• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.117-137
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• 2024

ESG has become a necessity for all companies, and major Korean banks are actively practicing ESG management. Banks are playing a role in providing ESG finance as intermediaries in the supply of funds. Recently, they have launched ESG digital banking products that offer preferential interest rates for eco-friendly activities in combination with digital technologies. However, indiscriminate provision of preferential interest rates can adversely affect profitability of banks, and they may face the problem of 'Greenwashing' if they do not contribute to improving environmental awareness. Therefore, this study selected ESG digital savings products linked to electricity savings as the subject of the study, and empirically analyzed consumers' environmental awareness and savings behavior through actual data of consumers (N=2,478). The main findings of this study are as follows First, the analysis of the consumer status of ESG digital banking products shows that the 30-50s are the main consumer base, and the MZ generation shows relatively high performance in achieving preferential interest rates through electricity saving practices. Second, consumers' environmental awareness has a significant impact on achieving the goals of ESG banking products. ESG banking products can contribute to environmental awareness while fulfilling the basic function of saving. Third, environmental awareness did not drive consumers' savings contribution behavior, suggesting the need for continued consumer engagement. Based on environmental awareness and the theory of saving behavior, this study provides a theoretical explanation in ESG financial products. The results suggest that the appropriateness of the preferential interest rate design of ESG financial products is important.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.195-205
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Corporate Venture Capital(CVC) investments and firm innovation, exploring the moderating effect of corporate ESG risk on this relationship. First, adopting the organizational learning theory, I theorize a process in which a firm's relationship with a venture through CVC investments acts as an external innovation source for learning and ultimately short-term innovation. Also, based on the discussion of the stakeholder theory, I argue that when a firm is evaluated as having high ESG risk externally, this may have a negative moderating effect that weakens the relationship between CVC investments and innovative performance. In order to verify these hypotheses, panel data analysis was performed using CVC investments data, patent application data, and ESG risk scores of US high-tech firms from 1993 to 2018. As a result of the analysis, as expected, it was found that the more the firm invests in ventures through CVC, the more the firm's innovative performance increases. In addition, the social aspect of ESG risk of a firm, related to the local community and employees, were found to weaken the association between CVC investments and innovative performance. This study expands the understanding of existing research on CVC investments as a vehicle for learning and innovation. Focusing on the importance of relationship with ventures rather than the size of CVC investments, I empirically examined that the formation of CVC relationships with ventures is directly related to the short-term innovation of investing firms. Additionally, this study contributes to the CVC literature by including stakeholders in the current discussion in addition to investing firms and portfolio ventures. Finally, this study investigated how ESG issues, which are attracting attention as playing an important role in firm activities, are related to CVC investments.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 2023

Summary This study summarizes the results of analyzing 410 questionnaires from October 15 to October 26, 2022 on the impact of ESG management of SMEs on organizational productivity improvement. First, all areas except for clarity of promotion, validity of content, efficiency of method, sub-areas of employee friendliness and productivity improvement, which are sub-areas of ESG management, labor welfare, job satisfaction, and employee "favorability, retention attitude" among organizational management. Since there is a correlation in , work efficiency can be maximized by appropriately adjusting sub-variables of ESG management. Second, it can help an organization prioritize for productivity improvement through the zodiac correlation. The causal analysis showed that clarity of promotion (β=.342) and validity of content (β=.276) had the most influence. Third, from ESG management. The correlation between clarity of promotion, validity of content, efficiency of method, friendliness of employees and organizational management showed a high correlation at .719, and causal analysis showed that efficiency of method (β=.455) and friendliness of employees (β= .217) was found to have an influence on organizational management, which indicates that personnel organization management is necessary to increase the efficiency of the method (β=.455). This study is meaningful in revealing the causal relationship between ESG management performance and productivity improvement in the middle.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.37-46
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• 2022

Recently, our society and environment has changed rapidly due to the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus. In this rapidly changing environment, companies fulfill their social responsibilities and require non-financial elements of transparent management activities. ESG has become one of the non-financial factors, and interest of ESG management is increasing worldwide. In this paper, we examine the importance of ESG concept and ESG management performance and the correlation with companies, and examine the necessity of ESG management for companies in the future. The literature reviews are conducted on CU which is currently best practicing ESG management through various secondary data. Also, we used interview articles so that reflect the rich voice of the distribution industry. In addition, after examining ESG characteristics through examples of global companies, we looked at BGF Retail's CU convenience store ESG activities, which is a leader in ESG management, in distribution industry. CU was divided into all sectors of E, S, and G, and all sectors were actively engaged in activities and flexibly coping with changing environments and social needs. In particular, it was confirmed that CU's environmental management, which focuses the most, achieved successful results due to the increase in actual consumption of customers. ESG management activities at CU convenience stores are currently ongoing and future tasks. As a leading company in ESG management in the current industry, it is meaningful to understand the process of growing into a company that shares concerns, efforts, and practical activities and fulfills social responsibility. Through this study, the changes and growth of CU and domestic companies to ESG and sustainable management are expected in the futures.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.75-101
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• 2024

"ESG management" guides companies to prioritize corporate social responsibility and sustainable development as key management objectives, going beyond mere financial performance pursuits. This approach involves creating a sustainable and robust supply chain by urging companies, acting as 'supply chain managers', to implement ESG management practices alongside their 'supply chain partners'. The domestic business community has been quick to respond to this trend, recognizing that failure to adhere to ESG standards set by organizations such as the EU and SEC could lead to severe repercussions, including exclusion from international trade and reputational damage. POSCO and NAVER, two leading Korean companies, are at the forefront of practicing ESG management effectively. They have both produced and publicly disclosed ESG management reports, showcasing their success in enhancing supply chain ESG management. However, as supply chain managers enforce ESG-related obligations on their suppliers, the likelihood of disputes between the parties may increase. In scenarios where supply chain ESG management leads to conflicts between supply chain managers and suppliers, commercial arbitration emerges as a viable solution for dispute resolution. This method offers several advantages, including the arbitrators' expertise, time and cost efficiency, the binding nature of decisions akin to a court's final judgment, international recognition under the New York Convention, confidentiality, and ample opportunity for parties to be heard. Our analysis focuses on the emerging disputes between supply chain managers and suppliers within the context of supply chain ESG management, particularly examining the cases of POSCO and NAVER. By categorizing the expected types of disputes and assessing the appropriateness of commercial arbitration for their resolution, we highlight the effectiveness of this approach. Furthermore, we propose leveraging the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board's role to enhance the use of arbitration in resolving supply chain ESG disputes, underscoring its potential as a strategic tool for maintaining sustainable and harmonious supply chain relationships.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.33-44
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• 2024

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the degree of performance inconsistency among the Environmental, Social and Governance ratings. Design/methodology/approach - This study performs regression analysis using the widely used ESG ratings published by the Korea Institute of Corporate Governance and Sustainability. Findings - The results show that firms often do not show consistent performance across the Environmental, Social and Governance aspects, with excellent performance on one aspect but mediocre or poor performance on another. The paper also finds some degree of firm-level persistence in such performance inconsistency, suggesting that the traits of the firm and the industry the firm belongs to might influence whether a firm shows inconsistent performance across the three aspects. Research implications or Originality - This paper highlights the need for researchers and practitioners to understand the underlying behavior of the individual E, S and G ratings, instead of taking them as given, in order to properly design their analyses.

• 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.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.47-66
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify research trends related to ESG by domestic and overseas researchers so far, and to present research directions and clues for the possibility of applying ESG to Korean companies in the future and ESG practice through comparison of derived topics. Research design, data and methodology: In this study, as of October 20, 2022, after searching for the keyword 'ESG' in 'scienceON', 341 domestic papers with English abstracts and 1,173 overseas papers were extracted. For analysis, word frequency analysis, word co-occurrence frequency analysis, BERTopic, LDA, and OLS regression analysis were performed to confirm trends for each topic using Python 3.7. Results: As a result of word frequency analysis, It was found that words such as management, company, performance, and value were commonly used in both domestic and overseas papers. In domestic papers, words such as activity and responsibility, and in overseas papers, words such as sustainability, impact, and development were included in the top 20 words. As a result of analyzing the co-occurrence frequency of words, it was confirmed that domestic papers were related mainly to words such as company, management, and activity, and overseas papers were related to words such as investment, sustainability, and performance. As a result of topic modeling, 3 topics such as named ESG from the corporate perspective were derived for domestic papers, and a total of 7 topics such as named sustainable investment for overseas papers were derived. As a result of the annual trend analysis, each topic did not show a relatively increasing or decreasing tendency, confirming that all topics were neutral. Conclusions: The results of this study confirmed that although it is desirable that domestic papers have recently started research on consumers, the subject diversity is lower than that of overseas papers. Therefore, it is suggested that future research needs to approach various topics such as forecasting future risks related to ESG and corporate evaluation methods.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2023

Purpose - Using a sample of Korean multinational corporations, we examine whether the relationship between tax risk and the implied cost of capital discriminates between the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) of highly rated firms. Design/methodology - Firms with high tax risks have an increased uncertainty of future cash flows. Therefore, as the volatility of future cash flow increases, information asymmetry and the required return increases. Highly rated ESG firms can reduce information asymmetry, thereby weakening the positive relationship between tax risk and cost of capital. We employ the standard deviation of the cash effective tax rate as proxy of tax risk. We utilize the ESG rating data of the Korea Corporate Governance Service (KCGS). We use a PEG model, MPEG model, and GM model to measure the implied cost of capital. Findings - We find a positive association between the implied cost of capital and tax risk. The positive relationship between tax risk and the implied cost of capital weakens in highly rated ESG firms. Highly rated ESG firms prefer a stable tax position to invest after-tax cash flows into sustainable management. Therefore, the negative effects of tax risk on cost of capital can be reduced. Originality/value - This study provides empirical evidence that ESG activities can mitigate the negative impact of tax risk on the cost of capital for Korean multinational corporations. In a business environment where ESG activities are more important, the empirical results that ESG activities can reduce the corporate risk of Korean FDI companies are expected to provide implications for the ESG activities of multinational corporations.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.121-132
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• 2022

This study aims to find out the ESG management keywords in the logistics industry through social network analysis using news article and sustainable management reports. In recent years, global climate change and Covid-19 have spurred companies to step up their new management system called ESG management. ESG is a combination of Environment, Social, and Governance. In the past, companies' financial performance was the most important, but in the current investment market, the movement to reflect ESG management factors in investment decisions is strengthening. This study aims to find out degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality through social network analysis after collecting related keywords to derive ESG management issues of logistics companies. This study collected 2,359 news articles searched under the keywords "ESG", "Logistics". In addition, data on ESG activities were also used for analysis by referring to the sustainable management reports of logistics companies. As a result of the analysis of degree centrality, it was found that ESG management of logistics companies is in progress, focusing on small enterprises and eco-friendly keywords, and is concentrated on social responsibility and eco-friendly activities. In the betweenness centrality analysis, logistics companies such as HMM and CJ Logistics were derived in a high ranking. In the closeness centrality analysis, eco-friendly keywords topped the list, while the number of keywords related to governance was relatively small, suggesting that logistics companies need to improve their governance structure.