Wednesday Research Seminar Series - Governance for Green: The Impact of Board Dynamics on ESG Transparency in Asia-Pacific Corporations

We are pleased to invite you to our Wednesday Research Seminar. It will be held online on 27th March from 1.45pm via Microsoft team platform. Wednesday Research Seminar Series was launched in 2008 and has featured more than 350 presentations to date. The seminars provide a forum for researchers to share their work. Presenters include faculty from Middlesex University Dubai and other universities in the United Arab Emirates, as well as researchers from other global institutions. Monica and Prince will deliver seminar on:         

“Governance for Green: The Impact of Board Dynamics on ESG Transparency in Asia-Pacific Corporations”

Monica Dhochak and Prince Doliya

Abstract

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of corporate governance parameters on the quality of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) indicators in the Asia-pacific countries. Many studies have focused on the significance of ESG disclosures, impact of corporate governance, and firm performance on the ESG disclosures. However, there are relatively few studies that emphasize the board characteristics and the ESG disclosures in the developing countries, precisely in the Asia-pacific countries. For this purpose, we have used the quality of ESG disclosure as dependent variable and board gender diversity, independent directors, CEO duality and board size as independent variables for board characteristics along with the firm-level and country-level control variables. The empirical analysis is based on the five-year panel data collected from the Refinitiv Eikon (formerly Thomson Reuters Eikon) database for the Asia-pacific companies from the year 2016 to 2020. The findings of the study suggest that board gender diversity and independent directors have positive and significant effect on the ESG disclosures, while the CEO duality has significant and negative impact. We have also found that board size does not have significant effect on the ESG disclosures in the Asia-pacific companies. The findings suggest that independent and female board members bring transparency and instigate more social and environmental initiatives, which results in the transmission of firm’s positive image. The diverse board creates a striking balance between the firm’s financial targets and social and environmental responsibilities. Thus, it can be concluded that a well-structured governance system may facilitate and integrate the social, environmental and economic regulations to promote sustainable businesses in the Asia-pacific countries

Presenter Bios

Dr. Monika Dhochak is working as an Assistant Professor in the Finance and Accounting area. Prior to joining IIM Visakhapatnam, she worked as an Assistant Professor at IIM Nagpur, Goa Institute of Management and EDII, Ahmedabad. She holds a PhD degree from IIT Roorkee. Her doctoral thesis topic is "Determinants of Venture Capitalists’ Investment decisions in India". Over the years, Dr. Dhochak has taught the courses on Financial Accounting, Management Accounting, Entrepreneurial Finance, and Financial Statement Analysis at various programmes including PGP, Executive MBA, and Executive Education. Her research primarily focuses on understanding and analysing the decision-making of venture capitalists’, and how do investors (Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, Private Equity) value a new start-up and what are the pertinent factor to take the decision of investment. She has published a number of research papers in reputed international journals and presented her work on Start-up valuation and venture capitalists’ investment decisions in many National and International Conferences.

Dr. Prince Doliya has been awarded a Ph.D. in Accounting & Finance from the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee. His doctoral work investigates auditing issues in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Prior to this, He received his MBA from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, majoring in Finance. Before joining IIM Visakhapatnam, he worked at T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal, as an Assistant Professor. His research interests are International Financial Reporting Standards, Decision making in Accounting & Auditing, and the interplay between Accounting and Entrepreneurship.