Governance and Sustainability: Changes and Challenges

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners recognize the central importance of corporate governance mechanisms and the nature of the institutional contexts in which firms and their suppliers operate as important drivers for understanding how firms respond to rising societal expectations. Accordingly, the symposium proposes to bring together a panel of scholars to examine a series of interrelated research on the role of corporate governance vis-à-vis firms’ involvement with sustainability practices: How do governance mechanisms promote sustainability practices? Do different owners exhibit diverging degrees of compliance with societal norms contingent on the expected legitimacy derived from different institutional logics? What firm- level and institutional factors facilitate firms’ voluntary regulation of their environmental and social conduct? How does the relationship between corporate governance and sustainability change across countries? Drawing on the panelists’ rich expertise in this vast topic area, the proposed symposium would create an opportunity to develop a multilevel picture of the governance systems that guide the management of sustainability issues within firms. In doing so, it would contribute to shedding light on the governance settings that can likely encourage the adoption of sustainability solutions within firms and ensure more sustainable outcomes.