Leadership Gender Diversity as a Factor Driving ESG Disclosure: Overview of the Global and Emerging Markets

Sustainability and ESG are some of the most popular and controversial words in today’s business environment. Trillions of dollars are committed to sustainable investments, but challenges come from the foundation. While a majority of the authors are finding common ground on defining sustainability and reaching an agreement on its importance, there are still significant gaps in identifying ESG priorities of Global North and Global South countries, which appear to be quite significant. One such ESG factor is the impact of gender-diverse leadership on delivering ambitious sustainability targets and the quality of the ESG disclosure as one of the key drivers of ESG performance. While there is a significant amount of literature analysing relationships between gender-diverse corporate leadership and ESG disclosure in Global North economies, similar content for emerging markets is quite limited. This study explores ESG disclosure in Global South and Global North countries, highlighting some key differences in priorities. The study also explores the impact of gender-diverse corporate leadership on the level of ESG reporting.