5.2.1. Board CSR Orientation (H1)

The results show that the board's CSR orientation has a significant and positive association with the overall ESG disclosure score. This supports the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between board CSR and the ESG disclosure score. Our evidence suggests that boardrooms with more independent directors, audit committee directors with financial expertise, and female directors on the board are significantly impactful in disclosing more sustainability information to the public. Our results suggest that within the scope of ESG, such board members focus more on the overall ESG with less attention to the social issues, as there is a focus more on the other levels, environmental, and governance ones. This result is consistent with previous studies [24,61]. Within the existence of the three fundamentals of board CSR orientation, our evidence supports Zhuang et al. that the presence of females on the board means that there are more communal characteristics, which increases the firm's sensitivity to environmental and sustainability issues for larger stakeholders [64]. Our results are also consistent with Iyer et al. that the presence of financial expertise means that such members can debate and challenge managers as to the greater scope of how such non-financial data are reported [67,68]. For example, Roberts et al. found that independent and diverse boards create greater representation, leading to

the encouragement of management activities to focus on longer-term value and a higher level of transparency at the top level [61]. The evidence of multivariate regression is consistent with the theory of stakeholders in that board independence plays a crucial role in mediating and promoting sustainability quality disclosure, further increasing transparency and increasing the trust of stakeholders [62,63]. Furthermore, legitimacy theory suggests that the presence of board independence, financial expertise, and females on the board means that firms follow corporate governance codes within board independence and promote gender equality at the boardroom level.
