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Does corporate sustainability impact firm profitability? Evidence from India
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study whether corporate sustainability impacts profitability performance. Design/methodology/approach The sample under study consists of 58 Indian firms that are consistently a part of Thomson Reuters Asset 4 ESG database. An empirical multivariate panel data model is developed to analyse the impact of sustainability (environmental, social and governance) on firm profitability. Further, the study seeks to understand whether firms ranked high on sustainability parameters perform better compared to low-ranked firms. This has been tested by applying parametrict-test. Findings The study reveals a significant positive relationship between sustainability and firm performance measures (return on invested capital, return on equity, return on assets and earnings per share). Empirical evidence suggests that firms that practice remarkable sustainable development strategies report higher profitability and have substantially low gearing level. Research limitations/implications This study provides empirical support for the practitioners, policy makers and academicians emphasising strongly on the role played by deployment of sustainable environmental, social and governance efforts in enabling firms to achieve the profit maximisation objective. In the long term, strategies that take sustainability criteria into account have the capacity to create long-term value and provide firms with competitive advantage. The findings provide impetus to many mid- and…
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Quantitative techniques and applied structural equation modelling (SEM) are used to measure sustainability.
“Literature has indicated that quantitative techniques and applied structural equation modelling (SEM) are used to measure sustainability (Bodhanwala and Bodhanwala, 2018;Hall and Wagner, 2012;Mundra and Mishra, 2021)”
From Business sustainability measurement frameworks: a systematic literature review using a TCCM approach (2025) · cites this paper as Bodhanwala and Bodhanwala, 2018
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Sorted by citations
Barbosa, A. D. S., Crispim, M. C., da Silva, L. B., da Silva, J. M. N., Barbosa, A. M., & Morioka, S. N. (2024) · Business Strategy and the Environment · doi:10.1002/bse.3675 · Cited by 38
Business sustainability measurement frameworks: a systematic literature review using a TCCM approach
Yasmin, F., Saleem, M., Khalid, A., Hafeez, M. H., & Ismail, H. (2025) · Journal of Trade Science · doi:10.1108/jts-04-2025-0018 · Cited by 7
Metadata
- Authors
- Bodhanwala, S., & Bodhanwala, R.
- Affiliations
- Flame University (IN)
- ORCID
- Bodhanwala, Shernaz
- Venue
- Management Decision
- Publisher
- Emerald
- Published
- 2018-04-10
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1734-1747
- ISSN
- 0025-1747 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2887207464
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 11
- FWCI
- 17.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Management Decision (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Sustainability and Innovation in Business
- Keywords
- corporate sustainability, firm profitability, environmental, social and governance (ESG), ESG performance, return on invested capital, return on equity, return on assets, earnings per share, leverage, sustainable development strategy, Indian companies, developing countries
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