Abstract:

This study shifts corporate governance research from structural compliance models toward a process-based account of agenda construction. While prior scholarship evaluates Sustainability Committees (SCs) through their existence, composition, or correlational association with ESG outcomes, it offers limited insight into how SCs shape board deliberation in practice. Drawing on institutional theory, the board process model, and the attention-based view of the firm, this paper develops an integrated macro–meso–micro framework that reconceptualises SCs as agenda-setting intermediaries operating between institutional pressures and constrained board attention.

Central to the framework is the concept of “translation episodes”: temporally bounded, governance-embedded sequences through which external sustainability demands are interpreted, prioritised, and escalated into board-level agendas. By specifying translation episodes as the mechanism linking institutional pressures to board action, the study moves beyond the symbolic–substantive dichotomy. It demonstrates how variation in committee influence is conditioned by agenda scarcity, strategic materiality, and process intensity.

Although grounded in sustainability governance within the UK’s soft-law environment, the framework generalises to other specialist board committees facing institutional complexity. The paper contributes a process-first paradigm for understanding committee-level influence. It provides a theoretically grounded foundation for future empirical research on how boards prioritise sustainability under conditions of institutional ambiguity and attention constraints.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Corporate Governance

Keywords: Self-Governance and Internal Corporate Governance Mechanisms ;Sustainable governance (SDG goals)

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Mr. Hiroyasu Eguchi