Purpose This study revisits the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities and firm performance. More importantly, it tests whether this relationship is moderated by critical yet underexplored factors such as stakeholder engagement, financial constraints, and religiosity. Design/methodology/approach A wide range of estimation techniques, including pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects, system generalized method of moments (GMM) and propensity score matching-difference-in-differences (PSM-DiD), are employed to investigate such issues in a large sample of firms from 31 countries. Findings ESG performance has a positive and significant impact on firm performance. While stakeholder engagement positively moderates this relationship, financial constraints and religiosity negatively moderate it. Interestingly, this positive linkage is driven by environmental and social performance rather than governance performance. Practical implications Firms should proactively engage in ESG initiatives and consider the intervening influences of stakeholder engagement, financial constraints and religiosity in making decisions to invest in ESG activities. Furthermore, our findings can help policymakers understand the financial consequences of ESG practices, which can be helpful in designing new policies to further promote corporate engagement in ESG practices. Originality/value First, our research findings help reconcile the long-standing debate about the value impact of ESG. Second, our paper investigates relatively new aspects of the ESG-firm performance relationship. Third, our study offers more insight into the ESG literature by showing that not all ESG dimensions equally impact firm performance.

Purpose This study investigates whether Chinese local governments’ environmental attention can mitigate corporate “greenwashing”, focusing on the extent of environmental content in annual government work reports as indicative of government environmental attention. This study aims to determine whether enterprises respond to changes in local governmental attention by improving the quality of their environmental information disclosures. Design/methodology/approach Data from China’s A-share listed companies spanning 2013–2021 were sourced from the CSMAR database and company annual reports. Environmental attention data were manually gathered from local government work reports published on official local government websites by using text analysis methods. These datasets were analyzed empirically to assess the impact of local governments’ environmental attention on corporate greenwashing behavior. Findings Results show that increased governmental environmental attention significantly reduces corporate greenwashing behavior by alleviating corporate financing constraints, enhancing independent engagement in environmental initiatives and bolstering stakeholder oversight. Moreover, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the influence of government environmental concerns is pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, firms with subpar audit quality and those exhibiting myopic management tendencies. Originality/value This study enriches the existing literature on the government–business nexus. It also introduces methodological innovations by employing a lexical analysis of environmental themes in local government work reports instead of using typical event study approaches. Furthermore, it uses a mediating effect model to identify the mechanisms through which government environmental attention influences corporate greenwashing, namely, government subsidies, corporate environmental initiatives and external stakeholder oversight.

Purpose This study investigates the impact of financial development, measured by the ratio of broad money to gross domestic products, on de jure central bank (CB) independence (CBI) in 17 countries in the Asia–Pacific region from 1995 to 2014. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach, which is suitable since the CBI equation suffers from contemporaneous correlation, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity. Findings The FGLS results suggest a positive association between CBI and financial market development (FMD). This relationship is confirmed when estimating different indicators of de jure CBI and adopting the panel-corrected standard error estimate. However, the statistical significance of FMD is not supported when the ratio of domestic credit to the private sector to GDP is measured. Research limitations/implications It is significant to have a developed financial system to foster a better CBI. Moreover, it is important to measure the influence of financial market players on the operations of a CB. Originality/value The financial market in the Asia–Pacific has improved over the years. Hence, the results show the determinants of CBI in the Asia–Pacific, especially the role of FMD.

Purpose This study examines the moderating effects of low and high levels of voluntary disclosures (VDs) between corporate governance and information asymmetry (IA). Design/methodology/approach The study used PROCESS macro to construct bootstrap confidence intervals at the 95% level to estimate the model, and “simple slope analysis” to visualize the model. Findings The better corporate governance provides a monitoring mechanism that disseminates private information and reduces IA The effect of corporate governance on IA is contingent on the levels of VDs within a firm, and this relationship is strengthened when the level of VDs within a firm is high, and results remain consistent when levels of sub-indices are high. Additional analysis reveals that effective boards and audit committees reduce IA. Increased inside, an associated company, family and foreign ownership exacerbate IA, whereas institutional owners act as effective monitors to overcome informational disadvantages. Practical implications The findings provide implications for policymakers to promote corporate governance and more relevant reporting practices as effective mechanisms for protecting shareholders' rights and attenuating IA in capital markets. Originality/value The study is valuable to understand the strength of the relationship between corporate governance and information asymmetries based on the moderating role of different VD levels.

Purpose This paper examines how the degree of happiness affects corporate risk-taking and the moderating influence of family ownership of firms on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The authors use an international sample of 17,654 firm-year observations from 24 countries around the world from 2008 to 2016. Findings Using the happiness index from the World Happiness Report developed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the authors show that a country's overall happiness is negatively correlated with risk-taking behavior by firms. The findings are robust to an alternative measure of risk-taking by firms. Further analyses document that the negative influence of happiness on firm risk-taking is more pronounced for family-owned firms. Practical implications The paper is consistent with the notion that happier people are likely to be more risk-averse in making financial decisions, which, in turn, reduces corporate risk-taking. Originality/value This study contributes to the broad literature on the determinants of corporate risk-taking and the growing literature on the role of sentiment on investment decisions. The authors contribute to the current debate about family-owned firms by demonstrating that the presence of family trust strengthens the negative influence of happiness on corporate risk-taking, a topic that has been unexplored in previous studies.