When transparency fails: Performative governance in emerging-market oil and gas supply chains

Abstract

Purpose: This study examines how sustainability disclosure relates to supplier trust and collaborative willingness in Nigeria’s oil and gas supply chain, drawing on performative governance theory.
Design/methodology/approach: A survey of 148 procurement, sustainability and regulatory managers tested a moderated sequential mediation model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), with 5000 bootstrap resamples, measurement invariance testing and multigroup comparisons. Covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) provided a sensitivity assessment.
Findings/results: Sustainability signalling quality was positively associated with perceived authenticity, which predicted supplier trust and collaborative willingness through the hypothesised sequence. Policy alignment perception positively moderated the signalling quality-authenticity relationship, with the largest estimated moderation coefficient among regulators.
Practical implications: Managers should prioritise specific, decision-useful and internally consistent disclosure aligned with salient policy expectations. Policymakers should improve policy interpretability and verification cues.
Originality/value: The study identifies authenticity as an evaluative mechanism linking sustainability communication to relational governance and policy alignment as a contextual condition shaping this relationship across stakeholder groups.