Corporations play a crucial role in achieving a sustainable world. In achieving corporate sustainability, the current regulatory frameworks generally emphasize the role of the corporate board, but today's media suggest that institutional investors are becoming more involved. In this study, we...

We exploit unexpected corporate data breaches to study how firms respond to negative reputation events. Data breaches negatively affect firm profitability, value, and reputation for years following the event, but are not triggered by high or low reputations. In response, firms increase their...

We study the potential negative externalities of mandatory environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure. Our analysis exploits a unique regulatory change in China that requires a subset of firms to report their contributions to poverty alleviation—on top of reporting general ESG...

Leveraging as a quasi-natural experiment the staggered passage of universal demand laws, which raise the difficulty of shareholder lawsuits, we examine the effect of shareholder litigation rights on ESG controversies. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that an exogenous decline in...

Since 2015, India has required certain publicly listed companies to disclose the amount they spend on corporate social responsibility (CSR), and to spend at least 2% of net profits on these activities. However, these companies are not allowed to claim donations to political parties as CSR...

Despite a strong plea for integrating sustainability goals into traditional corporate bonus schemes, a comprehensive implementation of these systems has been lacking until recently. This article explores four illustrative cases from the Netherlands, where several multinationals started to...

The hottest topic in corporate governance circles today involves company commitments to and pursuit of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) initiatives in addition to the traditional pursuit of profits. One facet of this debate has to do with how to motivate executives to pursue ESG...

Whenever there is a crisis in the corporate world or the economy more generally, the same questions continue to surface: What is the purpose of a corporation? Is the purpose of a corporation simply to make money? Or do they have a broader role in society? Do corporations also have a social...

Corporations have traditionally treated shareholder wealth as primary. In recent years, however, cracks in this hierarchy have appeared. An enlargement of purpose is now visible across corporate governance, from the new emphasis on board diversity to the surge in environmental, social, and...

In response to a Private Member’s Resolution calling upon the Ontario Securities Commission to conduct a consultation on corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance reporting standards and to adopt an enhanced standardized reporting framework, the Hennick Centre...