Аңдатпа
The institutionalization of ESG reporting has made accountants’ ethical judgment a core issue for business ethics, ethical leadership, corporate accountability, and ethical corporate culture. Yet prior studies have not sufficiently quantified how professional competencies, digital verification, corporate ethical culture, and institutional pressure jointly shape accountants’ ethical resilience and ESG reporting quality. This study aims to develop and empirically validate a structural model explaining the behavioral, institutional, and technological drivers of reliable ESG disclosure. Methodologically, the paper utilizes a secondary quantitative and qualitative analysis of an extensive empirical dataset originally compiled by the Green Transition Office (NGO DiXi Group). The authors’ independent analytical contribution consists of data restructuring, statistical processing, PLS-SEM modeling, and empirical interpretation. The modeled dataset comprises survey microdata from 420 Ukrainian enterprises from industry (32%), agriculture (24%), finance (18%), energy (14%), and services (12%), contextualized by transcripts from 12 institutional interviews and four expert focus groups. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), with reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, multicollinearity, mediation, and predictive relevance assessed through Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, AVE, VIF, HTMT, path coefficients, indirect effects, and Stone-Geisser Q². The measurement model demonstrated strong statistical robustness: Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.88 to 0.93, composite reliability from 0.91 to 0.95, AVE from 0.68 to 0.78, VIF from 1.69 to 2.61, and the maximum HTMT value was 0.821. The structural model showed substantial explanatory power, with R² = 0.76 for ESG reporting quality, R² = 0.71 for ethical corporate culture, and R² = 0.64 for ethical resilience of an accountant. The strongest significant relationship was between institutional pressure and ethical corporate culture (β = 0.63, t = 11.44, p < 0.001), while ESG training had the largest effect on accountants’ ethical resilience (β = 0.56, t = 9.18, p < 0.001), confirming education as the main driver of ethical competence. Digital verification improved ethical resilience of an accountant (β = 0.41, t = 7.02, p < 0.001), ethical resilience increased ESG reporting quality (β = 0.32, t = 5.41, p < 0.001), and ethical corporate culture strengthened ethical resilience of an accountant (β = 0.38, t = 6.27, p < 0.001). Mediation analysis confirmed that training affects ESG reporting quality through the ethical resilience (β = 0.18, p < 0.001), whereas ethical corporate culture influences reporting quality through ethical resilience of an accountant (β = 0.10, p < 0.01), validating the chain “training → ethical resilience → data quality → trust → reporting quality.” Predictive relevance was supported by Q² values of 0.31 for ethical corporate culture, 0.44 for ethical resilience, and 0.39 for ESG reporting quality. The survey also showed that 87% of Ukrainian enterprises support ESG implementation, 77% report a shortage of qualified specialists, 71% lack ESG knowledge, 68% face data-collection problems, and 89% require additional training. The findings provide a quantitative framework for strengthening business ethics, ethical leadership, ESG governance, and reporting assurance.