Sustainable board governance and sustainable supply chain reporting: European evidence

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the impact of sustainable board governance, based on (1) sustainability board committees, (2) critical mass of female board members and (3) sustainability-related executive compensation, on sustainable supply chain reporting (SSCR).Design/methodology/approachBased on stakeholder and critical mass theories, a sample of 1,577 firm-year observations for firms listed at the EuroSTOXX600 for the period 2017–2021 is used. Sustainable board governance and SSCR proxies are collected from the Refinitiv database. Correlation and logit regression analyses are conducted to measure the impact of sustainable board governance on SSCR.FindingsSustainable board governance significantly improves SSCR. The findings are robust to various robustness checks, based on the modification of dependent and independent variables.Research limitations/implicationsDue to massive regulations on sustainability reporting, finance and corporate governance, firms listed on the EuroSTOXX 600 are focused in this analysis. The European capital market represents a unique setting for archival research.Practical implicationsEuropean standard setters should connect the relationship between sustainable board governance and SSCR in future regulations, for example, due to the recent corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD).Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper provides the first analysis on the impact of sustainable board governance on SSCR.