ACCOUNTING DISCLOSURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND GOVERNANCE STANDARDS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPANIES' FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: APPLIED STUDY

Waleed Sameer Hammood (University of Samarra)

Jurnal Ekonomi, Bisnis dan Pendidikan (JEBP)
Vol. 6 No. 8 (2026)

The research aims to clarify the role of accounting disclosure regarding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards in enhancing the financial performance of companies, by determining the level of disclosure of these standards and analyzing the nature of the relationship and impact between accounting disclosure and financial performance in the industrial companies sample listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange. The scientific contribution of the research lies in combining accounting disclosure of ESG standards and financial performance within a single research framework, which enriches the accounting literature related to non-financial disclosure and sustainability, as well as providing an empirical guide from the Iraqi environment that can benefit researchers and those interested in developing disclosure and governance practices in companies. The theoretical framework of the research is based on addressing the concepts and foundations related to accounting disclosure of ESG standards, as well as the concept of financial performance and its indicators and the relationship between the two variables. As for the practical framework, it involved studying a number of industrial companies listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange, analyzing the level of disclosure regarding environmental, social, and corporate governance standards, and measuring financial performance using a set of financial indicators. Then, the relationship and impact between the research variables were tested using appropriate statistical methods. The research reached a set of results, the most notable of which was that the level of accounting disclosure was relatively high, with an overall arithmetic mean of (3.34) and a relative importance of (67%). The results also showed a positive and significant correlation between accounting disclosure and the financial performance of the companies, which reached (0.625**). It was also found that there is a positive and significant impact of accounting disclosure on financial performance, with an impact factor of (0.627) and a coefficient of determination (R²) of (0.390), which means that accounting disclosure explains (39%) of the variance in the financial performance of the companies in the study sample.