Advancing environmental, social, and governance disclosure in emerging economies: does regulatory environment and ownership structure matter?

Against the necessity of greater corporate transparency and accountability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this paper investigates under what conditions ownership structure is associated with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure in the SSA manufacturing sector. The analysis employs secondary data on 246 SSA manufacturing firms for 2010–2022 that are guided by stakeholder, institutional, and legitimacy theories. Fixed and random effects models were tested on hypotheses, and endogeneity was dealt with using Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS Propensity Score Matching (PSM). Results suggest that managerial, state and foreign ownership increases the quality of ESG disclosures more than block ownership, and block ownership does not appear to have any meaningful impact. More importantly, regulatory frameworks shape the relationship between ownership structures and ESG disclosure. This implies that a strong policy framework is critical in facilitating ESG reporting. Regarding SSA’s manufacturing sector, this study is limited in its generalizability. Nevertheless, the insights suggest that well-defined regulatory policies play an essential role in giving corporations the strength to be transparent and accountable for the ESG. This study contributes to the field by uncovering the interplay between ownership structure and regulatory context critical for advancing sustainable practices in emerging markets stakeholders and policymakers.