Search Results (324)

This study examines how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting is communicated and perceived on YouTube. A dataset of 553 relevant videos and 5060 user comments was extracted on 2 April 2025 ranging between 2014 and 2025, and sentiment, topic, and stance analyses were applied to both transcripts and comments. The majority of video content strongly endorsed ESG reporting, emphasizing themes such as transparency, regulatory compliance, and financial performance. In contrast, viewer comments revealed diverse stances, including skepticism about methodological inconsistencies, accusations of greenwashing, and concerns over politicization. Notably, statistical analysis showed minimal correlation between video sentiment and audience sentiment, suggesting that user perceptions are shaped by factors beyond the tone of the videos themselves. These findings underscore the need for more rigorous ESG frameworks, enhanced standardization, and proactive stakeholder engagement strategies. The study highlights the value of online platforms for capturing stakeholder feedback in real time, offering practical insights for organizations and policymakers seeking to strengthen ESG disclosure and communication. Full article

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and cause-related marketing has reshaped corporate social responsibility practices while triggering a conflict between technological instrumental rationality and moral value transmission. Building on the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) and AI aversion literature, this research employs two experiments to reveal that AI disclosure exerts a unique inhibitory effect on consumers’ purchase intentions in cause-related marketing contexts compared to non-cause-related marketing scenarios. Further analysis uncovers a chain mediation pathway through consumer skepticism and advertisement attitudes, explaining the psychological mechanism underlying AI disclosure’s impact on purchase intentions. The study also identifies the moderating role of AI aversion within this chain model. The findings provide a new theoretical perspective for integrating AI disclosure, consumer psychological responses, and marketing effectiveness while exposing the “value-instrumentality” conflict inherent in AI applications for cause-related marketing. This research advances the evolution of the PKM in the digital era and offers practical insights for cause-related marketing enterprises to balance AI technology application with optimized disclosure strategies. Full article

As sustainability becomes a strategic priority across global financial services, its implementation in emerging insurance markets remains insufficiently understood. This study explores the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles within Saudi Arabia’s insurance sector, combining content analysis of corporate disclosures with qualitative insights from industry stakeholders. The research investigates how insurers embed ESG principles into their operations, the development of sustainable insurance products, and their perceived financial and regulatory implications. The findings reveal gradual progress in ESG integration, primarily driven by governance reforms aligned with national development agendas, while social and environmental dimensions remain comparatively underdeveloped. Stakeholders identify regulatory ambiguity, data limitations, and technical capacity as persistent barriers, but also point to increasing investor and consumer interest in sustainability-aligned offerings. This study offers policy and managerial recommendations to advance ESG principle adoption, emphasizing standardized disclosures, capacity-building, and product innovation. It contributes to the limited empirical literature on ESG principles in Middle Eastern insurance markets and highlights the sector’s potential role in promoting inclusive and sustainable finance. Full article

This study investigates the impact of outsiders’ demand for more information (or transparency) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Drawing on a dataset of U.S. companies from 2010 to 2023, CSR performance is measured using ASSET4 ratings, while CSR disclosure levels are captured through the number of words and sentences in reports. Utilizing within-industry and -firm OLS regressions, our analyses reveal a positive relationship between the demand for more information and future CSR investments, showing that firms with higher demand for information not only enhance their CSR performance but also expand the length of their CSR reports. These results suggest that increased pressures for information encourage organizations to engage more deeply with social responsibility, resulting in more robust CSR activities and more comprehensive reporting practices. This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the strong predictive role of outsiders’ demand for more information in promoting CSR investment and disclosure, and by offering important insights for policymakers and practitioners on fostering corporate responsibility through enhanced transparency. Full article

This study investigates voluntary compliance with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework in 64 financial, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reports from six Spanish IBEX-35 energy firms (2020–2023) and explores the implications for intangible assets and corporate reputation, employing empirical quantitative text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Python. A validated scale-based taxonomy within the TCFD framework applies query-driven rules to extract relevant text. This enables an evaluation of aspects of the reports, facilitating the development of a compliance index measuring each company’s adherence to TCFD recommendations. All companies showed year-on-year improvements (2023 was the most comprehensive), yet none fully adhered due to information gaps. Disparities in the disclosures of Scope 1,2 and 3, persisted, suggesting reputational risks. A replicable methodological model generating a compliance index that assesses the ‘being’ (‘true performance’) versus ‘seeming’ (‘external perception’) dichotomy within sustainability reports and acts as a potential reputational barometer for stakeholders. By providing unprecedented evidence of TCFD reporting in the Spanish energy sector, this study closes a significant academic gap. Future research may analyze ESG reports using AI agents, study the impact of ESG on energy-intensive companies from AI data centers, supporting services like Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and extend this methodology to other industrial sectors. Full article

This study investigated how corporate maturity—measured through firm age and lifecycle stage—moderates the value relevance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures in a frontier market context, using Bangladesh as a case study. Drawing on panel data from 2011–2012 to 2023–2024 for 86 publicly listed non-financial firms, the study employed a modified Ohlson valuation framework, panel regression analysis, and multiple robustness techniques (2SLS, PSM). ESG disclosure was measured using a researcher-developed index aligned with international reporting standards (GRI, SASB, TCFD, UN SDGs). ESG disclosures are positively associated with firm value, but this relationship is significantly moderated by corporate maturity. Younger firms exhibit a stronger valuation effect from ESG transparency, driven by higher signaling and legitimacy needs. In contrast, mature firms experience a diminished marginal benefit, reflecting routine compliance rather than strategic differentiation. These findings challenge the uniform application of ESG assessment models and suggest the need for lifecycle-adjusted disclosure ratings, particularly in nascent regulatory environments like Bangladesh. Investors and regulators should tailor ESG evaluation criteria by firm age and industry sustainability exposure. Younger firms, often overlooked, may carry outsized ESG signaling value in emerging markets. Enhancing ESG transparency among younger firms can foster greater stakeholder trust, support inclusive growth, and strengthen social accountability in emerging economies. This study contributes to the ESG literature by introducing corporate maturity as a key moderating variable in value relevance analysis. It provides new empirical insights from a developing economy and proposes lifecycle-based adaptations to global ESG rating methodologies. Full article

In the evolving landscape of China’s capital markets, the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations has become increasingly crucial for investors and decision-makers. Traditional financial performance metrics often fall short in capturing the multidimensional and long-term impacts of ESG factors. This study introduces a novel computational framework that combines domain-adapted pre-trained language models with structured financial regression analysis, aiming to empirically assess the correlation between ESG disclosures and long-term financial performance. This approach allows for the simultaneous processing of both structured and unstructured ESG data, using graph-based modeling and reinforcement learning to guide sustainability aligned policy optimization. Our empirical results show that firms with consistent and well-structured ESG strategies exhibit significantly superior long-term financial outcomes compared to those with weak or inconsistent ESG engagement. This study not only confirms the value of ESG engagement in enhancing financial resilience but also offers practical recommendations for investors, regulators, and corporate decision-makers, emphasizing consistent disclosure, sector-aligned ESG investment, and proactive adaptation to policy shifts. Full article

In 2020, the Chinese government announced the “Dual Carbon” goals, making carbon responsibility the most prominent focus within the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices of Chinese firms. This shift creates a new type of ESG-washing, a practice involving the selective disclosure of information that portrays the firm in a favorable light, thereby leading stakeholders to overestimate its ESG performance. In this study, we define a novel type of ESG-washing behavior called “ESG carbonwashing”, in which firms disproportionately highlight their carbon responsibility initiatives while overlooking other dimensions of ESG. By adopting a strategy of excessively emphasizing their carbon-related efforts in ESG activities, these firms mislead stakeholders about their overall ESG performance. Using a sample of 59 high-carbon-emitting firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2018 to 2022, we construct a systematic framework to measure the extent of ESG carbonwashing and further analyze its temporal and industry-level variations. Our key findings indicate that: (1) ESG carbonwashing has significantly increased alongside the rollout of the “Dual Carbon” policy; (2) there are significant inter-industry differences, with the steel and aviation sectors exhibiting the highest levels of ESG carbonwashing, while the building materials industry shows the lowest. This study offers valuable guidance for ESG information users in detecting and mitigating carbonwashing practices, while also providing robust empirical support for refining relevant regulatory frameworks. Full article

As ESG practices become increasingly embedded in global capital markets, their impact on firm financing costs remains an open question in emerging economies, where regulatory divergence and rating inconsistency complicate investor perceptions, particularly in China’s rapidly evolving financial environment. This study examines the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on financing costs among Chinese non-financial listed firms, with a focus on the moderating roles of financial regulation and ESG rating divergence. Using a panel dataset of 4493 firms across 33,773 firm–year observations from 2011 to 2022, we employ a two-way fixed effects model, along with Propensity Score Matching and Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) techniques, to address endogeneity concerns and enhance causal inference. The findings reveal that improvements in ESG performance significantly reduce financing costs, substantially affecting debt relative to equity. Moreover, the cost-saving benefits of ESG are amplified in industries with stronger regulatory oversight, while high ESG rating divergence undermines these benefits by increasing uncertainty. These results highlight the importance of standardizing ESG rating systems and enhancing regulatory consistency. Such efforts can lower capital costs and improve financial access for firms, particularly in capital-intensive and environmentally sensitive sectors, offering actionable guidance for policymakers shaping disclosure frameworks and corporate managers optimizing ESG investment strategies. Full article

An increasing number of countries are introducing regulations on mandatory sustainability reporting, while researchers from various disciplines are trying to evaluate the effects of rendering sustainability reports mandatory. We conducted a review of 171 articles in Scopus-indexed journals, aiming to identify the most prominent topics and key research outputs. Our findings are categorized into four broad themes: the effects of legislation on the quality and quantity of the reports, the effects of financial performance on firms, the effects of ESG performance on firms and other effects. This is the first review to include a large number of empirical and non-empirical studies from various disciplines, including law. The positive effect of legislation on the quality, credibility and comparability of reports is more pronounced for countries outside Europe. The effects related to the financial performance of firms are positive in the long run. At the same time, regulation induces companies to adopt more CSR initiatives and may therefore be seen as an effective tool in rendering businesses more sustainable. Other perceived effects of increasing regulation are the fragmentation, complexity and rapid evolvement of the legislative framework on sustainability reporting, as well as the role of the institutional environment. Full article

Corporate social responsibility and its communication are practices that have been developed for several years in developed and emerging countries, which have aroused great interest around the world and particularly in Morocco. Therefore, our main objective is to study the impact of ESG disclosure imposed by the market regulator on the extent of corporate commitment. This paper aims to understand one of the factors explaining the CSR commitment of Moroccan companies, namely the regulatory environment. Its main strength lies in the in-depth examination of the current regulatory environment and its real impact on corporate social responsibility strategies and actions. To answer our research question, we conducted an empirical study based on a single hypothesis tested through secondary data processing. The results show that engagement, under institutional pressure, has a positive impact on the annual publication of ESG reports on the CSR engagement of Moroccan companies. Full article

Digital food-ordering apps make it simple to buy indulgent drinks yet hard to judge their health risks. We conducted five online experiments (N = 1048) to compare two messages for sugary beverages: self-promotion that stresses taste and self-disclosure that plainly warns “high sugar/high calories”. Brands that chose self-disclosure were seen as more socially responsible and transparent, which in turn raised trust and lifted purchase intent. These gains were strongest for users who care deeply about the category or the brand and remained robust even among highly health-conscious shoppers. The results show that, for “vice” foods, honest warnings can outperform glossy claims. Our study extends signaling and attribution theories to digital food markets and offers managers a straightforward playbook for complying with new labeling rules while still driving sales. Full article

Faced with mounting pressure to achieve high-quality green transformation, manufacturing enterprises are increasingly scrutinized for greenwashing behaviors. This study develops a novel hybrid modeling framework that combines evolutionary game theory with the SEIR epidemic model to investigate the dynamic interactions between environmental regulation, media pressure, and green innovation behavior. The model captures how strategic decisions among boundedly rational actors evolve over time under dual external pressures. Simulation results show that stronger environmental regulatory intensity accelerates the adoption of substantive green innovation and concurrently reduces the media pressure associated with greenwashing. Moreover, while social media disclosure has a limited impact during the early stages of greenwashing information diffusion, its influence becomes significantly amplified once a critical dissemination threshold is surpassed, rapidly transforming latent information into widespread public concern. This amplification triggers significant public opinion pressure, which, in turn, incentivizes local governments to enforce stricter environmental policies. The findings reveal a synergistic governance mechanism where environmental regulation and media scrutiny jointly curb greenwashing and foster genuine corporate sustainability. Full article

This study explores how corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure contributes to sustainable value creation by enhancing intellectual capital (IC) and investigates the moderating role of institutional ownership (IIOW) in this relationship. Using a panel dataset of 828 firm-year observations from non-financial Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) between 2016 and 2021, the analysis applies feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) regression to test the proposed relationships. The findings reveal a significant positive association between CSR disclosure and IC, underscoring the strategic importance of CSR in building intangible corporate assets. Moreover, IIOW strengthens this association, suggesting that IIOW plays a critical role in promoting sustainability-oriented practices. Robustness checks using alternative proxies and estimation techniques confirm the validity of the results. This study provides novel empirical evidence from Saudi Arabia, contributing to the CSR and IC literature in emerging markets and offering practical insights for policymakers, investors, and corporate leaders aiming to foster long-term organizational resilience. Full article

One of the core objectives of the European Green Deal in pursuing climate neutrality and sustainable development is the decarbonization of high-impact sectors. Among the most polluting is the fast fashion industry, driven by linear business models that must urgently transition to circular economy frameworks and decarbonized supply chains. Fast fashion poses significant environmental and social challenges due to its high greenhouse gas emissions, excessive resource consumption, and substantial waste generation. To foster greater sustainability within the sector, this study examines environmental indicators defined by the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), in accordance with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) 2022/2464. Aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), these standards aim to harmonize sustainability disclosures and enable better decision-making across environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions throughout Europe. This research focuses on five key environmental aspects—climate change, pollution, water resource management, biodiversity, and circular economy/resource use—across four leading fast fashion brands: Mango, Zara, H&M, and Shein. Using an exploratory web-based methodology, this study evaluates how these companies disclose and implement ESG strategies in their supply chains. The central aim is to assess the sustainability and resilience of their operations, with particular emphasis on communication strategies that support the transition from linear to circular business models. Ultimately, this study seeks to highlight both the progress and persistent challenges faced by the fast fashion industry in aligning with ESG and ESRS requirements. Full article