Sustainable Governance. Concept, metrics and contexts.

The role of Governance as a fundamental pillar of sustainability is now widely recognized and con rmed by its inclusion in the key ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) issues. Differently from the E and S, Governance has a more complex role, being a meta-construct over E, S, and ESG, and acting as a precon- dition and a result of the value creation in the long term. In response to changing understanding of corporate governance in the context of ESG, research has developed the notion of sustainable corporate governance (Allais, Roucoules, & Reyes, 2017), that is, a system based on the integration of shareholders and all stakeholders’ objectives, which safeguards the environment and collectivity at large. Despite the uprising popularity of ESG agenda and high importance of “G” factor, the concept of sustainable corporate governance is in its early stages of development. The concept still lacks the profound theoretical de nition, precise measurement system, and best practice examples of its implementation. With an intent to bridge the abovementioned gap, the aim of the book “Sustain- able Governance: Concept, Metrics, and Contexts” is to generalize the emerging concept of Sustainable Governance. This work provides comprehensive theoretical foundations basing on stakeholder and institutional theories as well as context-speci c theories for describing the concept in different settings and contexts, such as developed and developing econ- omies, large listed companies and SMEs, family businesses. The book systematizes components and operationalizes metrics of sustainable governance, being the rst one in the eld that builds a measurable sustainable governance concept. Additionally, the book makes it possible to reveal the value relevance of sustainable governance: the authors describe the dependence between sustainable corporate governance level and market valuations of the companies. Apart from theoretical explanation of the concept, the authors use practical case studies to describe the effective integration of sustainable governance into corporate structures. The book contains an in-depth analysis of the best practice cases that illustrate not only the leadership practice in the development of some governance components, but also the nancial value creation out of such leadership. This publication provides students and researchers with a profound analysis of the emerging sustainable governance concept. Thorough literature review and wide usage of theories make this book insightful for scholars, while various case studies and analysis of nancial market reactions build high relevance for companies and nancial market participants as well as regulators and civil society. The book is the result of a joint effort of the authors on the processes of conceptualization, planning, methodology, validation, data curation, writing, review and editing. The authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.