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Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value

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  • Seonghoon Kim
  • Ann Terlaak
  • Matthew Potoski

Abstract

Markets value superior corporate sustainability performance in part because investors use a firm's environmental performance as a signal of desirable but difficult‐to‐observe attributes, such as the firm's integrity capacity. Yet a signaling conflict can arise when a firm belongs to an organizational form that has a collective reputation for being unethical. In such circumstances, the firm's environmental performance may no longer credibly signal its underlying integrity capacity, leading markets to adjust downward the value they would otherwise place on the firm's environmental performance. Using longitudinal data on South Korean firms, we find that improvements in firm environmental performance lead to smaller increases in market values for firms belonging to a poorly reputed organizational form. However, firms can partially recover lost value by adopting firm features that reduce the signaling conflict, thereby restoring the notion of corporate sustainability performance driving firm market values.

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  • Seonghoon Kim & Ann Terlaak & Matthew Potoski, 2021. "Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1689-1701, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:30:y:2021:i:4:p:1689-1701
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.2702
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    2. Ammar Ali Gull & Asif Saeed & Muhammad Tahir Suleman & Rizwan Mushtaq, 2022. "Revisiting the association between environmental performance and financial performance: Does the level of environmental orientation matter?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1647-1662, September.
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    4. Bao, Xin & Han, Meini & Lau, Raymond & Xu, Xiaowei, 2024. "Corporate integrity culture and credit rating assessment," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Nai-Chun Wang & Deng-Kui Si & Chun-Feng Dong, 2022. "Social Insurance Burden and Corporate Environmental Performance: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, September.
    6. Guangying Xie & Shengyan Wu & Zhengjiang Song, 2022. "Focus on Innovation or Focus on Sales? The Influences of the Government of China’s Demand-Side Reform during COVID-19 and Their Sustainability Consequences in the Consumer Products Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-21, October.
    7. Falko Paetzold & Timo Busch & Sebastian Utz & Anne Kellers, 2022. "Between impact and returns: Private investors and the sustainable development goals," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3182-3197, November.
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