The growing emphasis on corporate sustainability and environmental responsibility has increased the importance of aligning human resource management with organizational sustainability objectives. Despite the rapid expansion of research on Green Human Resource Management (GHRM), existing empirical evidence remains fragmented across constructs, mechanisms, and contextual settings. This study provides a systematic synthesis of 164 empirical studies applying structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the role of GHRM in shaping sustainability-related organizational outcomes. A total of 249 constructs are identified and classified into drivers, mediating mechanisms, moderating conditions, and performance outcomes. The findings demonstrate that GHRM functions as a system-level organizational capability that enhances environmental, social, and economic performance primarily through cultural, behavioral, and innovation-oriented mechanisms. Green organizational culture, employee pro-environmental behavior, green innovation, and corporate social responsibility emerge as central pathways linking HR practices with sustainability outcomes, while leadership and value-based factors shape the strength of these relationships. By integrating fragmented SEM-based evidence, this study advances the theoretical understanding of GHRM as a strategic enabler of organizational sustainability and responsible management. The study also provides practical implications for organizations seeking to embed environmental and sustainability principles into HR systems, organizational culture, and long-term sustainability strategies.

The intensification of physical climate risk presents a critical question for global sustainability governance: does exposure to climate hazards strengthen or weaken a country's environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance? This study investigates the relationship between climate vulnerability and country-level ESG performance across 63 countries over the period 2010–2024. A novel entropy-weighted composite ESG index is constructed, integrating 60 indicators across the three ESG dimensions, and climate vulnerability is measured through the ND-GAIN vulnerability index within a two-way fixed effects design. The results demonstrate that climate vulnerability significantly reduces ESG performance. Moderation analysis reveals that this adverse effect is conditional, operating through two capacity channels: climate adaptation innovation and institutional quality, each of which progressively weakens the relationship as capacity rises. Crucially, threshold regression uncovers non-linear dynamics: using industrial robot adoption as the threshold variable, the adverse effect deepens at intermediate automation intensity before weakening substantially once countries surpass a critical upper threshold. Spatial analysis further reveals a proximity pattern, whereby the adverse effect concentrates among countries distant from the lowest-vulnerability economy in their region (Japan, Canada and Switzerland) and weakens with proximity to these anchors. These findings suggest that protecting ESG performance from climate stress requires integrated policy frameworks that synchronise adaptation innovation, institutional capacity building, automation investment and regional cooperation.

This study presents the first comprehensive bibliometric review of the Creating Shared Value (CSV) literature, examining 378 peer-reviewed documents retrieved from the Scopus database over the period 2011–2025. Employing an integrated methodological framework that combines co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence networks, and thematic mapping, the study systematically maps the intellectual structure, geographic distribution, and thematic evolution of CSV scholarship across three distinct developmental phases. The findings reveal a structural triple geographic gap encompassing knowledge production, international collaboration, and publication venues, which systematically marginalizes emerging economies—particularly in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America—from the field's knowledge production. This absence is not incidental: it reflects institutional and infrastructural barriers to knowledge circulation that undermine the generalizability of CSV frameworks to the very socioeconomic contexts they were designed to address. Co-citation analysis identifies three converging intellectual traditions—competitive strategy, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder governance—whose inherited theoretical tensions explain the persistence of conceptual disagreement more than a decade after the framework's introduction. Bibliographic coupling reveals nine contemporary research streams, while the thematic map positions the CSV–CSR–SDGs nexus in a zone of high centrality and low density, signaling that the field has achieved quantitative maturity without its qualitative counterpart—a condition this study terms “conceptual inflation.” Five prioritized research directions are proposed, targeting the field's most critical structural gaps and providing researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with a clear knowledge map to guide the field's transition from quantitative expansion toward theoretical consolidation.

This study examines ISSB sustainability reporting standards adoption intention in Morocco by addressing a central theoretical problem: why similar institutional pressures lead to heterogeneous adoption outcomes. We argue that external pressures translate into adoption intention primarily when they are cognitively internalised by organisational actors through perceived usefulness and feasibility. Using data from 335 Moroccan accounting professionals, the study tests a multi-level behavioural model linking mimetic and normative pressures to individual adoption intention through perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). A multi-method design combining Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM), Generalized Structured Component Analysis (GSCA), Multi-Group Analysis (MGA), Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) and machine learning models (Random Forest and XGBoost supported by SHAP values) is employed. Results show that institutional pressures significantly influence individual adoption intention, but primarily through PU and PEOU. Importantly, PEOU emerges as a necessary condition, indicating that a minimum threshold of perceived feasibility is required before individual accounting professionals express an intention to adopt ISSB standards. PU is the strongest predictor but not indispensable. The study contributes by demonstrating that heterogeneous adoption intentions are not driven by institutional pressures alone, but by the way these pressures are cognitively interpreted and evaluated by individual accounting professionals, offering a more precise explanation of variability in ISSB adoption intention in emerging economies.

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in IPO prospectuses functions as a credible sustainability signal and how its credibility influences investor responses in U.S. capital markets. Drawing on a sample of 681 IPOs conducted between 2019 and 2023, we employ textual content analysis to construct a composite CSR disclosure index through principal component analysis (PCA) across four CSR dimensions and capture narrative tone using the financial sentiment lexicon. Our findings reveal a paradoxical pattern: contrary to predictions derived from signaling theory, greater CSR disclosure is positively associated with IPO underpricing, whereas negatively toned CSR narratives are associated with lower underpricing. This latter result is consistent with the candor hypothesis, whereby explicit acknowledgment of risk conveys managerial authenticity to investors. Path analysis further indicates that the tone channel suppresses approximately 23% of the positive disclosure-volume effect. Heterogeneity analysis shows that these effects are concentrated among large firms, during boom-market periods, and among NASDAQ-listed issuers. Overall, these findings contribute to the sustainability reporting and IPO literatures by demonstrating that the credibility and framing of CSR narratives, rather than disclosure volume alone, shape investor perceptions in high-stakes market settings. Firms, underwriters, and regulators should therefore prioritize the quality, balance, and credibility of sustainability disclosures, not just their volume, when preparing and evaluating IPO prospectuses.

This study presents a thorough bibliometric and systematic review, devoted specifically to the literature concerned with the relationship between ESG investment and a firm's financial performance, by identifying crucial areas of future investigation. The paper presents a combined bibliometric and systematic literature review of 168 publications indexed in Scopus to cluster them into thematic groups, authors with the most impact, and geographical distribution with VOSviewer, and synthesize significant results of the literature on the area of corporate governance within ESG investment, performance, and ESG-related regulatory and investment policy. Based on these findings, we suggest a TCCM framework that reveals the gaps in the theoretical perspective, methodological constraints, and sector-specificities in ESG adoption in investment and corporate financial contexts. We find in our analysis that research is concentrated heavily in developed markets, that a variety of emerging regions are under-represented, and that evidence on the financial benefits of ESG is mixed and usually context and measurement-dependent. We end with specific recommendations of corporate governance within ESG investment to boards, regulators, and investors, and suggest a priority agenda for future empirical research. The article is relevant to ESG investment and financial-performance research because it unites visual bibliometrics with formal SLR synthesis to inform scholarly and practitioner audiences. Existing literature on the review of ESG focuses solely on bibliometric trends or thematic discussions as independent analysis, where this paper combines bibliometric mapping, systematic synthesis of themes, and TCCM-based structure to identify theoretical, contextual, and methodological gaps as an avenue for future ESG investment and financial-performance research.

Innovation is widely recognized as a source of competitive advantage, yet firms increasingly need to show that innovation is responsible, credible, and environmentally accountable. This study introduces the green innovation premium as its central contribution: the additional trust return to customer-perceived innovativeness when innovativeness is grounded in visible environmental innovation. Drawing on legitimacy-based signaling, with institutional theory, dynamic capabilities, and paradox theory specifying the mechanism's boundaries, we examine 9365 customer evaluations of 43 firms across eight industries. Double Machine Learning (DML) is used to estimate flexible, covariate-adjusted relationships under explicit conditional-independence and overlap assumptions; because the data are cross-sectional and same-source, the estimates are interpreted cautiously rather than as design-based proof of causality. Customer-perceived innovativeness is positively related to trust and loyalty, and environmental innovation strengthens the innovativeness-trust relationship, particularly in service and experience-based industries. Digital sustainability orientation, a constructed digital-environmental integration index, does not independently predict trust after visible innovation signals are considered; a non-overlapping digital-capability sensitivity check reaches the same substantive conclusion. Digital-green balance moderates the direct DSO-trust relationship, but the conditional indirect effects on loyalty are effectively unchanged across balance levels; H10 is therefore not supported. Stakeholder trust remains the central relational pathway linking innovativeness to loyalty. The findings extend signaling theory by showing that environmental innovation changes the marginal trust return of innovativeness rather than merely adding a favorable CSR cue.

The growing use of innovative digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, in the design, delivery, and improvement of financial products and services (commonly referred to as fintech) has raised concerns about potential risks to individuals' fundamental rights and freedoms. AI systems used in fintech may reinforce discrimination and financial exclusion due to biased algorithms and flawed data. They may also lack sufficient transparency, explainability, and contestability, which could lead to harms such as breaches of privacy rights. The legal landscape for these intersecting issues is uneven. While fintech companies are subject to some regulatory oversight, gaps remain, especially because many firms operate outside traditional banking regulations, and state oversight of AI is still in its infancy. In this context, the article's contribution is threefold. First, it analyzes the potential adverse societal impacts of the use of AI in fintech through a human rights lens. Second, it maps the law and soft law applicable to the use of AI in fintech and identifies gaps, asking whether the business and human rights framework helps bridge some of the identified gaps. Answering this in the affirmative, its third contribution is to recommend the adoption of a human rights-based approach for understanding and addressing the implications of AI across the fintech ecosystem.

Stakeholder expectations play a central role in sustainability communication by driving firms toward more strategic and accountable practices beyond passive disclosure. This study examines how companies have adapted their responses to these expectations within complex international contexts. Using Leximancer, a machine-learning–based text-mining tool, we conduct a content analysis of 90 sustainability reports from 12 leading cosmetics companies over the period 2015–2023. Findings reveal a clear shift in communication priorities, with dominant themes including Products, Employees, Business, Management, and Brand. Reporting practices have evolved from compliance-driven, product-focused environmental disclosure toward greater emphasis on supply chain transparency and stakeholder engagement. At the same time, we identify persistent gaps in reporting content and external assurance. This study contributes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability reporting literature by providing longitudinal, sector-specific evidence on how reporting priorities evolve in response to stakeholder and institutional pressures. It also offers practical insights for practitioners seeking to better align sustainability communication with stakeholder expectations.

Hotels are increasingly pursuing sustainability-oriented innovations that require the deployment of dynamic capabilities. Yet little scholarly attention has focused on the nature of dynamic capabilities and their microfoundations in this industry setting. With a qualitative case study approach, the current study makes two significant contributions to literature on sustainability in the hospitality and tourism industry. First, it proposes that hotels are embedded in complex systems that shape the evolution of their dynamic capabilities. Through shared practices, industry norms and rules that favor repetitive, exploitive actions, domination by incumbent hotels in sustainability-oriented innovations encourages even new hotels to develop sensing and seizing dynamic capabilities that orient toward incremental sustainability-oriented innovations. Second, building on prior theoretical links between path dependence and dynamic capabilities (Vergne and Durand 2011) and, in the sustainability-oriented innovation context (Inigo and Albareda 2019), this study empirically demonstrates how path dependence on microfoundations can mean that hotels cannot move to the level of reconfiguring their dynamic capabilities that is necessary for redesigning business models in support of radical sustainability-oriented innovations. In turn, this study offers practical insights for overcoming the path dependence of dynamic capabilities for sustainability-oriented innovations. It highlights the need for managerial actions to build transformative paths that can engender built-in, reflexive, non-routinized mechanisms, consonant with the complex nature of radical sustainability-oriented innovations.

Based on the application of choice architecture, behavioral influence and low-cost intervention, green nudging architecture (GNA) has been identified as a promising lever to increase the corporate eco-innovation performance (CEIP). However, the psychological process behind the link among GNA-eco-innovation outcomes is not well understood, and past studies have largely looked at the three streams of behavioral, innovation and strategic management aspects of the link separately, rather than combining them into a unified model. This theory-practice disconnect not only restricts knowledge of how and when GNA works in practice, but also hinders managers' effectiveness when working with it. To fill this void, the present paper builds and tests an integrated framework based on self-efficacy theory (SET) and dynamic capabilities theory (DCT) that views green innovation self-efficacy (GISE) as a mediator among GNA-CEIP, and strategic agility (SA) as a boundary condition. Hypotheses were validated with two-wave survey data from 312 respondents of renewable energy manufacturing companies in Pakistan. Results show that GNA positively predicts GISE, and GISE partially mediates the effects of GNA on all 3 dimensions of CEIP. Furthermore, the moderating effect of the strategic agility (SA) dimensions is different: the market sensing (MS) dimension strengthens the GNA–GISE link, and the resource fluidity (RF) dimension weakens it. This study contributes to the understanding of the GNA–CEIP link by revealing and explaining the mediating role of GISE in the link. Conceptually, it is one of the first to combine the theories of behavioral science (GNA), innovation management (CEIP), and strategic management (SA) in one. Conceptually, it is among the first that bridges the theories of behavioral science (GNA), innovation management (CEIP) and strategic management (SA) in one. Empirically, it provides new evidence of the opposite effect of strategic agility dimensions, which goes against the generally accepted notion that agility always intensifies behavioral interventions. In practical terms, the results provide guidance to manufacturers in emerging economies on developing nudging architectures and configuring agility capabilities to stimulate eco-innovation.

The pursuit of sustainable business approaches has gained increasing importance in the past years. Entrepreneurs are increasingly reassessing their strategies and operations in line with corporate social and environmental responsibility principles. Restaurants are well positioned to play a key role as agents for positive change, as they can offer nutritious, high-quality food. At the same time, they could minimise food loss and waste. They may even contribute to local economic development through the promotion of short supply chains among other responsible practices. This study examines consumer behaviours and perceptions of responsible food production and sustainable consumption within the Italian hospitality industry. It focuses on factors that influence the consumers' dining choices and their willingness to engage in environmentally responsible actions. The research adopts a social analysis perspective based on data collected from an online survey of 609 respondents in Italy. The findings indicate that consumer decisions are primarily motivated by hedonic factors, especially taste and the quality of ingredients. Awareness of sustainable practices tends to increase by time and is more evidenced among women, who also show a greater propensity to adjust their habits in more sustainable ways. Despite a general interest in sustainability and a willingness to pay a premium for certified establishments, there remains a limited understanding of restaurants' environmental impacts and low familiarity with sustainability certifications. These research implications highlight considerable opportunities for growth. This contribution postulates that enhanced communication strategies and targeted awareness campaigns could improve consumer knowledge, foster more informed choices, and encourage active support for sustainability initiatives in the restaurant sector, in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.

This paper investigates how banking innovation strategies, namely FinTech M&As and ESG practices, affect bank performance under rising competitive pressures and regulatory complexity. Using a unique dataset of 543 listed banks across 49 countries from 2000 to 2023, we analyse whether these strategic investments enhance banks' profitability, efficiency and risk profiles. The empirical strategy combines bilateral fixed effects and 2SLS-IV estimations to address endogeneity concerns. We complement the analysis with a cluster-based classification of banks' business models to assess heterogeneity in strategic responses. Our findings suggest that FinTech-related M&As primarily improve banks' market-based risk measures over time, while ESG adoption enhances balance sheet stability and profitability, though efficiency effects remain mixed. Crucially, we show that the performance impact of these levers is moderated by institutional and structural factors. We identify when banks benefit more from specialised strategies (FinTech or ESG) and when a combined approach is more effective. The paper contributes to M&A and banking performance literatures by uncovering the trade-offs inherent in innovation-driven transformations, and it offers actionable implications for managers and regulators seeking to align FinTech adoption and sustainability with long-term value creation. The primary implication is that banks should not treat FinTech acquisitions and ESG adoption as universal performance-enhancing strategies, but should align them with their business model, institutional environment, and strategic objectives to balance profitability, efficiency and risk.

This study investigates when and how ESG disclosure is associated with firm value by examining ESG performance as a mediating mechanism and sin stock sectors as a critical boundary condition. Drawing on signaling theory, we argue that ESG disclosure generates economic value only when it is credibly translated into externally assessed ESG performance. In sin stock sectors, however, ESG disclosure is more likely to be perceived as compliance-driven, undermining its signaling effectiveness. The findings show that ESG disclosure is positively associated with financial performance both directly and indirectly through ESG performance, supporting its role as a key transmission channel. The results also provide suggestive evidence that these effects are weaker in sin stock sectors, where both the direct valuation effect and the indirect performance channel are weakened. These results suggest that ESG disclosure does not have uniform economic consequences and that its effectiveness may depend on industry context.

This study examines the influence of consumers' perceptions of clothing retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR) on word-of-mouth (WOM) and purchase intent in the South African emerging market context. Additionally, a gender comparison was conducted to explore potential differences in the relationship between consumers' CSR perceptions, WOM, and purchase intent. An online survey based on validated scales was used to collect data (N = 1293). Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) was applied to specify a reflective-formative model incorporating consumers' CSR perceptions as a higher-order construct composed of social, economic, and environmental dimensions. The social dimension emerged as the most influential in shaping CSR perceptions, with WOM partially mediating the relationship between CSR perceptions and purchase intent. Additionally, a permutation-based multigroup analysis revealed gender differences in the relationship between consumers' CSR perceptions, WOM, and purchase intent, which can form the basis for further exploratory investigation.

The debate over whether family involvement acts as an accelerator or a brake on corporate eco-innovation continues among scholars and entrepreneurs. Integrating the paradoxical lens of socioemotional wealth theory, we argue that, compared with family ownership, family governance not only strengthens the entrepreneurial family's need to protect extended socioemotional wealth, centered on emotional attachment, identity and belonging among family members, firm and family reputation, and the perpetuation of the family dynasty, but also reduces their perceived threat of potential harm to restricted socioemotional wealth, which focuses on family control and influence. Thus, family governance promotes both compliant and strategic eco-innovation. Specifically, family governance encourages compliant eco-innovation by shaping stakeholder orientation and drives strategic eco-innovation through fostering entrepreneurial orientation. The positive impact of family governance becomes more pronounced under greater media coverage, while performance shortfalls strengthen its role in promoting strategic eco-innovation. This study extends research on the drivers of corporate eco-innovation and contributes to the literature on innovation in family businesses.

This study investigates how climate risks influence the firm value of agribusiness companies worldwide relative to firms operating in other sectors, emphasizing investors' responses to corporate climate risk management and exposure to climate-related risks. Using firm-level data from LSEG Data & Analytics for 2021–2024, the analysis covers approximately 39,000 firm-year observations, of which 2299 are agribusiness firms. A panel-data approach and instrumental variables estimators are employed to examine the relationship between firm value, emission-reduction efforts, and exposure to physical and transition climate risks. The findings indicate a negative relationship between emission-reduction efforts and firm value. However, agribusiness firms experience a more favorable market response relative to firms in other industries. Furthermore, exposure to physical and transition risks is associated with lower firm value, suggesting that investors perceive climate risks as undermining value creation. In the agribusiness subsample, emission-reduction efforts and physical risk are negatively associated with firm value, while transition risk is not statistically significant.

Despite growing scholarly attention to corporate green innovation, prior research has largely overlooked the configurational mechanisms underlying high green innovation performance (GIP) in environmentally sensitive sectors, especially under heterogeneous institutional contexts. Grounded in the strategy tripod framework, this study uses fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine how dynamic capabilities, institutional conditions, and industrial conditions jointly shape GIP among Chinese A-share listed heavy-polluting firms. We derive three core findings: no individual factor acts as a necessary condition for high GIP, yet strengthened environmental sensing capability and industry dynamism are consistently positively associated with superior green innovation outcomes. We identify four equifinal configurations that drive high GIP via synergistic alignment among organizational agility, regulatory pressures, and market competitive dynamics. Further analysis shows that non-high GIP mainly arises from institutional voids, excessive industrial complexity and a lack of industry dynamism. These findings advance contingency theory in the sustainable innovation literature by identifying context-specific implementation archetypes and providing evidence-based strategic guidance for heavy-polluting firms to pursue ecological modernization.

Firms' international revenues help diversify revenue sources and reduce reliance on home markets, yet remain hard to grow given complex regulations, cultural differences and fierce competition. Grounded in the resource-based view, we argue that social sustainability is a valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable resource that promotes stakeholder trust, compliance and market access abroad. Existing ESG performance research has primarily linked aggregate ESG scores to domestic firm outcomes. We instead isolate the social pillar to examine its role in firms' international revenue growth. Using 2SLS fixed-effects analysis on longitudinal MSCI–Compustat panel data for US publicly traded firms (2011–2023), we find that social sustainability accelerates foreign revenue growth, though this effect is weakened by operational efficiency, debt ratio, high-tech status and marketing expenditures. The robustness check with a 2SLS random-effects model also validates the results. Managers should safeguard investments in social sustainability to sustain firms' international revenue growth.

Blue economy advocates the sustainable use of marine resources while fostering economic growth and environmental preservation. Yet many business sectors still pursue extractive practices that undermine marine ecosystems and disregard consumers' sensitivity. This gap between principles and practices underscores the need for approaches that reconcile market dynamics with imperatives of sustainability. Within this framework, sustainable marketing provides a foundation, and this study advances it by introducing the construct of blue marketing, defined as strategies that promote the responsible use of marine resources by reorienting consumption behaviors, redefining corporate value propositions, and strengthening stakeholder collaboration. The study adopts two analytical perspectives—the supply and demand sides—and draws on two sets of articles. These underpin a threefold methodological approach: a bibliometric analysis of the field's intellectual structure, a systematic review of theoretical frameworks and marketing implications, and six propositions on the future role of marketing in the blue economy.

Why do firms subject to identical ESG reporting requirements nevertheless ‘speak’ the Social pillar in different ways? Some foreground numerical indicators; others rely on narrative accounts of policies, systems and stakeholder engagement. This variation in disclosure form, rather than in disclosure coverage, motivates this exploratory study. Existing ESG disclosure research has largely examined disclosure extent, topic coverage, assurance and performance alignment, leaving less understood how communicative form becomes structured and persistent. We introduce disclosure posture, defined as a firm's organisationally embedded balance between quantitative and qualitative Social disclosures. Using a small-sample longitudinal mixed-methods design for theory building, we analyse Social disclosures from five HKEX-listed firms across 28 firm-year observations between 2018 and 2024. HKEX-mandated Social KPIs are classified as quantitative or qualitative, allowing firm-year posture scores to be constructed independently of disclosure volume. The analysis provides preliminary construct validation through transparent KPI classification, coding protocols, sensitivity checks and descriptive persistence diagnostics. Three exploratory findings emerge. First, firms display relatively stable, firm-specific disclosure postures over time, suggesting that disclosure form may reflect reporting routines rather than annual formatting choices. Second, posture varies across sectors in ways consistent with KPI relevance, risk exposure, stakeholder environments and auditability constraints. Third, COVID-19 intensified Social disclosure without producing sustained posture reversal. The study reframes Social ESG reporting as a strategic communication choice and offers a reproducible, theory-generating lens for examining comparability challenges that persist under harmonised reporting regimes.

Within corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG), there is a gap. This paper aims to fill that gap by building on a previous empirical study. It introduces the Land Governance Materiality Framework (LGMF), which redefines land governance as a critical governance skill that impacts ESG performance, supply-chain resilience, responsible investment, and long-term corporate value. The paper relies on Institutional Theory, Political Ecology, Stakeholder Theory, and Strategic CSR. It argues that secure land tenure, institutional legitimacy, participatory governance, and conflict-sensitive resource management are essential skills, not just outside factors. Instead of presenting new empirical evidence, it interprets the findings to create a wider theoretical and policy framework for responsible agribusiness. This framework broadens ESG materiality by including territorial institutions in sustainability assessments. It also offers practical advice for governments, businesses, investors, and development partners looking to support resilient, conflict-sensitive, and sustainable agricultural systems.

Fuelled by global warming, climate change is intensifying, and climate-related physical risks are progressively becoming a pivotal factor affecting the security and sustainable development of corporate supply chains. Based on panel data from 4610 listed companies on the Chinese A-share market from 2014 to 2023, this study measures climate-related physical risks using the textual frequency of climate-relevant disclosures in corporate annual reports, quantifies corporate supply chain risk levels via the ratio of the standard deviation of firms' production output to market demand, and adopts a two-way fixed-effects model to examine the correlation between climate-related physical risks and corporate supply chain risk levels. The findings reveal that: (1) climate-related physical risks correspond to higher corporate supply chain risks; a one-standard-deviation increase in climate-related physical risks significantly raises firms' supply chain risk level by approximately 2.70 standard units. (2) Path analysis aligns with a plausible channel logic indicating that climate-related physical risks relate to elevated supply chain risk levels in association with corporate herd behaviour, off-site investment and financialisation. (3) Climate transition risks can weaken the positive association between climate-related physical risks and corporate supply chain risk levels. (4) A further analysis reveals that the effects of climate-related physical risks are more pronounced in companies located in non-subtropical monsoon areas, those that are labour-intensive, with higher supply chain concentration, and where supply chain geographic distances are shorter compared to other types of enterprises. This study demonstrates that amid shocks from abrupt climate disasters and persistent climate change, the risk between enterprise production and demand escalates alongside corporate herd behaviour among industry peers, off-site establishment of subsidiaries, and expanded corporate financial asset investment.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability (CS) are historically distinct constructs that have converged to the point of conceptual confusion. This paper operates within the CSR tradition, arguing that authentic CS is structurally impossible without the ethical foundation CSR provides. Moving beyond shareholder value requires grounding CSR in Virtue Ethics rather than utilitarian or contractual frameworks. An original normative model is proposed: the Ethical CSR Function t(x(y)), in which (y) is the ethical foundation (Aristotelian habitus), (x) managerial intensity, and (t) the temporal horizon. An exploratory survey of 114 Italian companies reveals a persistent value gap: only 47% report a value system understood by all employees, and merely 13% show concern for future generations. These findings suggest that authentic CS requires an ethical foundation that compliance-driven frameworks cannot generate, and offer scholars a normative instrument for distinguishing genuine sustainability commitments from reputational greenwashing.

Inspired by insights gleaned from biomimicry theory, this paper addresses the persistent lack of theoretically grounded research in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and examines how nature-inspired biomimicry principles could enhance various dimensions of its competitiveness. This study's theoretical contribution lies in its proposal of the novel concept of sustaimimicry, which translates the six life principles from the Biomimicry 3.8 framework into practical supply chain practices. Empirically, using our own data on 75 Portuguese companies operating in supply chains, collected in 2025, and a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we model the configuration paths of sustaimimicry practices toward an increased dimension of supply chain competitiveness in terms of innovation, collaboration, information technology, agility, and flexibility. Our original findings confirm that sustaimimicry practices significantly influence supply chain competitiveness, but no single practice is sufficient on its own. Instead, specific combinations of such practices are linked to high levels of each competitiveness dimension. Modular and self-organizing growth repeatedly supports high agility and innovation, while the joint presence of lifecycle thinking, modularity, and life-friendly chemistry is central for technological and flexibility outcomes. A key managerial implication is that firms should design bundles of complementary sustaimimicry practices rather than isolated green initiatives if they aim to move from incremental improvements toward regenerative and competitively robust supply chains.

This study aims at shedding light on the vast landscape of natural language processing (NLP) tasks used when analyzing sustainability reports or sustainability within integrated annual reports. A systematic literature review is carried out, identifying 160 studies of relevance. The results are presented as a hierarchical categorization, grouping methods and models into tasks, and tasks into categories. Most common tasks are keyword searches, (computer aided) content analysis, and topic modeling. Researchers apply NLP most frequently in a comparative setting, investigating relations or exploring changes over time. Common limitations are different linguistic and cultural features, temporal changes in reporting language, and the risk to introduce or amplify bias. This study provides researchers and practitioners with guidance and recommendations when applying NLP tasks. It additionally proposes a research agenda focused on guidelines and benchmarks as well as replication and verification studies.

Strategic alliances frequently fail not because they lack value, but because firms struggle to sustain commitment over time. This challenge is especially salient in sustainability-oriented and new product development (NPD) contexts, where interorganizational collaboration is widely promoted yet difficult to maintain. This study develops a process-based 2 × 2 framework explaining how the perceived benefit potential from partner competitiveness and the perceived opportunism risk from shared content jointly shape alliance strategies and relational outcomes. The framework identifies four behavioral strategies (active involvement, secured cooperation, defensive cooperation, and risk-aversive participation) and links each strategy to commitment or dissolution. The framework helps explain why alliances pursuing comparable objectives follow divergent trajectories, depending on how firms perceive and manage the evolving benefit–risk tension rather than on the initial value of collaboration. Illustrated through contemporary sustainability-oriented alliance cases, the framework offers a diagnostic and prescriptive basis for sustaining collaboration in complex conditions.

This study extends corporate social responsibility (CSR) research into digital commerce by explaining how e-retailers convert ethical obligations into credible signals that foster trust-based stakeholder relationships. Integrating Social Contract Theory and Signaling Theory, it examines eight ethical practices—security, privacy protection, transparency, credibility, information accuracy, non-deception, reliability, and ease of use—and their effects on customer e-trust, e-satisfaction, and positive electronic word-of-mouth. Survey data from 570 mobile shoppers in the United Kingdom were analyzed using structural equation modeling, complemented by autoencoder, radial basis function network, cascade correlation neural network, and propensity score weighting analyses. The structural results show that all ethical practices except ease of use positively influence e-trust. E-trust enhances e-satisfaction, which subsequently promotes positive e-WOM. Peer communication strengthens the effects of security, privacy protection, transparency, credibility, information accuracy, and non-deception on e-trust, but not those of reliability or ease of use. Across the complementary analyses, credibility and reliability emerge as the most stable ethical foundations of e-trust, while the trust–satisfaction relationship shows the strongest cross-method consistency. The study advances CSR theory by distinguishing substantive ethical obligations from the signals through which consumers evaluate their fulfillment and by identifying peer communication as a third-party verification mechanism within contemporary mobile commerce settings.

This study examines the influence of digital transformation (DTF) on firm value by recognizing dynamic capabilities (DC) as a mediating factor and ESG performance as a crucial boundary condition. The study utilizes dynamic capabilities and stakeholder perspectives and establishes a moderated mediation framework to analyze the transition of digital investments into market valuation. It employs panel data from energy firms and uses OLS estimation, Heckman two-step correction, robustness checks, heterogeneity analysis and bootstrap-based moderated mediation to present robust evidence on digital value creation. Findings indicate that DTF significantly enhances firm value, while ESG performance strengthens this positive relationship. Dynamic capabilities partially mediate the effect of the DTF-firm value link, suggesting that digital investments improve market valuation by enhancing firms' adaptive and reconfiguration capacities. The results remain robust after addressing selection bias and valuation heterogeneity. Heterogeneity analysis displays stronger effects for non-state-owned firms, new energy enterprises, younger firms, and profitable firms. But the indirect pathway through DC is not significantly moderated by ESG. This implies that it mostly has a reinforcing effect on direct valuation changes through external legitimacy and does not change internal capability building. The findings are significant contributions to the literature because they shed light on the mechanisms and boundary conditions that impact firm value created by DTF. It also has significant consequences for corporate policy and strategy in the energy sector transformation.

Recent regulations have introduced unprecedented mandatory sustainability requirements for EU companies, with significant implications for firms embedded in supply chains. These requirements increasingly affect not only large companies but also small and medium-sized enterprises that are indirectly exposed to sustainability pressures through contractual, reporting, and supply chain relationships. Stakeholder theory explains the origin and relevance of external and internal sustainability pressures, whereas the dynamic capabilities perspective provides a conceptual lens for interpreting how firms organize internal managerial, performance-control, and technological capabilities when responding to such pressures. The study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model examining the direct and interactive effects of stakeholder pressure, quality of management, sustainability-oriented performance management, and green technology innovation on SSCM adoption. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on data from 178 ISO-certified Romanian medium-sized manufacturing companies, the analysis provides context-specific evidence on how stakeholder pressures and internal organizational conditions jointly shape sustainability-related decisions within supply chains. The findings show that external stakeholder pressure is the strongest driver of SSCM adoption, while internal stakeholder pressure, quality of management, sustainability-oriented performance management, and green technology innovation also have positive direct effects. The results further indicate that stakeholder pressure does not uniformly reinforce innovation-driven sustainability strategies. Both external and internal stakeholder pressure weakens the positive relationship between green technology innovation and SSCM practices. Model-implied interaction patterns indicate that the contribution of green innovation to SSCM adoption becomes progressively weaker as stakeholder pressure increases, suggesting that intense and visible pressure may be associated with more standardized and compliance-oriented responses that constrain the strategic deployment of green innovation. In contrast, the positive interaction between quality of management and sustainability-oriented performance management shows that managerial routines and sustainability-related performance-control systems jointly support SSCM adoption. The study contributes to SSCM literature by offering a pressure–capability interpretation of sustainability adoption in an ISO-certified medium-sized manufacturing context within a late EU-accession economy.

This study examines the long-term association between business enterprise research and development (BERD), conceptualized as a corporate innovation channel, and environmental sustainability in Japan. While prior research has predominantly emphasized public-sector innovation, comparatively less attention has been given to how BERD contributes to environmental sustainability outcomes at the macro level. Grounded in the Porter Hypothesis and the Load Capacity Curve framework, this study investigates whether sustained BERD is associated with improvements in environmental sustainability over time. Using annual data for Japan covering the period 1981–2022 and applying a Fourier-Augmented ARDL approach to account for gradual structural changes, the analysis distinguishes between short-run and long-run dynamics. The results indicate that BERD has no statistically significant effect in the short run; however, a positive long-run association emerges. This pattern suggests that the sustainability implications of corporate innovation materialize gradually through technological diffusion and structural transformation rather than through immediate environmental gains. Renewable energy use and urbanization are also found to contribute positively to environmental sustainability over time. Overall, the findings indicate that sustained corporate innovation commitment and institutional alignment are associated with long-term environmental outcomes. The study contributes to the corporate sustainability literature by clarifying the dynamic relationship between BERD intensity and environmental sustainability within an advanced industrial economy.

This paper investigates the impact of ESG performance and ESG washing on firm value within the context of rapidly evolving digital financial systems. Although ESG disclosure has become central to corporate decision-making, concerns regarding ESG washing have raised doubts about the credibility of reported sustainability practices and their true valuation effects. At the same time, the rise of FinTech development may reshape how markets process and price ESG-related information, yet this interaction remains underexplored in the literature. Using panel data from global ESG Leaders Index firms between 2018 and 2023, fixed-effects regression models and industry-sensitivity robustness checks capture the interplay between ESG, ESG controversies, FinTech development, and firm value. Results show that higher ESG performance and reduced exposure to controversies significantly enhance firm value. Furthermore, country-level FinTech development strengthens the positive valuation effect of credible ESG performance, indicating that digitally advanced financial ecosystems enhance investors' ability to distinguish between firms with substantive sustainability practices and those engaging in ESG washing. Industry-sensitive sectors also exhibit stronger ESG–value linkages. For managers, the findings highlight the importance of verifiable ESG practices, particularly in sensitive industries. For policymakers and investors, the study underscores the relevance of FinTech maturity and industry context when assessing ESG disclosure credibility. This study contributes to the literature by examining the ESG washing–value relationship within the broader framework of country-level FinTech development.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) controversies can severely damage firms' legitimacy, reputation, and stakeholder trust. Yet little is known about how CEO leadership behaviors shape firms' exposure to such unfavorable ESG outcomes. Drawing on Information Processing Theory, we examine whether CEO conversational receptiveness, the extent to which CEOs signal willingness to engage with opposing views, is associated with fewer ESG controversies. We argue that conversationally receptive CEOs may facilitate earlier detection of ESG risks, more constructive resolution of emerging issues, and a more open communication climate within the firm. Using multi-source panel data from 463 S&P 500 firms between 2006 and 2021 (4614 firm-year observations), we find that CEO conversational receptiveness is negatively associated with ESG controversies. Moreover, this relationship is strengthened when firms possess higher financial slack and larger boards. By extending conversational receptiveness to the organizational level and identifying governance conditions under which it is most effective, we contribute to receptiveness literature and ESG risk mitigation.

The rise of digital transformation (DT) has become an important driver of transparency in corporate environmental disclosure. Whether and how DT is related to the improvement of carbon information disclosure quality, particularly in heavily polluting firms that may have both information and symbolic roles, is still controversial. Based on the resource-based view, information asymmetry theory, and signaling theory, this study examines the association between DT and carbon information disclosure quality in Chinese A-share listed heavy-polluting firms from 2017 to 2024. Using a multidimensional CIDQ index and panel data models, this study finds that DT is positively associated with carbon information disclosure quality. Additional analyses suggest that this relationship is linked to external monitoring channels, including media attention and audit effort, is stronger under higher product market competition, and is further strengthened when external monitoring and competition jointly increase. The results at the component level also reveal that the association is more obvious in carbon-related business practices, carbon governance, and carbon performance rather than the disclosure carrier, which illustrates that DT may be more strongly associated with the content of carbon disclosure than with its reporting format or disclosure channel. Further analyses suggest a positive association between DT-enabled disclosure quality and firms' environmental performance. Other analyses highlight that such an effect is more evident in state-owned enterprises and areas with more advanced digital infrastructure. The study contributes to research on DT and environmental disclosure by showing both the transparency-enhancing potential and the limitations of digitalized carbon reporting.

This study examines how board gender diversity (BGD) and internal governance mechanisms are associated with ESG disclosure in the global tourism and hospitality industry. Using an unbalanced panel of 282 listed firms from 49 countries over 2015–2024, the analysis employs firm and year fixed effects, interaction models, lagged specifications and instrumental-variable sensitivity tests. The results show that BGD is positively associated with ESG disclosure across environmental, social and governance dimensions, although the relationship is not uniform across representation levels or institutional settings. Squared and threshold specifications indicate that the association becomes more visible when female representation reaches a meaningful level, consistent with critical mass theory. Audit committee independence is also positively associated with ESG disclosure and strengthens the gender diversity-disclosure relationship, suggesting that diversity is more consequential when supported by monitoring structures. Cross-continental analysis shows stronger and more precise estimates in Europe and North America, while results for smaller regional subsamples are interpreted cautiously. The study contributes by distinguishing ESG disclosure from ESG performance, situating board diversity in the labour-intensive and reputation-sensitive hospitality context and showing that board composition, audit oversight and institutional setting jointly shape sustainability transparency.

AI washing, the practice of misrepresenting the use or scope of artificial intelligence in goods or services to attract investors and gain competitive advantages, raises distinct regulatory challenges requiring the adaptation of traditional securities laws to novel technological contexts. This Article provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of AI washing regulation across United States and European Union jurisdictions, and identifies fundamental differences in regulatory approaches on both sides of the Atlantic: the United States employs market-based enforcement through existing securities laws with penalties up to $225,000, while the EU has adopted comprehensive ex ante regulation through the AI Act, with penalties up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover. Analyzing SEC enforcement actions, EU implementation patterns, and corporate governance implications, this Article demonstrates that effective AI governance requires selective convergence through alignment on key regulatory elements, rather than complete harmonization. The Article makes several original contributions in its systematic analysis of materiality standards for AI disclosures, its examination of board oversight duties for technological risks under Delaware law, its comprehensive assessment of the AI Act's corporate governance implications, and its practical recommendations for multinational compliance strategies. The regulatory frameworks developed for AI washing provide essential precedents for broader technology governance challenges, establishing principles for balancing innovation promotion with investor protection in an era of rapid technological transformation.

This study examines the determinants of online sustainability disclosure in the Portuguese public hospital sector, contributing to the growing literature on sustainability disclosure in healthcare organizations from a context that remains largely underexplored. Drawing on a multi-theoretical framework that integrates Legitimacy Theory, Signaling Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Institutional Theory, and Upper Echelons Theory, the study employs manual content analysis of the official websites of Portuguese hospitals to construct a Sustainability Disclosure Index encompassing environmental, social, and strategy and governance dimensions. The results confirm that Portuguese hospitals are at an incipient stage of sustainability disclosure maturity, with an average disclosure rate of 32.9% and a marked prioritization of social over environmental information, a pattern interpreted as consistent with a predominantly symbolic strategy of legitimation directed at primary civic stakeholders. Regression analysis identifies hospital size, coastal geographic location, and board gender diversity as the primary positive drivers of sustainability disclosure, while financial variables, profitability and indebtedness, and political ideology do not reach statistical significance. These findings suggest that sustainability disclosure in Portuguese hospitals responds more to institutional visibility pressures and governance modernization than to financial incentives or political orientation, reflecting the logic of a centralized public health system in the absence of a mandatory reporting framework. This study makes two distinct contributions: it provides the first systematic empirical evidence on the determinants of sustainability disclosure in the Portuguese hospital sector, extending the geographic scope of a literature so far dominated by Spanish and Italian evidence; and it offers a theoretical contribution that uses Portugal's shared Southern European administrative heritage with Spain and Italy to interpret symbolic legitimation as a structural feature of public healthcare systems under scrutiny but without clear normative guidance, while identifying the degree of health-system centralization as a boundary condition for the political ideology hypothesis. The study also offers practical recommendations for hospital managers and policymakers seeking to strengthen accountability and embed sustainability into the governance of the National Health Service.

This paper proposes an exploratory instrument to assess how well organizations embed strong sustainability and systemic leadership into their climate mitigation efforts. After reviewing the case for strong sustainability in corporate climate action, it outlines a method, based on organizational psychologist Rae André's systemic climate leadership framework, to gauge how well companies (1) demonstrate basic climate literacy and risk awareness, (2) engage as agents of systemic change in their dealing with key external stakeholders, and (3) embrace a strong sustainability approach to decarbonization that prioritizes ecological science over economic expediency. The instrument is then tested via a case study of Freeport-McMoRan, the world's largest publicly traded copper mining company. Freeport's approach to decarbonization was ascertained using document analysis of its website, corporate policies, sustainability reports, executive letters to stakeholders, interviews, and CDP questionnaires. Ultimately, although Freeport-McMoRan's executive leadership has moderately demonstrated climate literacy, acknowledged climate risks, and selectively operated as an agent of systemic change through sectoral associations and with suppliers, it has not embraced strong sustainability to power its decarbonization efforts nor to advocate for climate policies. Applying the instrument produces a roadmap for researchers and executives looking to advance absolute decarbonization in large companies.

Corporate sustainability reporting is widely promoted to enhance transparency and track global sustainability goals, yet its adoption remains highly uneven across nations. Prior research focuses on firm-level drivers or aggregated institutional quality, overlooking the distinct role of financial regulators. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and institutional substitution, this study examines how national financial sector governance influences the adoption of sustainability reporting standards. Using a balanced panel of 139 countries (2011–2023), we employ fixed-effects, dynamic panel and instrumental variable regressions, complemented by income and regional heterogeneity analyses. The results reveal a statistically significant positive relationship between financial sector governance and sustainability reporting adoption. The effect is strongest in low-income economies and sub-Saharan Africa, where financial regulators compensate for weak environmental oversight. In high-income contexts and Latin America, broad regulatory quality supplants specialised financial governance as the primary transparency driver. IFRS adoption and state ownership show limited direct influence. These findings position financial sector governance as a practical institutional substitute for underdeveloped regulatory systems. Policymakers can leverage existing financial oversight to accelerate sustainability reporting, particularly in resource-constrained settings. The study advances institutional theory by differentiating financial regulatory capacity from general state capacity and offers a scalable pathway toward global transparency objectives.

The past few years have seen a surge in scholarship on universal ownership, systematic stewardship, and system-level investing. These concepts describe the reality that large diversified owners of capital own a more or less representative slice of the market and therefore must concern themselves with systemic risks to the financial system as a whole. To date these treatments have not assessed whether practice follows theory, however. This Article answers the question: Do universal owners behave like universal owners? In this Article, I present the first empirical evidence as to whether investors that adopt a systemic mindset subsequently alter their policies and practices. This Article examines how norms in the financial system arise, take hold, and become self-fulfilling, and evaluates universal ownership theory as an emerging norm in the financial system by testing it against two existing norm formation frameworks. It assesses the extent to which the largest global asset owner organizations publicly self-identify as universal owners and analyzes these funds' use of two material devices that align with impact-oriented approaches to investment and stewardship activities. This analysis finds stark differences between self-identified universal owners and peer funds without such a self-designation, suggesting that a universal ownership mindset may translate into the widespread use of high-impact investor tools that non-universal owners mainly neglect. The Article also introduces the concept of norm accelerants: mainstream actors and institutions that can play a significant role in shepherding an emerging norm to broad acceptability. The Appendix comprises two proposed experiments to test whether universal ownership theory could become self-fulfilling, including an Advance Notice of Future Litigation (ANFL) that would allow litigation for future harms to be priced into the market in the present.

In today's data-driven business environment, organizations increasingly rely on digital capabilities to achieve sustainable performance. Grounded in the Dynamic Capabilities View (DCV), this study examines the effects of big data analytics capability (BDAC) and organizational resources (OR) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, while investigating the mediating roles of green innovation (GI) and absorptive capacity (AC). It also explores the moderating effect of green corporate image (GCI) on the relationships between organizational capabilities and CSR performance. Data were collected from 305 managers in manufacturing firms in Pakistan. A multi-method approach integrating Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), and Combined Importance–Performance Map Analysis (cIPMA) was employed to provide comprehensive insights into the proposed model. The findings reveal that BDAC and OR significantly enhance CSR performance, both directly and indirectly through GI and AC. Furthermore, GCI positively moderates the relationships between OR and CSR performance, as well as between BDAC and CSR performance. ANN identifies BDAC as the most influential predictor of CSR performance, whereas NCA and cIPMA highlight the critical capability thresholds and managerial priorities for improving sustainability outcomes. This study extends the DCV by demonstrating how organizational capabilities and knowledge-based mechanisms jointly improve CSR performance under varying levels of GCI. The findings offer practical guidance for managers seeking to leverage data-driven capabilities to achieve sustainable business performance.

Despite the growing importance of eco-innovation for sustainability and competitive advantage, the link between organizational capabilities and the stages of the eco-innovation process remains underexplored. This study addresses that gap by examining how specific organizational capabilities influence each stage of the eco-innovation process. Drawing on a bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review of 721 studies published between 1990 and 2024 in Scopus and Web of Science, and guided by PRISMA 2020 protocols, the research identifies four distinct categories of capabilities that organizations draw on at various stages of eco-innovation. These include (1) foundational capabilities, which encompass the essential skills, resources, and structures required before eco-innovation can begin; (2) strategic capabilities, which help firms meet eco-innovation and broader sustainability goals while enhancing competitive performance; (3) implementation capabilities, which support the effective translation of eco-innovation efforts into environmental and business outcomes; and (4) emergent capabilities, which evolve as outcomes of eco-innovation efforts. By mapping these capability types across the eco-innovation process, the study offers a unified framework that connects previously fragmented research on organizational capabilities and eco-innovation.

This study analyzes the evolution of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) disclosure among IBEX 35 companies between 2018 and 2023, combining natural language processing for disclosure measurement with negative binomial generalized linear mixed models incorporating financial and governance controls. Results reveal sustained growth in disclosure volume across sectors. Adjusting for report length indicates a genuine intensification of environmental disclosure, whereas the growth in social mentions largely reflects the expansion of document volume. Only Petrol and Power, the most environmentally exposed sector, exhibits significantly higher initial environmental reporting levels, while sectors with lower initial maturity display steeper growth trajectories, consistent with competitive isomorphism. Profitability is the only financial predictor consistently associated with disclosure volume across the three dimensions, and board gender diversity is strongly associated with environmental disclosure. Negative associations between initial levels and subsequent growth suggest sector-specific saturation in the environmental and social dimensions.

Industrial firms are required to redesign their supply chains into restorative and regenerative archetypes, rethinking not only their own production systems but also relationships with suppliers that may possess resources, capabilities, and knowledge too complex to be developed on their own but vital for circular value creation. Despite this, how the relational mechanisms underlying buyer–supplier collaboration differ across restorative and regenerative supply chains remains poorly understood. Drawing on Relational View Theory, this study examines how relation-specific investments, knowledge-sharing routines, complementary resources and capabilities, and governance structures are configured within these two archetypes. We conducted an abductive multiple-case study of eight large Italian fashion-textile and furniture firms, collecting data from semi-structured interviews with procurement professionals and secondary data. Findings reveal two distinct configurations of the relational mechanisms. In restorative supply chains, buyer–supplier collaborations rely on asymmetric yet complementary investments, compliance-oriented knowledge-sharing routines, functional accountability-based complementarities, and formal governance. In regenerative supply chains, buyer–supplier collaborations rely on joint investments, co-generative knowledge-sharing routines, dynamic complementarities, and adaptive governance. The study advances circular supply chain research, while refining the application of Relational View Theory and offering archetype-specific managerial guidance.

Sustainable development has become a central focus in corporate governance, particularly in relation to the impact of anti-corruption practices. Research on SDG 16 has largely focused on broad governance outcomes, paying little attention to its impact on misconduct and anti-corruption practices at a firm level. Furthermore, there is limited research on whether improving the quality of financial reporting enhances the effectiveness of SDG 16 initiatives, particularly in the UK. This study examines the moderating effect of financial reporting quality, proxied by lower earnings management, on the relationship between Sustainable Development Goal 16 and corporate governance outcomes, specifically in the context of bribery, corruption, and fraud controversies score and policy bribery and corruption score. In addition, the study examines the moderating role of earnings management, as measured by the Modified Jones Model Discretionary Accruals, in the relationship between Sustainable Development Goal 16 and corporate governance outcomes, specifically in the context of the bribery, corruption, and fraud controversies score and the policy bribery and corruption score. Using a dataset of 3260 firm-year observations from 326 companies in the industrial, energy, and basic materials sectors in the United Kingdom from 2014 to 2023, the study employs the generalized least squares random effect estimation technique to test the hypotheses and the two-step Generalized Method of Moments for robustness of the results. The results indicate that firms aligning themselves with SDG 16 experience a negative correlation with bribery and corruption issues. Another important finding is that financial reporting quality, proxied by earnings management, strengthens the impact of anti-corruption policies, promoting greater transparency, accountability, and alignment with SDG 16 objectives. The study emphasizes that the characteristics of organizations significantly influence the implementation of SDG16, which, in turn, impacts the practices related to bribery, corruption, and fraud controversies.

Environmental administrative penalties not only impose regulatory and economic costs on firms but also threaten their legitimacy by undermining stakeholders' perceptions of their responsibility and reliability. Based on legitimacy theory, these legitimacy threats may motivate firms to undertake strategic responses beyond regulatory compliance, including socially valued initiatives aimed at restoring stakeholder evaluations. Utilizing data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed firms from 2016 to 2022, we find that firms receiving environmental administrative penalties significantly increase their targeted poverty alleviation contributions. And this response is associated with multiple dimensions of legitimacy repair. Firms facing greater reputational, political, and resource-related legitimacy pressures exhibit stronger increases in participating in targeted poverty alleviation campaigns after environmental administrative penalties. Furthermore, the dynamic effect analyses show that such responses are concentrated around the occurrence of environmental penalties rather than persisting over time. Moreover, environmental administrative penalties increase environmental investments but do not significantly promote innovation.

This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and profit on assets in South Africa using a panel dataset comprising 79 industries observed annually between 2017 and 2024. The study uses an industry-level dataset which, unlike firm-level inquiries, purges firm-level noise and acknowledges the empirical regularity that corporate social responsibility often generates spillover effects that extend beyond individual firms. In line with the stakeholder theory, results from the system generalized method of moments show that corporate social responsibility correlates positively with profits and that the relationship is linear controlling for advertising expenditure, government subsidies, and interest expenditure. The long-run multiplier derived using the delta method suggests that the relationship is much stronger in the long run. Quantile regressions additionally show that the relationship is particularly significant in high profit industries. These results contribute to the ongoing debate on the financial consequences of corporate social responsibility in emerging markets and suggest that socially responsible practices may be consistent with, rather than detrimental to, profitability. The results are robust to the inclusion and exclusion of industries with zero corporate social responsibility expenditure in some years as well as the use of an alternative identification strategy, namely the Lewbel instrumental variable approach.

The European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) represents a landmark regulatory effort to enhance global sustainability reporting and corporate accountability. This study examines how CSRD affects non-EU firms with substantial economic exposure to the EU, thereby extending the directive's environmental governance reach beyond Europe's borders. Using a quasi-experimental design, we analyze market reactions to key CSRD regulatory milestones from 2021 to 2025. We find that firms with higher EU revenue exposure experience significant reductions in their cost of equity, improved liquidity, and expanded analyst coverage following CSRD announcements. These effects scale with the intensity of EU exposure and are mediated through improvements in the information environment, as reflected in analyst coverage and forecast dispersion. Our findings demonstrate how a supranational sustainability disclosure mandate can reshape corporate behavior and financial outcomes internationally. This research contributes to debates on ESG regulation, corporate accountability, and the global diffusion of sustainability governance, with implications for managers, investors, and policymakers navigating emerging ESG disclosure regimes.

Growing environmental challenges and rising climate-driven pressures have forced organizations to incorporate sustainability concerns in their strategic and innovation activities. However, it is still not well understood how environmental capabilities and climate-oriented strategies can be translated into sustainable firm performance. Addressing this gap, the current study examines the relationships between environmental innovation, corporate climate strategy, green innovation strategy, green entrepreneurial orientation, and sustainable firm performance. Based on the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV) and the entrepreneurial orientation perspective, this study proposes a framework to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of environmental innovation and corporate climate strategy on sustainable firm performance through the mediating effect of green innovation strategy, and to evaluate the moderating effect of green entrepreneurial orientation. Data were collected from 398 respondents employed by energy companies in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, and the proposed hypotheses were examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The empirical results show that environmental innovation and corporate climate strategy have a significant positive impact on sustainable firm performance and green innovation strategy for the sustainable development of the firms. Furthermore, a green innovation strategy affects sustainable firm performance and mediates the links between environmental innovation, corporate climate strategy, and sustainable firm performance. The results also show that green entrepreneurial orientation positively moderates the relationship between green innovation strategy and sustainable firm performance. By integrating environmental capabilities, innovation strategy, and entrepreneurial orientation into the model, this study contributes to the sustainability management and innovation literature by providing clarity on the strategic mechanisms by which firms achieve sustainable performance. The findings also offer practical insights for managers and policymakers seeking to promote sustainability-oriented innovation and climate strategies in energy-intensive industries.

Public reporting among Singapore Exchange-listed firms now presents supplier sustainability governance with considerable visibility, although whether that visibility reflects institutionalised supplier control rather than disclosure alignment remains uncertain. This study addresses that question, and its implications for buyer–supplier trust and supply chain management education, through semi-structured executive interviews and an AI-assisted, evidence-linked documentary analysis of 30 most recent publicly available corporate reports, including sustainability, ESG, integrated and annual reports where relevant. The reviewed evidence indicates strongest convergence at the disclosure-architecture level rather than at the level of enforceable supplier governance. Scope 3 disclosure appears in 100.0% of firms, framework alignment in 96.7%, board accountability in 83.3% and supplier-sustainability linkage in 93.3%; by contrast, relational implementation is present in 66.7%, supplier performance metrics in 23.3%, mandatory enforcement in 23.3% and multi-tier reach in 3.3%. When the original composite logic is applied to the AI-reviewed scores, six firms achieve full convergence and the mean weighted governance intensity index is 0.547. Taken together, the results are more consistent with partial than near-complete institutionalisation. Formal ESG alignment appears widely diffused, whereas public disclosure of supplier-facing enforcement, measurement and upstream reach remains limited. The paper therefore extends the institutionalised trust infrastructure model by distinguishing framework convergence from implementation convergence and identifies four competency requirements for supply chain management graduates.

This article explores why businesses engage with the United Nations SDG agenda, with a view to understanding how managers construct the business case for the SDGs. Building on and extending the responsibility literature's discussion of the business case for responsibility, the article develops a conceptual framework for analyzing why businesses engage with the SDGs based on the notion of economic value drivers. This framework is employed to analyze why a sample of 21 companies decided to engage with the SDG agenda. The article finds that companies view the SDGs as a business development agenda rather than as a business responsibility agenda, something that fundamentally may distinguish the SDG agenda from previous responsibility agendas. Most companies see the SDGs as a vehicle to develop more conventional business cases, such as mitigating risk, improving efficiency, or differentiating products and services. However, some companies see the SDGs as a lever for carving out uncontested positions in future markets, that is, as a vehicle for market sensing and market creation. The paper finds that companies do not typically identify a single SDG business case but identify several business cases that are dynamically evolving. Finally, the paper offers insights into how business cases are accompanied by organizational and business model change. Overall, the paper fills a gap in the extant literature on business responsibility by developing, empirically validating, and deepening an economic value-based classification of business cases for the SDGs.