Purpose

This paper aims to examine the relationship between a diverse set of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms and corporate sustainability disclosure (CSD) in Southeast Asian countries under national stakeholder reform.

Design/methodology/approach

Data analysis is based on 171 of the largest companies across six Southeast Asian countries using a 30-item CSD measure.

Findings

The authors find that there are wide variations in the levels of CSD across the countries. The findings indicate that board size, board gender diversity, block ownership and the presence of a sustainability committee are significant determinants of CSD. Additionally, whilst more stringent stakeholder governance reform motivates firms to publish more sustainability information, it fails to influence the effectiveness of the board of directors in promoting CSD.

Practical implications

Findings of this study highlight the essential role internal governance structure plays in monitoring corporate actions and enabling corporations to reduce their legitimacy gap. The findings further encourage regulators and policymakers to question, with utmost importance, the effectiveness of stakeholder reform in making significant organisational changes.

Originality/value

There is a dearth of studies that examine the CG-CSD nexus in relation to specific institutional characteristics. Existing studies mainly focus on a single country with similar institutional environments and thus limiting the ability to understand the “context specificity” of sustainability content development. This paper provides an overview of stakeholder reform in Southeast Asian countries and empirically substantiates the relationship between CG and CSD across six countries undergoing such reforms in the region.

中文翻译：

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东南亚的治理和可持续性

目的

本文旨在研究在国家利益相关者改革下东南亚国家的各种公司治理 (CG) 机制与公司可持续发展信息披露 (CSD) 之间的关系。

设计/方法/方法

数据分析基于六个东南亚国家/地区的 171 家最大公司，使用 30 项 CSD 衡量标准。

发现

作者发现各国的 CSD 水平存在很大差异。调查结果表明，董事会规模、董事会性别多样性、区块所有权和可持续性委员会的存在是 CSD 的重要决定因素。此外，虽然更严格的利益相关者治理改革激励公司发布更多可持续发展信息，但它未能影响董事会促进 CSD 的有效性。

实际影响

这项研究的结果突出了内部治理结构在监控公司行为和使公司能够缩小其合法性差距方面发挥的重要作用。调查结果进一步鼓励监管者和政策制定者质疑利益相关者改革在进行重大组织变革方面的有效性。

原创性/价值

缺乏研究与特定制度特征相关的 CG-CSD 关系。现有的研究主要集中在具有相似制度环境的单一国家，因此限制了理解可持续性内容开发的“背景特殊性”的能力。本文概述了东南亚国家的利益相关者改革，并实证证实了该地区六个正在进行此类改革的国家的 CG 与 CSD 之间的关系。