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In recent times, stakeholders have called on corporate organizations especially those charged with governance to embrace full disclosure on non-financial issues, especially sustainability reporting. Based on this premise, this study aims to examine the influence of corporate board and assurance on sustainability reporting practices (SRP) of selected 80 firms from 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

To measure the corporate board, the authors use both board variables and audit committee variables. Also, the authors adapted the sustainability score model as used by previous authors in the field of sustainability disclosure to measure SRPs. The analysis was done using both ordered logistic regression and probit regression models.

The results show that the combination of board corporate and assurance has a positive and significant impact on the sustainability reporting practice of selected firms in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study places emphasis on the need for strong collaboration between the corporate board and external assurance in evaluating and enhancing the quality of sustainability disclosure.

The study bridged the gap in the literature in the area of corporate board, assurance and SRP of corporate firms which has received little attention within sub-Saharan Africa.

The study aims to improve the understanding of the online sustainability disclosure phenomena considering the quantity and nature of the content of the information related to sustainability disclosed in the corporate website of companies, providing evidence about the website sustainability disclosure of different size companies and characterizing the website sustainability disclosure of the Portuguese mold companies.

A content analysis methodology was used to the corporate websites of 83 companies in the sample. A direct approach was followed where the researcher is asked to read and classify the text in a previously defined category, but where the possibility of identifying new categories from the collected data is not excluded.

The information on sustainability disclosed by the mold companies is limited, whether in quantity or concerning the type of information. The information disclosed about environmental and social aspects is scarcer, being the focus more on aspects related to the economic dimension of sustainability, particularly in the areas related to products and services and customers.

The research design can be broadened to include other sustainability dissemination tools and other research methodologies, such as case studies, to provide a deeper understanding of the concerns and initiatives/practices of sustainability of mold companies.

This study contributes to the knowledge of sustainability dissemination practices in SMEs, an area of research that needs to be more explored and, in an industrial sector (molds) that have not received much attention in this area.

Based on the premise of the importance of corporate sustainability communication, the study focuses on the Internet as an information dissemination tool. It provides indications on the theme and information type that can be used to report the company's sustainability.

This paper aims to evaluate the extent of materiality assessment disclosures in sustainability reports and their determinants. The study examines the disclosure practices of listed companies based in the member states of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, colloquially referred to as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

First, the materiality assessment disclosures were scored through a content analysis of sustainability reports published by listed GCC companies during a five-year period from 2013 to 2017. Second, a fixed effect ordered logic regression was used to examine the determinants of materiality assessment disclosures.

While sustainability reporting rates improved across the sample period, a significant majority of listed GCC companies do not engage in sustainability reporting. The use of internationally recognised standards has also declined. While reporters provide more information on their materiality assessment, the number of sustainability reports that offer information on how the reporter identifies material issues has declined. These trends potentially indicate the existence of managerial capture. Materiality assessment disclosure scores are positively influenced by higher financial performance (Return on Assets), lower leverage and better corporate governance. However, company size and market-to-book ratio do not influence materiality assessment disclosures.

The findings may prove useful to managers responsible for preparing sustainability reports who can benefit from the examples of materiality assessment disclosures. An evaluation of the materiality assessment should be included in the scope of assurance engagements and practitioners can use the examples of best practice when evaluating sustainability reports. Stock exchanges may consider developing improved corporate governance guidelines as these will lead to materiality assessment disclosures.

The findings may assist in improving sustainability reporting quality, through better materiality assessment disclosures. This will allow corporate stakeholders to evaluate the reporting entities underlying processes, which leads to transparency and corporate accountability. Improved corporate sustainability reporting supports the GCC commitment to implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and transition to sustainable development.

This study addresses the call for greater research examining materiality within a sustainability reporting context. This is the first paper to examine sustainability reporting quality in the GCC region, focussing particularly on materiality assessment disclosures.

Based on the essence of the legitimacy and agency theories, this study empirically investigates the influence of corporate governance attributes and ownership structures on sustainability reporting of companies listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), India.

The study is based on panel data regression analysis of sustainability reporting practices of 53 environmentally sensitive companies drawn from NIFTY100 Index at NSE. All data pertaining to sustainability information disclosure, ownership structure and corporate governance characteristics were sourced from sustainability report, business responsibility report, annual report and Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database for the years 2015–2019.

The empirical result reveals that sustainability reporting scenario has been consistently improving in India. This study documents that government ownership and frequency of board meetings are the two most important factors significantly influencing the extent of sustainability information disclosure of companies. However, the present study failed to find any significant impact of board size and big4 auditing on sustainability reporting practices. Unexpectedly, a higher number of independent directors does not improve sustainability disclosure of companies in India.

This study is one of the first studies to investigate how the nature of ownership and corporate governance characteristics contribute to or impede sustainability reporting practices of companies in India. This study offers important insights to regulators, practitioners and investors to analyze whether sustainability disclosure of companies is influenced by corporate governance attributes. It also provides a perspective for regulators and corporate strategists to assess the impact of recent corporate governance reforms in India and consider how corporate governance mechanism can be used to improve sustainability reporting practices.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability disclosure methods‐instruments practiced by the two most widely employed indexes/instruments (DJSI World and GRI‐G3 Guidelines). The paper suggests that the newly created triple bottom line (TBL) reporting practices need to undergo further standardization and enforcement to avoid, or give early warnings about, future corporate mismanagement that leads to socio‐economic consequences detrimental to investors and consumers in general.

This paper utilizes sample firms from the DJSI World Index and the GRI‐G3 Sustainability Guidelines membership list to draw inferences on sustainability indicators of performance. The authors compare the GRI reporting guidelines with the disclosure indicators of the DJSI World.

The authors' findings suggest that TBL reporting has made enormous progress over the last two decades. However, the two widely used sustainability reporting instruments/indexes (DJSI World and GRI‐G3 Guidelines) differ in disclosure practice‐methods and the authors recommend that further standardization and enforcement is necessary. The authors' view is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of corporate socio‐environmental disclosures. The paper presents evidence that investors have neither rewarded nor penalized firms for adhering to or violating sustainability matters in their corporate decisions.

The authors argue for further standardization and enforcement with regard to the disclosure methods of the two widely used (GRI and DJSI) sustainability indicators in order to avoid future corporate mismanagement that leads to (systemic) economic and socio‐environmental consequences detrimental to citizen investors and consumers in general.

The research is of interest to academicians and practitioners who are interested in the theory and practice of sustainability reporting or TBL reporting. The findings suggest that this newly created disclosure instrument needs to undergo further standardization and enforcement for meaningful and accurate disclosure of economic‐social and environmental performance. The authors' view is that the SEC and FASB should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of socio‐environmental disclosure of corporate sustainability.

This paper aims to examine the effect of corporate integrity and external assurance on Sustainability Reporting Quality (SRQ) of Malaysian public listed companies.

The study uses a longitudinal sample of 2,463 firm-year observations of non-financial firms listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia from 2015 to 2019. The study employed panel regression that is, Fixed Effect (FE) Robust Standard Error estimation technique to test its hypotheses.

The panel regression results reveal that corporate integrity and external assurance positively and significantly influence the quality of sustainability reporting. Though the positive association shows an improvement in the SRQ of the sampled firms, it needs an improvement as the disclosure is more general and qualitative than quantitative. The present improvement in SRQ might result from some regulatory changes like the Sustainability Practice Note 9 Updates of Bursa Malaysia 2017 and the Revised MCCG Principle A to C within the same period.

The study adopts a purely quantitative approach and call for a qualitative investigation in the area in the future.

The study has policy implication for the government and regulators to strengthen compliance with the sustainability reporting guide and the Practice Note 9 Updates. It also has implication for corporate integrity and external assurance for companies, to enhance SRQ and achieve sustainable development.

The study bridged literature gaps by offering new insights and empirical evidence on the role of corporate integrity in SRQ, which has received no empirical attention in the Malaysian context.

This study aims to analyze whether various textual characteristics in corporate sustainability disclosure associate with corporate sustainability performance in Australia, pertaining to tones of language and readability. The voluntary disclosure theory and legitimacy theory are used to formulate the study hypothesis.

Using data from Australian listed firms (2002–2016), four textual characteristics are examined: tone of optimism, tone of certainty, tone of clarity and readability. Corporate sustainability performance is measured by Thomson Reuters Asset4 ratings. Different strategies are adopted to mitigate endogeneity concerns.

The authors found that there is a positive relationship between the textual characteristics of sustainability disclosure and sustainability performance. Specifically, firms with better performance communicate in an optimistic, certain, clear and more readable manner.

The results suggest that Australia’s voluntary reporting status does not induce a combination of poor performance and positive disclosure. This paper should be of interest to investors and other stakeholders and also informs regulatory policy on sustainability disclosure in Australia.

The authors contribute to the sustainability disclosure literature using computer-based textual analysis to explore whether firms reveal their sustainability performance by “how things are said” (i.e. textual characteristics) in sustainability disclosure. As far as the authors could ascertain, they are the first to investigate textual characteristics of sustainability disclosure in Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the disclosure pattern of corporate sustainability (CS) and the influence of sustainability reporting on firm performance of four countries in Asia – Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and India.

The authors have collected the sustainability reports and annual reports of 111 firms from four Asian countries for a period of six years. Based on the framework of Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI, 3 and 3.1), content analysis is used for calculating the disclosure score of corporate sustainability performance (CSP). These scores are further used to examine the impact on firm performance by employing a panel data regression model.

The study finds that the average level and quality of disclosure are the highest for Japanese firms, followed by India and South Korea. However, in the case of Indonesia, the average score is very low. Further, the study finds a significant difference in the disclosure of overall sustainability as well as components of sustainability between the countries. The regression results indicate the positive impact of CSP (both in terms of level and quality) on MBR. Specifically, the outcome of the regression model reveals that both the level and quality disclosure of CS are crucial for enhancing firm value for both the developed and developing countries of Asia. Moreover, the relative influence of CSP (both in terms of level and quality) on firm performance is found to be more in developed countries than the developing countries of Asia.

This is the first comprehensive study in the Asian context to investigate the disclosure pattern of CSP and also examine the association between CSP and firm performance by employing the panel data model. The outcome of this study is useful for policy implication.

The purpose of this study is to examine the nexus between sustainability disclosure, corruption perception and firm performance through a cross country analysis.

The study period ranges from 2014 to 2021 and the data set comprises non-financial companies across 23 nations comprising of both developed and emerging economies. This study has used a dynamic panel data model, i.e. the system generalized method of moments (SGMM) technique, to examine this issue.

The authors find that sustainable disclosure affects firm performance positively and corruption perception decreases the financial performance. The results explain that effective higher sustainable disclosures help to achieve control and monitor resources by reducing risk and provides strong linkages and expertise. It also affirms that corruption plays a vital role in determining financial performance of the companies. The results also reveal that corruption perception does not influence the sustainable disclosure-performance sensitivity. But in case of emerging economies, corruption reduces the influence of sustainability disclosure on financial performance of the companies.

This study has practical implications for policymakers as well as corporate managers to consider sustainable disclosure norms while framing their policies to derive maximum benefits.

This study is a new investigation that explores the intertwining relationship between sustainable disclosure, corruption and firm performance across the countries.