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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of board gender diversity on corporate social performance (CSP) in Brazilian companies.

This research collected available information on the CSP, financial performance and governance of Brazilian companies for five years (2016–2020). The dependent variable of this study is CSP (workforce, human rights, community and respect for the product). The independent variable is gender diversity. The authors control financial performance, the presence of a social responsibility committee and the industry sector. The data were analyzed using the dynamic panel data system, which is the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator.

This empirical investigation confirmed the hypothesis that the female presence on boards has a positive effect on the CSP of Brazilian companies. The findings of this study are consistent with previous studies. The authors' results suggest that women are more socially aware and exhibit more social corporate behavior.

Supplementing financial reports with nonfinancial information draws the attention of regulators and shareholders. Companies can also create human resources policies for appointing women to senior management positions and a succession plan that values the talent that women bring to companies.

A critical mass of women on the board can provide an effective balance, considering the diversity of backgrounds and experiences between men and women. Just one woman on the board can mean representation and resistance, but with a critical amount, female directors can have a voice and help formulate strategies aimed at CSP.

This study aims to examine how chief executive officer's (CEO) personality traits influence the corporate sustainability performance (CSP) of firms. The paper also examines the moderating effect of board power on this relationship.

Using a linguistic tool (IBM's Watson Personality Insight Service), the authors measured the personality traits of 229 CEOs from 176 firms from 2009 to 2018. Firm-level CSP are obtained from the Sustainalytics database. The hypotheses are tested using multiple regression analysis. The robustness of the results of the study is confirmed by addressing endogeneity concerns and by validating the measurement of CEO personality traits using Personality Recognizer, an alternative linguistic tool.

The results show that CEO personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism are significant predictors of CSP. The paper also identifies board power as a contingent factor that influences the suggested relationships.

Using upper echelon theory and cybernetic big five theory, this paper identifies CEO personality traits as important antecedents of corporate sustainability performance and adds to the micro-foundations of corporate sustainability literature. To the authors’ understanding, this is the first study that examines the influence of CEO personality on CSP using a comprehensive trait framework. The paper also demonstrates the usefulness of text-analytic tools to measure CEO personality traits, thereby contributing to the progress of upper echelon theory.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the experience of the top management team (TMT), such as industrial experience and functional experience heterogeneity, affect corporate social performance (CSP) and whether TMT faultlines act as a moderator.

To examine the effect of TMT experience on CSP, this study uses upper echelons theory as theoretical background, and data are selected from 212 Chinese high-polluting companies with A-shares from 2012 to 2016. The dependent variable is lagged by one year from 2013 to 2017.

Industrial experience both positively influenced CSR and negatively influenced corporate social irresponsibility. Functional experience heterogeneity had an inverted U-shaped effect on responsible behaviors and a U-shaped effect on irresponsible behaviors. Meanwhile, TMT faultlines played a moderating roles in the relationship between TMT experience and CSP, in which faultlines reinforces the non-linear relationship between functional experience heterogeneity and CSP.

The existence of impact paths between TMT experience and corporate social performances must still be examined. Other moderators need to be verified.

The important ways to promote more corporate responsible behavior and reduce irresponsible corporate behavior is to choose the right team members. During team formation, it is important to have experience in related industries and select team members with different functional experiences. Companies can consider hiring executives who tend to work together and have relevant experience, which can reduce the time cost of unnecessary conflicts.

This study combined the upper echelons theory with some attention perspectives to study the impacts of TMT experience on CSP.

This study aims to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate sustainable performance (CSP) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by looking into the significance of mediating factors, namely, brand image (BI) and brand loyalty (BL), within the context of an emerging economy.

The authors conduct an extensive literature study on the subjects of CSR, BI and BL to assess their influence on the sustainable performance of SMEs in an emerging market. The study adopts a quantitative methodology. A total of 438 answers were obtained from a sample size of 513. The data of the SMEs in Vietnam was analyzed using the smart partial least squares structural equation modeling software, specifically version 3.3.2.

The results of the authors demonstrate notable and favorable correlations between CSR and CSP, CSR and BI and CSR and BL. Importantly, the findings contribute to existing knowledge by looking into the mediating influence of BI and BL in the relationship between CSR and CSP.

According to the authors’ understanding, a number of research have investigated the correlation between CSR and CSP within the realm of SMEs. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of scholarly research examining the mediating function of BI and BL in this association. The study’s findings have important implications for entrepreneurs and senior management in effectively guiding their enterprises and improving their business strategies with an emphasis on sustainability in emerging markets. The outcome of this study has the potential to significantly contribute to SMEs in Vietnam as well as other emerging countries.

This work aims to present existing management system standards (MSSs) published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) through a bibliometric analysis, thereby outlining their academic research status and highlighting their relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as to environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes.

The study firstly retrieves a preliminary set of MSSs standards from ISO and filters it in accordance with certain exclusion/inclusion criteria. Secondly, a bibliometric search is performed in the database Scopus. Thirdly, performance analysis is conducted to quantitatively measure the scientific output in academia, and science mapping of co-occurrences of keywords is applied to identify related topics. Thereby, the standards’ relationships to sustainability are outlined. Eventually, the work discusses future research opportunities.

The findings reveal that whereas research on MSSs focuses predominantly on only a few standards by now, there are actually numerous further standards that address sustainability-relevant topics, which are getting increasing attention among scholars as measured by the number of publications. Therefore, an action plan for future research is derived. Moreover, the findings support the argument of integrating MSSs to cover a broad range of corporate sustainability issues.

The paper connects the concepts of MSSs and sustainability, an upcoming research branch yet characterized by shortage of academic studies (given that research continues to focus on a few standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001). The work therefore opens up the line for more in-detail research on less known but nevertheless sustainability-relevant ISO MSSs.

As of 2022, the scope of the engagement and interest of debt capital providers in ESG reporting is mainly untapped. However, a vast amount of literature has produced conflicting findings about the importance of debt capital (leverage) as a factor in sustainability reporting (SR). This is the first meta-analysis reconciling the mixed results of 85 single country studies containing 131 effect sizes across 24,482 firms conducted over past three decades (1999–2022) investigating the influence of leverage on SR. The study emphasizes the significance of contextualizing research by identifying the macro-environmental elements modifying debt's impact on SR, through the use of the institutional theory. Eleven country variables were tested on the collected dataset, spread across 36 countries.

Meta-analysis technique for aggregation of existing extant empirical work. Continuous and categorical variable-based moderator analysis to demystify the influence of country characteristics affecting the leverage–SR relationship.

Results show positive significant impact of debt capital providers on SR. Country's level of development, GDP, extent of capital constraints in a country, financial sector development within a nation, country governance factors and corruption levels, country's culture, number of sustainability reporting instruments operational in a country and geographical location proved to be significant moderators.

The study details relevant meaningful research gaps, worthy of uptake by researchers to produce targeted research.

Governments must increasingly go beyond their mandated disclosure role and acknowledge the important institutional factors that have contributed to the expansion of ESG reporting through the creation of nation-specific tools, incentive structures and disclosure-encouraging regulations. To secure a steady flow of funding and prevent negative effects on company value and cost of capital in the midst of prolonged global economic upheaval, businesses must address the information requirements of lenders. The limited total effect size emphasizes the necessity for debt providers to step up their ESG activism and exercise their maximum power and potential in stimulating extensive SR firm-level practices.

The present study is the first meta-analysis reconciling the mixed results of 85 single-country studies containing 131 effect sizes across 24,482 firms conducted over the past three decades (1999–2022) investigating the influence of leverage on SR and demystifying the macro-environmental factors affecting the leverage–SR association.

Drawing on legitimacy and upper-echelon theory, this paper aims to investigate the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and board gender diversity (BGD).

Using Morgan Stanley Capital International measures of social and governance performance, the authors use 2,950 firm-year observations from US companies for the years 2016–2020 to show that good performance on social issues drives BGD.

The panel data model indicates that the relationship between CSP and BGD is strengthened when firms display robust corporate governance.

This study contributes to the extant literature through empirical consideration of CSP as a predictor of BGD, a relationship that has rarely been examined. It further highlights the significant role of corporate governance in ensuring that women have access to corporate boards. Discussion and findings highlight that social performance and governance may significantly contribute to the diversity of socially cognizant boards.

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of corporate sustainability performance on financial performance and the role of agency costs and business risk in determining this effect.

This study uses the data of 83 non-financial Turkish firms listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange during the period 2014–2021. Two-step system GMM models are applied to examine the study’s hypotheses.

The results indicate a positive effect of corporate sustainability performance on financial performance, and that this effect is significant only for firms that are more likely to suffer agency costs of equity, firms with R&D expenditures and firms with lower business risk.

The results of this study confirm the importance of regulations introduced by regulators to support the sustainability initiatives for firms that have less ability to access funds required for their investments. In addition, the findings provide important insight into the role of the persistence of corporate sustainability performance in enhancing financial performance through mitigating managers' opportunistic behavior.

To the author’s knowledge, this research is one of few that examine the effect of agency costs and business risk on the corporate sustainability–financial performance relationship in emerging markets.

Drawing on the socially embedded model of thriving and the idiosyncrasy credit model of leadership, this study aims to develop a moderated mediation model to investigate the roles that are thriving at work and leader competency play in the link between leader humility and creative service performance (CSP) of hospitality frontline service employees (FSEs).

To test the moderated mediation model, the authors applied a time-lagged research design and collected multi-source data from locally owned, star-rated hotels headquartered in the capital city of Pakistan. The authors collected the multi-source data at three different points in time from employees and their respective supervisors (N = 52 managers and their 312 immediate employees).

The results denote that leader humility positively impacts CSP, thriving at work mediates this impact and leader competency not only moderates the connection between leader humility and thriving at work but also magnifies the indirect association between leader humility and CSP via thriving at work.

The moderated mediation framework based on the socially embedded model of thriving and the idiosyncrasy credit model of leadership will benefit future researchers and practitioners while exploring the impact of leader humility (LH) on FSEs’ CSP in the hospitality context.

The fundamental contribution of this study is developing and testing a research model that concentrates on the effects of leader humility on FSEs’ CSP. Moreover, by receiving support on the mediating role of thriving, this research further sheds light on how subordinates under the leader with humility demonstrate high CSP. In addition, the moderating role of leader competency found in this study further highlights that leader effectiveness depends on the degree to which employees perceive their leader as competent.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature of the studies that have examined several theoretical perspectives on corporate social performance (CSP) and identify possible future research questions based on various theoretical viewpoints.

The study used systematic literature review analysis on a sample of 667 studies published in top A* and A category journals listed in the Australian Business Dean Council list. The present study derived articles between 1975 and 2023 from the SCOPUS database by using relevant keywords to identify research activities in CSP.

The findings suggest that many studies on CSP have been undertaken globally. But there is a lack of studies on various theoretical perspectives, including peer uncertainty evaluation, buyer–supplier sustainability links, the role of primary stakeholders (especially consumers, employees, suppliers and secondary stakeholders), the use of technology, firm-related heterogeneities, and the role of demographic and socio-economic factors. Future research areas are recommended.

The study investigates existing research gaps to identify possible future research questions and frameworks that can be explored to advance the research on CSP.

The research also provides implications for firms in terms of understanding diverse theoretical perspectives to develop strategies to improve a firm’s social performance.

The findings are derived from a systematic review of the literature in top-category studies that examined existing theories and frameworks in the CSP domain. This highlights the importance of other understudied complementary theories, such as complexity theory, spillover theory, critical mass theory, slack theory and so on, and related variables that can improve a firm’s social performance. Evaluation of existing theoretical perspectives is not included in other review studies.