TITLE:
Effect of Corporate Governance on Environmental Performance: Empirical Evidence from Zimbabwe
AUTHORS:
Yemisi Funmilayo Bosun-Fakunle, Josiah Mary, Ekundayo Gbenga
KEYWORDS:
Corporate Governance, Environmental Performance, Stakeholders Theory, Zimbabwe
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.13 No.3,
March
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: The increasing pressure on environmental
responsibility from shareholders, government regulators and the public led to
the need for companies to pay more attention to the environmental impact of
their operations. This study has been carried out to investigate the effect of
corporate governance on environmental performance in Zimbabwe. Board size,
board independence, gender diversity, managerial ownership and institutional
ownership were used to proxy corporate governance while Global Initiative
Reporting Index (GRI) was used to proxy environmental performance and firm age
was introduced as a control variable. Exposit research design was adopted, data were
collected from the annual reports of listed 27 manufacturing companies on the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange using census sampling techniques and panel regression
analysis was used to analyze the data collected. The findings showed that board
size, gender diversity and managerial ownership have a positive and significant
effect on environmental performance while board independence and institutional
ownership have positive and insignificant effects on environmental performance.
It was concluded that corporate governance variables are important
considerations in
achieving a good environmental performance and recommended that good number of
board size and women should be encouraged for objective and gender-balanced
decision making as regards environmental issues.