IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i4p3531-d1068583.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Sustainability Reporting and Governance in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: An International Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Maha Faisal Alsayegh

    (Department of Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia)

  • Allah Ditta

    (Department of Business Administration, Air University Islamabad (Multan Campus), Multan 60000, Pakistan)

  • Zeeshan Mahmood

    (Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 60000, Pakistan)

  • Rehana Kouser

    (Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 60000, Pakistan)

Abstract

This article explores the role of sustainability reporting and governance in achieving national sustainable development goals. Sustainable development goals focus on economic, societal, and environmental issues and have been set up to address issues regarding environmental degradation, global imbalances, economic instability, social instability, and political instability. Using data from 42 countries over six years, the authors apply panel regression techniques and find a positive relationship between national governance and sustainability reporting; sustainability reporting and national sustainable development goals; sustainability governance and sustainability reporting. We found a negative relationship between national governance and sustainable development goals. Sustainability reporting is also found to mediate between national governance and sustainable development goals. Thus, this paper contributes to the body of existing knowledge by highlighting the role of governance and sustainability reporting in the achievement of sustainable development goals. The findings have several implications for governing bodies and decision-makers in government, including changing the governance model and taking strict actions against companies that fail to focus their attention on sustainability reporting. The findings involve society, business, and other stakeholders in sustainability reporting measures to achieve sustainable development goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Maha Faisal Alsayegh & Allah Ditta & Zeeshan Mahmood & Rehana Kouser, 2023. "The Role of Sustainability Reporting and Governance in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: An International Investigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3531-:d:1068583
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3531/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3531/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cristina Alexandrina Stefanescu, 2021. "Linking sustainability reporting frameworks and sustainable development goals," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(4), pages 508-525, November.
    2. Jan Bebbington & Jeffrey Unerman, 2020. "Advancing research into accounting and the UN Sustainable Development Goals," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 33(7), pages 1657-1670, July.
    3. Dhaoui, Iyad, 2019. "Good governance for sustainable development," MPRA Paper 92544, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Kılıç, Merve & Uyar, Ali & Karaman, Abdullah S., 2019. "What impacts sustainability reporting in the global aviation industry? An institutional perspective," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 54-65.
    5. Jan Bebbington & Jeffrey Unerman, 2018. "Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(1), pages 2-24, January.
    6. Smith, Adrian & Stirling, Andy & Berkhout, Frans, 2005. "The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1491-1510, December.
    7. K.C. Roy & C.A. Tisdell, 1998. "Good governance in sustainable development: the impact of institutions," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(6/7/8), pages 1310-1325, July.
    8. Charl de Villiers & Ana Marques, 2016. "Corporate social responsibility, country-level predispositions, and the consequences of choosing a level of disclosure," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 167-195, February.
    9. Magali A. Delmas & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Organizational responses to environmental demands: opening the black box," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(10), pages 1027-1055, October.
    10. Stephen Chen & Petra Bouvain, 2009. "Is Corporate Responsibility Converging? A Comparison of Corporate Responsibility Reporting in the USA, UK, Australia, and Germany," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 299-317, April.
    11. Sara Trucco & Maria Chiara Demartini & Valentina Beretta, 2021. "The reporting of sustainable development goals: is the integrated approach the missing link?," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 1-13, February.
    12. Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez & Jennifer Martínez‐Ferrero, 2018. "How do Independent Directors Behave with Respect to Sustainability Disclosure?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(4), pages 609-627, July.
    13. Alsu Ahmetshina & Venera Vagizova & Roza Kaspina, 2018. "The Use of Management Accounting Information in Non-financial Reporting and Interaction with Stakeholders of Public Companies," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: David Procházka (ed.), The Impact of Globalization on International Finance and Accounting, pages 433-439, Springer.
    14. Barakat, Ahmed & Hussainey, Khaled, 2013. "Bank governance, regulation, supervision, and risk reporting: Evidence from operational risk disclosures in European banks," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 254-273.
    15. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1785-1824, August.
    16. Verena Fritz & Kai Kaiser & Brian Levy, 2009. "Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis : Good Practice Framework," World Bank Publications - Reports 16777, The World Bank Group.
    17. Ali Alshehhi & Haitham Nobanee & Nilesh Khare, 2018. "The Impact of Sustainability Practices on Corporate Financial Performance: Literature Trends and Future Research Potential," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, February.
    18. Bartelmus, Peter, 2007. "SEEA-2003: Accounting for sustainable development?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 613-616, March.
    19. Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 955-967.
    20. Jörg Breitung & Christoph Roling & Nazarii Salish, 2016. "Lagrange multiplier type tests for slope homogeneity in panel data models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 19(2), pages 166-202, June.
    21. repec:eme:aaaj00:aaaj-05-2020-4556 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Adams, Carol A. & Frost, Geoffrey R., 2008. "Integrating sustainability reporting into management practices," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 288-302.
    23. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teodora Maria Rusu & Antonia Odagiu & Horia Pop & Laura Paulette, 2024. "Sustainability Performance Reporting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-12, September.
    2. Maha Abu Hussain & Maha Faisal Alsayegh & Helmi A. Boshnak, 2024. "The Impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosure on the Performance of Saudi Arabian Companies: Evidence from the Top 100 Non-Financial Companies Listed on Tadawul," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-26, September.
    3. Beata Bieszk-Stolorz & Krzysztof Dmytrów, 2023. "Decent Work and Economic Growth in EU Countries—Static and Dynamic Analyses of Sustainable Development Goal 8," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-18, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Salvatore Loprevite & Domenico Raucci & Daniela Rupo, 2020. "KPIs Reporting and Financial Performance in the Transition to Mandatory Disclosure: The Case of Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-24, June.
    2. Carmelo Reverte, 2022. "The importance of institutional differences among countries in SDGs achievement: A cross‐country empirical study," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1882-1899, December.
    3. Fiaz Ahmad Sulehri & Saba Sharif, 2022. "The Impact of Firm Sustainability on Firm Growth: Evidence from USA," Journal of Policy Research (JPR), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 8(2), pages 1-15, August.
    4. Sara Trucco & Maria Chiara Demartini & Valentina Beretta, 2021. "The reporting of sustainable development goals: is the integrated approach the missing link?," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Anthony McLean & Harriet Bulkeley & Mike Crang, 2016. "Negotiating the urban smart grid: Socio-technical experimentation in the city of Austin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(15), pages 3246-3263, November.
    6. Verburg, René W. & Verberne, Emma & Negro, Simona O., 2022. "Accelerating the transition towards sustainable agriculture: The case of organic dairy farming in the Netherlands," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    7. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    8. Nina Savela & Jarkko Levänen & Sara Lindeman & Nnenesi Kgabi & Heikki Koivisto & Meri Olenius & Samuel John & Damas Mashauri & Minna M. Keinänen-Toivola, 2020. "Rapid Urbanization and Infrastructure Pressure: Comparing the Sustainability Transition Potential of Water and Energy Regimes in Namibia," World, MDPI, vol. 1(2), pages 1-18, July.
    9. Simone Pizzi & Fabio Caputo & Andrea Venturelli, 2020. "Does it pay to be an honest entrepreneur? Addressing the relationship between sustainable development and bankruptcy risk," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1478-1486, May.
    10. Kuokkanen, A. & Nurmi, A. & Mikkilä, M. & Kuisma, M. & Kahiluoto, H. & Linnanen, L., 2018. "Agency in regime destabilization through the selection environment: The Finnish food system’s sustainability transition," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1513-1522.
    11. Miklós Antal & Ardjan Gazheli & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2012. "Behavioural Foundations of Sustainability Transitions. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 3," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46424, March.
    12. Sauermann, Henry & Vohland, Katrin & Antoniou, Vyron & Balázs, Bálint & Göbel, Claudia & Karatzas, Kostas & Mooney, Peter & Perelló, Josep & Ponti, Marisa & Samson, Roeland & Winter, Silvia, 2020. "Citizen science and sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(5).
    13. Erlinghagen, Sabine & Markard, Jochen, 2012. "Smart grids and the transformation of the electricity sector: ICT firms as potential catalysts for sectoral change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 895-906.
    14. Cuckston, Thomas, 2022. "Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Roesler, Tim & Hassler, Markus, 2019. "Creating niches – The role of policy for the implementation of bioenergy village cooperatives in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 95-101.
    16. Attila Havas & Doris Schartinger & K. Matthias Weber, 2022. "Innovation Studies, Social Innovation, and Sustainability Transitions Research: From mutual ignorance towards an integrative perspective?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2227, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    17. Nesari, Mohammad & Naghizadeh, Mohammad & Ghazinoori, Soroush & Manteghi, Manoochehr, 2022. "The evolution of socio-technical transition studies: A scientometric analysis," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Broto, Vanesa Castán, 2017. "Energy landscapes and urban trajectories towards sustainability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 755-764.
    19. Valenza, Giuseppe & Damiano, Rodolfo, 2023. "Sustainability reporting and public value: Evidence from port authorities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    20. Falcone, Pasquale Marcello & Tani, Almona & Tartiu, Valentina Elena & Imbriani, Cesare, 2020. "Towards a sustainable forest-based bioeconomy in Italy: Findings from a SWOT analysis," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3531-:d:1068583. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.