This study aims to investigate whether companies engage high-quality assurance in response to legitimacy threats caused by media coverage of negative sustainability events. Since responsive strategies designed to maintain or repair legitimacy directly emanate from boards, the paper also analyses whether board effectiveness reinforces defensive strategies to maintain a company's reputational capital and public image under environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns by supporting high-quality sustainability assurance. Using a sample of STOXX Europe 600 index firms from 2015 to 2020, the empirical results confirm the substantive role of assurance. When a company's legitimacy is at risk due to media coverage of ESG misconduct, the assurance of sustainability information is employed as an instrument to aid in repairing the company's legitimacy. In addition, our results confirm that boards with desirable attributes of independence and activity act jointly with assurance quality to legitimise companies. In addition, this paper also brings evidence about the mediating effect of board effectiveness; the impact of negative media ESG coverage on sustainability assurance quality appears to be justified by the effectiveness of the board. The evidence also points to interesting findings concerning controversial industries and countries with tight cultures, where the assurance quality seems not to respond to the legitimacy threats associated with media coverage of undesirable ESG. However, and after studying how the European Directive 2014/95/EU affected the symbolic use of assurance, results confirm that there are no significant differences in the legitimising use of assurance quality after irresponsible ESG actions before and after the directive, and neither, depending on the level of sustainability performance or public enforcement.

中文翻译：

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高质量保证、ESG 合法性威胁和董事会有效性

本研究旨在调查公司是否采取高质量保证来应对媒体对负面可持续发展事件的报道所造成的合法性威胁。由于旨在维持或修复合法性的响应策略直接源自董事会，本文还分析了董事会的有效性是否会强化防御策略，以通过支持高质量的可持续发展保障，在环境、社会和治理（ESG）问题下维持公司的声誉资本和公众形象。使用 2015 年至 2020 年 STOXX Europe 600 指数公司样本，实证结果证实了鉴证的实质性作用。当一家公司的合法性因媒体报道 ESG 不当行为而面临风险时，可持续发展信息的保证将被用作帮助修复公司合法性的工具。此外，我们的结果证实，具有理想的独立性和活动属性的董事会与保证质量共同行动，以使公司合法化。此外，本文还提供了董事会有效性中介作用的证据；负面媒体 ESG 报道对可持续发展保证质量的影响似乎可以通过董事会的有效性来证明。证据还指出了有关有争议的行业和文化严格的国家的有趣发现，这些国家的保证质量似乎无法应对与媒体报道不良 ESG 相关的合法性威胁。然而，在研究了欧洲指令 2014/95/EU 如何影响保证的象征性使用之后，结果证实，在该指令之前和之后，在不负责任的 ESG 行动之后，保证质量的合法化使用没有显着差异，而且也没有显着差异，具体取决于可持续发展绩效或公共执法水平。