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The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between three corporate governance (CG) idiosyncrasies, namely audit committee characteristics, external audit quality (AQ), board diversity and firm performance (FP) in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations.

The study used a sample of 200 listed nonfinancial firms in the SAARC nations from 2012 to 2021. The System Generalized Method of Moment model was applied to the data consisting of 2000 firm-year observations. The Generalized Estimating Equation population-averaged model was also employed for added robustness. The study employed Tobin's Q as the measure of FP.

The findings revealed that amongst the CG variables tested, external AQ exhibited a significantly positive relationship with Tobin's Q. Significant negative influences on FP have been demonstrated by the variables of audit committee meeting and board's independence. Furthermore, gender diversity, CEO duality, audit committee strength and independence failed to record any significant association.

This study is one of the first to investigate the association between CG idiosyncrasies and FP in the SAARC nations. The study findings have important implications for policymakers and regulators in the region.

The paper aims to examine the climate change-related disclosure patterns of listed Indian firms and its impact on firm performance. Specifically, it strives to analyse the conformance of the selected firms with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) established by the Financial Stability Board of G20 nations.

The study conducts content analysis of the annual reports and/or sustainability reports of 22 selected firms from the energy sector for the period spanning 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 based on the four-fold recommendations of TCFD, namely, governance, strategy, risk management and target and metrics, to compute the overall and respective climate-change disclosure scores. Further, a panel data regression model is used to appraise the impact of such disclosure on the performance of the firms.

The findings of the study indicate that the disclosure level of Indian firms in the energy sector is moderate. The regression results establish a positive relation between climate change-related financial disclosure and firm performance indicating that firms can witness improved financial performance by disclosing more information on climate change.

This is the first study in the Indian context to evaluate the climate change-related disclosure practices of the selected firms based on the TCFD’s recommendations and to trace its association with the performance of the firms. The results of the study shall hence be of relevance for the policymakers and diverse stakeholders.