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The purpose of this study is to test whether the prediction of firm performance can be enhanced by incorporating nonfinancial disclosures, such as narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators, into financial predictive models.

Three predictive models are developed, each with a different set of predictors. This study utilises two machine learning techniques, random forest and stochastic gradient boosting, for prediction via the three models. The data are collected from a sample of 1,250 annual reports of 125 nonfinancial firms in Pakistan for the period 2011–2020.

Our results indicate that both narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators significantly add to the accuracy of financial predictive models of firm performance.

Our results offer implications for the restoration of investor confidence in the highly uncertain Pakistani market by establishing nonfinancial disclosures as reliable predictors of future firm performance. Accordingly, they encourage investors to pay more attention to these disclosures while making investment decisions. In addition, they urge regulators to promote and strengthen the reporting of such nonfinancial information.

This study addresses the neglect of nonfinancial disclosures in the prediction of firm performance and the scarcity of corporate governance literature relevant to the use of machine learning techniques.

A wealth of studies have identified numerous antecedents to online self-disclosure. However, the number of competing theoretical perspectives and inconsistent findings have hampered efforts to obtain a clear understanding of what truly influences online self-disclosure. To address this gap, this study draws on the antecedent-privacy concern-outcome (APCO) framework in a one-stage meta-analytical structural equation modeling (one-stage MASEM) study to test a nomological online self-disclosure model that assesses the factors affecting online self-disclosure.

Using the one-stage MASEM technique, this study conducts a meta-analysis of online self-disclosure literature that comprises 130 independent samples extracted from 110 articles reported by 53,024 individuals.

The results reveal that trust, privacy concern, privacy risk and privacy benefit are the important antecedents of online self-disclosure. Privacy concern can be influenced by general privacy concern, privacy experience and privacy control. Furthermore, moderator analysis indicates that technology type has moderating effects on the links between online self-disclosure and some of its drivers.

First, with the guidance of the APCO framework, this study provides a comprehensive framework that connects the most relevant antecedents underlying online self-disclosure using one-stage MASEM. Second, this study identifies the contextual factors that influence the effectiveness of the antecedents of online self-disclosure.

This study aims to investigate the association between chief executive officer (CEO) educational backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and climate change disclosure within Indonesian companies.

Using data spanning from 2017 to 2022 from all publicly traded companies, the study uses ordinary least squares with fixed effects and robust standard error to evaluate the proposed hypothesis. In addition, a series of endogeneity tests are incorporated to bolster the robustness of the findings.

The study reveals that CEOs with a STEM educational background are more inclined to participate in corporate climate change disclosure compared to their counterparts with a non-STEM background. These results emphasize the significant role CEO educational backgrounds play in shaping a company’s approach to sustainability, specifically in the realm of climate change disclosure. The insights gleaned from this research hold valuable implications for various stakeholders, including top management and investors aiming to enhance corporate sustainability. Recognizing the influence of CEO characteristics, particularly a STEM educational background, proves pivotal in improving corporate climate change disclosure. Stakeholders can leverage this understanding to formulate and implement effective strategies toward realizing a company’s sustainability vision.

Notably, this study stands out as it was conducted within the context of Indonesia, a nation actively encouraging nonsocial graduates to assume crucial positions within the Republic of Indonesia.

While the determinants of voluntary political spending disclosure have been extensively studied in the literature, there remains a lack of clear evidence regarding the specific impacts of managerial ability and political risk on such disclosure. Thus, the purpose of this study is to shed light on whether and how managerial ability and political risk influence firms’ political spending disclosure.

This study uses a sample of 2,242 firm-year observations of S&P 500 companies between 2013 and 2021.

This study finds that firms with high-ability managers generally disclose more information about political spending. This positive relationship between managerial ability and political spending disclosure holds even after conducting additional tests to address potential endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, this study finds that firms operating in high-risk political environments also exhibit a greater propensity to disclose information regarding their political spending. The results remain robust to alternative measures of managerial ability and political risk.

This study suggests that when designing policy to motivate firms to disclose political spending information, policy makers need to be aware of the critical role of managerial ability and idiosyncratic political risk the firm faces. In addition, this study offers insights to shareholders, advocacy groups, regulators and academics interested in understanding the determinants of political spending disclosure.

This study is among the first to provide empirical evidence that political spending disclosure can be explained by managerial ability and political risk. In addition, this study complements the literature on the consequences of managerial ability and political risk. Focusing on voluntary political spending disclosure, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors shaping the overall corporate information environment.

This review summarizes the empirical literature dealing with anti-corruption disclosure as this specific type of disclosure has attracted a great deal of attention in accounting literature.

Keywords used to collect relevant papers from numerous electronic databases (e.g. Science Direct, Emerald, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer and Taylor and Francis) include “anti-corruption reporting” “anti-corruption disclosure”. The final sample encompasses a set of 35 empirical studies published between 2015 and the beginning of 2024.

The summary of reviewed studies suggests that anti-corruption empirical studies are mainly cross-country investigations. Two streams of research are identified: (i) the determinants of anti-corruption disclosure and (ii) the economic consequences of anti-corruption reporting. With respect to the first stream of research, six main categories of determinants are identified (corporate characteristics, corporate governance attributes, informal institutions, stakeholders’ pressures, country institutional effect and regulation effect). With respect to the second stream of research, findings show that anti-corruption reporting is negatively associated with profitability, reduces earnings management and enhances corporate social reputation.

With respect to regulators, this review sheds light on the importance of anti-corruption disclosure in the fight against corruption. It also suggests that the adoption of some regulations like the Directive 2014/95/EU in the European Union or the 2010 UK Bribery Act have contributed to more transparency. With respect to investors, the existence of some determinants of anti-corruption reporting (e.g. United Nations Global Compact membership, cross-listing, multinationality, board independence) may signal the adequacy of corporate reporting policy and that management is following an adequate strategy to fight corruption and enhance transparency.

This review offers future research avenues for accounting scholars with respect anti-corruption disclosure literature.

The current research strives to shed light on how ownership structure can impact carbon emission disclosure.

The present study is based on S&P BSE 500 Indian firms. Using manual content analysis, carbon emission disclosure data were collected from a final sample of 318 nonfinancial Indian firms over seven years, i.e. from 2016–17 to 2022–23, having 2,226 firm-year observations. The panel regression has been employed to examine the association between ownership structure and carbon emissions disclosure.

The results of the study suggest that ownership structure variables, such as institutional and foreign ownership, exert a positive and significant influence on carbon emission disclosure. Conversely, block-holder ownership is negatively associated with carbon emission disclosure.

This study enriches the emerging literature on environmental disclosure, climate change, carbon emission disclosure and ownership structure.

The present research work provides treasured acumens to corporate managers, investors, regulators and policymakers as the study corroborates that ownership structure has an imperative role in firms' carbon emission disclosure.

Existing literature has determined the impact of ownership structure on environmental disclosure. In contrast, the current research extends the climate change literature by providing novel insights into how ownership structure can influence firms’ carbon emission disclosure. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first to scrutinize the relationship between ownership structure and carbon emission disclosure in the Indian context.

This study investigates the potential association between corporate digitization and disclosure quality, and how this relationship is moderated by non-state ownership and institutional environment.

Drawing on signaling theory and factors that affect disclosure quality, the authors developed a framework to study how corporate digitization is associated with disclosure quality. The proposed framework was empirically tested using a comprehensive analysis that integrated corporate-level data on digitalization, disclosure quality, and ownership structure, with regional-level data on the institutional environment. The authors employed linear panel regression models with fixed effects.

The authors found that corporate digitization is significantly and positively associated with higher disclosure quality. This positive association is particularly pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises compared to state-owned enterprises. Additionally, an improvement in the institutional environment strengthens the positive relationship between digitization and disclosure quality.

This work contributes to the literature on corporate digitization by empirically investigating its impact on disclosure quality. The study also extends previous research by considering the moderating roles of ownership structure and institutional environment on the digitization-disclosure quality relationship.

This study aims to examine the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and the moderating role of board network centrality and political connections on the nexus between EPU and ESG.

Using a sample of the UK Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 350 firms during 2007 to 2018, this study examines the relationship between EPU and the ESG disclosure and the moderating effects of board centrality and board political connections using multivariate regression analysis.

The results show that firms tend to increase their ESG disclosure when EPU rises. The results also reveal that EPU is negatively associated with firms’ financial performance and ESG performance is less evident for firms with higher ESG disclosure scores and is observed only when board centrality is relatively low and the political connections are absent. The study finds further evidence to support the hypotheses during periods of heightened conflicts (i.e. global financial crisis and the Brexit referendum).

This study offers practical insights for corporate managers who attempt to preserve and enhance their firms’ competitive advantages via maintaining its stakeholders support through greater ESG disclosure during heightened EPU periods.

By integrating the resource-based view (RBV) and the signaling theory, this study extends the signaling theory and RBV by examining the relationship between EPU and ESG disclosure as a signal to its stakeholders and information advantages that board centrality and political connections bring to the company to reduce information asymmetry between the firms and its stakeholders during EPU.

This study aims to systematically consolidate and quantitatively integrate the mixed empirical results on the association between ownership mechanisms and voluntary carbon disclosure using meta-analysis and further propose potential country-level moderators of this relationship.

The authors apply meta-analytic procedures on 55 empirical studies conducted during 2008–2022, covering 13 countries, 85 effect sizes and 226,473 firm-year observations. To gauge the significance of the estimated mean effect size, a random-effects Hedges and Olkin meta-analysis procedure is adopted, followed by a restricted maximum likelihood based meta-regression, to test the effect of possible moderators.

Aligned with agency and stakeholder theories, the results highlight institutional and state ownership (SO) as having a significant positive impact on voluntary carbon disclosure. On the other hand, ownership concentration, managerial and foreign ownership have an insignificant effect on voluntary carbon disclosure. Based on institutional theory perspectives, the authors confirm the impact of institutional ownership on voluntary carbon disclosure to be more prominent in civil law countries and those countries that have implemented an emission trading scheme (ETS).

The finding that institutional and SO in firms can translate into higher voluntary disclosures deems investors and the government as crucial stakeholders in achieving carbon neutrality. Furthermore, the finding that the effect of institutional investors on carbon disclosure is heightened in ETS-implemented countries provides evidence to the regulatory authorities in favour of this scheme.

The positive impact of institutional and government ownership on voluntary carbon disclosure highlights that these ownership structures not only have the potential to transform corporate decisions but also have implications for the wider society. As firms owned by institutional investors disclose their carbon information, it provides access to critical information about their environmental practices to the public. This fosters an environment of transparency and trust between the firm and its stakeholders (the community), leading to an overall well-informed society.

While prior meta-reviews studied the impact of corporate governance on voluntary disclosures, the meta-literature, as of 2024, has yet to address its influence specifically on carbon disclosures, which are pertinent amidst the ongoing global climate change crisis. The findings inform policymakers about the pivotal institutional factors that can amplify the impact of effective ownership structures on voluntary carbon disclosure. Future scope exists for investigating the effects of ownership mechanisms on firm-level sustainable investments. Furthermore, future empirical analysis could consider the moderating influence of “culture” and “ease of doing business” on the ownership-carbon disclosure relationship.

This study aims to investigate the level of online sustainability disclosure provided by international universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ultimate goal is to identify the factors influencing the amount of sustainability information these universities disclose through their websites.

This study conducts a manual content analysis to measure the extent to which a sample of 100 international universities disseminate information on sustainability and COVID-19 issues via the web. A multiple regression analysis is performed to test the research hypotheses.

The findings confirm that universities worldwide leverage the potential of websites to convey sustainability information beneficial for stakeholders and society. Moreover, while board gender diversity positively affects the level of online sustainability disclosure, board size exerts a negative effect. Furthermore, university size, internet visibility and ranking position have no significant impact on the amount of online sustainability information provided by international universities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides insight into the possible determinants of universities’ online sustainability reporting during COVID-19. This study extends prior research mainly conducted in single countries by providing data on the sustainability disclosure level of universities in different geographical regions. Empirical findings also support policymakers’ global action in the past decade to increase the role of women in leadership and governing positions.