Beyond Compliance: Corporate Governance and the Paradox of Gender Equality: Evidence From <scp>EU</scp> Firms

ABSTRACT The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality is central to the European Union's sustainability and corporate governance agenda. While recent EU regulations have intensified expectations around board gender diversity (BGD) and social disclosure, the organisational drivers through which governance quality translates into substantive gender outcomes remain underexplored. Drawing on institutional theory, the resource‐based view (RBV) and legitimacy theory, this study examines the dynamic relationship between corporate management quality and the adoption of SDG 5 among EU firms. The empirical analysis uses STATA and firm‐level panel data from LSEG DataStream, comprising an unbalanced panel of 5154 firm‐year observations from 952 firms over 2010–2024. Using a framework that differentiates short and long‐term effects, the findings indicate a negative short‐term relationship between management quality and SDG 5 adoption, reflecting an initial emphasis on conventional governance priorities. However, over the long term, management quality has a positive, statistically significant effect, suggesting that sustained high‐quality management enables the gradual internalisation of gender equality objectives. Effects are particularly pronounced in lower‐income EU countries, where internal governance compensates for weaker regulatory enforcement. These findings advance understanding of temporal and contextual dynamics in ESG adoption, highlighting the importance of strategic governance, institutional maturity and regulatory capacity. In the context of the EU's evolving ESG agenda, these findings point to the need for nuanced sustainability evaluation and sustained institutional support to move governance reforms beyond mere formality towards substantive social impact.