Blockchain and ESG Transparency: The Mediating Role of Trust and the Moderating Role of Regulatory Support (Acta Innovations)

Summary

• The study evaluates how blockchain adoption impacts ESG transparency using a simulated sample of 400 cases.p.1
• Blockchain adoption is positively associated with ESG transparency with a direct effect coefficient of b = .255, p < .001.p.1
• Stakeholder trust acts as a mediator with a positive association of b = .388, p < .001 and a significant indirect effect of b = .168, 95% CI [.125, .216].p.1
• Regulatory support positively moderates the direct relationship between blockchain adoption and ESG transparency with an interaction coefficient of b = .108, p = .006.p.1
• The full regression model explains 43.6% of the variance in ESG transparency.p.1
• Synthetic data generation was performed using a fixed random seed of 20261022 across 400 independent cases.p.6

Key insights

1. Blockchain implementation directly correlates with higher ESG transparency (b = .255, p < .001) under mean regulatory support.p.8
2. Trust in the ESG reporting mechanism directly increases transparency with a coefficient of b = .388 (p < .001).p.8
3. Regulatory support strengthens the direct link between blockchain adoption and ESG transparency (b = .108, p = .006).p.8
4. The mediator model accounts for 25.2% of the variance in trust, driven by implementation (b = .434) and regulatory support (b = .208).p.8
5. The complete outcome equation achieves an adjusted R² of .427 compared to 42.6% without the interaction term.p.8
6. Adding the interaction term between blockchain implementation and regulatory support increases overall explained variance by 1%.p.8