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From Board Composition to Corporate Environmental Performance Through Sustainability-Themed Alliances

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Abstract

A growing body of work suggests that the presence of women and of independent directors on boards of directors is associated with higher corporate environmental performance. However, the mechanisms linking board composition to corporate environmental performance are not well understood. This study proposes and empirically tests the mediating role of sustainability-themed alliances in the relationship between board composition and corporate environmental performance. Using the population of public oil and gas firms in the United States as the sample, the study relies on renewable energy alliances to measure sustainability-themed alliances and longitudinally analyzes lagged data for independent and control variables. The study found that (1) the higher the representation of women on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances, and (2) the higher the representation of independent directors on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances. Such alliances, in turn, positively contribute to corporate environmental performance. This paper discusses the study’s contributions to the board composition-social performance literature.

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Notes

  1. We are indebted to one of our anonymous reviewers for this suggestion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business and Economics, Lehigh University, 621 Taylor Street, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA

    Corinne Post

  2. Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York City campus, Room W-465, 1 Pace Plaza, New York, NY, 10038, USA

    Noushi Rahman

  3. Georgian Court University, 900 Lakewood Ave, Lakewood, NJ, 08701, USA

    Cathleen McQuillen

Authors
  1. Corinne Post
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  2. Noushi Rahman
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  3. Cathleen McQuillen
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Correspondence to Corinne Post.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

The sample of oil and gas companies for this study (in alphabetic order)

Anadarka Petroleum

Apache

Baker Hughes

BJ Services Company

Cameron International

Chesapeake Energy Corporation

Chevron

ConocoPhillips

Continental Resources

Denbury

Devon Energy

El Paso

Ensco International

EOG resources

ExxonMobil

FMC Technologies

Halliburton

Helmerich & Payne

Hess

Marathon Oil

Murphy Oil Corporation

National Oilwell Varco

Noble Energy

Occidental Petroleum

Petrohawk Energy

Pride International

Range Resources

Smith International

Southwestern Energy Company

Spectra Energy

Sunoco

Tesoro

Ultra Petroleum Corporation

Valero Energy

Western Refining

XTO Energy (formerly Cross Timbers Oil Company)

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Post, C., Rahman, N. & McQuillen, C. From Board Composition to Corporate Environmental Performance Through Sustainability-Themed Alliances. J Bus Ethics 130, 423–435 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2231-7

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