This research investigates how female CEOs and board gender composition (BGC) influence environmental innovation. Using a panel dataset of 237 energy companies, the study reveals that female CEOs are more committed to the environment than males. Interestingly, the findings also show that the BGC positively moderates the female CEO and environmental innovation nexus. Additionally, it reveals that female CEOs have a more significant influence on promoting environmentally friendly innovation in profitable energy companies than males. The findings remain strong after various robustness tests, contributing to the ongoing debate on gender equality and offering novel insights into the green footprint.

Board diversity is crucial for corporate governance and improves corporate outcomes by aligning management with stakeholders’ interests. Compared to advanced environments, Jordan’s decent sociocultural backdrop exhibits a higher level of gender bias. This study investigates the influence of board gender diversity (BGD) on Jordanian banking sector performance, an under-explored area. This quantitative paper employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), random, and fixed-effect approaches to analyze 182 bank-year observations for balanced longitudinal data analysis. These approaches correctly establish the BGD-Tobin’s Q nexus during 2010–2022. The coefficient of determination was 70.57%. The model confirms a positive correlation between BGD and market-based performance indicators. Findings support agency and resource dependency hypotheses, showing BGD’s role in decision-making. Hence, a one-unit increase in BGD causes a 37.2-cent increase in Tobin’s Q measure. Moreover, a one-unit change in board independence, board meetings, size, women’s representation in top management, and capital adequacy ratio, assuming all other factors remain constant, results in Tobin-Q changes of 2.57 cents, 32.8 cents, 5.78 cents, 51.2 cents, 30.55 cents, and 22.86 cents, respectively, and the same direction. The results show how BGD enhances bank performance and contributes to relevant theories. The results are vigorous in a variety of identification and estimation methodologies.

FinTech adoption is increasingly viewed as a catalyst for sustainable finance, yet empirical evidence on how and under what conditions it enhances environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance remains mixed, particularly in emerging economies. This study examines the relationship between FinTech adoption and ESG performance in MENA banks, explicitly modeling corruption risk as an internal governance transmission channel. Using a panel of 152 listed banks across 11 MENA countries over the period 2013–2023 and a novel bank-level FinTech Adoption Index constructed through textual analysis of annual reports, we employ fixed-effects and dynamic System GMM estimations to examine both direct and indirect effects. The results show that FinTech adoption is positively associated with ESG performance. More importantly, corruption risk partially mediates this relationship, indicating that FinTech enhances sustainability outcomes not only through improved disclosure and transparency, but also by strengthening internal governance and constraining integrity-related risks. The indirect effect is economically meaningful, underscoring the role of digital governance mechanisms in institutionally constrained settings. Pillar-level analysis reveals stronger effects for the governance and social dimensions, while environmental effects are comparatively weaker. Additional robustness analyses confirm the persistence of these findings across institutional settings and crisis periods. These findings contribute to the FinTech–ESG literature by identifying corruption risk as a key governance mechanism and provide policy-relevant insights for regulators and banks seeking to leverage digital transformation to achieve substantive sustainability outcomes in emerging banking systems.

This study examines how internal board governance influences carbon emission disclosure (CED), conceptualized as both a key dimension of ESG transparency and a mechanism for managing disclosure-related risks. Using panel data from 175 listed firms across six ASEAN countries during 2014–2021, we develop a composite Board Effectiveness Score (BES) that integrates five governance attributes: gender diversity, board size, board independence, meeting frequency, and the presence of an environmental committee. Unlike prior single-attribute studies, the BES captures governance complementarities and the interactive effects of board structures. Applying a multi-method empirical framework—including fixed-effects estimation, quantile regression, two-step system GMM, Heckman selection correction, Propensity Score Matching (PSM), and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS)—we find that gender-diverse boards, environmental committees, and higher BES values significantly enhance carbon emission disclosure. The results remain robust across alternative disclosure measures and additional econometric specifications, with the strongest effects observed among low- and mid-level disclosing firms. These findings highlight the role of internal board governance as a potential substitute for weak institutional oversight in emerging markets. The study offers practical implications for regulators and investors seeking to strengthen climate transparency, ESG accountability, and governance-based risk management in ASEAN economies.