Under the leadership of a Research Center Director at the Caucasus School of Business, Prof. Erekle Pirveli, a proposed research project has obtained Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation's 2025 Fundamental (Basic State) Research Grant.

Project title: “Russia’s Strategic Foreign Ownership and Corporate Sustainability Disclosure in Georgia”.

Abstract:

The proposed research project aims to investigate the impact of Russia’s strategic foreign ownership on corporate sustainability disclosure in Georgia, an emerging economy characterized by geopolitical vulnerability and concentrated foreign investment in strategic sectors. Although foreign ownership is generally associated with enhanced corporate transparency, this relationship is often assumed rather than critically assessed. We argue that the effect of foreign ownership is contingent on the nature and motivation of the investor. Strategic foreign ownership, particularly when driven by geopolitical interests, may prioritize control over transparency, potentially undermining sustainability reporting practices.

The project will construct a unique hand-collected dataset covering Georgian publicly listed companies and Public Interest Entities (PIEs) for the period 2018–2027. Financial variables will be extracted from audited annual reports, sustainability-related information through detailed content analysis of management reports, corporate governance data from the National Agency of Public Registry of Georgia, and additional company-level information from SARAS’s official portal. Sustainability disclosure scores will be manually coded following the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) framework. The analysis will apply robust econometric techniques, including Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized Least Squares (GLS), and dynamic panel estimators, controlling for firm-specific and industry-year effects.

By introducing the concept of strategic foreign ownership into sustainability disclosure research, the study challenges the dominant narrative that foreign capital uniformly improves transparency. It provides timely evidence from a post-Soviet transition economy with increasing exposure to Russian capital. The project’s findings aim to inform academic debates, guide regulatory improvements in corporate transparency, and stimulate national dialogue among academia, policymakers, industry stakeholders, and civil society. Through extensive knowledge transfer and capacity-building activities, the project also contributes to strengthening the sustainability research ecosystem in Georgia.

• Budget: 180 000 GEL
• Duration: 3 years
• Project evaluation score: 47 points (out of 50)

Project team:

• Team leader: Erekle Pirveli, Finance and Sustainability Disclosure Expert, Caucasus University, Georgia
• Researchers: Timur Uman, Corporate Governance Expert, Jonkoping University, Sweden; Prof. Vakhtang Partsvaniya, Expert on Russian Studies, Caucasus University, Georgia
• Consultant: Paul Thompson, Sustainability Reporting Expert, World Bank