Corporate governance and the quality of mandatory sustainability reporting: Comparative evidence from energy companies in Indonesia and Malaysia

This study examines how corporate governance mechanisms shape sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) under mandatory disclosure regimes, drawing on agency, stakeholder, and institutional theory. Using energy firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and Bursa Malaysia during 2022–2025, SRQ is measured on an ordinal scale from compliance and external assurance, and each country is estimated separately by Ordered Logit and Ordered Probit regression. Board size and board expertise are positively associated with SRQ in both countries. Contrary to agency and stakeholder predictions, disclosure of board-meeting attendance is negatively associated with SRQ, consistent with the ceremonial compliance anticipated by institutional theory. A CSR committee is the strongest mechanism in Indonesia but insignificant in Malaysia, while firm size and leverage carry opposite signs across the two settings. The findings show that mandatory reporting alone does not guarantee high-quality disclosure; internal governance and institutional context remain decisive across these two ASEAN emerging economies.