Purpose

The seepage of companies' capital accommodated by weak country-level institutions is inconducive to building sustainable businesses. Companies' performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is still a challenging question. This study aims to test the predictability of ESG on the performance of the health-care industry from a global perspective, while accounting for the country disclosure and director liability indices and performing robustness tests.

Design/methodology/approach

This study relies on panel data of 912 companies operating in 38 different countries for 2012–2020. This study controls for firm-level variables (leverage, size and loss), macroeconomic variables (COVID, gross domestic product and inflation) and institutional variables.

Findings

Findings indicate that countries with different levels of disclosure exhibit different patterns. Distinctly, the environmental pillar has a concave impact on return on assets, and the role of the disclosure index greatly manifests with the environmental pillar.

Practical implications

This study ponders the impact of country disclosure on sustainability practices from a global health-care perspective.

Originality/value

This paper is original, as it addresses the relationship between ESG performance and financial performance while accounting for the impact of institutional factors such as the business disclosure and director liability indices.

中文翻译：

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公共医疗保健公司的 ESG 和绩效：信息披露和董事责任的作用

目的

薄弱的国家级机构容纳的公司资本外流不利于建立可持续发展的企业。公司在环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 问题上的表现仍然是一个具有挑战性的问题。本研究旨在从全球角度检验 ESG 对医疗保健行业绩效的可预测性，同时考虑国家披露和董事责任指数并进行稳健性检验。

设计/方法/途径

本研究依赖于 2012-2020 年在 38 个不同国家运营的 912 家公司的面板数据。本研究控制了公司层面的变量（杠杆、规模和损失）、宏观经济变量（COVID、国内生产总值和通货膨胀）和制度变量。

发现

调查结果表明，披露程度不同的国家表现出不同的模式。明显地，环境支柱对资产收益率的影响是凹的，披露指数的作用在环境支柱上得到了极大的体现。

实际影响

本研究从全球医疗保健的角度思考国家信息披露对可持续性实践的影响。

原创性/价值

这篇论文是原创的，因为它解决了 ESG 绩效与财务绩效之间的关系，同时考虑了业务披露和董事责任指数等制度因素的影响。