Abstract:
This paper examined the driving factors of ESG performance in Chinese listed companies from the perspective of executive motivation and found that: (1) monetary compensation incentives and equity incentives exert a sizeable impact on enhancing corporate ESG performance, and the robustness test results remain unchanged; (2) corporate strategic change and green technology innovation play a mediating role in executive motivation and corporate ESG; (3) the promotion effect of executive monetary compensation incentives on ESG performance is more significant in state-owned enterprises and heavily polluting entities, while the impact of executives’ equity incentives on ESG performance is suppressed in state-owned enterprises; and (4) the economic effect test shows that good ESG performance has a positive economic influence of reducing a firms’ litigation risk and idiosyncratic risk. This paper provides empirical evidence for Chinese listed companies to improve ESG performance. © 2024, Technical University of Liberec. All rights reserved.
