Social and environmental issues gain more importance for society that stimulates companies to adopt and integrate more sustainability practices into their business activities. This study is embedded in almost uncovered in the literature context of Russian business that undergoes its ESG transformation in conditions of unprecedented sanctions and hostile institutional environment. The study aims to reveal the role of internal stakeholders (top managers, line managers, and employees) in successful implementation of a company’s ESG practices along various dimensions. Using the primary data from 29 large Russian companies the fsQCA method is applied to identify various configurations of contingencies that stimulate their ESG performance. The analysis results in identification of two alternative core conditions for high ESG performance in Russian companies: high top management commitment to sustainability and low employees’ commitment to sustainability or the employees’ awareness about sustainability. At the end, the study results in two generic profiles composed of top management commitment, line management support, and employees’ awareness, behavior, and commitment towards ESG performance. The results show two different approaches towards ESG transformation that may bring a company to the comparably similar desired outcome. The study has a potential for generalization on a wider scope of emerging market contexts.

Nowadays investors are measuring the performances of a business organization not only based on their operating efficiency but also fulfilling their social responsibility. At least the investors need to know whether the activities of the business have any adverse impact on the society and environment. This study explores the accountability of the business from the social and environmental context. This empirical study tends to investigate the nature of the ownership structure that influences the environmental disclosure of a business entity. Based on the sample of fifty-five DSE-listed textile companies, this study used multiple regression to assess the causal relationship between the ownership structure and corporate environmental disclosure. Moreover, this cross-sectional study also considers the agency theory and stakeholder theory to explain the relationship between the ownership structure and environmental disclosure. The findings indicate that corporate environmental disclosure is positively influenced by foreign ownership and institutional ownership whereas director ownership and public ownership have no significant association with the environmental disclosure. These insightful results challenge conventional assumptions and highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of the factors that drive environmental reporting practices in the context of an emerging economy. The main contribution of this article lies in its provision of empirical evidence from an emerging economy, Bangladesh, which helps in understanding sustainable practices in a global context. Additionally, it aids in developing effective corporate governance policies and strategies tailored to similar emerging economies by recognizing the role of ownership structures in influencing environmental accountability. These findings further assist policymakers, managers, and other sustainability advocates in understanding how different ownership structures affect corporate environmental disclosure.

As the involvement of Chinese enterprises in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) increases, on the one hand, it can drive enterprises to integrate with the international community and accelerate their transformation and upgrading, continuously enhancing their international competitiveness; on the other hand, it will also cause enterprises to experience more setbacks and challenges, especially the “weak acquisition of the strong” reverse cross-border acquisitions, which makes enterprises face a higher risk of failure. Reasonable control rights allocation can fully utilize the competitive advantages of enterprises, achieve synergistic cooperation among shareholders, board of directors, and management, promote the realization of enterprises’ cross-border acquisition goals, and thus enhance the value creation of acquisitions. There is a positive correlation between internal legitimacy and acquisition performance; the relevant assumptions about the distribution of shareholder control rights are invalid; the control rights at the board of directors level are negatively correlated with internal legitimacy and acquisition performance, and internal legitimacy has a mediating effect between the control rights at the board of directors level and acquisition performance, but the moderating effect of the acquisition mode is not significant; the control rights at the management level are negatively correlated with internal legitimacy and acquisition performance, and internal legitimacy has a mediating effect between the control rights at the management level and acquisition performance, and the acquisition mode negatively moderates the relationship between the control rights at the management level and internal legitimacy. This study takes the post-acquisition control rights allocation as the entry point, and examines the cross-border acquisition activities of Chinese enterprises from the perspective of stakeholders. The research results not only can enrich existing acquisition theory, but also can provide theoretical guidance for Chinese enterprise managers on allocation of control of target enterprises, and provide a theoretical basis for the state to formulate and optimize the system and policies of enterprises’ cross-border acquisitions.