Abstract
Purpose: This study explains when sustainability disclosure generates supplier trust and collaborative willingness, rather than symbolic compliance, within an emerging-market extractive supply chain. Grounded in Performative Governance Theory, it conceptualises disclosure as communicative performance whose governance effects depend on authenticity judgements and the legibility of policy scripts.
Design/methodology/approach: We tested a moderated sequential mediation model in Nigeria’s oil and gas supply network using a multi-actor survey of procurement, sustainability, and regulatory managers (n = 148). The model was estimated primarily via PLS-SEM (5,000 bootstrap resampling), supported by measurement invariance testing and multi-group comparisons across buyers, suppliers/contractors, and regulators, with a CB-SEM sensitivity assessment.
Findings/results: Sustainability Signalling Quality Increases Perceived Authenticity, which strengthens Supplier Trust and, in turn, Collaborative Willingness, yielding a significant sequential indirect effect. Policy Alignment Perception positively moderates the Sustainability Signalling Quality–Perceived Authenticity link, with the strongest amplification among regulators.
Practical implications: In high-scrutiny settings with limited enforcement capacity, managers should treat disclosure as accountable performance by prioritising specificity, decision usefulness, and internal consistency, while aligning communication with salient policy expectations to strengthen attributions of authenticity and trust-based collaboration. Policymakers can support a collaborative governance approach by improving the interpretability of policy scripts and strengthening credible verification cues.
Originality/value: The study specifies authenticity as the evaluative hinge that converts sustainability communication into relational governance capacity and formalises perceived policy alignment as an institutional gate that shapes credibility across heterogeneous audiences in contested governance environments.