Research Poster — Structure, Capability, or Credentials? Board Governance and the Type of Corporate Sustainability Action
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This poster is a product of my first summer research period as a Laidlaw Scholar, under the supervision of Dr. Shuying Wu at Imperial College London. My project examined whether a company's board of directors shapes not just whether a firm acts on sustainability, but the type of action it takes, from symbolic advocacy to substantive preparation and operational change. Drawing on a panel of nearly 9,900 firm-years across more than 2,000 companies, I tested whether it is a board's general capability and structure, or its directors' sustainability-specific credentials, that moves firms further along this maturity path. The project found that a board's general expertise and diversity are most closely associated with the shift from symbolic to substantive sustainability, while individual sustainability credentials are not, offering a governance-based lens on how genuinely firms pursue their sustainability commitments.
