ESG and Financial Performance. The Effects of Audit Quality and National Culture in the Nigerian and Kenyan Context

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2022 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 3.9, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, language: English, abstract: This research is motivated by the need to show whether environmental, social, and governance performance (ESG) is highly linked to the African companies’ performances, and national culture. Besides, this study examines the impacts of audit quality and the national culture on the relationship between financial performance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. The introduction of ESG practices has started lately in sub-Saharan African countries, but its implementation has been easier as the African context prones social factors that facilitate its development. Although several studies have explored the nexus between ESG, audit quality and firm financial performance, the outcomes of research on the financial performance-ESG’s relationship are contradicting and further research is needed. These areas include (1) the mediating role of audit quality in the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance; (2) the moderated mediating role of national culture in the relationship between ESG and financial performance through audit quality, (3) the impact of each ESG characteristics such as environment, social, governance scores and audit firm size on firm performance. Thus, the aims of the study are to examine (1) the impact of environment, social, governance criteria on firm financial performance; (2) the relationship environment, social, governance criteria and audit quality; (3) the effect of audit quality on firm financial performance; (4) the mediating role of audit quality in the relationship ESG and firm financial performance; and (5) the ESG performance of companies deviating between firms from different countries, the last key objective is to fill the research gap by examining the moderated mediating role of the four cultural dimensions of Hofstede –power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity- on the impact of ESG on firm financial performance through audit quality.