The role of corporate governance in the environmental, social and governance landscape: A systematic literature review

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Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in how typical dimensions of corporate governance, particularly at the board level, interact with the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillars (Alotaibi & Al-Dubai, 2024; Gillan et al., 2021; Ktit & Abu Khalaf, 2024; Yang & Lindrianasari, 2025). The proliferation of scholarly production on this topic has led to heterogeneous theoretical frameworks and mixed empirical results, highlighting the need to systematize the body of knowledge produced to date. This study systematically reviews the scholarly research from the past decades, focusing on the role and impact of corporate governance in the context of ESG issues, exploring how corporate governance has been integrated into ESG discussions, identifying trends and gaps, and analyzing the evolving relationship between corporate governance practices and the growing emphasis on environmental sustainability, social responsibility and ethical governance. The literature review was conducted through a systematic approach, based on a search protocol and using ABI/INFORM Collection-ProQuest for articles’ collection. A final sample of 226 papers published in international scientific journals during the period 2010–2023 was analyzed. Our findings systematize knowledge on the corporate governance-ESG linkage in multiple ways. First, a descriptive analysis is proposed with respect to multiple dimensions: most prolific journals, keywords, samples, and research focus. Then, we offer a thematic analysis, based on which we offer suggestions for future research avenues at the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological level.

Keywords: ESG, Corporate Governance, ESG Performance, ESG Disclosure, Systematic Literature Review

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — V.G., I.G., and V.T.; Methodology — V.G., I.G., and V.T.; Investigation — V.G.; Data Curation — V.G.; Writing — Original Draft — V.G., I.G., and V.T.; Writing — Review & Editing — V.G., I.G., and V.T.; Supervision — V.T.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: G34, M14, M41

Received: 02.12.2024
Revised: 21.03.2025; 19.09.2025
Accepted: 13.10.2025
Published online: 15.10.2025

How to cite this paper: Ghinizzini, V., Galavotti, I., & Tibiletti, V. (2025). The role of corporate governance in the environmental, social and governance landscape: A systematic literature review. Journal of Governance & Regulation, 14(4), 126–137. https://doi.org/10.22495/jgrv14i4art12