Information Transparency and Firm Performance: The Mediating Role of Business Ethics in Organic Coconut Sugar Exporters
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38035/sjtl.v4i2.1214Keywords:
Information Transparency, Business Ethics, Firm Performance, Organic Coconut Sugar Exporter, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)Abstract
Organic coconut sugar exports depend on claims about origin and process that buyers cannot verify directly, so exporting firms are increasingly required to make their information verifiable. Previous studies have examined traceability systems and business ethics separately and have rarely tested how transparency reaches performance, which constitutes the research gap of this study. This study analyses the effect of information transparency on business ethics and firm performance and tests the mediating role of business ethics in organic coconut sugar exporting companies in Central Java and the Special Region of Yogyakarta. Questionnaires were completed by 100 respondents drawn purposively from 350 employees of two exporting companies and processed with partial least squares structural equation modelling. Information transparency has a positive and significant effect on business ethics and explains 74.5 percent of its variance, while its direct effect on firm performance is not significant. Business ethics affects firm performance significantly and fully mediates the relationship, and together the two constructs explain 63.1 percent of the variance in firm performance. The novelty of this study lies in positioning information transparency as an antecedent of corporate governance and in identifying ethical conduct as the mechanism that converts verifiable information into export performance.
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