This paper examines the heterogeneous links between board gender diversity and corporate social performance in different industries across China. OLS regression models are approximated using the data of Chinese industries from 2009 to 2015. Robustness test and two-stage least square (2SLS) methods are incorporated to cater for robustness and endogeneity. Board gender diversity (BGD) stimulates corporate social performance (CSP) of firms with environmental and social risk exposure regardless of critical mass and directors’ independence. It does so for firms with governance risk exposure while incorporating the critical mass effect and the director’s independence. Overall, the positive effect of BGD is prevalent in different industries at an aggregate level while considering firms with an overall ESG risk exposure. The findings imply that BGD can mitigate the ESG risk exposure in terms of enhancing the CSP and the advantage can be transpired with the inclusion of even one female director (independent or executive) to the board. The study also highlights that BGD enhances CSP in industries with more environmental and social risk exposure while doing so in industries with governance risk exposure after complementation by critical mass and independent director effects.

This paper studies the effects of a firm’s financial performance (FP) and chief executive officer’s (CEO) duality on the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the context of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) among Chinese A-share-registered companies. The results depict a negative relationship between CEO duality and CSR disclosure. Our results demonstrate that better-performing firms disclose CSR information more frequently and of higher quality compared with firms with poor financial performance. This role of financial performance in the quality of CSR disclosure is generally valuable in public enterprises; however, it is relatively sluggish in state-owned enterprises the outcomes indicate that the dual leadership structure reduces assessments and renders CEOs less liable to their stakeholders. Therefore, this study offers valuable information and details for regulators to improve corporate governance and CSR from the perspective of stakeholder theory.

This study pursues to clarify the effect of environmental management systems (EMS) comprehensiveness on environmental performance and financial performance using an extensive quantitative dataset obtained in Brazil over an eight-year period. It is recognized that the implementation of environmental management differs per company varying in how many environmental practices are adopted and hence how comprehensive the EMS is. The relationship between EMS comprehensiveness, environmental performance, and financial performance proves to be complex. First of all, the overall negative effect of environmental performance on financial performance may indicate that the resources needed to realize an improved environmental performance do not outweigh the cost reductions resulting from eco-efficiency or improved reputation. The effect of EMS comprehensiveness on financial performance is in line with that, indicating that an above average EMS comprehensiveness results in lower financial performance, which may correspond to high environmental management- and overhead costs. Across sectors, the companies operating in sector industries have high quality EMS comprehensiveness, while the companies in agriculture, commerce, and services exhibit a lower EMS.

The context of China fosters different contextual factors, which influences the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in comparison to firms across the rest of the world. Political ties at a corporate level are one of these vital factors. This paper studies the influence of firm-level political ties (PT) and executive turnover (ET) on the quality of CSR disclosure in the context of shareholding status of departing executive in Chinese listed A-share firms. Stakeholder and Agency theories are applied to the dissemination of CSR disclosures in Chinese firms whereby we used 20,578 firm-years interpretations of Chinese registered companies between 2012 and 2019. The results foster a negative link between executive turnover and quality of CSR disclosures. In addition, a negative relationship has been found between political ties and the quality of CSR disclosure. The findings disclose that the shareholding status of departing executive moderate the relationship between the impact of political ties and executive turnover on firms quality of CSR disclosure, whilst the effect of executive turnover on the quality of CSR disclosure was found more pronounced for firms whose departing executive held larger shareholding (SH). This study contributed to the literature on the quality of CSR disclosure while recognizing the negative effect of executive turnover on a firm’s quality of CSR disclosure for politically tied firms with a reinforcing moderating role of the shareholding status of departing executive.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate political embeddedness and the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure for Chinese listed A-share firms. The study applies the legitimacy theory to the diffusion of CSR in Chinese companies, which otherwise have a differentiating characteristic from Western companies: part of their property being owned by the government. We used 21,295 firm-year observations from Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2016. The findings reveal that political embeddedness moderates the relationship between firms’ resource base and CSR disclosure quality, such that the effect of resource base on CSR quality was found to be weak for firms with a higher level of political embeddedness. Furthermore, firms with a higher level of political embeddedness will disclose CSR with a lower quality, whilst firms with a higher resource base report CSR with a higher quality. The findings of this study contribute significantly to the literature on CSR disclosure by recognizing the positive impact of political embeddedness and resource base on CSR disclosure quality.