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ABSTRACT Although sustainability practices are widely associated with improved firm performance, less is known about whether firms with higher business efficiency are better positioned to achieve sustainability outcomes. This study employs a Dynamic Network Slack‐Based Measure (DNSBM) framework to evaluate business efficiency (BE) and sustainability efficiency (SE) for 67 global high‐tech hardware firms over 2018–2023. Both static and dynamic panel estimations are applied to examine the robustness of the BE–SE relationship. The static models, including hierarchical OLS and Tobit estimations, indicate a positive and statistically significant association between BE and SE, with some evidence of a reverse relationship from SE to BE, suggesting potential bidirectionality. However, the dynamic results based on the two‐step System GMM approach do not support these relationships, implying that the observed effects are primarily driven by cross‐sectional heterogeneity rather than persistent within‐firm dynamics. Importantly, both static and dynamic results consistently indicate that high power distance weakens the moderating effect of ESG factors on the BE–SE relationship, suggesting that cultural context plays a stable role in shaping how ESG considerations influence efficiency‐based sustainability outcomes across different empirical specifications. Overall, the findings highlight the method‐dependent nature of the BE–SE nexus and underscore the importance of distinguishing between static associations and dynamic adjustments in sustainability performance analysis.
Thanh Trong Nguyen (Sun,) studied this question.