{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024113475177304965, 'fraction_numerical': 0.007801418439716312, 'mean_word_length': 5.719047619047619, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Does Firm’s Board Affects ESG? Malaysian Evidence

Non-financial information such as environmental, social, and governance (hereafter ESG) issues are becoming important as financial data. There has been a series of organizational failures and controversies about corporate governance, which have raised questions about the capabilities of management and ethical behaviour on the business's level of transparency. Even factors that influence or detract from an ESG score are becoming increasingly relevant to consider. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between board characteristics and ESG score in Malaysian listed firms. In particular, this study examines four important board charactristics; board size, board independence, tenure, and board diversity on ESG score. Using 165 firmyear observations from 2017 to 2019, the findings reveal that the board independence is significantly positively associated with ESG scores. Other board characteristics; board size, tenure and board diversity, however, is not associated with ESG score. Several control variables, namely firm size, profitability, and leverage have been considered in the study, and it found that all control variables have a significant impact on ESG scores. This study contributes to the governance and ESG literature in the developing countries byhighlighting the effect of board characteristics on firm's ESG scores.