ESG disclosures and firm profitability in an emerging market: The moderating roles of state ownership, board gender diversity, and board independence

This study examines the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures and firm profitability in Vietnam, a transitional emerging economy characterized by significant state ownership and evolving corporate governance structures. Drawing on stakeholder, agency, and resource dependence theories, and building on prior ESG-performance research largely conducted in developed markets (Alareeni & Hamdan, 2020; Rahi et al., 2024), we investigate whether the financial effects of ESG disclosures are contingent on governance conditions. Using panel data from 147 Vietnamese listed firms over the period 2014–2023 and fixed-effects regressions with Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors, we analyze the effects of environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G) disclosures on return on assets (ROA). The results indicate that social and governance disclosures are positively associated with profitability, whereas environmental disclosure shows no significant short-term effect. Moreover, state ownership weakens the positive impacts of environmental and governance disclosures, board gender diversity amplifies the effect of governance disclosure, and board independence unexpectedly reduces the performance gains from environmental and social disclosures. These findings contribute to the ESG literature by demonstrating that ESG value creation is highly context-dependent and shaped by ownership structure and board characteristics, offering new evidence from an underexplored emerging market setting.