Covid-19 Crisis and Sustainability Reporting of ESG in Jordanian Banking Industry

Covid-19 Crisis and Sustainability Reporting of ESG in Jordanian Banking Industry | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Covid-19 Crisis and Sustainability Reporting of ESG in Jordanian Banking Industry Esraa Esam Alharasis This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract ESG sustainability reporting research is growing. Covid-19 and ESG reporting in Jordanian banks is the primary purpose of this study. Based on earlier studies, a modified ESG disclosure index analyzes 2010–2024 bank sustainability reports. ASE clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error tests hypotheses on 16 balanced Jordanian-listed banks. Multivariate modeling showed that Jordanian banks with higher ESG sustainability scores performed better during the COVID-19 epidemic. Each ESG sustainability reporting component supports this conclusion. Organizations have shown their COVID-19 pandemic preparation and crisis ethics by agreeing to meet ESG performance requirements. After a pandemic, firms have to adhere to the highest ethical standards. This study has major implications for businesses and legislators. The study's findings could be considered by regulators and lawmakers to create legislation that emphasize company openness and engagement to promote sustainable practices. Businesses are required to incorporate sustainable development into their strategy, management, and governance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses should help restore and reimagine the economy. This study examines how COVID-19 affects ESG disclosure obligations. This article examines this issue using Jordanian statistics. Further research on CSR/ESG activities in developing nations is needed due to rising global economic trends and societal differences between developing and emerging states. Several studies have examined how the COVID-19 epidemic influenced a business's finances and operations, but few have examined ESG reporting. This research fills this gap by using Jordanian data. Sustainability Reporting Covid-19 Banking industry Emerging economy Jordan Introduction This study analyzes Jordan's banking industry data to investigate how Covid-19 may affect ESG reporting. Updated 2010–2024 Jordanian banking statistics used here. Stock market correlation testing in Jordan are unique. Jordan was one of the first "Middle Eastern (ME)" countries to adopt the "International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)," which required ESG sustainability disclosures under "IFRS S1: General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information" and "IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures" (Alharasis, 2025 ). This makes Jordan's ESG data more accessible. Second, Jordan's capital market attracts foreign investment (Alharasis, 2024 ). Third, Jordan's liberalization of markets and international economic links inform EU and WTO developing economy studies (Tahat et al., 2018 ). Fourth and foremost, Covid-19 destroyed Jordan's small economy. By the third quarter of 2020, Jordan's "Gross Domestic Product (GDP)" fell 1.5% (Kharabsheh et al., 2022). Recent research has proved that, relative to other epidemics of health "SARS, Ebola, Spanish Flu" and the economic downturn "2007–2009 financial crisis," Covid-19 had the biggest negative influence on world economies (Baker et al., 2020). Slower “GDP, output, and supply chains, rising inflation, and unemployment” hit industrialised and emerging economies. Stock markets became less stable due to the pandemic, increasing investors' concerns and risk aversion (Alharasis, 2024 ). The COVID-19 pandemic raised ethical and societal challenges that demand new tactics and initiatives from international organizations like IFRS, such as IFRS S1 and S2. Current trends demonstrate that companies that embrace sustainability-focused strategies provide long-term shareholder value (Al Amosh and Khatib, 2023 ). It has been approved that various companies and players in the sector incorporate ESG when creating corporate strategy (Chen et al., 2022 ). This is a new paradigm that redirects the homo economicus' self-interest and profit-driven goals toward community goals like environmental, inclusion, and sustainability (Ab Aziz et al., 2025 ). The IFRS Foundation formed a "Sustainability Standards Board (SSB)" to collaborate with the "International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)" in developing a unified set of sustainability standards that provide financially relevant sustainability information. Standardization is more critical during and following crises such as COVID-19 (Chen et al., 2022 ). As investors increasingly prioritize firm sustainability rankings and disclosures, there is a heightened focus in enhancing sustainability reporting and adopting standardized non-financial metrics with uniform norms. The "International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)" has established a robust global framework of high-quality sustainability disclosure standards to fulfill investors' informational requirements in the public sector. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, investors commenced evaluating ESG factors as a performance metric for global corporations (Saleh et al., 2025 ). Covid-19 has significantly impacted numerous enterprises; yet, resilient companies can convert challenges into opportunities and grow contrary to prevailing trends (Gao and Geng, 2024 ). Certain research indicates that corporate governance is an essential reaction to crises. ESG encompasses environmental preservation, ethical behavior, and corporate governance, with the economic value of the organization, to foster sustainable development and enhance its global reputation (Savio et al., 2023 ). The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) anticipated that global ESG assets amounted to US $ 22.9 trillion at the beginning of 2016, representing 26% of total assets under management, and increased to US $ 35.3 trillion in the crisis year of 2020, reflecting a 54.56% rise since 2016. The ESG investing market was valued at USD 17.2 trillion in 2022 and is anticipated to attain USD 46.5 trillion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% from 2023 to 2032 (Gao and Geng, 2024 ). Research shows that ESG elements protect investors during market turmoil (Al Amosh and Khatib, 2023 ). Economic and political uncertainty are strongly connected with sustainability disclosure scores, which increase sustainability disclosures in uncertain times. Despite valuable studies on ESG and corporate performance (Savio et al., 2023 ), academics disagree on their interpretation of ESG (Kumar et al., 2024 ). ESG practices may improve a company's image and reputation, stakeholder confidence, financial restrictions, and risk. Some researchers call it an "agency cost". Management can reduce the firm's value by overinvesting in “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)”/ESG, abandoning investment initiatives that have favorable net present values, and prioritizing personal gain over short-term interests (Sultana et al., 2022 ). This can improve business results and prestige and spread favorable reputation among stakeholders. Fraud behavior by managers and agency conflict between agent and principal have increased due to Covid-19. Managers may have prioritised higher ESG scores to win shareholder trust (Huang and Ge, 2024 ). The Covid-19 problem incites management fraud and raises EM to unprecedented levels. Savio et al. ( 2023 ) also show that sustainability information reduces the influence of economic uncertainty on company value during Covid-19. Studies show that ESG compliance in the financial sector offers practical benefits beyond morality. Banking institutions must pay attention to ESG requirements as a company (Tumewang et al., 2025 ) and steer clients in this direction to promote investment proficiency on the part of financiers, who may then invest capital in projects that also meet social responsibility and climate protection requirements. ESG research has yielded contradictory findings, focused on developed economies, and lacks country-specific conclusions. Most ESG research has examined business performance (Al Amosh and Khatib, 2023 ; Ab Aziz et al., 2025 ). A few studies have examined the impact of ESG disclosures on enterprises' crisis response (Al Amosh and Khatib, 2024 ; Savio et al., 2023 ), but none have examined how Covid-19 might motivate firms to align to sustainability. Ranjbari et al. (2021) emphasized that the literature regarding COVID-19's direct impact on sustainability is incomplete and uncertain necessitating further investigation. This study responds to recent demands from scholars like Kumar et al. ( 2024 ) and Del Gesso and Lodhi (2024) to bridge the present knowledge gap by considering the main shortcomings in current research. Previous research has focused on how ESG disclosures help crisis management rather than how Covid-19 affects ESG scores (Al Amosh and Khatib, 2023 ). Few studies exist on certain industries (Ben Fatma and Chouaibi, 2021 ; Garc ́ıa-Sanchez et al., 2018; Mukhtaruddin et al., 2019 ; Tapver et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ). Thus, this analysis uses Jordanian banking industry statistics. As recommended by prior research, this study examined this issue using updated data from impoverished nations, notably Jordan, up to 2024. Scholars claimed that altering global economic trends and sociocultural inequalities between wealthy and impoverished nations necessitate additional research on sustainability methods in less prosperous countries. To address the foregoing background and theoretical limitations, this study employs the COVID-19 pandemic to assess its impact on ESG sustainable reporting, unlike earlier studies. This work advances ESG research. This study gives more solid facts to support their theory and extend past research. This study uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop to increase ESG ratings during times of high suffering. A preliminary study in this field enriches ESG-related literature. Sudden enormously crises have confounded economic transmission mechanisms, producing heavy social and economic losses from the epidemic. This study is important for how companies may respond to crises and maintain stability. This study offers novel empirical evidence about the standardization of governance by firms in routine business operations both prior to and following the crisis. This study examines the impact of ESG on corporate crisis response capabilities during severe crises, enhancing the role of Covid-19. In light of this, Jordan's distinctive institutional framework and the COVID-19 pandemic, a limited timeframe was utilized to investigate the link of causality between COVID-19 and ESG disclosure, particularly comparing pre- and post-crisis periods. This study offers a new theoretical foundation for the developing field of crisis management in Jordan. Consequently, this study seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge in multiple ways. First, theoretically investigate the single effect of COVID-19 on ESG ratings using “agency, stakeholders' signalling, and legitimacy theories”, Jordan's institutional context. Second, discussing how Covid-19 affects ESG sub-items to better understand their roles. Third, this study compares ESG disclosure before and after the COVID-19 epidemic. Fourth, most earlier studies have examined the banking industry in privileged economies, whereas this research examines it in developing nations. Therefore, this study fills that gap by offering the first complete investigation of Covid-19 and banking ESG performance. To the author's knowledge, no other study has compared developing country banks' ESG scores pre- and post-Covid-19. ASE's balanced sample of 16 Jordanian-listed banks is evaluated with clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error. Multivariate modeling showed that Jordanian banks with greater ESG sustainability scores performed better during COVID-19. Each ESG sustainability reporting component supports this conclusion. The results suggest that firms are readying for the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring ESG performance compliance to demonstrate moral behavior during the time of crisis. During the pandemic, companies have to adhere to social norms. This research advises policymakers, organizations, and stakeholders. To promote sustainable practices, openness, and involvement across all enterprises, regulators and legislators may use the study's findings in developing legislations. After COVID-19, businesses must rebuild and reconsider the economy, thus they must increase sustainable development considerations in strategy, management, and governance supervision and hold them accountable. Expanding worldwide economic developments and sociocultural inequalities between wealthy and developing nations require additional ESG/CSR research in impoverished nations. Demand for ESG/CSR reports in developing economies, especially by these corporations, warrants greater research. COVID-19's impact on a company's financial and non-financial activities has been extensively explored neglecting ESG sustainability disclosure. The analysis fills this gap. Following is the outline of the paper: Section 2 delves into the background. The theoretical foundation is laid up in Section 3. Reviewing the relevant literature and formulating working hypotheses are covered in Section 4 . Section 5 provides an overview of the research methodology and design. Examining and discussing the empirical data is covered in Section 6 . Included in Section 7 are the results of the further analysis and robustness checks. Section 8 wraps up the study by discussing its implications, limits, and future research directions. 2. Theory foundation As stated by Chahine et al. ( 2019 ), a number of studies on ESG sustainability reporting have investigated various aspects of sustainability performance through various theoretical perspectives. These perspectives include "agency, stakeholder, legitimacy, resource-based, neo-institutional, institutional legitimacy, upper-echelons, critical mass, signalling, and stewardship" theories. Examining the correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and ESG factors, this research employs theories of agency, stakeholders, legitimacy, and signaling. Under these presumptions, the research delves into the effects of COVID-19 on ESG disclosure. During the coronavirus outbreak, proponents of agency theory attempted to provide an explanation for the anticipated "information asymmetry" problem in light of the immense ambiguity that pervaded the situation. Corporations felt the effects of the extensive "quarantines, social exclusion, border restrictions, and lockdowns" instituted in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Society, investors, debtors, communities, financial institutions, states, and workers were all impacted by the subsequent economic turmoil. All parties involved need reliable disclosures to acquire legitimacy and trust from stakeholders, according to the stakeholders' theory, so they can accurately predict the financial consequences of the pandemic and make suitable business decisions (Shen et al., 2020). This has led to an increase in the frequency and number of decades-long demands to diversify discourse away from financial issues. There have been user complaints that the traditional annual report format places excessive emphasis on financial event overviews and not enough on the non-financial events of the entity or how the firm handles its societal obligations (Kumar et al., 2024 ; Litjens et al., 2015 ). Considering that underperforming businesses can use ESG disclosure to fool investors into assuming they are making progress toward sustainability when in reality they are just trying to cover up their shortcomings (Manning et al., 2019 ). This way, these businesses may avoid any problems with their legitimacy while also neglecting their real environmental initiatives. Stakeholder theory, in contrast, stresses that companies have many sets of stakeholders to whom they are accountable in addition to shareholders (Freeman, 1984 ). From this vantage point, firms that effectively match societal norms have a better chance of attracting important resources from a wide range of stakeholders, such as customers, shareholders, and workers. Dyllick and Hockerts ( 2002 ) state that stakeholders' opinions and actions can be positively impacted via communication channels, especially sustainability reports. These reports help legitimize a company's existence, which boosts its reputation and gives it a marketing edge (Braam et al., 2016 ). In response to previous calls for more research on ESG performance in developing countries, this study takes into account the argued changing global economic trends as well as the inherent social and cultural factors disparities between developed and developing nations (Garanina and Aray, 2021 ; Muttakin and Subramaniam, 2015 ). Therefore, this study uses data from the Jordanian banking industry to evaluate the possibility of a correlation between the COVID-19 problem and ESG reporting. The theories employed include "agency, stakeholder, signaling, and legitimacy". Companies in developing countries are becoming increasingly significant links in the "global supply chain," which is driving higher demand for ESG reports and providing an additional incentive for this research. To address the theoretical gap, previous studies recommended that researchers investigate the impact of economic instability on ESG involvement by testing other theoretical frameworks, such as legitimacy theory (Kumar et al., 2024 ). This study utilized four important theories, including legitimacy theory, to focus on the influence of COVID-19 on ESG performance. Given the importance of country context, scholars have emphasized the need for additional research into the correlation between COVID-19 and CSR/ESG initiatives undertaken by firms (Kumar et al., 2024 ). In light of this scenario, this paper investigates the matter using data acquired in Jordan. 4. Prior literature and research hypotheses ESG performance shows how well corporations consider ethical issues amid crises. Ranjbari et al. (2021) noted that COVID-19's direct effects on sustainability are understudied and that more research is needed. Literature on COVID-19's effects on sustainability is incomplete and inconsistent, and additional research on its three pillars is essential (Ranjbari et al., 2021). Consequently, this study aims to address this informational deficiency. Ethics gain significance during crises, particularly with "agency conflict and information asymmetry" in the management practices of high-earning agents, as societies closely examine company performance. Consequently, firms must exhibit social consciousness in extraordinary situations. During a crisis, stakeholders pursue social cohesion (Miller et al. 2021). Enterprises engaged with society maintain their ethical standards under various circumstances as part of a long-term strategy that encompasses post-crisis scenarios (Hassan et al., 2023 ). Certain enterprises may want to enhance their stakeholder relationships by fulfilling their ethical responsibilities and bolstering their reputation. This elucidates how firms oversee their non-financial performance, including ESG, which comprises the practices and actions employed by companies to exhibit their social responsibility to fulfill stakeholder expectations. Global environmental challenges are a significant concern (Aneja et al. 2017 ; Banday and Aneja 2019 ). Thus, ESG performance indicates how well corporations meet their social responsibilities and stakeholder goals. For example, business donations can impress investors (Patten, 2019 ). Stakeholders’ trust can insure the market from an unexpected catastrophe, giving ESG enterprises a greater excess return rate in the stock market. During an outbreak, firms' ability to cope depends on liquidity. Crisis reaction requires resources. Insurance is easier with lots of cash. Cash flow restrictions affect investment activity in firms with high financing constraints (Tumewang et al., 2025 ). Therefore, ESG performance increase corporate value by reducing financial limitations. Firms' capacity for green innovation is boosted by good ESG performance for numerous reasons. First, ESG can assist lower innovation costs for businesses and get preferential treatment from governments in policymaking (Kumar et al., 2024 ). Second, enterprises that prioritize ESG practices can enhance enterprise innovation by forming a positive feedback loop with internal and external resources, attracting creative employees, meeting the needs of employees to realize their self-worth, and building trust in an uncertain environment (Del Gesso and Lodhi, 2025 ). Third, a more inviting atmosphere for company innovation is fostered when corporations project an image of social responsibility, which in turn increases the risk tolerance of associated stakeholders. Fourth, ESG improves a company's capacity for sustainable development by making it more focused on the long term and less concerned with short-term gains. Consequently, ESG performance encourages efficiency in corporate green innovation, which leads to an increase in enterprise value. Despite market volatility, prior studies have shown that ESG considerations provide protection (Savio et al., 2023 ). The research that were evaluated show that sustainability disclosure scores are positively and significantly connected with economic and political uncertainties. During times of growing uncertainty, it is recommended to make more sustainability disclosures. As a result, the company's performance and reputation can improve, and stakeholders are more likely to spread the word positively. sustainability data can help mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and the global financial crisis on a company's value (Kumar et al., 2024 ). Research in the financial industry indicates that more thorough mapping of ESG ratings can lead to improved results and performance during uncertain times (Demir and Danisma, 2021). Compliance with ESG criteria has tangible practical benefits in the financial sector that extend well beyond moral recognition (Kocziszky and Veresné Somosi, 2020 ). The role of banking institutions is vital in this regard. Banks, as a whole, need to pay attention to ESG requirements (Terták and Kovács, 2020 ). They should also guide their clients in this direction so that lending institutions are encouraged to invest virtuosically, which could lead to projects that meet both sustainable development and environmental protection goals (Poletaeva et al., 2019 ). When it comes to banks, ESG policies are important for client risk protection but have less of an impact on the efficiency of the financial organization (Demir and Danisman, 2021 ). Even while ESG has been the subject of fruitful debates in the literature, its precise definition remains a point of contention among academics. According to some academics, ESG practices can help organizations gain a positive reputation, gain the trust of stakeholders, alleviate financial limitations, and lower risk. Nonetheless, it is considered an agency cost (Wu et al., 2024 ; Kumar et al., 2024 ). A decline in the firm's worth could occur if management prioritizes short-term gains over long-term goals and invests excessive resources on CSR initiatives. Overspending on CSR, ignoring investment opportunities with positive net present values, and putting short-term gains ahead of long-term interests are all ways in which management can reduce the firm's worth (El Khoury et al., 2023). Because of this, reputation might improve, and word of mouth from different stakeholders can be beneficial. Managers have resorted to earnings management in large numbers since the COVID-19 problem hit, and the risk of earnings management has increased as a result of agent-principal conflict. Disclosure of higher ESG scores has become more important for managers seeking shareholder trust and acceptability (Del Gesso and Lodhi, 2025 ). This study utilizes the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the influence of the crisis on ESG as a mechanism for corporate systemic crisis management, contrasting it with prior research conducted in stable environments, informed by the previously mentioned context and theoretical deficiencies. The current study literature on ESG predominantly investigates corporate innovation, operational risks, and corporate value within the framework of a long-term stable environment as an implicit condition. This study enhances the understanding of the factors influencing business resilience by assessing the effects of Covid-19 on ESG reporting disclosure, providing significant evidence to support the assertion that ESG enhances corporate resilience. From this perspective, the subsequent hypotheses H2 are proposed in this study: H1: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts ESG sustainability scores H1.1: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts environmental sustainability scores H1.2: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts social sustainability scores H1.3: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts governance sustainability scores Research methodology and data 5.1. Collection of data The statistics were gathered from ASE's sustainability reports for Jordanian banks from 2010 to 2024. The study data begins in 2010 to reduce the effect of GFC and concludes in 2024 due to the nonavailability of data from the following year.Table 1 presents the original population of 24 banks. After excluding 8 banks with missing data, the final sample size is 16 banks. [Insert table 1 here] 5.2. Variables and Method 5.2.1. Design of research The objective of this investigation is to empirically evaluate the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the disclosure of ESG ratings. This study employs the multiple regression method to investigate the value effect of ESG sustainability disclosure. Consequently, a regression model employing "Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)" is implemented, with fixed effects that fluctuate over time and a robust model clustered by bank. This study uses the modified linear models technique as follows (see Table A. of Appendix A . for variables definition and measurement): Equation(1/H1) Sus_Reporting = δ0 + δ1Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ. Equation(2/H1.1) Sus_Reporting_Eco = δ0 + δ1Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ. Equation(3/H1.2) Sus_Reporting_Soc = δ0 + δ2Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ. Equation(4/H1.3) Sus_Reporting_Gov = δ0 + δ2Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ. 5.2.2. Measurements of variables 5.2.2.1. Measuring ESG Sustainability disclosure Researchers assessed CSR/ESG performance and transparency using multiple proxies. Sharma et al. ( 2024 ) Muttakin and Subramaniam ( 2015 ), Rao and Tilt ( 2021 ) and Kilic et al. (2015) classify annual reports, websites, and CSR/ESG reports using content analysis. Following this line of research (Liu et al., 2023 ), this study manually generates ESG scores for the Jordanian banking industry using public sustainability reports, bank websites, and ASE annual sustainability report disclosures. A qualitative scoring index technique was used, drawing on the measuring system created by Al Amosh et al. (2022), Al Amosh and Khatib ( 2023 ), Ab Aziz et al. ( 2025 ), and Ab Aziz et al. (2024). As a result, the variable Sus_Reporting is the "bank's ESG disclosure index (i) for the time period (t)". Furthermore, some academics, such as Rao and Tilt ( 2021 ) who create an index by adding the scores for each disclosed item, scoring 1 for disclosed and 0 for non-disclosed. To evaluate ESG as a dummy variable Sust_Dummy , this study follows previous research and employ a "scoring system of 1 for disclosed items and 0 for items not disclosed". 2. Control variables Log_assets , LEV , Audit_op , Audit_ten , BIG-4 , Block , and For are the variables. The study considers features of both banks and countries (Mansour et al., 2023b; Shubita, 2023 ; Chen et al., 2023 ).The strategy for selecting control variables is consistent with those proposed by Tumewang et al. ( 2025 ), Liu et al. ( 2023 ), and Pawar and Munuswamy ( 2024 ). Results 6.1. Statistics on description and correlation The descriptive statistics of employed variables are included in Table 2. In terms of the dependent variables, the mean value of ESG score variable Sus_Reporting is 7.876, which indicates that the sample has an average ESG score of around 8%, with a minimum and maximum vale ranging from 0% to roughly 69%. In terms of practices regarding EM, 0.10%, with a range that goes from 0–0.60% and a standard deviation that hovers around 0.038%. The average value for the moderating impact of Covid-19 ( Period ) is 0.25% indicates that 25% of the data represents the period of Covid-19, while the remaining 75% covers the time before to the introduction of Covid-19. The mean values of the control variables which are the bank’s log of assets ( Log_assets ), leverage ( LEV ), audit opinion ( Audit_op ), audit tenure ( Audit_ten ), Big4 auditor ( BIG-4 ), Bock-holders (Block) and foreign ownership (For) are 21.11%, 4.44%, 0.97%, 0.51%, 0.97%, 0.66% and 0.36%, respectively which are aligned with prior literature (e.g., Al Amosh and Khatib 2023 ). [Insert table 2 here] Table 3 shows the "Spearman correlation matrix" amounts. The results reveal that there is no association between the independent variables. Each model's “mean VIF” is less than 3, indicating that there are no collinearity issues. [Insert table 3 here] 6.3. Regression results Table 4 displays OLS regression. Model 1 shows how Covid-19 affects ESG score disclosure. Model P-values with 0.01 explanatory power reach 68%. Model 1 reveals that Covid-19 crisis increases ESG sustainability disclosure scores at 0.01 ( Coeff. = 39.42, t = 8.63 ). This finding corroborates previous studies (including Wu et al., 2024 ; Kumar et al., 2024 ; Del Gesso and Lodhi, 2025 ; Miller et al., 2021; Ranjbari et al., 2021) demonstrating that the pandemic crisis positively influenced environmental and social performance, suggesting that companies considered the direct interests of external stakeholders to exhibit their goodwill and moral responsibility toward them. Given the economic downturn, banks have prioritized sustainable practices to demonstrate legitimacy and accountability to society (Pawar & Munuswamy, 2024 ). The results support the researchers' findings (Al Amosh et al. 2022; Gao and Geng, 2024 ; Savio et al., 2023 ; Kumar and al., 2024), implying that great ESG or non-financial disclosures might be considered as an “agency cost”. Overspending in social responsibility, abandoning investment initiatives with positive net present values, and prioritizing personal gain over short-term interests can reduce the firm's value. This can improve the company's reputation and create favorable stakeholder engagement. Managers' EM behavior has increased due to agent-principal dispute over Covid-19. To gain shareholder trust, managers emphasize higher ESG rankings. The results confirmed the positive and significant influence of COVID-19 on companies' ESG performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies appear to be highly responsive to their moral responsibilities regarding ESG disclosure, predicated on the belief that compliance will enhance future performance by meeting diverse stakeholder expectations and showcasing their capacity to meet obligations during the crisis (Terták and Kovács, 2020 ). The COVID-19 pandemic enhances ESG performance. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences ESG performance, as businesses appear to be demonstrating their commitment to environmental stewardship and enhancing their environmental initiatives during health crises (Demir and Danisman, 2021 ). This will be broadly endorsed by many stakeholders, since the analysis substantiates the assertion that firms engage in social initiatives to exhibit their societal contributions during the pandemic and mitigate the economic repercussions of the crisis. This measure may enhance a company's reputation among investors who scrutinize its performance during the pandemic, enabling potential investors to identify and select companies demonstrating superior compliance during this period (Poletaeva et al., 2019 ). The investigation showed that the COVID-19 epidemic had a favorable effect on businesses' ESG performance, and hence, hypotheses H1, H1.1, H1.2, H1.3 and H1.4 are supported. [Insert table 4 here] 6. Additional and Sensitivity tests 6.1. Alternative measure of Sus_Reporting Previous work by Rathanayaka Mudiyanselage (2018) and Girella et al. ( 2022 ) establishes that researchers can evaluate ESG engagement by looking at whether or not a company has a sustainability report as “a binary variable to assess involvement in ESG activities”. Furthermore, this study retests the hypotheses with an additional measure of the ESG, the dummy variable Sust_Dummy , to ensure the reliability of the primary analysis results. The analysis results shown in Table 5 are similar to those given in the primary analysis result. [Insert table 5 here] 6.2. Excluding the year of 2020 After eliminating the observations from the sample for the crisis year (2020), the hypotheses were retested due to the overlap of the study's sample with the recent Covid-19 crisis of 2020. The results align with the primary analysis. 6.3. Re-testing excluding control variables This robustness assessment examines the correlation between ESG score and Jordanian bank performance without controlling factors in the econometric models following Chen et al. ( 2023 ). The Results correspond with the original analysis. Conclusions 7.1. Final remarks This study seeks to investigate the relationship between the Covid-19 issue and the ESG ratings of Jordan's banking industry as an emerging economy. This study employs a balanced sample of 16 Jordanian-listed banks in ASE to test the hypotheses via "clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error". The study's findings, as revealed by "multivariate regression", show that the role of Covid-19 strengthened non-financial ESG disclosure compliance, implying that Covid-19 increased the likelihood of EM practices due to the significant presence of agency conflict, motivating more ESG disclosures to gain stakeholders' trust and authorization. This has also been confirmed by every pillar of ESG sustainability reporting. The statistics indicate that organizations have implemented measures in response to the COVID-19 epidemic by ensuring adherence to ESG performance to exhibit their ethical conduct during a crisis. Organizations must conform to societal standards of ethical conduct. During the pandemic, stakeholder interests prioritize both environmental and social welfare; hence, firms are inclined to align their actions with the predominant interests of stakeholders. The statistics indicate that firms have implemented measures in response to the COVID-19 epidemic by ensuring adherence to ESG performance to exhibit their integrity amid a crisis. This indicates that enhancing and prioritizing ESG measures can generate financial advantages while concurrently advancing social and ecological sustainability. 9.2. Implications The concepts of "Agency, signalling legitimacy, and stakeholder theories" provide empirical data from Jordan, addressing the ESG and crisis research gap for the first time. These frameworks enable stakeholders to evaluate a company's ethics and sustainability through ESG transparency. This study examines health emergencies from the viewpoints of stakeholders. It delineates how firms managed the ESG agenda throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and how they fulfilled stakeholder expectations by maintaining ESG performance. The study offers a distinctive examination of ESG performance prior to and throughout the coronavirus epidemic. The study assists policymakers, regulators, and investors in comprehending ways to guarantee that corporations comply with their sustainability objectives during crises. It also offers insights relevant to emerging countries on ESG performance methods during instability. Organizations must implement long-term, adaptable strategies to achieve sustainability and social responsibility objectives. Countries that advocate for business ESG compliance will exhibit societal equilibrium and enhanced preparedness for crises and disruptions. During emergencies such as the COVID-19 epidemic, stakeholders will scrutinize firms' environmental and social practices, perhaps intensifying pressure. During difficult times, a corporation's commitment enhances stakeholders' confidence in its policies. The findings showed that ESG transparency reporting encourages stakeholders. This may have a disguised goal of concealing the agency problem's effects, which would increase information asymmetry due to fraudulent management strategies. Recent findings on ESG performance have major ramifications for public policy and professional organization regulators. The study suggests a strong favorable correlation between Covid-19 and ESG scores. The findings should encourage investors, governments, legislators, and public institutions to support corporate governance law reform. Current evidence shows that corporate governance practices increase ESG performance and quality. This could boost investor confidence and satisfy stakeholders. The findings help regulators and policymakers. Institutional support and pressure are needed to create and adopt assurance standards that ensure ESG reporting dependability and comparability and to apply them across the assurance profession. Regulatory agencies and policymakers could also use the findings to boost ESG reporting credibility by obtaining independent third-party assurance with severe duties. Executives can grasp how economic downturns affect ESG performance and its reliability, growth, and development. For emerging nations, ESG serves as a direct and effective policy approach for developing a sustainable growth model and expediting green transformation, while significantly enhancing corporate market competitiveness. Companies must accelerate the advancement of ESG principles, enhance the volume and caliber of ESG disclosures, promote ESG governance, integrate sustainable growth into their development and operations, and cultivate a fair, accessible, competitive, and orderly market environment. Organizations should avoid excessive concentration of managerial control and instead establish appropriate power limits to promote active leadership in corporate ESG initiatives. Jordan must expedite policy initiatives to enhance the scientific integrity and dependability of ESG information disclosure criteria. Policymakers in Jordan should enhance sanctions for fraudulent ESG construction and integrate governmental guidance measures with voluntary company efforts to optimize efficiencies of scale and reduce transformation expenses. 9.3. Limitations and future research This investigation is subject to specific limitations, as is the case with other empirical investigations. First, this paper focuses solely on Jordanian-listed banks. As a result, future research should look at the influence of banks' EM practices on other Arab and emerging markets. Consequently, as the present study exclusively encompassed underdeveloped nations, subsequent research may expand the sample or investigate the pandemic's effects on groupings of countries affiliated with international organizations or unions. Second, the study only examines publicly traded corporations in the banking industry, which may limit the findings' applicability to other types of organizations or industries. It is feasible to determine whether the impact of EM practices differs by industry. Future research could provide fresh insights by including data from non-public sector enterprises or SMEs from a wide range of industries. Third, the current study used a quantitative approach; subsequent investigations may include in-depth interviews and case studies with CEOs, executives, creditors, and other stakeholders to better understand their policies on sustainability concerns. Finally, the current study analyzed its results using "agency, signaling, stakeholder, and legitimacy theories". In the future, scholars may study many hypotheses. Declarations Dr Esraa Esam Alharasis , Assistant Professor in International Accounting and Auditing Standards. She holds PhD in the area of International Accounting and Auditing Standards from Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. She has master’s degree in financial accounting with honours from Al- al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan. She has a bachelor’s degree in accounting with honours from Tafila Technical University, Tafila, Jordan. She has received three awards on the topics of IFRS/Fair Value Accounting and ISA/Auditing areas. Award from the VU HDR conference 2020 “Best talk and research article”, the 6th International Conference on Accounting, Business and Economics 2020 “Best Paper Award_Auditing Stream” and the 10th International Management & Accounting Conference “Best Paper Award_Accounting stream”. She has published high quality research articles in a number of prestigious journals, such as “Asian Review of Accounting”, “Asian Journal of Accounting Research”, “Journal of Family Business Management”, “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal”, “International Journal of Finance & Economics”,” Accounting Research Journal”, “International Journal of Law and Management”,” Cogent Business & Management”, “Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting”, “journal of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade” , “Journal of Innovation & Knowledge” etc. This is in addition to her forthcoming accepted articles and under review articles. Esraa is a quantitative researcher. Her areas of interest are: International Accounting Standards (IAS), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Fair Value Accounting, Financial Accounting, International Standard on Auditing (ISA), Auditing, Blockchain in accounting and auditing, Fintech, ESG and Green innovation. Funding I hereby declare that I have not received any funding to conduct this research. Author Contribution Esraa Esam Alharasis: Conceptualization, Methodology, Original Draft, Supervision, Data Collection, Formal Analysis, Writing - Review & Editing, Investigation, Data Curation, Validation, Resources, Writing - Review & Editing. Data availability statement I hereby declares that the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request. Ethics, Consent to Participate, and Consent to Publish declarations : not applicable. Clinical trial is not applicable. References Ab Aziz NH, Alshdaifat SM, Al Amosh H. (2025). ESG Controversies and Firm Performance in ASEAN: Do Board Gender Diversity and Sustainability Committee Matter? Bus Strategy Dev, 8(1), e70094. Al Amosh H, Khatib SF. ESG performance in the time of COVID-19 pandemic: cross-country evidence. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2023;30(14):39978–93. Al Amosh H, Khatib SF. Environmental, social and governance performance disclosure and market value: Evidence from Jordan. Bus Perspect Res. 2024;12(4):539–54. Alharasis EE. (2025), The implementation of IFRS electronic financial reporting – XBRL and usefulness of financial information: evidence from Jordanian finance industry, International Journal of Law and Management , Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. Alharasis EE. The Impact of Complex Estimates of IFRS-9 on The Proportion of Key Audit Matters (KAM) Disclosures: Evidence from Jordanian Capital Market. Asian Acad Manage J Acc Finance. 2024;20(2):255–95. Aneja R, Banday UJ, Hasnat T, Koçoglu M. Renewable and non- renewable energy consumption and economic growth: empirical evidence from panel error correction model. Jindal J Bus Res. 2017;6(1):76–85. Banday UJ, Aneja R. Energy consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions: evidence from G7 countries. World J Sci Technol Sustain Dev. 2019;16(1):22–39. Ben Fatma H, Chouaibi J. Corporate governance and CSR disclosure: evidence from European financial institutions. Int J Disclosure Gov. 2021;18(4):346–61. Braam GJM, Uit de Weerd L, Hauck M, Huijbregts MAJ. Determinants of Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Importance of Environmental Performance and Assurance. J Clean Prod. 2016;129:724–34. Chahine S, Fang Y, Hasan I, Mazboudi M. Entrenchment through corporate social responsibility: evidence from CEO network centrality. Int Rev Financial Anal. 2019;66:101347. Chen CD, Su CHJ, Chen MH. Are ESG-committed hotels financially resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic? An autoregressive jump intensity trend model. Tour Manag. 2022;93:104581. Chen S, Song Y, Gao P. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and financial outcomes: Analyzing the impact of ESG on financial performance. J Environ Manage. 2023;345:118829. Del Gesso C, Lodhi RN. Theories underlying environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure: a systematic review of accounting studies. J Acc Literature. 2025;47(2):433–61. Demir E, Danisman GO. Banking sector reactions to COVID-19: The role of bank-specific factors and government policy responses. Res Int Bus Financ. 2021;58:101508. Dyllick T, Hockerts K. Beyond the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability. Bus Strategy Environ. 2002;11(2):130–41. Freeman RE. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1984. Gao M, Geng X. The role of ESG performance during times of COVID-19 pandemic. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):2553. Garanina T, Aray Y. Enhancing CSR disclosure through foreign ownership, foreign board members, and cross-listing: does it work in Russian context? Emerg Markets Rev. 2021;46:100754. Girella L, Zambon S, Rossi P. Board characteristics and the choice between sustainability and integrated reporting: a European analysis. Meditari Account Res. 2022;30(3):562–96. Hassan S, Aksar MA, Khan S, Ahmed T, Zahoor M. Impact of audit quality on real earnings management: moderating role of corporate governance. Reviews Manage Sci. 2023;5(1):1–12. Huang S, Ge J. Is There Heterogeneity in ESG Disclosure by Mining Companies? A Comparison of Developed and Developing Countries. Environ Impact Assess Rev. 2024;104:107348. Kharabsheh B, Gharaibeh OK. Determinants of banks’ stability in Jordan. Economies. 2022;10(12):311. Kilic ̧ M, Kuzey C, Uyar A. The impact of ownership and board structure on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the Turkish banking industry. Corp Gov. 2015;15(3):357–74. Kocziszky G, Veresné Somosi M. Assessment of the Sustainability of Community-owned (non-financial) Business Associations. Public Finance Q = Pénzügyi Sz. 2020;65(S1):44–77. Kumar A, King T, Ranta M. Corporate governance characteristics and involvement in ESG activities: current trends and research directions. Corp Governance: Int J Bus Soc. 2024;24(8):175–209. Litjens R, van Buuren J, Vergoossen R. Addressing information needs to reduce the audit expectation gap: Evidence from Dutch bankers audited companies and auditors. Int J Auditing. 2015;19(3):267–81. Liu T, Abdelbaky A, Elamer AA, Elmahgoub M. (2023). Real earnings management and ESG disclosure in emerging markets: The moderating effect of managerial ownership from a social norm perspective. Heliyon, 9 (12). Manning B, Braam G, Reimsbach D. Corporate Governance and Sustainable Business Conduct-Effects of Board Monitoring Effectiveness and Stakeholder Engagement on Corporate Sustainability Performance and Disclosure Choices. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag. 2019;26(2):351–66. Miller D, Tang Z, Xu X, Le Breton-Miller I. Are socially responsible firms associated with socially responsible citizens? A study of social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. J Bus Ethics. 2022;179(2):387–410. Mukhtaruddin M, Ubaidillah U, Dewi K, Hakiki A, Nopriyanto N. Good corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, firm value, and financial performance as moderating variable. Indonesian J Sustain Acc Manage. 2019;3(1):55–64. Muttakin MB, Subramaniam N. (2015), Firm ownership and board characteristics: do they matter for corporate social responsibility disclosure of Indian companies? Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 6 2, pp. 138–65. Patten D, Shin H. Sustainability accounting, management and policy journal’s contributions to sus- tainability disclosure research: A review and assessment. Sustain Acc Manage Policy J. 2019;10(1):26–40. Pawar DS, Munuswamy J. Does environmental reporting of banks affect their financial performance? Evidence from India. Int J Bank Mark. 2024;42(4):745–67. Poletaeva V, Perepelitsa D, Arhangel’skaya TY, Zaripov IY, Pásztor S. The research task of banks and authorized government institution interests in manufacturing companies’ investment projects congruence. Int J Mech Eng Technol. 2019;10(2):1603–9. Rao KK, Tilt C. Gender and CSR decisions: perspectives from Australian boards. Meditari Account Res. 2021;29(1):60–85. Saleh I, Abu Afifa M, Alkhawaja A. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure, earnings management and cash holdings: Evidence from a European context. Bus Ethics Environ Responsib. 2025;34(2):295–308. Savio R, D’Andrassi E, Ventimiglia F. (2023). A systematic literature review on ESG during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustainability , 15 (3), 2020. Sharma P, Panday P, Dangwal RC. Is ESG disclosure related to corporate performance? Empirical evidence from Indian companies. Int J Bus Glob. 2024;36(2–3):186–200. Shubita MF. The relationship between return on investment and Jordanian banks value. Banks Bank Syst. 2023;18(1):139–49. Sultana R, Ghosh R, Sen KK. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on financial reporting and disclosure practices: empirical evidence from Bangladesh. Asian J Econ Bank. 2022;6(1):122–39. Tahat Y, Omran MA, AbuGhazaleh NM. Factors affecting the development of accounting practices in Jordan: an institutional perspective. Asian Rev Acc. 2018;26(4):464–86. Tapver T, Laidroo L, Gurvitsˇ-Suits NA. Banks’ CSR reporting – do women have a say? Corp Governance: Int J Bus Soc. 2020;20(4):639–51. Terták E, Kovács L. Challenges to social protection and social cohesion in crisises in the financial sector. Public Finance Q = Pénzügyi Sz. 2020;65(3):362–82. Tumewang YK, Almarayeh T, Alharasis E. (2025). Sustainability Committee, External Assurance, and ESG Performance: Empirical Evidence From Banking Industry in Emerging Economies. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management . UN. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019. New York: United Nations; 2019. Wu Z, Gao J, Luo C, Xu H, Shi G. How does boardroom diversity influence the relationship between ESG and firm financial performance? Int Rev Econ Finance. 2024;89:713–30. Zhang Y, Chong G, Jia R. Fair value, corporate governance, social responsibility disclosure and banks’ performance. Rev Acc Finance. 2020;19(1):30–47. Tables Table 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Tablesandappendices.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6567043","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":460010392,"identity":"43b0a30d-6529-4c7d-9503-94c35b0b8fd9","order_by":0,"name":"Esraa Esam Alharasis","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Mutah University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Esraa","middleName":"Esam","lastName":"Alharasis","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-04-30 17:38:07","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":87930288,"identity":"a1e0b017-d13a-45a0-b687-c98d6166f308","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-30 13:32:07","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":789497,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6567043/v1/b43e6d97-f7e2-4142-8833-ab838b87ddf1.pdf"},{"id":83340057,"identity":"dfa6b169-5220-4559-b8d5-4625ca258406","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-05-23 10:21:42","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":28141,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Tablesandappendices.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6567043/v1/dc3e554940cf3d15ec8badf2.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Covid-19 Crisis and Sustainability Reporting of ESG in Jordanian Banking Industry","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study analyzes Jordan's banking industry data to investigate how Covid-19 may affect ESG reporting. Updated 2010–2024 Jordanian banking statistics used here. Stock market correlation testing in Jordan are unique. Jordan was one of the first \"Middle Eastern (ME)\" countries to adopt the \"International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS),\" which required ESG sustainability disclosures under \"IFRS S1: General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information\" and \"IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures\" (Alharasis, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). This makes Jordan's ESG data more accessible. Second, Jordan's capital market attracts foreign investment (Alharasis, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Third, Jordan's liberalization of markets and international economic links inform EU and WTO developing economy studies (Tahat et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). Fourth and foremost, Covid-19 destroyed Jordan's small economy. By the third quarter of 2020, Jordan's \"Gross Domestic Product (GDP)\" fell 1.5% (Kharabsheh et al., 2022).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRecent research has proved that, relative to other epidemics of health \"SARS, Ebola, Spanish Flu\" and the economic downturn \"2007–2009 financial crisis,\" Covid-19 had the biggest negative influence on world economies (Baker et al., 2020). Slower “GDP, output, and supply chains, rising inflation, and unemployment” hit industrialised and emerging economies. Stock markets became less stable due to the pandemic, increasing investors' concerns and risk aversion (Alharasis, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). The COVID-19 pandemic raised ethical and societal challenges that demand new tactics and initiatives from international organizations like IFRS, such as IFRS S1 and S2. Current trends demonstrate that companies that embrace sustainability-focused strategies provide long-term shareholder value (Al Amosh and Khatib, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). It has been approved that various companies and players in the sector incorporate ESG when creating corporate strategy (Chen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). This is a new paradigm that redirects the homo economicus' self-interest and profit-driven goals toward community goals like environmental, inclusion, and sustainability (Ab Aziz et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe IFRS Foundation formed a \"Sustainability Standards Board (SSB)\" to collaborate with the \"International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)\" in developing a unified set of sustainability standards that provide financially relevant sustainability information. Standardization is more critical during and following crises such as COVID-19 (Chen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). As investors increasingly prioritize firm sustainability rankings and disclosures, there is a heightened focus in enhancing sustainability reporting and adopting standardized non-financial metrics with uniform norms. The \"International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)\" has established a robust global framework of high-quality sustainability disclosure standards to fulfill investors' informational requirements in the public sector. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, investors commenced evaluating ESG factors as a performance metric for global corporations (Saleh et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCovid-19 has significantly impacted numerous enterprises; yet, resilient companies can convert challenges into opportunities and grow contrary to prevailing trends (Gao and Geng, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Certain research indicates that corporate governance is an essential reaction to crises. ESG encompasses environmental preservation, ethical behavior, and corporate governance, with the economic value of the organization, to foster sustainable development and enhance its global reputation (Savio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) anticipated that global ESG assets amounted to US \u003cspan\u003e$\u003c/span\u003e22.9 trillion at the beginning of 2016, representing 26% of total assets under management, and increased to US \u003cspan\u003e$\u003c/span\u003e35.3 trillion in the crisis year of 2020, reflecting a 54.56% rise since 2016. The ESG investing market was valued at USD 17.2 trillion in 2022 and is anticipated to attain USD 46.5 trillion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% from 2023 to 2032 (Gao and Geng, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eResearch shows that ESG elements protect investors during market turmoil (Al Amosh and Khatib, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Economic and political uncertainty are strongly connected with sustainability disclosure scores, which increase sustainability disclosures in uncertain times. Despite valuable studies on ESG and corporate performance (Savio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), academics disagree on their interpretation of ESG (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). ESG practices may improve a company's image and reputation, stakeholder confidence, financial restrictions, and risk. Some researchers call it an \"agency cost\". Management can reduce the firm's value by overinvesting in “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)”/ESG, abandoning investment initiatives that have favorable net present values, and prioritizing personal gain over short-term interests (Sultana et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). This can improve business results and prestige and spread favorable reputation among stakeholders. Fraud behavior by managers and agency conflict between agent and principal have increased due to Covid-19. Managers may have prioritised higher ESG scores to win shareholder trust (Huang and Ge, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). The Covid-19 problem incites management fraud and raises EM to unprecedented levels. Savio et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) also show that sustainability information reduces the influence of economic uncertainty on company value during Covid-19. Studies show that ESG compliance in the financial sector offers practical benefits beyond morality. Banking institutions must pay attention to ESG requirements as a company (Tumewang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) and steer clients in this direction to promote investment proficiency on the part of financiers, who may then invest capital in projects that also meet social responsibility and climate protection requirements.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eESG research has yielded contradictory findings, focused on developed economies, and lacks country-specific conclusions. Most ESG research has examined business performance (Al Amosh and Khatib, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Ab Aziz et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). A few studies have examined the impact of ESG disclosures on enterprises' crisis response (Al Amosh and Khatib, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Savio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), but none have examined how Covid-19 might motivate firms to align to sustainability. Ranjbari et al. (2021) emphasized that the literature regarding COVID-19's direct impact on sustainability is incomplete and uncertain necessitating further investigation. This study responds to recent demands from scholars like Kumar et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) and Del Gesso and Lodhi (2024) to bridge the present knowledge gap by considering the main shortcomings in current research. Previous research has focused on how ESG disclosures help crisis management rather than how Covid-19 affects ESG scores (Al Amosh and Khatib, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Few studies exist on certain industries (Ben Fatma and Chouaibi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Garc ́ıa-Sanchez et al., 2018; Mukhtaruddin et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Tapver et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Zhang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Thus, this analysis uses Jordanian banking industry statistics. As recommended by prior research, this study examined this issue using updated data from impoverished nations, notably Jordan, up to 2024. Scholars claimed that altering global economic trends and sociocultural inequalities between wealthy and impoverished nations necessitate additional research on sustainability methods in less prosperous countries.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo address the foregoing background and theoretical limitations, this study employs the COVID-19 pandemic to assess its impact on ESG sustainable reporting, unlike earlier studies. This work advances ESG research. This study gives more solid facts to support their theory and extend past research. This study uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop to increase ESG ratings during times of high suffering. A preliminary study in this field enriches ESG-related literature. Sudden enormously crises have confounded economic transmission mechanisms, producing heavy social and economic losses from the epidemic. This study is important for how companies may respond to crises and maintain stability. This study offers novel empirical evidence about the standardization of governance by firms in routine business operations both prior to and following the crisis. This study examines the impact of ESG on corporate crisis response capabilities during severe crises, enhancing the role of Covid-19. In light of this, Jordan's distinctive institutional framework and the COVID-19 pandemic, a limited timeframe was utilized to investigate the link of causality between COVID-19 and ESG disclosure, particularly comparing pre- and post-crisis periods. This study offers a new theoretical foundation for the developing field of crisis management in Jordan. Consequently, this study seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge in multiple ways. First, theoretically investigate the single effect of COVID-19 on ESG ratings using “agency, stakeholders' signalling, and legitimacy theories”, Jordan's institutional context. Second, discussing how Covid-19 affects ESG sub-items to better understand their roles. Third, this study compares ESG disclosure before and after the COVID-19 epidemic. Fourth, most earlier studies have examined the banking industry in privileged economies, whereas this research examines it in developing nations. Therefore, this study fills that gap by offering the first complete investigation of Covid-19 and banking ESG performance. To the author's knowledge, no other study has compared developing country banks' ESG scores pre- and post-Covid-19.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eASE's balanced sample of 16 Jordanian-listed banks is evaluated with clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error. Multivariate modeling showed that Jordanian banks with greater ESG sustainability scores performed better during COVID-19. Each ESG sustainability reporting component supports this conclusion. The results suggest that firms are readying for the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring ESG performance compliance to demonstrate moral behavior during the time of crisis. During the pandemic, companies have to adhere to social norms. This research advises policymakers, organizations, and stakeholders. To promote sustainable practices, openness, and involvement across all enterprises, regulators and legislators may use the study's findings in developing legislations. After COVID-19, businesses must rebuild and reconsider the economy, thus they must increase sustainable development considerations in strategy, management, and governance supervision and hold them accountable. Expanding worldwide economic developments and sociocultural inequalities between wealthy and developing nations require additional ESG/CSR research in impoverished nations. Demand for ESG/CSR reports in developing economies, especially by these corporations, warrants greater research. COVID-19's impact on a company's financial and non-financial activities has been extensively explored neglecting ESG sustainability disclosure. The analysis fills this gap.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFollowing is the outline of the paper: Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e delves into the background. The theoretical foundation is laid up in Section 3. Reviewing the relevant literature and formulating working hypotheses are covered in Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e. Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e provides an overview of the research methodology and design. Examining and discussing the empirical data is covered in Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec11\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e. Included in Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec18\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e are the results of the further analysis and robustness checks. Section 8 wraps up the study by discussing its implications, limits, and future research directions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e2. Theory foundation\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs stated by Chahine et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), a number of studies on ESG sustainability reporting have investigated various aspects of sustainability performance through various theoretical perspectives. These perspectives include \"agency, stakeholder, legitimacy, resource-based, neo-institutional, institutional legitimacy, upper-echelons, critical mass, signalling, and stewardship\" theories. Examining the correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and ESG factors, this research employs theories of agency, stakeholders, legitimacy, and signaling. Under these presumptions, the research delves into the effects of COVID-19 on ESG disclosure. During the coronavirus outbreak, proponents of agency theory attempted to provide an explanation for the anticipated \"information asymmetry\" problem in light of the immense ambiguity that pervaded the situation. Corporations felt the effects of the extensive \"quarantines, social exclusion, border restrictions, and lockdowns\" instituted in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Society, investors, debtors, communities, financial institutions, states, and workers were all impacted by the subsequent economic turmoil. All parties involved need reliable disclosures to acquire legitimacy and trust from stakeholders, according to the stakeholders' theory, so they can accurately predict the financial consequences of the pandemic and make suitable business decisions (Shen et al., 2020). This has led to an increase in the frequency and number of decades-long demands to diversify discourse away from financial issues. There have been user complaints that the traditional annual report format places excessive emphasis on financial event overviews and not enough on the non-financial events of the entity or how the firm handles its societal obligations (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Litjens et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConsidering that underperforming businesses can use ESG disclosure to fool investors into assuming they are making progress toward sustainability when in reality they are just trying to cover up their shortcomings (Manning et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). This way, these businesses may avoid any problems with their legitimacy while also neglecting their real environmental initiatives. Stakeholder theory, in contrast, stresses that companies have many sets of stakeholders to whom they are accountable in addition to shareholders (Freeman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e). From this vantage point, firms that effectively match societal norms have a better chance of attracting important resources from a wide range of stakeholders, such as customers, shareholders, and workers. Dyllick and Hockerts (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e) state that stakeholders' opinions and actions can be positively impacted via communication channels, especially sustainability reports. These reports help legitimize a company's existence, which boosts its reputation and gives it a marketing edge (Braam et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn response to previous calls for more research on ESG performance in developing countries, this study takes into account the argued changing global economic trends as well as the inherent social and cultural factors disparities between developed and developing nations (Garanina and Aray, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Muttakin and Subramaniam, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, this study uses data from the Jordanian banking industry to evaluate the possibility of a correlation between the COVID-19 problem and ESG reporting. The theories employed include \"agency, stakeholder, signaling, and legitimacy\". Companies in developing countries are becoming increasingly significant links in the \"global supply chain,\" which is driving higher demand for ESG reports and providing an additional incentive for this research. To address the theoretical gap, previous studies recommended that researchers investigate the impact of economic instability on ESG involvement by testing other theoretical frameworks, such as legitimacy theory (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). This study utilized four important theories, including legitimacy theory, to focus on the influence of COVID-19 on ESG performance. Given the importance of country context, scholars have emphasized the need for additional research into the correlation between COVID-19 and CSR/ESG initiatives undertaken by firms (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). In light of this scenario, this paper investigates the matter using data acquired in Jordan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4. Prior literature and research hypotheses\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eESG performance shows how well corporations consider ethical issues amid crises. Ranjbari et al. (2021) noted that COVID-19's direct effects on sustainability are understudied and that more research is needed. Literature on COVID-19's effects on sustainability is incomplete and inconsistent, and additional research on its three pillars is essential (Ranjbari et al., 2021). Consequently, this study aims to address this informational deficiency. Ethics gain significance during crises, particularly with \"agency conflict and information asymmetry\" in the management practices of high-earning agents, as societies closely examine company performance. Consequently, firms must exhibit social consciousness in extraordinary situations. During a crisis, stakeholders pursue social cohesion (Miller et al. 2021). Enterprises engaged with society maintain their ethical standards under various circumstances as part of a long-term strategy that encompasses post-crisis scenarios (Hassan et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Certain enterprises may want to enhance their stakeholder relationships by fulfilling their ethical responsibilities and bolstering their reputation. This elucidates how firms oversee their non-financial performance, including ESG, which comprises the practices and actions employed by companies to exhibit their social responsibility to fulfill stakeholder expectations. Global environmental challenges are a significant concern (Aneja et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Banday and Aneja \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Thus, ESG performance indicates how well corporations meet their social responsibilities and stakeholder goals. For example, business donations can impress investors (Patten, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Stakeholders’ trust can insure the market from an unexpected catastrophe, giving ESG enterprises a greater excess return rate in the stock market. During an outbreak, firms' ability to cope depends on liquidity. Crisis reaction requires resources. Insurance is easier with lots of cash. Cash flow restrictions affect investment activity in firms with high financing constraints (Tumewang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, ESG performance increase corporate value by reducing financial limitations.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFirms' capacity for green innovation is boosted by good ESG performance for numerous reasons. First, ESG can assist lower innovation costs for businesses and get preferential treatment from governments in policymaking (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Second, enterprises that prioritize ESG practices can enhance enterprise innovation by forming a positive feedback loop with internal and external resources, attracting creative employees, meeting the needs of employees to realize their self-worth, and building trust in an uncertain environment (Del Gesso and Lodhi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Third, a more inviting atmosphere for company innovation is fostered when corporations project an image of social responsibility, which in turn increases the risk tolerance of associated stakeholders. Fourth, ESG improves a company's capacity for sustainable development by making it more focused on the long term and less concerned with short-term gains. Consequently, ESG performance encourages efficiency in corporate green innovation, which leads to an increase in enterprise value. Despite market volatility, prior studies have shown that ESG considerations provide protection (Savio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). The research that were evaluated show that sustainability disclosure scores are positively and significantly connected with economic and political uncertainties. During times of growing uncertainty, it is recommended to make more sustainability disclosures. As a result, the company's performance and reputation can improve, and stakeholders are more likely to spread the word positively. sustainability data can help mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and the global financial crisis on a company's value (Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eResearch in the financial industry indicates that more thorough mapping of ESG ratings can lead to improved results and performance during uncertain times (Demir and Danisma, 2021). Compliance with ESG criteria has tangible practical benefits in the financial sector that extend well beyond moral recognition (Kocziszky and Veresné Somosi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). The role of banking institutions is vital in this regard. Banks, as a whole, need to pay attention to ESG requirements (Terták and Kovács, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). They should also guide their clients in this direction so that lending institutions are encouraged to invest virtuosically, which could lead to projects that meet both sustainable development and environmental protection goals (Poletaeva et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). When it comes to banks, ESG policies are important for client risk protection but have less of an impact on the efficiency of the financial organization (Demir and Danisman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEven while ESG has been the subject of fruitful debates in the literature, its precise definition remains a point of contention among academics. According to some academics, ESG practices can help organizations gain a positive reputation, gain the trust of stakeholders, alleviate financial limitations, and lower risk. Nonetheless, it is considered an agency cost (Wu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). A decline in the firm's worth could occur if management prioritizes short-term gains over long-term goals and invests excessive resources on CSR initiatives. Overspending on CSR, ignoring investment opportunities with positive net present values, and putting short-term gains ahead of long-term interests are all ways in which management can reduce the firm's worth (El Khoury et al., 2023). Because of this, reputation might improve, and word of mouth from different stakeholders can be beneficial. Managers have resorted to earnings management in large numbers since the COVID-19 problem hit, and the risk of earnings management has increased as a result of agent-principal conflict. Disclosure of higher ESG scores has become more important for managers seeking shareholder trust and acceptability (Del Gesso and Lodhi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study utilizes the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the influence of the crisis on ESG as a mechanism for corporate systemic crisis management, contrasting it with prior research conducted in stable environments, informed by the previously mentioned context and theoretical deficiencies. The current study literature on ESG predominantly investigates corporate innovation, operational risks, and corporate value within the framework of a long-term stable environment as an implicit condition. This study enhances the understanding of the factors influencing business resilience by assessing the effects of Covid-19 on ESG reporting disclosure, providing significant evidence to support the assertion that ESG enhances corporate resilience. From this perspective, the subsequent hypotheses H2 are proposed in this study:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eH1: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts ESG sustainability scores\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eH1.1: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts environmental sustainability scores\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eH1.2: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts social sustainability scores\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eH1.3: Covid-19 significantly positively impacts governance sustainability scores\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Research methodology and data","content":"\u003ch2\u003e5.1. Collection of data\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe statistics were gathered from ASE's sustainability reports for Jordanian banks from 2010 to 2024. The study data begins in 2010 to reduce the effect of GFC and concludes in 2024 due to the nonavailability of data from the following year.Table\u0026nbsp;1 presents the original population of 24 banks. After excluding 8 banks with missing data, the final sample size is 16 banks.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e[Insert table 1 here]\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2. Variables and Method\u003c/h2\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2.1. Design of research\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe objective of this investigation is to empirically evaluate the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the disclosure of ESG ratings. This study employs the multiple regression method to investigate the value effect of ESG sustainability disclosure. Consequently, a regression model employing \"Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)\" is implemented, with fixed effects that fluctuate over time and a robust model clustered by bank. This study uses the modified linear models technique as follows (see Table A. of Appendix \u003cspan refid=\"Sec22\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003eA\u003c/span\u003e. for variables definition and measurement):\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEquation(1/H1)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting = δ0 + δ1Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ.\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEquation(2/H1.1)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting_Eco = δ0 + δ1Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ.\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEquation(3/H1.2)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting_Soc = δ0 + δ2Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ.\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEquation(4/H1.3)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting_Gov = δ0 + δ2Period + δ2Log_assets + δ3LEV + δ4Audit_op + δ5Audit_ten + δ6BIG-4 + δ7Block + δ8For + FE+ ɛ.\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2.2. Measurements of variables\u003c/h2\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2.2.1. Measuring ESG Sustainability disclosure\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eResearchers assessed CSR/ESG performance and transparency using multiple proxies. Sharma et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) Muttakin and Subramaniam (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), Rao and Tilt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) and Kilic et al. (2015) classify annual reports, websites, and CSR/ESG reports using content analysis. Following this line of research (Liu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), this study manually generates ESG scores for the Jordanian banking industry using public sustainability reports, bank websites, and ASE annual sustainability report disclosures. A qualitative scoring index technique was used, drawing on the measuring system created by Al Amosh et al. (2022), Al Amosh and Khatib (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), Ab Aziz et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), and Ab Aziz et al. (2024). As a result, the variable \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting\u003c/em\u003e is the \"bank's ESG disclosure index (i) for the time period (t)\". Furthermore, some academics, such as Rao and Tilt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) who create an index by adding the scores for each disclosed item, scoring 1 for disclosed and 0 for non-disclosed. To evaluate ESG as a dummy variable \u003cem\u003eSust_Dummy\u003c/em\u003e, this study follows previous research and employ a \"scoring system of 1 for disclosed items and 0 for items not disclosed\".\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003e2. Control variables\u003c/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eLog_assets\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLEV\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAudit_op\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAudit_ten\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBIG-4\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBlock\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eFor\u003c/em\u003e are the variables. The study considers features of both banks and countries (Mansour et al., 2023b; Shubita, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Chen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).The strategy for selecting control variables is consistent with those proposed by Tumewang et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), Liu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), and Pawar and Munuswamy (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.1. Statistics on description and correlation\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe descriptive statistics of employed variables are included in Table\u0026nbsp;2. In terms of the dependent variables, the mean value of ESG score variable \u003cem\u003eSus_Reporting\u003c/em\u003e is 7.876, which indicates that the sample has an average ESG score of around 8%, with a minimum and maximum vale ranging from 0% to roughly 69%. In terms of practices regarding EM, 0.10%, with a range that goes from 0\u0026ndash;0.60% and a standard deviation that hovers around 0.038%. The average value for the moderating impact of Covid-19 (\u003cem\u003ePeriod\u003c/em\u003e) is 0.25% indicates that 25% of the data represents the period of Covid-19, while the remaining 75% covers the time before to the introduction of Covid-19. The mean values of the control variables which are the bank\u0026rsquo;s log of assets (\u003cem\u003eLog_assets\u003c/em\u003e), leverage (\u003cem\u003eLEV\u003c/em\u003e), audit opinion (\u003cem\u003eAudit_op\u003c/em\u003e), audit tenure (\u003cem\u003eAudit_ten\u003c/em\u003e), Big4 auditor (\u003cem\u003eBIG-4\u003c/em\u003e), Bock-holders (Block) and foreign ownership (For) are 21.11%, 4.44%, 0.97%, 0.51%, 0.97%, 0.66% and 0.36%, respectively which are aligned with prior literature (e.g., Al Amosh and Khatib \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e[Insert table 2 here]\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;3 shows the \"Spearman correlation matrix\" amounts. The results reveal that there is no association between the independent variables. Each model's \u0026ldquo;mean VIF\u0026rdquo; is less than 3, indicating that there are no collinearity issues.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e[Insert table 3 here]\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.3. Regression results\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;4 displays OLS regression. Model 1 shows how Covid-19 affects ESG score disclosure. Model P-values with 0.01 explanatory power reach 68%. Model 1 reveals that Covid-19 crisis increases ESG sustainability disclosure scores at 0.01 (\u003cem\u003eCoeff. = 39.42, t\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;8.63\u003c/em\u003e). This finding corroborates previous studies (including Wu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Kumar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Del Gesso and Lodhi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Miller et al., 2021; Ranjbari et al., 2021) demonstrating that the pandemic crisis positively influenced environmental and social performance, suggesting that companies considered the direct interests of external stakeholders to exhibit their goodwill and moral responsibility toward them. Given the economic downturn, banks have prioritized sustainable practices to demonstrate legitimacy and accountability to society (Pawar \u0026amp; Munuswamy, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). The results support the researchers' findings (Al Amosh et al. 2022; Gao and Geng, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Savio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Kumar and al., 2024), implying that great ESG or non-financial disclosures might be considered as an \u0026ldquo;agency cost\u0026rdquo;. Overspending in social responsibility, abandoning investment initiatives with positive net present values, and prioritizing personal gain over short-term interests can reduce the firm's value. This can improve the company's reputation and create favorable stakeholder engagement. Managers' EM behavior has increased due to agent-principal dispute over Covid-19. To gain shareholder trust, managers emphasize higher ESG rankings.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe results confirmed the positive and significant influence of COVID-19 on companies' ESG performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies appear to be highly responsive to their moral responsibilities regarding ESG disclosure, predicated on the belief that compliance will enhance future performance by meeting diverse stakeholder expectations and showcasing their capacity to meet obligations during the crisis (Tert\u0026aacute;k and Kov\u0026aacute;cs, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). The COVID-19 pandemic enhances ESG performance. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences ESG performance, as businesses appear to be demonstrating their commitment to environmental stewardship and enhancing their environmental initiatives during health crises (Demir and Danisman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). This will be broadly endorsed by many stakeholders, since the analysis substantiates the assertion that firms engage in social initiatives to exhibit their societal contributions during the pandemic and mitigate the economic repercussions of the crisis. This measure may enhance a company's reputation among investors who scrutinize its performance during the pandemic, enabling potential investors to identify and select companies demonstrating superior compliance during this period (Poletaeva et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). The investigation showed that the COVID-19 epidemic had a favorable effect on businesses' ESG performance, and hence, hypotheses \u003cem\u003eH1, H1.1, H1.2, H1.3\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eH1.4\u003c/em\u003e are supported.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e[Insert table 4 here]\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e6. Additional and Sensitivity tests\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.1. Alternative measure of Sus_Reporting\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrevious work by Rathanayaka Mudiyanselage (2018) and Girella et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e) establishes that researchers can evaluate ESG engagement by looking at whether or not a company has a sustainability report as \u0026ldquo;a binary variable to assess involvement in ESG activities\u0026rdquo;. Furthermore, this study retests the hypotheses with an additional measure of the ESG, the dummy variable \u003cem\u003eSust_Dummy\u003c/em\u003e, to ensure the reliability of the primary analysis results. The analysis results shown in Table\u0026nbsp;5 are similar to those given in the primary analysis result.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e[Insert table 5 here]\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.2. Excluding the year of 2020\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAfter eliminating the observations from the sample for the crisis year (2020), the hypotheses were retested due to the overlap of the study's sample with the recent Covid-19 crisis of 2020. The results align with the primary analysis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e6.3. Re-testing excluding control variables\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis robustness assessment examines the correlation between ESG score and Jordanian bank performance without controlling factors in the econometric models following Chen et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). The Results correspond with the original analysis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusions","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec19\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e7.1. Final remarks\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study seeks to investigate the relationship between the Covid-19 issue and the ESG ratings of Jordan's banking industry as an emerging economy. This study employs a balanced sample of 16 Jordanian-listed banks in ASE to test the hypotheses via \"clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error\". The study's findings, as revealed by \"multivariate regression\", show that the role of Covid-19 strengthened non-financial ESG disclosure compliance, implying that Covid-19 increased the likelihood of EM practices due to the significant presence of agency conflict, motivating more ESG disclosures to gain stakeholders' trust and authorization. This has also been confirmed by every pillar of ESG sustainability reporting. The statistics indicate that organizations have implemented measures in response to the COVID-19 epidemic by ensuring adherence to ESG performance to exhibit their ethical conduct during a crisis. Organizations must conform to societal standards of ethical conduct. During the pandemic, stakeholder interests prioritize both environmental and social welfare; hence, firms are inclined to align their actions with the predominant interests of stakeholders. The statistics indicate that firms have implemented measures in response to the COVID-19 epidemic by ensuring adherence to ESG performance to exhibit their integrity amid a crisis. This indicates that enhancing and prioritizing ESG measures can generate financial advantages while concurrently advancing social and ecological sustainability.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec20\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e9.2. Implications\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe concepts of \"Agency, signalling legitimacy, and stakeholder theories\" provide empirical data from Jordan, addressing the ESG and crisis research gap for the first time. These frameworks enable stakeholders to evaluate a company's ethics and sustainability through ESG transparency. This study examines health emergencies from the viewpoints of stakeholders. It delineates how firms managed the ESG agenda throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and how they fulfilled stakeholder expectations by maintaining ESG performance. The study offers a distinctive examination of ESG performance prior to and throughout the coronavirus epidemic. The study assists policymakers, regulators, and investors in comprehending ways to guarantee that corporations comply with their sustainability objectives during crises. It also offers insights relevant to emerging countries on ESG performance methods during instability. Organizations must implement long-term, adaptable strategies to achieve sustainability and social responsibility objectives. Countries that advocate for business ESG compliance will exhibit societal equilibrium and enhanced preparedness for crises and disruptions. During emergencies such as the COVID-19 epidemic, stakeholders will scrutinize firms' environmental and social practices, perhaps intensifying pressure. During difficult times, a corporation's commitment enhances stakeholders' confidence in its policies.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings showed that ESG transparency reporting encourages stakeholders. This may have a disguised goal of concealing the agency problem's effects, which would increase information asymmetry due to fraudulent management strategies. Recent findings on ESG performance have major ramifications for public policy and professional organization regulators. The study suggests a strong favorable correlation between Covid-19 and ESG scores. The findings should encourage investors, governments, legislators, and public institutions to support corporate governance law reform. Current evidence shows that corporate governance practices increase ESG performance and quality. This could boost investor confidence and satisfy stakeholders. The findings help regulators and policymakers. Institutional support and pressure are needed to create and adopt assurance standards that ensure ESG reporting dependability and comparability and to apply them across the assurance profession. Regulatory agencies and policymakers could also use the findings to boost ESG reporting credibility by obtaining independent third-party assurance with severe duties. Executives can grasp how economic downturns affect ESG performance and its reliability, growth, and development.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor emerging nations, ESG serves as a direct and effective policy approach for developing a sustainable growth model and expediting green transformation, while significantly enhancing corporate market competitiveness. Companies must accelerate the advancement of ESG principles, enhance the volume and caliber of ESG disclosures, promote ESG governance, integrate sustainable growth into their development and operations, and cultivate a fair, accessible, competitive, and orderly market environment. Organizations should avoid excessive concentration of managerial control and instead establish appropriate power limits to promote active leadership in corporate ESG initiatives. Jordan must expedite policy initiatives to enhance the scientific integrity and dependability of ESG information disclosure criteria. Policymakers in Jordan should enhance sanctions for fraudulent ESG construction and integrate governmental guidance measures with voluntary company efforts to optimize efficiencies of scale and reduce transformation expenses.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec21\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e9.3. Limitations and future research\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis investigation is subject to specific limitations, as is the case with other empirical investigations. First, this paper focuses solely on Jordanian-listed banks. As a result, future research should look at the influence of banks' EM practices on other Arab and emerging markets. Consequently, as the present study exclusively encompassed underdeveloped nations, subsequent research may expand the sample or investigate the pandemic's effects on groupings of countries affiliated with international organizations or unions. Second, the study only examines publicly traded corporations in the banking industry, which may limit the findings' applicability to other types of organizations or industries. It is feasible to determine whether the impact of EM practices differs by industry. Future research could provide fresh insights by including data from non-public sector enterprises or SMEs from a wide range of industries. Third, the current study used a quantitative approach; subsequent investigations may include in-depth interviews and case studies with CEOs, executives, creditors, and other stakeholders to better understand their policies on sustainability concerns. Finally, the current study analyzed its results using \"agency, signaling, stakeholder, and legitimacy theories\". In the future, scholars may study many hypotheses.\u003c/p\u003e "},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDr Esraa Esam Alharasis\u003c/strong\u003e, Assistant Professor in International Accounting and Auditing Standards. She holds PhD in the area of International Accounting and Auditing Standards from Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. She has master\u0026rsquo;s degree in financial accounting with honours from Al- al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan. She has a bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in accounting with honours from Tafila Technical University, Tafila, Jordan. She has received three awards on the topics of IFRS/Fair Value Accounting and ISA/Auditing areas. Award from the \u003cem\u003eVU HDR conference 2020\u003c/em\u003e \u0026ldquo;Best talk and research article\u0026rdquo;, the \u003cem\u003e6th International Conference on Accounting, Business and Economics 2020\u003c/em\u003e \u0026ldquo;Best Paper Award_Auditing Stream\u0026rdquo; and the \u003cem\u003e10th International Management \u0026amp; Accounting Conference\u003c/em\u003e \u0026ldquo;Best Paper Award_Accounting stream\u0026rdquo;. She has published high quality research articles in a number of prestigious journals, such as \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Asian Review of Accounting\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Asian Journal of Accounting Research\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Journal of Family Business Management\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Accounting, Auditing \u0026amp; Accountability Journal\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;International Journal of Finance \u0026amp; Economics\u0026rdquo;,\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eAccounting Research Journal\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;International Journal of Law and Management\u0026rdquo;,\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eCogent Business \u0026amp; Management\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;journal of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade\u0026rdquo; , \u0026ldquo;Journal of Innovation \u0026amp; Knowledge\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e etc. This is in addition to her forthcoming accepted articles and under review articles. Esraa is a quantitative researcher. Her areas of interest are: International Accounting Standards (IAS), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Fair Value Accounting, Financial Accounting, International Standard on Auditing (ISA), Auditing, Blockchain in accounting and auditing, Fintech, ESG and Green innovation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eI hereby declare that I have not received any funding to conduct this research.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eEsraa Esam Alharasis: Conceptualization, Methodology, Original Draft, Supervision, Data Collection, Formal Analysis, Writing - Review \u0026amp; Editing, Investigation, Data Curation, Validation, Resources, Writing - Review \u0026amp; Editing.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eData availability statement\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eI hereby declares that the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eEthics, Consent to Participate, and Consent to Publish declarations\u003c/b\u003e: not applicable.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eClinical trial\u003c/b\u003e is not applicable.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAb Aziz NH, Alshdaifat SM, Al Amosh H. (2025). ESG Controversies and Firm Performance in ASEAN: Do Board Gender Diversity and Sustainability Committee Matter? Bus Strategy Dev, 8(1), e70094.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAl Amosh H, Khatib SF. ESG performance in the time of COVID-19 pandemic: cross-country evidence. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2023;30(14):39978\u0026ndash;93.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAl Amosh H, Khatib SF. Environmental, social and governance performance disclosure and market value: Evidence from Jordan. Bus Perspect Res. 2024;12(4):539\u0026ndash;54.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlharasis EE. (2025), The implementation of IFRS electronic financial reporting \u0026ndash; XBRL and usefulness of financial information: evidence from Jordanian finance industry, \u003cem\u003eInternational Journal of Law and Management\u003c/em\u003e, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlharasis EE. The Impact of Complex Estimates of IFRS-9 on The Proportion of Key Audit Matters (KAM) Disclosures: Evidence from Jordanian Capital Market. Asian Acad Manage J Acc Finance. 2024;20(2):255\u0026ndash;95.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAneja R, Banday UJ, Hasnat T, Ko\u0026ccedil;oglu M. Renewable and non- renewable energy consumption and economic growth: empirical evidence from panel error correction model. Jindal J Bus Res. 2017;6(1):76\u0026ndash;85.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBanday UJ, Aneja R. Energy consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions: evidence from G7 countries. World J Sci Technol Sustain Dev. 2019;16(1):22\u0026ndash;39.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBen Fatma H, Chouaibi J. Corporate governance and CSR disclosure: evidence from European financial institutions. Int J Disclosure Gov. 2021;18(4):346\u0026ndash;61.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBraam GJM, Uit de Weerd L, Hauck M, Huijbregts MAJ. Determinants of Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Importance of Environmental Performance and Assurance. J Clean Prod. 2016;129:724\u0026ndash;34.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChahine S, Fang Y, Hasan I, Mazboudi M. Entrenchment through corporate social responsibility: evidence from CEO network centrality. Int Rev Financial Anal. 2019;66:101347.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChen CD, Su CHJ, Chen MH. Are ESG-committed hotels financially resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic? An autoregressive jump intensity trend model. Tour Manag. 2022;93:104581.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChen S, Song Y, Gao P. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and financial outcomes: Analyzing the impact of ESG on financial performance. J Environ Manage. 2023;345:118829.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDel Gesso C, Lodhi RN. Theories underlying environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure: a systematic review of accounting studies. J Acc Literature. 2025;47(2):433\u0026ndash;61.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDemir E, Danisman GO. Banking sector reactions to COVID-19: The role of bank-specific factors and government policy responses. Res Int Bus Financ. 2021;58:101508.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDyllick T, Hockerts K. Beyond the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability. Bus Strategy Environ. 2002;11(2):130\u0026ndash;41.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFreeman RE. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1984.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGao M, Geng X. The role of ESG performance during times of COVID-19 pandemic. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):2553.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGaranina T, Aray Y. Enhancing CSR disclosure through foreign ownership, foreign board members, and cross-listing: does it work in Russian context? Emerg Markets Rev. 2021;46:100754.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGirella L, Zambon S, Rossi P. Board characteristics and the choice between sustainability and integrated reporting: a European analysis. Meditari Account Res. 2022;30(3):562\u0026ndash;96.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHassan S, Aksar MA, Khan S, Ahmed T, Zahoor M. Impact of audit quality on real earnings management: moderating role of corporate governance. Reviews Manage Sci. 2023;5(1):1\u0026ndash;12.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHuang S, Ge J. Is There Heterogeneity in ESG Disclosure by Mining Companies? A Comparison of Developed and Developing Countries. Environ Impact Assess Rev. 2024;104:107348.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKharabsheh B, Gharaibeh OK. Determinants of banks\u0026rsquo; stability in Jordan. Economies. 2022;10(12):311.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKilic ̧ M, Kuzey C, Uyar A. The impact of ownership and board structure on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the Turkish banking industry. Corp Gov. 2015;15(3):357\u0026ndash;74.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKocziszky G, Veresn\u0026eacute; Somosi M. Assessment of the Sustainability of Community-owned (non-financial) Business Associations. Public Finance Q = P\u0026eacute;nz\u0026uuml;gyi Sz. 2020;65(S1):44\u0026ndash;77.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKumar A, King T, Ranta M. Corporate governance characteristics and involvement in ESG activities: current trends and research directions. Corp Governance: Int J Bus Soc. 2024;24(8):175\u0026ndash;209.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLitjens R, van Buuren J, Vergoossen R. Addressing information needs to reduce the audit expectation gap: Evidence from Dutch bankers audited companies and auditors. Int J Auditing. 2015;19(3):267\u0026ndash;81.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLiu T, Abdelbaky A, Elamer AA, Elmahgoub M. (2023). Real earnings management and ESG disclosure in emerging markets: The moderating effect of managerial ownership from a social norm perspective. Heliyon, \u003cem\u003e9\u003c/em\u003e(12).\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eManning B, Braam G, Reimsbach D. Corporate Governance and Sustainable Business Conduct-Effects of Board Monitoring Effectiveness and Stakeholder Engagement on Corporate Sustainability Performance and Disclosure Choices. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag. 2019;26(2):351\u0026ndash;66.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMiller D, Tang Z, Xu X, Le Breton-Miller I. Are socially responsible firms associated with socially responsible citizens? A study of social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. J Bus Ethics. 2022;179(2):387\u0026ndash;410.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMukhtaruddin M, Ubaidillah U, Dewi K, Hakiki A, Nopriyanto N. Good corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, firm value, and financial performance as moderating variable. Indonesian J Sustain Acc Manage. 2019;3(1):55\u0026ndash;64.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMuttakin MB, Subramaniam N. (2015), Firm ownership and board characteristics: do they matter for corporate social responsibility disclosure of Indian companies? Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 6 2, pp. 138\u0026ndash;65.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePatten D, Shin H. Sustainability accounting, management and policy journal\u0026rsquo;s contributions to sus- tainability disclosure research: A review and assessment. Sustain Acc Manage Policy J. 2019;10(1):26\u0026ndash;40.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePawar DS, Munuswamy J. Does environmental reporting of banks affect their financial performance? Evidence from India. Int J Bank Mark. 2024;42(4):745\u0026ndash;67.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePoletaeva V, Perepelitsa D, Arhangel\u0026rsquo;skaya TY, Zaripov IY, P\u0026aacute;sztor S. The research task of banks and authorized government institution interests in manufacturing companies\u0026rsquo; investment projects congruence. Int J Mech Eng Technol. 2019;10(2):1603\u0026ndash;9.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRao KK, Tilt C. Gender and CSR decisions: perspectives from Australian boards. Meditari Account Res. 2021;29(1):60\u0026ndash;85.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSaleh I, Abu Afifa M, Alkhawaja A. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure, earnings management and cash holdings: Evidence from a European context. Bus Ethics Environ Responsib. 2025;34(2):295\u0026ndash;308.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSavio R, D\u0026rsquo;Andrassi E, Ventimiglia F. (2023). A systematic literature review on ESG during the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003cem\u003eSustainability\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e15\u003c/em\u003e(3), 2020.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSharma P, Panday P, Dangwal RC. Is ESG disclosure related to corporate performance? Empirical evidence from Indian companies. Int J Bus Glob. 2024;36(2\u0026ndash;3):186\u0026ndash;200.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShubita MF. The relationship between return on investment and Jordanian banks value. Banks Bank Syst. 2023;18(1):139\u0026ndash;49.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSultana R, Ghosh R, Sen KK. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on financial reporting and disclosure practices: empirical evidence from Bangladesh. Asian J Econ Bank. 2022;6(1):122\u0026ndash;39.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTahat Y, Omran MA, AbuGhazaleh NM. Factors affecting the development of accounting practices in Jordan: an institutional perspective. Asian Rev Acc. 2018;26(4):464\u0026ndash;86.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTapver T, Laidroo L, Gurvitsˇ-Suits NA. Banks\u0026rsquo; CSR reporting \u0026ndash; do women have a say? Corp Governance: Int J Bus Soc. 2020;20(4):639\u0026ndash;51.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTert\u0026aacute;k E, Kov\u0026aacute;cs L. Challenges to social protection and social cohesion in crisises in the financial sector. Public Finance Q = P\u0026eacute;nz\u0026uuml;gyi Sz. 2020;65(3):362\u0026ndash;82.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTumewang YK, Almarayeh T, Alharasis E. (2025). Sustainability Committee, External Assurance, and ESG Performance: Empirical Evidence From Banking Industry in Emerging Economies. \u003cem\u003eCorporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUN. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019. New York: United Nations; 2019.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWu Z, Gao J, Luo C, Xu H, Shi G. How does boardroom diversity influence the relationship between ESG and firm financial performance? Int Rev Econ Finance. 2024;89:713\u0026ndash;30.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eZhang Y, Chong G, Jia R. Fair value, corporate governance, social responsibility disclosure and banks\u0026rsquo; performance. Rev Acc Finance. 2020;19(1):30\u0026ndash;47.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTable 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Sustainability Reporting, Covid-19, Banking industry, Emerging economy, Jordan","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eESG sustainability reporting research is growing. Covid-19 and ESG reporting in Jordanian banks is the primary purpose of this study. Based on earlier studies, a modified ESG disclosure index analyzes 2010\u0026ndash;2024 bank sustainability reports. ASE clustered OLS regression with fixed effect standard error tests hypotheses on 16 balanced Jordanian-listed banks. Multivariate modeling showed that Jordanian banks with higher ESG sustainability scores performed better during the COVID-19 epidemic. Each ESG sustainability reporting component supports this conclusion. Organizations have shown their COVID-19 pandemic preparation and crisis ethics by agreeing to meet ESG performance requirements. After a pandemic, firms have to adhere to the highest ethical standards. This study has major implications for businesses and legislators. The study's findings could be considered by regulators and lawmakers to create legislation that emphasize company openness and engagement to promote sustainable practices. Businesses are required to incorporate sustainable development into their strategy, management, and governance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses should help restore and reimagine the economy. This study examines how COVID-19 affects ESG disclosure obligations. This article examines this issue using Jordanian statistics. Further research on CSR/ESG activities in developing nations is needed due to rising global economic trends and societal differences between developing and emerging states. Several studies have examined how the COVID-19 epidemic influenced a business's finances and operations, but few have examined ESG reporting. This research fills this gap by using Jordanian data.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Covid-19 Crisis and Sustainability Reporting of ESG in Jordanian Banking Industry","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-05-23 10:21:38","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6567043/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"8a8bb0a6-f5ef-434a-b077-126d25688117","owner":[],"postedDate":"May 23rd, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-30T13:23:53+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-05-23 10:21:38","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6567043","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6567043","identity":"rs-6567043","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}