Search Results (4)

This study aims to establish the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities undertaken by South Korean professional sports clubs on fan trust and loyalty. Furthermore, it examines the moderating influence of fan citizenship among these connections. Data were gathered via surveys administered to 348 spectators at matches of two professional sports clubs in South Korea that are noted for their active ESG activities. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderation analysis using Jamovi software (version 2.4.8) were employed to analyze the data and test the proposed hypotheses. The findings reveal that environmental and social activities significantly impact fan trust and loyalty, whereas governance activities positively influence fan trust but do not significantly impact fan loyalty. Moreover, fan trust directly impacts fan loyalty. Regarding the moderating effects, fan citizenship strengthens the relationship between ESG activities and fan loyalty but does not affect the relationship between ESG activities and fan trust. This study contributes to this research by incorporating fan citizenship as a moderating variable in exploring how ESG practices can increase fan loyalty through fan citizenship. Moreover, these findings enhance our theoretical understanding by explaining how ESG strategies are related to relationship-building processes in the sports business, and they provide practical suggestions for teams on promoting sustainability and fan engagement by focusing on specific ESG activities. Full article

This study delves into the interplay between the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and the debt costs incurred by Korean-listed companies, highlighting their pivotal significance in today’s corporate ecosystem. Our primary focus is to explore how the extent of media coverage moderates this relationship, thereby shedding light on the pivotal role that public scrutiny plays in shaping a company’s financial outcomes. Utilizing the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model, we rigorously control for industry and year effects, as well as firm-specific variations. Additionally, we conduct a series of supplementary analyses and robust tests to further strengthen the credibility of our findings. Our empirical analysis reveals that firms with poor ESG ratings, indicating corporate social irresponsibility, incur higher debt costs in the subsequent period. Notably, this adverse financial impact is significantly alleviated for companies that enjoy higher media coverage. This notable discovery underscores the potential of media scrutiny to reduce the financial burden imposed by inadequate ESG performance. Our results suggest that companies, especially those with limited media attention, should prioritize enhancing their ESG performance to mitigate potential financial implications. Overall, our research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the intersection between corporate social responsibility, media coverage, and financial performance. Full article

Companies around the world have recognized that environmental issues and social values constitute some of the most important management concerns and have actively introduced environmental, social, and governance management (ESG management, ESGM). In the digital age, an attempt is also often made to incorporate digital transformation into ESGM. However, research on the combination of digital leadership, ESGM, and organizational innovation is still in its early stages. Therefore, in this study, a research model was constructed by combining ESGM and organizational innovation (OI) from the perspective of digital leadership (DL). Specifically, for achieving organizational sustainability (OS), the mediating effect of two variables—ESGM and organizational innovation—was also explored, and empirical analysis was conducted on Korean and Chinese companies. We took into consideration the premise that the impact of digital leadership, ESGM, and organizational innovation on organizational sustainability could be different due to the differences in the cultures and systems of the two countries. For empirical analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used. The results showed that digital leadership in both countries had a significant effect on ESGM and organizational innovation. Specifically, both digital leadership and ESGM together with organizational innovation played an important role in organizational sustainability in the entire model. However, between digital leadership and organizational sustainability, the mediating effect of ESGM and organizational innovation was different, viz., Korea had partial mediating effects and China had complete mediating effects. It is expected that this study would fill the research gap in the area of digital leadership in ESGM and contribute to the implementation of corporate ESGM strategies and organizational innovation. Furthermore, valuable implications for organizational sustainability and the sustainable growth of companies are also presented. Full article

Existing global ESG models are limited in terms of applicability and predictability, especially in countries with an unstable environment. On the other hand, utilizing internally made or privately sourced ESG models have caused issues relating to generalizability, comparability, and continuity. In our research, we present an ESG framework that is specific to South Korea, which has both global and country-specific factors in all three categories. The AHP model is used to determine how the three categories’ materiality would be viewed by institutional investors as well as how country-specific factors rank against global factors. The results of this study show that institutional investors place more importance on environmental and governance factors compared to social factors. Factors including shareholders’ rights, pollution and waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and risk and opportunity management are found to have greater influences on investors’ investment decisions. In addition, it was confirmed that both of the country-specific variables for South Korea, partnership with subcontractor and CEO reputation, have a significant influence on investment decisions. By having the ESG model validated by institutional investors, who are the main users of ESG disclosures of corporations, our methodology of presenting a country-specific model can be benchmarked by studies on other emerging markets with a variety of country-level specificities. Full article