Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices disclosure and firm value in the Egyptian context. This is done through investigating the influence of being listed and ranked in the Egyptian Corporate Responsibility Index on firm value during the period starting from 2007 to 2016. Design/methodology/approach: Using univariate and multivariate analyses, the findings support the economic benefits of ESG disclosures. Findings: The authors find that firms listed in the ESG index have higher firm value, and that there is a positive association between firms’ higher rankings in the index and firm value, as measured by Tobin’s q . Research limitations/implications: The findings provide feedback to regulators and standard-setters in the developing countries, and more specifically the Egyptian regulators, on the benefits associated with the introduction of the sustainability index (Standard & Poor’s (S&P)/EGX ESG index). This, in turn, clarifies how the government’s efforts to promote ESG provide benefits to publicly traded firms. Practical implications: By linking ESG to firm value, the ESG index will enable investors to take a leading role in inducing firms to enhance transparency and disclosure, and hence, improving their reporting standards. This, in turn, will ultimately result in improving sustainability and governance practices in Egypt. Social implications: The reported positive market reactions to social and governance practices disclosures can motivate firms to improve their social and governance performance. Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature by addressing the combined economic effects of social and governance disclosures on firm value, and by investigating the economic effects of such disclosures on firm value in an emerging market.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between board gender diversity and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) decoupling and the moderating effect that religiosity has on this relationship. We utilise an international sample of 26,176 firm‐year observations that cover the period from 2005 to 2019. Consistent with the upper echelon theory and the gender socialisation theory, we provide evidence that firms with a more gender‐diversified board of directors tend to engage less in ESG decoupling, and this relationship is more pronounced among firms domiciled in countries with a low level of religiosity. We also find that the effect of religiosity on the relationship between board gender diversity and ESG decoupling is more pronounced for firms that engage in greenwashing and those operating in controversial industry sectors. Our study contributes to the growing debate on ESG decoupling, offering policy insights to regulators and policymakers into the role of board gender diversity and religiosity in reducing unethical managerial behaviour.

The question of whether females tend to act more ethically or risk-averse compared to males is an interesting ethical puzzle. Using a large sample of US firms over the 1992–2014 period, we investigate the effect that the gender of a chief executive officer (CEO) has on earnings management using classification shifting. We find that the pre-Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) Act period was characterized by high levels of classification shifting by both female and male CEOs, but the magnitude of such practices is, surprisingly, significantly higher in firms with female CEOs than in those with male CEOs. By contrast, our results suggest that following the passage of the punitive SOX Act, classification shifting by female CEOs declined significantly, whilst it remained pervasive in firms with male CEOs. This suggests that the observable differences in financial reporting behavior between male and female CEOs seem to be because female CEOs are more risk-averse, but not necessarily more ethically sensitive than their male counterparts are. The central tenets of our findings remain unchanged after several additional checks, including controlling for alternative earnings management techniques, corporate governance mechanisms, CEO and chief financial officer characteristics and propensity score-matching.

This paper investigates the impact of Directive 2014/95 (hereafter, ‘the Directive’) issued by the European Union (EU) that mandates the disclosure of ESG information on ESG decoupling behaviour by EU‐listed firms and whether the strength of national enforcement systems of member states plays a moderating role in this relationship. Using a difference‐in‐differences design and employing a propensity score matched sample of 3020 firm‐year observations from the EU and the United States, we find that both the passage of the Directive in 2014 and the implementation of the Directive in 2017 have a mitigating effect on ESG decoupling. We also find that the strength of national enforcement systems has no impact on the relationship between the Directive and ESG decoupling. Furthermore, our additional analysis indicates that the effect of the Directive is less pronounced for firms that have their ESG information independently audited. Additionally, we find that the impact of the Directive is more pronounced for firms operating in non‐controversial industry sectors. While the Directive is under ongoing revision by the EU Parliament and Commission to be replaced by the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), our study provides timely insights into the effectiveness of the Directive and its impact on ESG information.