This study examines the effect of female representation in boardrooms on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure in listed firms in Saudi Arabia. The study examined 200 highly polluting firms from 2019 to 2023 and constructed a robust ESG disclosure index with 62 items benchmarked against international and Saudi ESG disclosure-related guidelines, as well as well-grounded literature. The findings show that female representation on firm boards is positively and significantly associated with ESG disclosure, suggesting that Saudi-listed firms that ensure and promote female representation on their boards are more likely to provide more comprehensive ESG disclosures than others. The results highlight the role of board diversity in governance reforms and its alignment with Saudi Vision 2030’s gender inclusion goals. This study contributes to the corporate governance (CG) and sustainability literature by emphasizing how board gender diversity strengthens ESG reporting, regulatory compliance, and corporate resilience. The introduced findings are relevant for policymakers, investors, and corporate leaders seeking to foster sustainable business practices and improve ESG performance in emerging markets.

Purpose: This study aims to discuss and investigate the role of big data analytics (BDA) in promoting error detection and preventing fraud in accounting operations. Methodology: It uses a secondary method of data collection (desk study) to explore the potential impact of BDA in enhancing error and fraud prevention on six key considerations including data quality and integrity; data privacy and security; real-time monitoring and alerts; integration with internal controls; ethical implications; and human experience. Finding: The analysis shows that the BDA enhances fraud detection by integrating data from multiple sources, using sophisticated algorithms to identify anomalies. Reduces false positives and improves accuracy. However, human expertise is essential for ethical standards and transparency. Implications: It has significant implications for the accounting profession, as it provides an addition in both theoretical knowledge and practical applications, theoretical implications include developing accounting knowledge, developing data-driven models, establishing ethical frameworks, and promoting interdisciplinary insights. On a practical level, it provides guidance for improving financial accuracy, fraud prevention, regulatory compliance, data-driven decision-making, and professional development for accountants. Contribution: It contributes to bridging the research gap in the aspect related to the analysis of big data and its impact on the quality of accountants' work, as this topic is of high importance to researchers, governments, policymakers, industries, companies, investors, and regulators, bridging the gap between accounting and data analytics. This interdisciplinary approach is critical in understanding the evolving landscape of the impact of big data analytics on financial transparency and accuracy of financial reporting. Article Type: Research Paper.

This study examines the effect of environmental innovation on emission performance and the moderating role of board gender diversity among firms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Using a panel dataset of 2319 firm-year observations from 13 countries between 2013 and 2024, the analysis applies fixed-effects regression and robustness checks using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The findings show that environmental innovation significantly improves emissions performance, confirming its strategic role in achieving sustainability goals. Board gender diversity has a positive direct impact on emissions outcomes, suggesting that diverse boards enhance sustainability-oriented governance. However, the interaction term has a negative and significant effect, indicating that gender diversity, while beneficial overall, can weaken the link between environmental innovation and emission performance, possibly because of complex decision-making processes. This study contributes theoretically by extending the Resource-Based View and Porter Hypothesis to an under-researched context, while emphasizing the need for governance mechanisms that leverage diversity without slowing innovation implementation. Future research should incorporate qualitative insights and examine other governance factors to deepen our understanding of how board composition influences sustainability strategies.

This study explores the relationship between institutional shareholders and climate-related disclosure (CRD) and how sustainability committees influence this relationship among publicly listed Malaysian firms. For the analysis, 990 firm-year observations were studied from 198 highly polluting firms from 2021 to 2024. A strong CRD index was designed using the recognized climate reporting frameworks and well-grounded literature to assess the level of climate-related disclosure. Fixed-effects and hierarchical panel regression models show that CRD increases when institutional investor ownership increases, meaning firms with more institutional investors disclose more information on climate-related topics. In addition, a sustainability committee at the board level greatly improves this relationship by highlighting the positive impact of strong internal governance. As a result, such committees establish climate management and improve communication with investors, making the firm’s actions more transparent. The findings of this study are consistent with agency and legitimacy theories because institutional investors assist in monitoring firms’ environmental performance, and sustainability committees help the company maintain these standards internally. Further, this study helps grow the understanding of corporate governance (CG) and sustainability by pointing out that the presence of institutional owners and sustainability committees can promote openness about climate matters. Accordingly, these findings can guide policymakers, investors, and business leaders in boosting responsible environmental reporting and sustainable business practices in developing countries.

This paper explores how green digital technologies (GDTs)—ERP systems, cloud software, IoT, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics—can be used to improve the quality of ESG disclosures of industrial listed companies in the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). Based on the institutional isomorphism theory, we examine how the relationship between coercive, mimetic, and normative institutional pressures and adopting green technology interacts to effect sustainability reporting practices. Using panel data pertaining to 30 ASE-listed industrial companies during the 2020–2024 period (N = 146 firm-year observations), we applied pooled OLS and random effects frameworks characterized by a strong clustering of standard errors. The findings show that the Green Digital Technology Index is positively and significantly associated with ESG disclosure scores (Pooled OLS: β = 5.448, t = 2.367, p = 0.019; Random Effects: β = 5.941, t = 2.507, p = 0.024), with adopting firms having an average score that is 1.73 points higher. Its largest effect is on the environmental dimension (β = 3.460, p = 0.074). Institutional pressures do not moderate the GDT–disclosure relationship; however, mediation analysis indicated that institutional pressure significantly predicts GDT adoption (β = 0.098, p < 0.001), suggesting that institutional forces are linked to disclosure quality through their association with technology adoption rather than through direct effects, indicating that institutional forces exert their influence through technology adoption. Disclosure quality is negatively associated with CEO duality (β = −4.863, p < 0.001). These results are consistent with the interpretation that green digital technologies serve as a transmission channel through which institutional pressures are associated with enhanced sustainability disclosure in emerging markets.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings are now central to how firms’ sustainability is assessed, yet leading providers disagree sharply, injecting measurement error and uncertainty into any rating-based decision. This study proposes and applies a transparent, fully reproducible alternative for the environmental pillar: an ordinal, sector-based carbon-exposure measure constructed solely from firms’ publicly observable industry classifications, free of vendor scoring choices and reconstructable at zero cost. The measure captures structural, between-sector carbon exposure; it is not a firm-level environmental-performance score and does not use reported emissions. Using 3067 firm-year observations on 1049 listed non-financial firms that carry an observed sector classification across six developed markets (the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Italy, and Spain) over fiscal 2021–2025 (with a small number of early fiscal-2026 period-ends), we assess the measure’s informativeness by estimating its association with accounting profitability in high-dimensional fixed-effects models. Descriptively, more carbon-intensive sectors are less profitable (a monotone brown tilt), but this association is not robust: once firm controls and country-by-year fixed effects are absorbed, carbon exposure is not significantly related to return on assets, return on equity, or net margin, and there is no evidence of a concave (inverted-U) pattern. The measure does recover a real operating difference, higher asset turnover among carbon-intensive sectors, but this is offset by margins and does not translate into a profitability premium. A within-firm design detects no differential effect of mandatory non-financial reporting. The contribution is a transparent, rule-based environmental measure that sidesteps rating divergence; the honestly reported null on profitability cautions that apparent effects are sensitive to sample construction and sectoral composition, and positions the measure as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, proprietary ESG ratings.