THE EXTENT TO WHICH CSR COMMITTEE MODERATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABILE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDG) DISCLOSURE
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Date
2025-08-31
Authors
Ola Ghannam
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Publisher
جامعة النجاح الوطنية
Abstract
Considering the growing doubt regarding the reliability of sustainability reports, this paper examines the role of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee in moderating the relationship between earnings management and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) disclosures. The study uses a dataset of 7,238 firm-year observations from 1,886 European firms between 2017 and 2022, studied through the lenses of stakeholder, legitimacy, agency, and signaling theories, and employs multivariate regression models with fixed effects. The results show that earnings management negatively impacts SDG disclosures. Management opportunism is suggested to undermine the quality and transparency of SDG disclosures. However, the presence of a CSR committee significantly limits this negative impact, which instead serves as an internal governance mechanism that maintain the credibility and integrity of SDG reporting. Furthermore, several other factors such as ESG performance, firm size, board gender composition, and board size were found to be positively associated with SDG disclosures. On the other hand, ROA or reporting losses seem to have no significant statistical association with the level of SDG disclosures. The results emphasize the critical importance of ethical governance in trustworthy sustainability reports. It further gets into the practical concerns of businesses, regulators, stakeholders, and any other parties accountable for holding corporations in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.