Board attributes and companies’ choice of sustainability assurance providers
研究董事会监督质量如何影响公司选择可持续发展信息披露的鉴证服务提供商，发现董事会规模、会议频率、CEO分离、女性比例及可持续发展委员会等特征与选择四大会计师事务所或工程公司等提供商相关，且受国家经济、法律和社会环境影响。
We study whether and how the monitoring quality of the board of directors is associated with the choice of providers of assurance for sustainability disclosures. We also examine whether this relation depends on companies’ economic, legal, and social environment. In an international empirical study considering five categories of assurance providers, we find that key board attributes, including board size, frequency of board meetings, CEO separation, proportion of women on the board, and the existence of a sustainability committee affect the type of assurance provider chosen by companies. Overall, companies with higher board monitoring quality are more likely to appoint a Big 4 assurer for their sustainability disclosures. Companies with a sustainability committee are more likely to engage an engineering firm, while firms with more board meetings are more likely to appoint an expert assurer. Moreover, we find that companies based in countries with strong environments are more likely to engage an external assurance provider, particularly a Big 4 assurer or an engineering firm. Overall, our results indicate that international sustainability disclosure assurance choices depend on corporate governance practices, as well as countries’ economic, social and legal environment.