The Mediating Function of Perceived Credibility in the Impact of Sustainability Report Quality on Investor Trust

This study examines the relationship between investor trust and perceived sustainability reporting quality, paying special attention to the mediating function of perceived credibility. The study creates an integrated framework based on signaling theory and information asymmetry theory to explain how investors understand sustainability disclosures and convert their evaluations into trust in reporting firms. In particular, the study looks at the direct connections between investor trust, perceived sustainability reporting quality, and perceived credibility. It also evaluates whether credibility may explain the relationship between investor confidence and reporting quality. Individual investors and representatives of institutional investors in Vietnam provided survey data. With investor type included as a control variable and bootstrapping used to assess the mediating link, covariance-based structural equation modeling was used to analyze the suggested correlations. The results show that investor trust and perceived credibility are positively correlated with higher perceived sustainability reporting quality. Additionally, investor trust and perceived credibility are positively correlated, and the relationship between reporting quality and trust is partially mediated by perceived credibility. These results imply that sustainability disclosures boost investor confidence by increasing the credibility that investors assign to company information in addition to its perceived quality. The scientific uniqueness of the study is the identification of perceived credibility as a unique explanatory mechanism that links investor trust in an emerging capital market with sustainability reporting quality. The study expands on current debates on sustainability disclosure and investor decision-making by combining reporting quality, credibility, and investor trust under a single empirical paradigm. Practically speaking, the results highlight the significance of transparent, consistent, comparable, and verifiable sustainability information in boosting investor confidence and corporate communication, especially as digital technologies increasingly influence access to sustainability-related information.