Aug 2026· Sustainability· 0 citations· 56 references
Abstract
Sustainable development is multidimensional, yet governance is often examined through aggregate SDG performance, leaving limited understanding of whether different governance dimensions are equally salient across economic, social, and environmental domains. This study investigates domain-specific governance salience using cross-national data from 2015 to 2024. Governance is measured through the Worldwide Governance Indicators, while sustainability performance is modeled through the overall SDG index and three domain-specific indices covering economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Tree-based machine learning and SHAP analysis are used to compare the relative importance of governance indicators and socioeconomic control variables. The findings reveal a domain-sensitive governance pattern that is obscured by aggregate SDG performance. Governance indicators are secondary in the overall SDG model but become more salient in the economic dimension, especially through Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, and Regulatory Quality. In the social dimension, governance retains moderate relevance alongside health and development-related conditions. By contrast, the environmental domain exhibits limited predictability, highlighting an important boundary condition in the role of governance. Further analysis of high-income countries reveals that specific governance dimensions exhibit greater predictive relevance, although the overall governance pattern remains less consistent. These findings provide support for a metagovernance-informed perspective, showing that the relevance of governance for sustainable development differs across sustainability domains.
Sustainable development is increasingly reshaping corporate strategies, particularly in emerging markets such as India, where environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration has become pivotal for long‐term value creation. This study examines the impact of ESG performance on firm outcomes for Nifty 500 firms over 2014–2024, considering both aggregated and disaggregated ESG dimensions, while assessing the influence of country‐level governance mechanisms. Using panel regression analysis, the findings reveal that robust ESG practices significantly enhance financial, operational, and market performance, underscoring their strategic relevance. At the disaggregated level, social (SOC) and governance (GOV) performance consistently improve profitability, efficiency, and market valuation, whereas environmental (ENV) initiatives exhibit short‐term negative effects, likely due to compliance and investment costs. Further, country governance indicators, including voice and accountability (VAA), political stability and absence of violence (PSV), government effectiveness (GVE), regulatory quality (REQ), rule of law (ROL), and control of corruption (COC), differentially shape the ESG–performance link. While VAA, PSV, REQ, and GVE enhance ESG's impact, ROL and COC constrain immediate gains, highlighting the role of governance quality in aligning ESG initiatives with firm‐level outcomes. The study provides critical insights for regulators, policymakers, investors, and corporate managers, emphasizing governance as a key enabler of sustainable growth in an emerging market.
Rizwana Khurshid, A. Islam· Business Strategy & Deve...· 0 citations
This study investigates the effects of governance quality and regulatory quality on sustainable business performance among publicly listed firms in Nigeria. Grounded in Institutional Theory, Stakeholder Theory, and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework , the study examines how institutional quality influences firms' economic, environmental, and social sustainability performance. A quantitative longitudinal panel design was employed using a balanced panel of 50 Nigerian listed firms observed annually from 2015 to 2025, yielding 550 firm-year observations. Governance quality and regulatory quality were measured using data from the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI ), while sustainable business performance was measured through a manually constructed Triple Bottom Line disclosure index derived from audited annual, integrated, and sustainability reports. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, multicollinearity diagnostics, and Random Effects panel regression with heteroskedasticity -robust standard error s. The findings reveal that both governance quality and regulatory quality exert positive and statistically significant effects on sustainable business performance, with governance quality emerging as the stronger predictor. These results suggest that impro vements in institutional effectiveness, regulatory consistency, and public governance create an enabling environment that encourages firms to adopt sustainable business practices and achieve superior long-term performance. The study contributes to the grow ing literature on institutional quality and corporate sustainability in emerging economies by providing firm -level empirical evidence from Nigeria and demonstrating the complementary roles of governance quality and regulatory quality in promoting sustainab le business performance. The findings have important implications for policymakers, regulators, and corporate managers seeking to strengthen institutional effectiveness and advance sustainable enterprise development. Although the study relies on secondary panel data and therefore establishes associations rather than definitive causal relationships, it provides a robust foundation for future research employing dynamic panel methods, quasi-experimental designs, or mixed method approaches to further examine the institutional drivers of corporate sustainability.
U. Abbo· Australian Journal of Busine...· 0 citations
Governance systems across sectors exhibit significant variability in their ability to integrate
artificial intelligence, real-time monitoring, and adaptive oversight. While some sectors
demonstrate advanced governance maturity—characterized by continuous sensing, predictive
analytics, and event-validated learning—others remain anchored in reactive, compliance-centric
oversight models. This manuscript presents a cross-domain comparative analysis of governance
capability across four major sectors: critical infrastructure, healthcare, finance, and public
administration. Using the Governance Maturity Model (GMM) as an evaluative framework, the
study identifies sector-specific patterns in governance readiness, oversight integration, and
adaptive capacity. Findings reveal that governance variability is shaped by environmental
complexity, regulatory intensity, technological integration, and organizational culture. The
analysis further demonstrates that governance variability reflects broader differences in
governance observability, operational intelligence integration, adaptive oversight capability,
institutional learning maturity, and resilience modernization across interconnected sociotechnical ecosystems. This manuscript extends the Adaptive Governance Systems Framework
(AGSF), the AI-Enabled Governance Oversight Model (AIGOM), and the Governance Maturity
Model (GMM) by providing a comparative foundation for cross-sector governance
transformation.
Dr. Robb Shawe· International journal of adv...· 0 citations
Global supply chains face increasing sustainability‐related risks, yet evidence regarding the financial benefits of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives remains mixed. We argue that these inconsistencies arise because ESG dimensions operate through different value‐creation mechanisms and because existing research pays insufficient attention to the organizational processes through which sustainability becomes economically consequential. Using Bloomberg ESG and financial data for 1830 firms across 80 countries, combined with country‐level political and institutional indicators, we examine whether operational efficiency mediates the relationship between ESG performance and profitability. Results show that environmental and social performance are positively associated with profitability, whereas governance performance exhibits weaker and less consistent effects. Operational efficiency partially mediates the environmental–performance relationship and serves as a significant pathway through which social performance contributes to financial outcomes. In contrast, governance performance demonstrates neither significant mediation nor robust direct effects. Although political‐institutional conditions are associated with firm performance, they exert limited influence on the operational pathways linking sustainability activities to profitability. These findings demonstrate that ESG dimensions create value through distinct mechanisms rather than through a uniform sustainability effect and identify operational efficiency as a central mechanism through which sustainability initiatives become financially material. The study contributes a process‐oriented explanation of how firms translate sustainability commitments into organizational resilience and sustained financial performance.
S. Bhatnagar, R. Kumar· Sustainable Development· 0 citations
This study examines the relationship between environmental, social, and governance performance and systematic risk, measured by equity beta, across firms operating in different institutional environments. Using a cross-sectional dataset of 2,683 publicly listed firms from Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, the analysis investigates both the aggregate effect of environmental, social, and governance performance and the specific role of governance in shaping market risk. The empirical results reveal that environmental, social, and governance performance is positively and significantly associated with systematic risk in the baseline model, suggesting that higher environmental, social, and governance scores do not necessarily correspond to lower market risk. When accounting for regional differences, the interaction between environmental, social, and governance and region is not statistically significant, indicating that the environmental, social, and governance--risk relationship does not vary meaningfully between Europe and Middle East and North Africa at the aggregate level. However, further analysis shows that governance exhibits a significant and region-dependent effect. In particular, the interaction between governance and Europe is positive and statistically significant, implying that governance is more strongly associated with systematic risk in European markets compared to Middle East and North Africa. These findings suggest that environmental, social, and governance performance does not operate as a uniform risk-mitigating mechanism across firms. Instead, its relationship with systematic risk appears to be context-dependent and driven primarily by governance-related dynamics. The study contributes to the environmental, social, and governance literature by highlighting the importance of institutional environments and by distinguishing between aggregate environmental, social, and governance effects and governance-specific influences on market risk.
Viviane Naimy, W. P. Chiou· Business Research Proceeding...· 0 citations
This study investigates how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance related to corporate performance among firms listed on Thailand Sustainability Investment (THSI) index from 2018 to 2022, that are part of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). This research utilizes agency theory and stakeholder theory to assess the influence of ESG aspects on company outcomes through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), emphasizing direct effects and the moderating role of governance. Findings reveal that Environmental, Social and Governance performance impacts firm performance in diverging directions. Environmental performance has a significant negative relationship with Return on Assets (ROA), reflecting the financial impact associated with environmental activities during the investigated period, whereas social performance shows substantial positive relations with ROA. Regarding governance, results show a positive direct effect on ROA, showing enhanced operational efficiency, on other hand, results indicate a negative influence on Tobin’s Q, indicating potential market concerns over monitoring costs. Crucially, significantly strengthening the positive influence of social performance on ROA, governance serves as a selective moderating mechanism. This implies that by reducing agency conflicts, strong internal control ensures social investments are efficiently translated into accounting returns. In contrast, the environmental pillar shows no moderating effect. These results emphasize the importance of dissection ESG indicators. Investors and government bodies should prioritize dimension-specific evaluations above overall rating in order to better align sustainability activities with financial performance.
Pakkamon Charoensuk, Chaimongkol Pholkaew, Kusuma Dampitakse· Asian Economic and Financial...· 0 citations
