• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.87-101
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• 2021

ESG Investment is emerging as a trend and common sense in the financial market. ESG Investment is an investment method that simultaneously pursue social sustainability and investment returns from a long-term perspective by reflecting non-financial factors such as environment, society and governance in addition to corporate financial performance in investment decisions. This study checked how the characteristics of ESG investment have been changed after Covid-19. Afterwards, it was confirmed that Covid-19 actually acted as a negative factor in the securities market by applying VAR model. At the same time, it was demonstrated that ESG indices of the US and Korea outperformed their benchmark in terms of return and risk during the pandemic regime. The result of this study hints that the importance of ESG investment will be unchanged after Covid-19. At the same time, it suggests that managers should avoid passive ESG management and engage in strategic ESG management based on knowledge management.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.323-329
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• 2024

This study examines the direct impact of ESG ratings on investment efficiency among Korean firms from 2012 to 2022, as well as whether earnings management mediates the relationship between ESG performance and investment efficiency. The key findings are as follows. Firstly, it was found that as ESG ratings increase, a firm's investment efficiency significantly improves, indicating that ESG management has a positive impact on investment efficiency. Secondly, as ESG ratings increase, earnings adjustment significantly decreases, suggesting that ESG investment activities also have a positive impact on firms' earnings management. Thirdly, as earnings adjustment decreases, investment efficiency significantly increases, indicating that earnings management significantly mediates the relationship between ESG performance and investment efficiency. This study demonstrates that higher ESG ratings lead to increased investment efficiency among firms, and earnings adjustmentment plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between ESG performance and investment efficiency.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.45-60
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• 2020

Recently, ESG bond issuance has been gradually spreading to banks and non-financial private companies in Korea. However, the Korean ESG bond market is still in its infancy in terms of size, diversity and investor base compared to the global ESG bond market. In other words, ESG bonds are rapidly forming in the global market, but are still in the formation stage in the domestic market, and various policy and practical measures such as system, incentives, and infrastructure are needed to activate them. In this paper, we examine the domestic and international status of ESG bonds in relation to responsible investment. In addition, this paper explores specific measures to revitalize the domestic ESG bond market in four aspects: establishing ESG bond standards, procedures and regulations, increasing ESG bond investment demand, increasing ESG bond issuance, building market infrastructure and market efforts. This study is expected to contribute to the development of the domestic ESG bond market and responsible investment.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.37-41
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• 2021

In recent years, ESG investment is increasing worldwide, and awareness of ESG risks such as environment, society, and governance is increasing, and non-financial investments are considered when making investment decisions. With the recent Corvid 19 crisis, the focus is on the environment, and investments related to bio and health are gaining popularity, while new investments are completely suspended in coal-related businesses, and decisions are made in the direction of sequential termination or withdrawal of existing businesses This has resulted in an increasing number of managers setting climate change and sustainability as top priorities in their investment portfolios. As a result, it is necessary to present effective countermeasures to changes in the investment environment, and to make efforts to respond and prepare an investment system that can help build a risk management system. Therefore, I would like to briefly review the ESG investment trends and present implications considering shared growth and mutual benefit.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.87-115
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• 2024

This study examines the effect of R&D investment on firm performance and value of Chinese private firms. Through R&D investment, firms aim to acquire knowledge and technological resources to create innovation and competitive advantage, which ultimately enhances firm performance and value. However, unlike other investments, R&D investments are characterized by high adjustment costs and risks, uncertainty and asymmetric information. In addition, the effect of R&D investment on firm performance and value has been shown to be mixed results due to various internal and external contextual factors. Therefore, this study intends to consider how the ESG activities of firms, which have recently attracted attention, act as a contextual factor in the results of R&D investment. This is because interaction with stakeholders through ESG activities is considered to be an important factor in securing competitive advantages and sustainable growth. In this context, this study measures the effect of a firm's R&D investment on its business performance by dividing it into financial performance and value, respectively, and examines the moderating effect of ESG score on the relationship. Based on empirical analysis of all Chinese private firms from 2010 to 2019, the results show that a firm's R&D investment has a negative impact on performance and a positive impact on value. Furthermore, a high ESG score of private firms positively moderates each relationship, emphasizing the importance of ESG activities.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2022

Purpose: This study used ESG grade, but defined AESG, adjusted to the size of a company and examines whether it can be used as an investment strategy. Research design, data and methodology: The analysis sample in this study is a company that has given an ESG rating among companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange. We examine the results through portfolio analysis and Fama-macbeth regression analysis. Results: As result of examining the long-only performance and the long-short performance by constructing quintile portfolios, it was observed that a significant positive return was shown. It was observed that there was an alpha that could not be explained in asset pricing models. Also, AESG had a return prediction effect in the result of a Fama-Macbeth regression that controlled corporate characteristic variables in individual stocks. Next, we confirmed AESG's usage through various portfolio composition. In the portfolio optimization, the Risk Efficient method was the most superior in terms of sharpe ratio and the construct multi-factor model with Value, Momentum and Low Vol showed statistically significant performance improvement. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that it can be helpful in ESG investment to reflect the ESG rating of relatively small companies more through the scale adjustment of the ESG rating (i.e.AESG).

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.171-184
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• 2023

Purpose: First, this paper suggests an alternative approach to find optimal portfolio (stocks, bonds and ESG stocks) under the maximizing utility of investors. Second, we include ESG stocks in our optimal portfolio, and compare improvement of welfares in the case with and without ESG stocks in portfolio. Methods: Our main method of analysis follows Brennan et al(2002), designed under the continuous time framework. We assume that the dynamics of stock price follow the Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) while the short rate have the Vasicek model. For the utility function of investors, we use the Power Utility Function, which commonly used in financial studies. The optimal portfolio and welfares are derived in the partial equilibrium. The parameters are estimated by using Kalman filter and ordinary least square method. Results: During the overall analysis period, the portfolio including ESG, did not show clear welfare improvement. In 2017, it has slightly exceeded this benchmark 1, showing the possibility of improvement, but the ESG stocks we selected have not strongly shown statistically significant welfare improvement results. This paper showed that the factors affecting optimal asset allocation and welfare improvement were different each other. We also found that the proportion of optimal asset allocation was affected by factors such as asset return, volatility, and inverse correlation between stocks and bonds, similar to traditional financial theory. Conclusion: The portfolio with ESG investment did not show significant results in welfare improvement is due to that 1) the KRX ESG Leaders 150 selected in our study is an index based on ESG integrated scores, which are designed to affect stability rather than profitability. And 2) Korea has a short history of ESG investment. During the limited analysis period, the performance of stock-related assets was inferior to bond assets at the time of the interest rate drop.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.87-104
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• 2023

Recently, concerns are growing over small and medium-sized companies holding out on debt as domestic loan interest rates have risen sharply due to the prolonged impact of COVID-19 and soaring raw material prices. In addition, loans from small and medium-sized enterprises, which are difficult in the business environment, are increasingly being rejected due to high loan interest rates and excessive submission documents and financial statements-oriented screening of loans by the financial sector. Therefore, since it is necessary to discuss ways to promote financing and investment by SMEs, this study intends to suggest ways to promote investment through the use of SMEs' ESG systems. The purpose of this study is to suggest that the use of ESG evaluation indicators used as non-financial indicators helps predict the corporate value of SMEs and the importance of SMEs actively participating in ESG information disclosure. This study suggests the necessity of introducing and practicing ESG by SMEs where financing is important, and aims to analyze as an empirical result that the use of non-financial indicators helps predict corporate value. As a result of the study, the ESG performance and corporate value of SMEs showed a positive (+) relationship. It can be seen that both the grades and corporate value of SMEs by ESG sector have a positive (+) influence relationship. The total ESG rating was confirmed to have a positive effect on corporate value, and it was confirmed that SMEs with higher ESG environment, social, and governance ratings were evaluated higher. According to the research results, it is suggested that SMEs also need to use ESG evaluation indicators, and in order to promote the growth of SMEs, it is suggested that research on ways to re-examine the corporate value of SMEs is necessary. Therefore, this study suggests that the use of ESG should be actively recommended and implemented as a way to establish a management strategy for SMEs, and that efforts to disclose ESG information can soon help SMEs solve information asymmetry. In addition, SMEs want to understand the investment mechanism that the introduction and practice of ESG can lead to the improvement of the value of SMEs and suggest the necessity of SME-type ESG policies in the future.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.85-100
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• 2023

Corporate ESG performance (environmental, social, and corporate governance) reflecting a company's strategic sustainability has emerged as one of the main factors in today's investment decisions. The traditional ESG performance rating process is largely performed in a qualitative and subjective manner based on the institution-specific criteria, entailing limitations in reliability, predictability, and timeliness when making investment decisions. This study attempted to predict the corporate ESG rating through automated machine learning based on quantitative and disclosed corporate financial information. Using 12 types (21,360 cases) of market-disclosed financial information and 1,780 ESG measures available through the Korea Institute of Corporate Governance and Sustainability during 2019 to 2021, we suggested a deep neural network prediction model. Our model yielded about 86% of accurate classification performance in predicting ESG rating, showing better performance than other comparative models. This study contributed the literature in a way that the model achieved relatively accurate ESG rating predictions through an automated process using quantitative and publicly available corporate financial information. In terms of practical implications, the general investors can benefit from the prediction accuracy and time efficiency of our proposed model with nominal cost. In addition, this study can be expanded by accumulating more Korean and international data and by developing a more robust and complex model in the future.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.79
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• pp.33-82
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• 2024

Interest in ESG management, which spread through the UN PRI in 2006, has recently spread throughout our society. Consumers use a company's activeness in the ESG field as the standard of consumption behavior, and the international community is reorganizing and strengthening various regulatory measures. In the investment market, non-financial performance (ESG information) is used as an important investment indicator along with financial performance (credit rating). Due to these changes in the corporate evaluation paradigm and market pressure, if a company neglects ESG response activities, it is more likely to be excluded from market selection, and accordingly, the importance of ESG management is also increasing. Companies are making various efforts to secure legitimacy in response to these market pressures, but in the process, it is difficult to systematically manage and utilize records/data that are the basis for ESG management. For a basic understanding of ESG management, this paper summarizes the emerging process of ESG and the current ESG-related regulations applied to companies. Through this, it can be seen that ESG management is not carried out with the good will of the company, but is accepted as a management strategy for the survival of the company according to the change in the corporate evaluation paradigm. Through interviews with the company's ESG-related personnel, the company's ESG response process was divided into passive communication and active communication, and the problems identified during the interview were summarized for each communication type. In addition, in the process of passively and actively communicating ESG management information with internal and external stakeholders, the possibility that ESG archives can function as a tool to overcome problems for each communication type was raised, and five types of ESG archives that can play this role were presented.