The role of ESG performance during times of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 has caused a huge negative impact on the production and operation of firms, directly threatening their survival and development. However, some firms can make timely and effective adjustments in the face of sudden crises because of their resilience, and then turn the corner. This study selects the data of 2993 companies listed in Chinese A shares. The OLS method and event study is used to analyze the impact of ESG on the ability of corporate system crisis (corporate resilience). The research results indicate that companies with good ESG performance are more resilient in crises. The mechanism test indicates that the easing effect of corporate financing constraints and the expansion effect of corporate green innovation capabilities are important channels for ESG performance to promote the negative impact of crisis shocks on corporate value. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that ESG has a stronger ability to respond to systemic crises in small-scale firms, state-owned firms, and highly competitive market environments. Powerful CEOs can weaken ESG's ability to respond to systemic corporate crises. Further research has found that only S and G items, namely good governance level and social performance, have a significant positive promoting effect on corporate resilience. ESG performance may be more important in areas more severely affected by the epidemic. This study expands the research on ESG and the research on the decision mechanism of enterprise resilience. This study provides a new theoretical perspective for the study of corporate crisis response capabilities, and provides a certain policy reference for Chinese firms to effectively respond to public crises, which has important policy implications.