Corporate governance plays an important role in monitoring and counseling management’s decision making including strategic sustainability investing. Understanding the role of corporate governance may help top management of corporations allocate their limited resource in their strategic planning and decision making. This study examines the relationship between corporate governance and corporate sustainability performance (CSP) and whether corporate governance moderates the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and corporate financial performance (CSP–CFP). The study analyzes a sample of 456 top largest U.S. public companies to examine corporate sustainability performance and corporate governance jointly, particularly the moderating effect of corporate governance on CSP–CFP relationship. Lagged variables were used to address the endogeneity issue. Multiple regression methods were used. The results show that firms with stronger corporate governance are more likely to have higher CSP and that corporate governance contributes additional value to firm value. The impact of CSP on CFP is higher for firms with stronger corporate governance (moderating effect). Results are robust after using different regression methods and additional tests.

公司治理在监督和咨询管理层的决策（包括战略可持续性投资）方面发挥着重要作用。了解公司治理的作用可能有助于公司高层管理人员在战略规划和决策制定中分配有限的资源。本研究考察了公司治理与公司可持续发展绩效 (CSP) 之间的关系，以及公司治理是否会调节公司可持续发展绩效与公司财务绩效 (CSP-CFP) 之间的关系。该研究分析了 456 家最大的美国上市公司的样本，以共同检验企业可持续发展绩效和公司治理，特别是公司治理对 CSP-CFP 关系的调节作用。滞后变量被用来解决内生性问题。使用了多元回归方法。结果表明，公司治理更强的公司更有可能拥有更高的 CSP，并且公司治理为公司价值贡献了额外的价值。CSP 对 CFP 的影响对于公司治理更强的公司（调节效应）更高。使用不同的回归方法和额外的测试后，结果是稳健的。