Because of their capacity for sustained and informed monitoring, institutional investors are uniquely positioned to enhance corporate transparency and mitigate ESG decoupling, the gap between corporate sustainability rhetoric and reality. This study examines whether and under what circumstances institutional ownership contributes to aligning ESG disclosure with actual sustainability performance. Analysing an international sample of 3465 listed companies (13,488 firm‐year observations) from 2009 to 2023, we find that institutional investors play a crucial role in reducing ESG decoupling. However, this effect depends on their investment horizon: long‐term institutional investors mitigate ESG decoupling, whereas short‐term institutional investors exacerbate it. These findings contribute to the corporate governance and sustainability literature by showing that institutional investors are not a homogeneous group and that their monitoring effectiveness varies depending on their investment horizon. From a practical perspective, our results highlight the need for regulatory initiatives that incentivise long‐term institutional engagement and more stringent ESG reporting requirements to curb opportunistic disclosure practices.

中文翻译：

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弥合 ESG 可信度差距：机构投资者在缓解 ESG 脱钩中的作用


由于机构投资者能够进行持续和知情的监控，因此在提高企业透明度和缓解 ESG 脱钩方面具有独特的优势，即企业可持续发展言论与现实之间的差距。本研究探讨了机构所有权是否以及在何种情况下有助于使 ESG 披露与实际可持续发展绩效保持一致。通过分析 2009 年至 2023 年 3465 家上市公司的国际样本（13,488 个公司年度观察），我们发现机构投资者在减少 ESG 脱钩方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，这种影响取决于他们的投资期限：长期机构投资者会减轻 ESG 脱钩，而短期机构投资者会加剧这种脱钩。这些发现有助于公司治理和可持续发展文献，表明机构投资者不是一个同质的群体，他们的监控效果因投资期限而异。从实践的角度来看，我们的结果突出了激励机构长期参与的监管举措和更严格的 ESG 报告要求的必要性，以遏制机会主义的披露做法。