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This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate governance mechanisms (board chairman independence, board independent director meeting attendance, audit committee size and audit committee meetings) on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) and its individual component disclosures of listed firms in Saudi Arabia.

The study used unbalanced panel data obtained from the Bloomberg data set over 11 years, from 2010 to 2020.

The findings indicate that board chairman independence (BCI) and audit committee size (AC size) have a significant negative and positive association with ESG disclosure, respectively. However, the results show that board independent director meeting attendance (BIMA) and audit committee meetings (AC meetings) do not significantly influence ESG disclosure. Regarding the individual dimensions (components), the results show that only BIMA has a significant negative association with environmental disclosure. Besides, only BCI and AC meetings have a significant positive association with social disclosure. Also, only BIMA and AC size have a significant positive and negative relationship with governance disclosure, respectively.

The study used a sample of 29 listed companies in Saudi Arabia. Each firm has at least four years of ESG disclosures. Besides, the paper considered only four corporate governance attributes, comprising two each for the board and audit committee.

The results provide insights to regulators, boards of directors, managers and investors to enhance ESG and its components’ reporting toward the sustainable operations and better performance of Saudi firms.

This study is among the few that provide empirical evidence on how some essential corporate governance attributes that have not been given adequate attention by prior studies (board chairman independence, board independent directors’ meeting attendance, audit committee size and audit committee meetings) influence not only ESG reporting as a whole but also its individual dimensions (components).

The primary objective of this study is to unveil the relationships that interconnect ESG and three pillars disclosures with technological innovation while also investigating the moderating impact of product market competition. The paper seeks to identify the underlying mechanisms that facilitate technological innovation in sustainable management.

Using data from 8,738 Chinese firms from 2011 to 2019, this study employs quantitative analysis to examine the relationship between ESG disclosure and technological innovation and the moderating effect. Moreover, this study explores the heterogeneous impacts while considering factors such as property rights and firm size.

The findings reveal a positive correlation between ESG disclosure and technological innovation. The study also investigates the moderating role of product market competition and finds that increasing competition mitigates the positive effects of ESG disclosure on technological innovation. Additionally, the conclusions reveal that the relationship between ESG and three pillars disclosures and technological innovation, as well as the moderating role of product market competition, exhibits inconsistency across firms with different property rights and sizes.

This study offers a clear understanding of the relationship between ESG disclosures and technological innovation, and how it varies across businesses of different sizes and ownership structures. It also provides fresh perspectives on the influence of product market competition on this relationship, with implications for strategy development in corporations.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure has gained momentum in corporate reporting. Addressing a research gap on the subject, this paper aims to explore the theories involved in ESG disclosure studies, thereby shedding light on the dominant theoretical approaches and emerging perspectives that inform this type of disclosure.

A systematic review of 142 selected accounting studies published up to June 2023 devoted to ESG – and corporate social responsibility (CSR) – disclosure was conducted. The theories underlying these studies were examined through a descriptive performance analysis complemented by a systematic qualitative text analysis using RStudio and QDA Miner software tools.

The study reveals that five dominant theories stand out among the overall 32 found: stakeholder theory first, followed by legitimacy, institutional, agency and signaling theories. Theories are often combined into an integrated theoretical framework. The findings also show an array of minor constructs – many of them unconventional – that offer fresh perspectives for studying ESG disclosure, such as upper echelons, stakeholder salience, cognitive cost and reputation theories, among others.

This paper provides an original literature contribution by offering a comprehensive overview of the mainstream and niche theoretical perspectives underpinning accounting studies focused on ESG disclosure, with a nuanced scope of discussion on the use of ESG/CSR terms.

This study aims to examine the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure, firm risk and stock market returns within the Chinese energy sector. Using a variety of econometric techniques, the study seeks to uncover the impact of ESG disclosure on risk mitigation and its influence on stock market performance.

Benchmark regression models were used to explore the associations between ESG disclosure, firm risk and stock returns. To address potential endogeneity, a generalised method of moments estimator is used. Quantile regression was used for robustness analysis.

The study reveals a negative relationship between ESG disclosure and firm risk, indicating that companies with greater ESG disclosure tend to experience reduced risk exposure. In addition, a positive association is observed between ESG disclosure and stock market returns, suggesting that companies with more comprehensive ESG disclosure practices tend to perform better in the stock market.

This study implies that investors appreciate sustainable investment and incorporate ESG practices and disclosure in decision-making. Policymakers can promote transparent ESG reporting through regulatory frameworks, fostering sustainable practices in the energy sector.

Despite the mounting concerns over carbon dioxide emissions and the energy industry’s environmental footprint, this study pioneers a comprehensive analysis of ESG disclosure within this critical sector. Delving into the relationship of ESG practices, firm risk and market returns, this research uniquely examines both risk mitigation and return enhancement, shedding new light on sustainable strategies in the energy domain.

This study aims to examine how woman corporate leadership indicators and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure in listed banks on Ghana Stock Exchange are related.

Data was obtained from the audited annual reports of the banks for the period 2006–2020. Empirical result estimation was achieved using Panel Corrected Standard Errors.

The result revealed that female chief executive officer (CEO), female board chairperson and board gender diversity are associated with higher disclosure of ESG issues in listed banks in Ghana in overall terms. However, in terms of individual disclosures, female board chairperson positively impacts social disclosure, whereas both female CEO and female board chairperson affect governance disclosure positively.

In this era of business where there is much emphasis on green business and investment by various stakeholders for purposes of ensuring business legitimacy, the result implies that banks must consider females to occupy the positions of CEO and board chairperson since that can help to improve ESG performance of banks.

In this era of business where there is much emphasis on green business, socially responsible investment and impact investment by various stakeholders, the result implies that banks must consider improving the representation of women in leadership since that can help to improve ESG performance of banks and hence ability to attract more investors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to provide empirical evidence from a developing country perspective in Sub-Saharan Africa that gender of bank leadership has implications for ESG disclosure.

This paper explores how the disclosure quality, measured by the abnormal tone of environmental and social report, may determine the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance of the firm. This study also investigates the impact of the moderator “board of directors” to explore the extent to which a well-balanced board of directors may affect this association within an impression management strategy.

This work uses a sample of 616 firm-year observations using a sample of French firms indexed on SBF120 index from 2010 to 2017. To test the developed hypotheses, the GLS regression is applied and to control for endogeneity issue and sample selection bias, the authors used, respectively, the two stage least square (2SLS) procedure and the Heckman model.

Findings suggest that a well-balanced board of directors moderates the relationship between the ESG performance and the disclosure quality. The positive effect of abnormal tone management on ESG is weakened by the presence of a good structure of the board, attenuating impression management initiatives.

The research provides evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting quality, in particular disclosure tone management, on the level of ESG performance in the French context. As the board of directors may have a major impact on weakening impression management strategies in particular tone management practices, in order to improve CSR report quality, the authors recommend French companies to ensure a well-balanced board of directors.

This study helps investors to comprehensively evaluate the information disclosed on CSR reports. It unveils that a strong board composition induces better quality of CSR report and brings better ESG performance. Thus, the study results point to the importance of a well-balanced board of directors and the regulation of the narrative disclosure of CSR information.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have become increasingly important in investment decisions, leading to a surge in ESG investing and the rise of sustainable investment assets. Nevertheless, challenges in ESG disclosure, such as quantifying unstructured data, lack of guidelines and comparability, rampantly exist. ESG rating agencies play a crucial role in assessing corporate ESG performance, but concerns over their credibility and reliability persist. To address these issues, researchers are increasingly utilizing machine learning (ML) tools to enhance ESG reporting and evaluation. By leveraging ML, accounting practitioners and researchers gain deeper insights into the relationship between ESG practices and financial performance, offering a more data-driven understanding of ESG impacts on business communities.

The authors review the current research on ESG disclosure and ESG performance disagreement, followed by the review of current ESG research with ML tools in three areas: connecting ML with ESG disclosures, integrating ML with ESG rating disagreement and employing ML with ESG in other settings. By comparing different research's ML applications in ESG research, the authors conclude the positive and negative sides of those research studies.

The practice of ESG reporting and assurance is on the rise, but still in its technical infancy. ML methods offer advantages over traditional approaches in accounting, efficiently handling large, unstructured data and capturing complex patterns, contributing to their superiority. ML methods excel in prediction accuracy, making them ideal for tasks like fraud detection and financial forecasting. Their adaptability and feature interaction capabilities make them well-suited for addressing diverse and evolving accounting problems, surpassing traditional methods in accuracy and insight.

The authors broadly review the accounting research with the ML method in ESG-related issues. By emphasizing the advantages of ML compared to traditional methods, the authors offer suggestions for future research in ML applications in ESG-related fields.

The authors examine the determinants of ESG disclosure and differentiate between voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes in Hong Kong.

The authors analyse both Bloomberg ESG scores and a disclosure index score, manually constructed according to the 2019 Hong Kong Exchange ESG Guide using regression tests.

The results indicate that the level of concentrated ownership is negatively associated with the quantity of ESG disclosure only in the voluntary disclosure period, suggesting that agency problems are alleviated when ESG reporting is mandatory. The findings also show that larger firms significantly disclose higher levels of ESG information in both voluntary and mandatory disclosure periods. Furthermore, the extent of ESG disclosure significantly increases when firms' sustainability reports are audited by Big 4 accounting firms only in the voluntary disclosure period. Finally, the control variables are significantly related to the level of ESG disclosure showing that ESG disclosure increased over time and is significantly different among industries.

The authors make contributions to the literature on non-financial disclosure in relation to ESG reporting by examining the relationship between firm characteristics and ESG disclosure in the Hong Kong context under both voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes. This study also provides important implications for other stock markets and relevant stakeholders including preparers, users and the sustainability profession.

This study aims to examine the relationship of Indonesia’s Sharia Stock Index (ISSI) firms on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure. This study is interesting because ISSI firms are supposed to comply with Islamic values as this has been reflected in good corporate governance activities, demonstrating responsibility to others and participating in preserving nature/environmental activities.

The authors use sample firms that are listed on the Indonesia Shariah-compliant Stock Index (ISSI) from 2011 to 2020, which also published sustainability reports.

The study found that sharia firms are positively related to ESG disclosure. The authors also found that ESG disclosure of sharia firms is more pronounced in the reporting section of general, economic, environmental and social. Other findings suggest differences in the segments reported in the COVID and pre-COVID periods. This result is also robust by conducting a self-selection bias test with Heckman’s two-stage regression and Coarsened Exact Matching regression.

For policymakers, these results indicate that different characteristics of firms can affect ESG disclosure, and economic conditions will determine which sectors are disclosed the most.

This study provides empirical evidence that Indonesian Shariah-compliant stock index firms carried out their mission to disclose more information about their environmental and social responsibilities and governance issues.

This study aims to investigate the effects of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance on financial risk disclosure of European companies. It analyzed the relationships between ESG factors and financial risk disclosure between 2010 and 2020.

To test their hypotheses in this study, the authors used the multivariate regression analysis on panel data using the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database and the annual reports of 154 European companies listed in the ESG index between 2010 and 2020.

Empirical evidence shows a positive association between European companies' environmental and governance performance with financial risk disclosure, whereas social performance does not influence financial risk disclosure. Concerning the control variables, the findings demonstrate that firm size and profitability are significant factors in changing the financial risk disclosure. Nevertheless, firms’ leverage is insignificantly correlated with financial risk disclosure.

This study extends the stream of accounting literature by focusing on the financial risk disclosure, a topic that has received little attention in previous research. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first that provides ESG companies with evidence of the effect of ESG factors on financial risk disclosure in a developed market like Europe.