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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, corporate governance and financial analysts’ information environment, as proxied by their ability to forecast a firm’s earnings. Hence, we extend prior voluntary disclosure research.

Our paper considers that the determination of CSR disclosure, corporate governance and financial analyst forecasting work are closely intertwined. Therefore, we rely on simultaneous equations to explore these relations.

Findings show that there is a direct relation between both CSR disclosure and corporate governance and financial analysts’ information environment: more disclosure and better governance translate into a tighter consensus in earnings forecasts as well as less dispersion. However, corporate governance substitutes for CSR disclosure in improving analyst forecast precision, thus supporting a comprehensive view of corporate governance that encompasses disclosure. Finally, results also suggest that CSR disclosure, through its effect on governance and analyst following, has an indirect influence on analyst forecast precision. Overall, it appears that both CSR disclosure and good corporate governance attract analysts and improve their ability to forecast earnings.

To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the joint effect of corporate governance and CSR disclosure on analyst forecast precision.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of board composition on environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting in the Gulf countries. Despite the vast literature on the significance of ESG disclosure on firms’ performance, trust and reputation, there are relatively few studies on the influence of board structure on ESG disclosure in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Gulf countries are witnessing a fast growing capital markets and having serious efforts to attract foreign investments to divert their economies from the oil and gas reliance. This could be facilitated by illustrating firms’ good citizenship and communicating the fulfillment of their social obligation.

The study examines publically listed companies between 2008 and 2017. Thomson Reuter’s database is used to collect the ESG disclosure scores and governance information. The authors apply multiple panel data regressions and sensitivity testing to ensure the robustness of the results.

Examining publically listed companies for a 10-year period shows that higher board independence and female board participation facilitate the transmission of a firm’s positive image by improving social responsibility. Independent boards of directors and participation among women serve as catalysts to strike an effective balance between firms’ financial targets and social responsibilities. In contrast, boards chaired by chief executive officers are less supportive in executing a social agenda and consequently reporting their ESG activities.

The results suggest that firms that appoint a sustainability and/or governance committee tend to engage in more impactful social and environmental activities and communicate their societal engagements more effectively.

The paper recommends that policymakers, executives and shareholders in the GCC countries support board participation among women, independent directors and formation of sustainability committees to facilitate engaging in effectual social activities.

Empirical evidence regarding the relationship between board composition and ESG disclosure in the Gulf countries is limited. Prior literature mainly provides results on developed countries in which the governance system is mature and well structured. This study provides useful evidence regarding the Gulf countries that lack privatization and where corporate boards tend to be dominated by families and governments.

This paper aims to examine the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and firm value (FV), as well as, pinpoints the role of the audit quality (AQ) as a moderating variable on such impact; where the authors hypothesize that AQ modulates the relationship between ESG disclosure and the FV.

Data of a sample of firms listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange Market (EGX) were collected over the period of 2017–2021 and analyzed using the regression and 2SLS models.

The results suggested that: (1) the ESG has a significant positive impact on the FV in the EGX, and (2) AQ has a significant impact, as a moderating variable, on the relationship between ESG disclosure and FV.

The findings would help the Egyptian market authorities in realizing the importance of integrating ESG information within the financial reports of the listed firms. The findings could also help in developing effective disclosure procedures to provide shareholders with useful information.

This paper contributes to the literature regarding the ESG disclosure components and the FV value by considering AQ in testing such relationship.

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).

This research is one of the first studies to examine the effects of CSR disclosures on a firm’s decision to purchase back their own shares of stocks. Additionally, the authors examine whether the effect of CSR disclosures is stronger than the effect of CSR performance on the decision to repurchase shares. Examining firms in the United States, the authors find that total CSR disclosures and the CSR disclosures related to the dimensions of social, environmental, and governance are significantly and positively related to the number of shares that a firm buys back. Additionally, the authors find that the effects of CSR disclosures are stronger for total and the CSR dimensions of social and governance than for CSR performance. For the environmental dimension of CSR, both disclosure and performance scores are significant. This research expands our understanding of the impact of CSR disclosure by showing the importance it plays in the decision to buy back stock and implies that firms that repurchase their stock are more socially responsive than firms that do not. Finally, it contributes to the growing literature on how CSR disclosure has a different impact than CSR performance on firm decisions and outcomes.

This study aims to examine the role of royal family members’ board of directors, as a specific aspect of corporate governance, on the firm’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. Many firms in the world enjoy special political connections, benefit from tax exemptions and favorable treatments that are largely responsible for their economic endurance and strong performance.

The authors collect data from Thomson Reuters database on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-listed firms for 2010–2018. Royal family board directors’ data is manually collected using a systematic approach to ensure accuracy. Fixed effects’ panel regression model is used to estimate relationships. The authors interact variables to test the moderating effect of board independence and sustainability committee on the influence of royal family board directors.

This study finds that royal family directors on GCC boards negotiate fewer ESG reporting in firms. While board independence, board gender diversity, sustainability committee and governance committee increase the level of ESG-disclosures in the traditional way of reducing agency costs to stakeholders, this study finds that royal family board members convey beneficial consequences on firms without perceiving the need to disclose their ESG activities. Additionally, these firms do not show a spillover effect from the royal family members on the board’s independence or the existence of a sustainability committee; rather these members use a different channel for protecting and building the business value. These results are robust with respect to controls for company size, leverage, return on assets and growth. Instrumental variables are then introduced in the analysis to perform a sensitivity test.

The study results indicate the need to improve GCC market transparency over supplementary limitations that exist on their corporate governance condition. This may be consequential to regulators, lenders and investors. The results suggest the need to raise awareness of the importance of governance and balancing firms’ financial and social performance in the presence of royal family board directors. Policymakers and governance agencies are responsible for promoting the importance of forming sustainability committees and having a set of performance indicators that measure the effectiveness of their actions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interaction between mandatory disclosures and voluntary disclosures of banks and the information content of corporate disclosures on firm performance.

Based on the US-listed banks from 2007 to 2015, this paper examines the interplay among the fair-value measurement, corporate governance disclosure and voluntary social responsibility disclosure. In addition, the paper examines the extent of such disclosure of mandatory items (fair-value measurement) versus voluntary items (corporate governance and social responsibility issues) on banks’ performance in terms of their return on equity and return on asset.

This paper finds that banks with a higher social responsibility disclosure score and stronger corporate governance tend to have lower percentages of Level 3 fair-value assets. Banks with a higher Level 3 fair-value asset disclosure have a lower financial performance.

This paper provides evidence of the interplay of various corporate disclosures by banks and implies that banks use fair-value measurements to disguise their poor performance. The findings provide insights for the policymakers, investors and regulators to assess banks’ disclosure.

This paper extends the study of banks’ fair-value measurements and is the first study to examine the interaction between voluntary and mandatory disclosures. This study sheds lights on the theories of performativity, agency and stakeholder by demonstrating the information contents of corporate disclosures on firm performance.

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of directors' home regions on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. Specifically, the authors aim to determine whether Anglo-American, European, French, other European and other regional directors' presence affects CSR disclosure differently.

This empirical study uses panel data analysis of all listed firms on the SBF 120 from 2008 to 2019. The environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores are collected from the Bloomberg database and indicate the extent of CSR information disclosure by French companies. The paper is based on a dynamic generalized method of moments panel estimator that makes it possible to control for unobservable heterogeneity and endogeneity and reduces estimation bias.

The findings of this study provide evidence that home region diversity and the presence of Anglo-Americans on a board are positively and significantly associated with ESG disclosure and environmental disclosure, whereas they are negatively associated with social and governance disclosure. Surprisingly, when directors come from European countries, they disclose less ESG and environmental information. Nevertheless, when only French directors are present, the company tends to divulge all dimensions of CSR. Indeed, while there is a significant positive influence of French directors on ESG disclosure, the presence of other European directors displays negative and statistically significant regression coefficients.

This study may be interesting the French policy makers who can now pay more appropriate attention to directors' nationality or region. Thus, firms should identify the foreign directors who can support their strategy with relevant experience in terms of CSR. This could help to change the opinion of some companies that consider the internalization of the board as a constraint rather than an opportunity. These results will be useful for French-listed companies in setting the criteria for the appointment of foreign directors. It may be interesting to recruit directors across European boundaries.

This paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the effects of the home regions of directors on CSR disclosure in order to enlighten corporate managers whose companies operate in different cultures given that they have to deal with this aspect. In this international business environment, CEOs should increasingly consider the international CSR experience of directors to be a resource. In addition, this study may be of relevance to French market authorities, which constantly encourage firms to diversify the profiles of directors on their boards and recruit more international members.

This study is the first to evince that the disclosure of each CSR disclosure score differs depending on the directors' home regions. Unlike previous studies, the authors focused simultaneously on the resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, namely, board independence, board size and gender diversity, and the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure for companies listed on the Saudi stock exchange.

Data has been extracted from the annual reports of a sample of 67 companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange during the period 2014–2019. Three panel data techniques have been used to investigate the association between governance variables and the extent of CSR disclosures after statistically controlling the effects of the size, leverage and profitability of the companies.

The results of this study indicate that board independence and board size have positive and significant associations with the extent of CSR disclosures. However, the study finds that the percentage of female representation on the board has a positive effect on the extent of CSR disclosure, but that this effect is not statistically significant.

The results of this study are limited to the context in which the study was conducted, which is the Saudi stock exchange during the period 2014–2019, and then the generalization of the results may be limited to listed companies operating in a similar social and economic context. Also, the data sources in this study were limited to the annual reports of companies only.

The results of this study provide some indications for policymakers in Saudi Arabia to take what is necessary to promote corporate governance mechanisms and, therefore, enhance CSR practices.

This study contributes to the literature on CSR by providing empirical evidence on the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on the extent of CSR disclosure from one of the developing countries, which is Saudi Arabia.

This paper aims to undertake an empirical investigation on firm characteristics determining corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and its subcategories such as environmental, social and governance disclosures.

The sample consisted of listed companies in BSE 500 index for a period of 10 years from 2007 to 2016. Panel data regression method is used for the analysis. Seven variables are analyzed, namely, firm age, financial leverage, firm size, foreign ownership, promoter ownership, export performance, innovation and firm popularity.

The result shows that firm age and financial leverage are positively influencing CSR, environmental and social disclosure score but both are negatively influencing governance score. Firm size is positively associated with all four disclosure scores. Among ownership variables, foreign ownership shows a positive influence and promoters ownership shows a negative influence towards CSR, environment and social disclosures. No association is found between both ownership variables and governance disclosure score. Further analysis also finds that there is a difference in this relationship during crisis period.

The study focuses only on listed companies in Indian capital market. In terms of implication, theoretical bases discussed in the literature review and hypotheses development are mostly validated.

The findings are important for the firm, stakeholders and policymakers. A firm may think about appointing experts in CSR to spend the amount wisely and improve CSR disclosure to compete in the international market; stakeholders have to pressure the firm to provide more CSR disclosure and for policymakers this study study provides useful inputs to design legal framework on CSR.

The measurement of CSR disclosure using environmental, social and governance (ESG) score is novel in Indian context, even though the methodology is often used in literature.