We study the propagation of firms' Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores through director networks. Using detailed director-network data and a panel regression approach, we show that a firm's ESG ratings positively respond to those of its peer-director-connected firms. This transmission of ESG ratings through peer director networks differs from that through locality, industry, and interlocks. Firms are likelier to adopt ESG practices from peer-director firms that are financially successful or have influential boards, suggesting that value and values matter for ESG decisions. ESG adoption is also used strategically among competitors. A difference-in-differences approach provides additional evidence of the causal nature of this effect across diverse ESG dimensions.

This study is the first in the literature to examine the relationship between ESG scores and stock market performance of companies listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE). The paper constructs ESG score by reviewing 776 annual reports published in the period of 2002 to 2022. Ranks were assigned based on the frequency of ESG-friendly words found in the annual reports. Investment simulation strategies were then used to compare the stock returns of value-weighted and ESG-rank weighted portfolios against the QSE benchmark index. The results show that high ESG-ranked portfolios generate superior returns compared to both the value-weighted portfolio and market index both in terms of raw and risk adjusted returns. Additionally, Fama-French-Carhart (FFC) factors were constructed for Qatar, and the estimations revealed that the ESG portfolios produce positive alpha values. Overall, the findings suggest that the Qatar market participants prioritise ESG friendliness. The paper highlights the need to establish a comprehensive database of ESG scores for Qatari companies.

This paper presents a novel investigation by studying the role of supply chain network on firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores, as well as on financial performance. Our analysis employs financial, board, ESG and supply chain data, making an unbalanced panel of over 16,000 firm-year observations from 3,028 publicly traded US firms, spanning fiscal years from 2005 to 2021. We use two different supply chain network proxies; namely the number of nodes and the eigenvector centrality, while we use various financial performance measures such as ROA, ROE, ROS, Tobin’s Q and Stock Returns. Building on Resource Dependence Theory, our results indicate that a larger supply chain network has a positive impact on ESG scores, while there is insufficient evidence to support a direct relationship between supply chain networks and financial performance. Interestingly, the impact of the supply chain on financial performance appears to

be indirect, through ESG. Important practical implications are also discussed.

This study examines the effect that text-based sustainability communication,

framed in ESG dimensions, has on investment-based crowdfunding

outcomes. Using an exclusive dataset provided by OneCrowd, operator

of two investment-based crowdfunding platforms in Germany, we apply a

machine learning algorithm (ESGBERT) to assess campaign descriptions.

Our results show that overall ESG scoring does not significantly impact

success metrics. However, communicating environmental aspects is associated

with faster funding success, more investors, and higher total capital

raised, whereas social aspects negatively affect these outcomes. We apply

survival analysis via a Cox proportional hazards model to investigate

time-to-success and use OLS regressions to explore the number of investors

and total capital. By employing a natural language processing approach,

our research provides comprehensive insights into the role of sustainability

communication in crowdfunding. We offer practical implications for

sustainable entrepreneurs and highlight potential directions for improving

the alignment between crowdfunding platforms and sustainable objectives.

Overall, these findings underscore the nuanced effects of ESG.