Analysing the impact of corporate governance on corporate sustainability at board level.

Stakeholders are increasingly holding companies accountable for their environmental and social conduct. Organisations are engaging in, and incorporating, social and environmental issues in their business models, organisational structures and processes. The board of directors are responsible for the overall achievement and oversight of the organisation’s aims and objectives. However, there is little detail on the board’s role in monitoring and overseeing social and environmental issues in the corporate governance realm. This thesis addresses this void in several ways. First a systematic literature review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the extant literature investigating the board of director’s role as a core element of corporate governance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Critical assessment of a sample of 67 studies from 18 highly regarded scholarly journals published between 1992 and 2020 uncovers similarities and inconsistencies regarding the effects of various board attributes on CSR-performance. The review reveals these attributes do not work in isolation, but interact with each other and the context in which they are embedded in shaping CSR-performance. Second, empirical analysis of a cross-industry sample of 2891 firm-year observations from 789 FTSE350 and S&P500 listed companies during a 4-year period (2013-2016) investigates the role of the board attributes in driving CSR-performance. The influence of the board-level CSR-committee – a board attribute that despite the increased prevalence of such committees on the board is largely understudied – in driving CSR-performance is explored. This contributes to the growing literature on CSR-committees by investigating their presence, composition and interactive effects with various board attributes in driving CSR-performance. Additionally, contributing to the recent call for investigating interactions among board attributes and their impact on CSR-performance. Finally a configurational approach is used to further explore board attribute interactions and combined impacts on CSR- performance. The results of a Qualitative Comparative Analysis reveals nine board configurations leading to high CSR-performance. This contributes to the argument that “one-size” does not fit all, and different boards can achieve the same results via unique configurations of attributes.