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Research covering Environmental, Social, and Governance (hereafter ESG) and financial performance often suffers from inconsistent terminology and jargon. ESG refers to companies and investors incorporating environmental, social, and governance issues into their business. Meanwhile, the ESG score is an innovative method of evaluating a company's activities. The ESG score focuses not on financial reporting, which investors and managers are accustomed to using when making decisions, but on statements on the corporation's influence on the underlying pillars of the score. Stakeholders and fund managers believe that firms with high ESG scores yield better operating performance, higher returns, and lower firm-specific risk. But still, abundant inconclusive evidence attracts sustainability scholars to fill concerning sustainability disclosure and performance. Therefore, this paper examines the need for overall ESG scores and their impact on the firm performance of listed companies. It shows that there are both positive and negative relationships between ESG scores and firm performance. The author intends to continue research by formulating the hypotheses for analysing the influence of overall ESG scores on firm performance and proposing a model for analysing this correlation. The findings of this study will be helpful to investors, policymakers, and other related agencies and widen the scope of literature to examine the impact of overall ESG scores on their accounting performance (ROA and ROE) and market valuation (Market Capitalisation).

Non-financial information such as environmental, social, and governance (hereafter ESG) issues are becoming important as financial data. There has been a series of organizational failures and controversies about corporate governance, which have raised questions about the capabilities of management and ethical behaviour on the business's level of transparency. Even factors that influence or detract from an ESG score are becoming increasingly relevant to consider. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between board characteristics and ESG score in Malaysian listed firms. In particular, this study examines four important board charactristics; board size, board independence, tenure, and board diversity on ESG score. Using 165 firm-year observations from 2017 to 2019, the findings reveal that the board independence is significantly positively associated with ESG scores. Other board characteristics; board size, tenure and board diversity, however, is not associated with ESG score. Several control variables, namely firm size, profitability, and leverage have been considered in the study, and it found that all control variables have a significant impact on ESG scores. This study contributes to the governance and ESG literature in the developing countries byhighlighting the effect of board characteristics on firm's ESG scores.

Due to the movement control order, company performance is predicted to be highly affected by Covid-19 pandemic.  Thus, this study seeks to examine the impact of leverage, liquidity and cash flows from operations towards company performance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using secondary data from public listed companies on Bursa Malaysia with two financial quarters in the financial year 2020, it is found that there is a significant impact of liquidity and cash flows from operations on company performance. This study may contribute as additional literature to future studies and provide sights to regulators in dealing with the pandemic outbreak. Keywords: Covid-19; leverage; liquidity; cash flows eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI:

The growing of stakeholders' demand for better corporate transparency has derived firms to adopt integrated reporting. Thus, this study aims to examine the impact of firm's board of directors on integrated reporting practice. In particular, this study investigates how board characteristics; board size, board independence, board activity and board gender diversity influence the degree of integrated reporting disclosure of Malaysian commercial banks. Consistent with prior research, this study uses a disclosure index based on International Integrated Reporting Council Framework to measure integrated reporting disclosure. Using a sample of Malaysian commercial banks from 2013 to 2017, the results show that board size is significantly negative associated with integrated reporting disclosure. Other board characteristics, however, are not associated with integrated reporting disclosure. Our findings provide insights for regulators in designing more effective corporate governance mechanisms that promote better integrated reporting practice.