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The growing importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, as well as related performance planning, measuring and reporting, has spurred interest in linking corporate sustainability and performance management systems (PMSs). In this context, the aim of this paper is to provide companies with a framework for implementing the requirements of the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) through a sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC). The framework will further the integration of sustainability with corporate governance.

The framework was grounded in the relevant literature and the CSRD requirements.

This paper provides companies with a novel framework for implementing the requirements of the CSRD through a SBSC. The framework specifies four key steps (i.e. identifying material themes, initial assessment, strategic formulation and action, and sustainability reporting) to integrate sustainability with corporate governance.

The framework supports managers’ decision-making processes in linking sustainability with strategy and providing a basis for integrating sustainability with corporate governance in organizations. The paper provides a way to practically address the CSRD requirements.

This is the first study integrating the emerging CSRD requirements with corporate governance. The paper advances discussion and debate by management scholars on how a SBSC can be practically implemented, providing details on how this may be achieved.

This study aims to analyze the impact of corporate governance on firms’ external financing decisions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The authors analyzed a unique set of panel data comprising 2,425 nonfinancial firms whose shares are traded on stock exchanges in countries in the MENA region. The authors fitted an ordinary least squares model to estimate the regression coefficients. The authors performed a sensitivity analysis using alternative measures of the critical variables and an endogeneity analysis using instrumental variable methods with plausible external instruments.

The results revealed that corporate governance characteristics of firms are strongly associated with their degree of leverage. They also showed that macrofinancial conditions, financial regulations, corporate governance enforcement and social conditions mitigate the impact of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions.

A larger sample size will further improve the results; however, this is difficult and depends on the extent to which increasing disclosure practices allow more corporate information to reach international databases.

This study provides new evidence on the role of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions and documents the essential mitigating role of institutions, alerting managers to consider them.

This study is a novel attempt. Based on information from different data sources, this study explored the predictive power of corporate governance, ownership structures and other firm-specific characteristics in explaining corporate leverage in MENA countries. Overall, the analysis provides new evidence of the association between corporate governance and capital structure in the MENA region, highlighting the critical role of institutions.

Adopting digital transformation is changing the methods through which companies' function, generating novel possibilities and difficulties that force firms to adjust to remain competitive in the digital era. It is critical for firms to embrace this change and utilize technology to develop a more flexible, proactive and effective approach as digital transformation continues to advance at an accelerating pace. Vietnam has been placed at the forefront of these changes in attracting investments and becoming a hub of international trade. As a result, Vietnamese firms have been implementing restructuring and adopting digital transformation to remain competitive with the flow of foreign investment. This paper aims to examine the effects of digital transformation on corporate restructuring in Vietnam. The authors then investigate the moderating role of corporate governance in the digital transformation – corporate restructuring nexus.

The authors employ content analysis to extract information from the annual reports of 747 Vietnamese listed companies, where the authors focus on specific phrases, such as “digitalization”, “big data”, “cloud computing”, “blockchain” and “information technology” over a period of 11 years, from 2011 to 2021. The frequency count of these keywords is calculated to represent the level of digital transformation for the Vietnamese listed firms. A final sample of 118 Vietnamese listed firms with sufficient data is selected for the analysis using the generalized method of moments (GMM) approach.

The results indicate that digital transformation and corporate governance negatively impact corporate restructuring when their effect on corporate restructuring is examined independently. However, corporate governance strengthens the effect of digital transformation on corporate restructuring.

This paper is one of the first to investigate the moderating role of corporate governance on the effect of digital transformation on corporate restructuring in Vietnam. The findings inspire listed firms in Vietnam to implement digital transformation during their corporate restructuring to enhance performance.

The purpose of this study is to provide for critical literature on the legal aspects of corporate governance and their application in Mauritius. The drawbacks of having the principles in the form of a non-binding code are discussed, and a case is made to consider their enshrinement in laws such as the Companies Act 2001 to render them legally enforceable for the good health of companies in Mauritius.

A doctrinal legal methodology has been adopted to assess the effectiveness of the principles of the 2016 Code of Corporate Governance of Mauritius. Legislations, legal texts, case law and regulations are used to conduct this assessment. In addition, a black-letter approach is taken while discussing the enshrinement of the principles in the Companies Act 2001 of Mauritius. The doctrinal methodology is further supported by a qualitative analysis of the principles of corporate governance based on existing legal literature, which emphasises their relevance and importance.

The principles of the 2016 Code of Corporate Governance are no doubt a progress over the former 2004 Code in various aspects, aligning the Code with the requirements of the OECD. However, there are still certain loopholes that have been highlighted. In addition, the extent to which these principles are reflected in the Companies Act, which is the primary legislation for companies, has been found to be lacking and inadequate.

This paper is, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the first legal literature concerning the Mauritian legal framework on corporate governance. This is relevant because the country has recently experienced corporate collapses, which could arguably have been avoided with the application of the principles of corporate governance. As such, the paper will present a case study that can be used as a reference for future research on the enforceability and justiciability of these principles.

This study aims to exploit Tobin’s Q model of investment to examine the relationship between corporate governance and green innovation.

The study is based on a sample of 3,896 firms from 2002 to 2021, covering 45 countries worldwide. The authors adopt Tobin’s Q model to conceptualize the relationship between corporate governance and investment in green research and development (R&D). The authors argue that agency costs and financial market frictions affect corporate investment and are fundamental factors in R&D activities. By limiting agency conflicts, effective governance favors efficiency, facilitates access to external financing and encourages green innovation. The authors analyzed the causal effect by using the system-generalized method of moments (system-GMM).

The results reveal that the better the corporate governance, the more the firm invests in green R&D. A 1%-point increase in the corporate governance ratings leads to an increase in green R&D expenses to the total asset ratio of about 0.77 percentage points. In addition, an increase in the score of each dimension (strategy, management and shareholder) of corporate governance results in an increase in the probability of green product innovation. Finally, green innovation is positively related to firm environmental performance, including emission reduction and resource use efficiency.

The findings provide implications to support managers and policymakers on how to improve sustainability through corporate governance. Governance mechanisms will help resolve agency problems and, in turn, encourage green innovation.

Understanding the impact of corporate governance on green innovation may help firms combat climate change, a crucial societal concern. The present study helps achieve one of the precious UN’s sustainable development goals: Goal 13 on climate action.

This study goes beyond previous research by adopting Tobin’s Q model to examine the relationship between corporate governance and green R&D investment. Overall, the results suggest that effective corporate governance is necessary for environmental efficiency.

This study aims to identify the intellectual structure of expanded audit reporting (EAR), offers a quantitative summation of prominent themes, contributors and knowledge gaps and provides suggestions for further research.

This research uses various bibliometric techniques, including co-word and co-citation analysis for EAR science mapping, based on 123 papers from Scopus Database between 1991 and 2022.

The results show EAR research is focused on Audit Quality; Auditor Liability and Litigation; Communicative Value and Readability; Audit Fees; and Disclosure. Regarding EAR research, Brasel et al. (2016), article is the most cited paper, Bédard J. is the most cited author, Laval University is the most influential university, The Accounting Review is the most cited journal and USA is the leading country. Furthermore, the results show that in common law countries, in which shareholder rights and litigation risk is high, topics such as disclosure quality and audit litigation have been addressed more; and in civil legal system countries, which usually favor stakeholders’ rights, topics of gender diversity or corporate governance have been more studied.

This research has practical implications for standard setters and regulators, who can identify important, overlooked and emerging issues and consider them in future policies and standards.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a more objective and comprehensive status of the accounting research on EAR, identifying the gaps in the literature and proposing a direction for future research to continue the discussion on the value-relevance of EAR to achieve more transparency and less audit expectation gap.

This study examines a link between firms' product market power, industry concentration, the degree of earnings management and the role of governance in curbing earnings management.

The author uses different panel techniques of feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and system generalized method of moments (GMM) to show robust study findings.

The study results reveal that firms lacking product market pricing power engage in earnings management, adding a new dimension to the existing literature. These findings mirror even at the industry level, where the authors document immense competitiveness led to earnings manipulation and stringent corporate governance mechanism has the potency to curb earnings management.

The paper has valuable insights and practical implications for policymakers and market participants. The results indicate robust institutional oversight mechanisms can deter earnings management in a concentrated market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first paper from India, a growing emerging economy, to look at the various aspects of market characteristics, earnings management and the role of corporate governance.

This study investigated how corporate social responsibility (CSR) impacts financial performance (FP) and examined the moderated role of corporate governance (CG). In particular, this paper aims to empirically examine the impact of CG on the relationship between CSR and FP.

This study was based on a sample of 200 firms over 2010/2021. The direct and moderating effects were tested by using multiple regression techniques.

The empirical findings indicated that companies with higher levels of CSR reporting invested more effectively than companies with lower CSR reporting levels. The empirical analysis suggested two main findings: CSR has a significant effect on FP, and this relationship depends on CG practices. This research presents new evidence that improves the discussion around CSR involvement and FP in French firms. Then, this research shows that CG positively moderates the impact of CSR on corporate FP.

These findings may be of interest to academic researchers, practitioners and regulators interested in discovering dividend policies, FP and CSR. The findings may interest different stakeholders, policymakers and regulatory bodies interested in enhancing CG initiatives to strengthen CSR because it suggests implementing a broadly accepted framework of good CG practices to meet the demand for greater transparency and accountability.

This study examines the effects of corporate governance on market returns during the first four waves of the COVID-19 crisis.

Event study and linear regression methods were applied on a sample of 293 US firms.

The results show that differences in abnormal returns are more significant during the second wave of COVID-19 and the two following waves. Moreover, estimations show that good corporate governance alleviated the effect of COVID-19 during the second wave and the two following waves. However, corporate governance did not affect abnormal returns during the first wave. Furthermore, evidence highlights that the effect of corporate governance is more observed in the industries most affected by COVID-19 than in the least affected industries.

Many studies have attempted to investigate the effect of corporate governance on stock returns during the first wave of the pandemic. However, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on different waves that occurred during 2020 and 2021.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the epistemological tensions embedded within big data and data-driven technologies to advance a socio-political reconsideration of the public dimension in the assessment of their implementation.

This paper builds upon (and revisits) the European Union’s (EU) normative understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven technologies, blending reflections rooted in philosophy of technology with issues of democratic participation in tech-related matters.

This paper proposes the conceptual design of sectorial and/or local-level e-participation platforms to ignite an ongoing discussion – involving experts, private actors, as well as cognizant citizens – over the implementation of data-driven technologies, to avoid siloed, tech-solutionist decisions.

This paper inscribes the EU’s normative approach to AI and data-driven technologies, as well as critical work on the governance of these technologies, into a broader political dimension, suggesting a way to democratically and epistocratically opening up the decisional processes over the development and implementation of these technologies and turn such processes into a systemic civic involvement.