expertise. This finding is supported by additional robustness and sensitivity analysis.

The empirical evidence reiterates the crucial need for more concerted efforts to ensure corporate engagement in anti-corruption practices with a view to reducing earnings manipulations.

This study contributes to the limited evidence that investigates how ACD Q influences EM in the UK after the introduction of the UK Bribery Act in 2010. Furthermore, by considering the period from 2008 to 2019, this study investigates the potential moderating role of UK corporate governance reforms in EM reduction. In particular, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study assesses for the first time the moderating effect of audit committee mechanisms on the ACD Q and EM nexus.