This research paper aims to understand the impact of corporate governance (CG) on economic, social, and environmental sustainability disclosures. This paper adopted an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. The data regarding corporate governance and sustainability disclosure were collected from top 100 companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE) for the period ranging from 2012 to 2015. In addition to the quantitative data, we collected qualitative data through interviews with five board members of different companies. Overall, our results indicate that CG elements enhance sustainability disclosures. This study concludes that a large board size consisting of a female director and a CSR committee (CSRC) is better able to check and control management decisions regarding sustainability issues (be they economic, environment, or social) and resulted in better sustainability disclosure. This paper, through quantitative and qualitative analysis, provides a methodological and empirical contribution to the literature on corporate governance and sustainability reporting in emerging and developing countries.
12 December 2017 in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management
The aim of this research is to investigate the link between different proxies of social visibility such as company size, company profitability, environmental sensitivity, and multinational subsidiary with CSR disclosure. This study used a content analysis method to extract CSR-related information from the annual reports of 253 listed companies of Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed through a multiple linear pooled regression analysis technique. The results showed that company size, company profitability, environmental sensitivity, and to be a multinational subsidiary have a significant positive relationship with CSR disclosure. This indicates that different aspects of corporate social visibility are associated with CSR disclosure. We assert that highly socially visible companies, prone to pressures from various actors of the society such as the media, NGOs, the government, and other stakeholders, appear to disclose CSR information to manage relationships with these actors.
30 June 2019 in Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies
This paper examines the drivers and barriers to adopt sustainability practices in Pakistani SMEs. Corporate sustainability has become important issue during the last few decades. Existing literature focus on large companies and thereby paid limited attention to SMEs. There is an increased understanding that SMEs should focus on sustainability practices to remain competitive. There is limited research that capture the extent of adoption of sustainability practices as well as its drivers and barriers. This paper fills the gap and uses institutional theory to explain the drivers and barriers of sustainability practices in SMEs of Pakistan. This qualitative research was conducted in Multan, Pakistan where interviewees from the managers of eight SMEs in the manufacturing sector were conducted. In addition to this questionnaire was sent to SMEs in order to capture the extent of the adoption of sustainability practices. The research findings show certain drivers: commitment by top management, competitor pressure, stakeholders’ pressure and barriers: lack of resources, lack of training and education and lack of awareness for the adoption of sustainability practices. This paper contributes to the sustainability literature in emerging and developing countries. Through an increased awareness of drivers and barriers, policy makers and practitioners may take necessary steps to improve sustainability practices in SMEs