• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.407-424
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• 2022

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between the environment, society, and governance (ESG) perception of service providers and service quality by considering job satisfaction as a mediator in the Korean parcel delivery context. Methods: This study uses a multi-level analysis by incorporating organizational and individual levels of analysis. It employs a survey method for measuring the ESG perception of parcel delivery persons and service quality ratings from the Korean government. A hierarch regression analysis with 241 responses was used to test hypotheses. Results: The results of this study provide evidence that the ESG perception, particularly its social dimension, of parcel delivery persons is positively associated with service quality. This study also finds the positive effect of the ESG perception on job satisfaction. However, the mediating effect of job satisfaction between the ESG perception and service quality was not confirmed. Conclusion: This study presents significant implications for scholars and practitioners. Parcel delivery companies should implement relevant ESG activities and communicate them with their service persons to improve delivery service quality. The ESG perception of employees plays a critical role in the moment of truth in parcel service delivery to enhance customer satisfaction and service quality.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1090-1100
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• 2024

While the incorporating ESG indicator is recognized as crucial for sustainability and increased firm value, inconsistent disclosure of ESG data and vague assessment standards have been key challenges. To address these issues, this study proposes an ambiguous text-based automated ESG rating strategy. Earnings Call Transcript data were classified as E, S, or G using the Refinitiv-Sustainable Leadership Monitor's over 450 metrics. The study employed advanced natural language processing techniques such as BERT, RoBERTa, ALBERT, FinBERT, and ELECTRA models to precisely classify ESG documents. In addition, the authors computed the average predicted probabilities for each label, providing a means to identify the relative significance of different ESG factors. The results of experiments demonstrated the capability of the proposed methodology in enhancing ESG assessment criteria established by various rating agencies and highlighted that companies primarily focus on governance factors. In other words, companies were making efforts to strengthen their governance framework. In conclusion, this framework enables sustainable and responsible business by providing insight into the ESG information contained in Earnings Call Transcript data.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.123-149
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• 2021

Purpose The purpose of this study is to define the anti-ESG activities of companies recognized by media by reflecting ESG recently attracted attention. This study extracts keywords for ESG controversies through association rule mining. Design/methodology/approach A research framework is designed to extract keywords for ESG controversies as follows: 1) From DeepSearch DB, we collect 23,837 articles on anti-ESG activities exposed to 130 media from 2013 to 2018 of 294 listed companies with ESG ratings 2) We set keywords related to environment, social, and governance, and delete or merge them with other keywords based on the support, confidence, and lift derived from association rule mining. 3) We illustrate the importance of keywords and the relevance between keywords through density, degree centrality, and closeness centrality on network analysis. Findings We identify a total of 26 keywords for ESG controversies. 'Gapjil' records the highest frequency, followed by 'corruption', 'bribery', and 'collusion'. Out of the 26 keywords, 16 are related to governance, 8 to social, and 2 to environment. The keywords ranked high are mostly related to the responsibility of shareholders within corporate governance. ESG controversies associated with social issues are often related to unfair trade. As a result of confidence analysis, the keywords related to social and governance are clustered and the probability of mutual occurrence between keywords is high within each group. In particular, in the case of "owner's arrest", it is caused by "bribery" and "misappropriation" with an 80% confidence level. The result of network analysis shows that 'corruption' is located in the center, which is the most likely to occur alone, and is highly related to 'breach of duty', 'embezzlement', and 'bribery'.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2024

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) management may be one of the recent hot topics in corporate management. The purpose of this paper was to study the level of ESG activities of shipping companies. The shipping industry is known to have low transparency and low favorability (Yun, 2022). This study determined whether ESG activities of shipping companies known to the public or studied qualitatively were consistent with objective facts through quantitative analysis. Analysis was conducted on 8,009 firm-year KOSP I listed companies from 2010 to 2022 using ESG ratings evaluated and published by KCGS. As a result of the analysis, it was found that shipping companies had a lower level of ESG activities than non-shipping companies. Although many research studies have been done on companies' ESG activities, research on corporate social responsibility activities and ESG activities of domestic shipping companies is limited. This paper is significant in that it is the first study to quantitatively analyze ESG management status of domestic shipping companies. Shipping companies should make efforts to improve their images, improve their business performances, and increase corporate sustainability by taking the lead in proactive ESG activities rather than performing passive ESG activities due to external regulations such as IMO 2020 and IMO 2050.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.317-340
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• 2023

In a business context, ESG is defined as the use of environmental, social, and governance factors to assess a firm's progress in terms of sustainability. Social media has enabled the public to actively share firms' good and/or bad deeds, increasing public interest in ESG management. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association of firm performances with the respective sentiments towards each of environmental, social, and governance activities, as well as comprehensive ESG sentiments, which encompass all environmental, social, and governance sentiments. This study used panel regression models to examine the relationship between social media ESG sentiment and the Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) of 143 companies listed on the KOSPI 200. We collected data from 2018 to 2021, including sentiment data from a variety of social media channels, such as online communities, Instagram, blogs, Twitter, and other news. The results indicated that firm performance is significantly related to respective ESG and comprehensive ESG sentiments. This study has several implications. By using data from various social media channels, it presents an unbiased view of public ESG sentiment, rather than relying on ESG ratings, which may be influenced by rating agencies. Furthermore, the findings can be used to help firms determine the direction of their ESG management. Therefore, this study provides theoretical and practical insights for researchers and firms interested in ESG management.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.171-184
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• 2023

FinTech, which has brought innovation to the financial industry thanks to the advancements in ICT since 2010, has contributed to the growth of the financial ecosystem and increased consumer benefits. Furthermore, there has been a growing demand for social responsibility and sustainability in financial institutions, which have a significant impact on governments, businesses, and people's lives. Despite this, many FinTech companies and traditional financial institutions are still in the early stages of establishing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management philosophy or lack long-term plans. In this study, we aim to examine the impact of ESG management on the FinTech industry, focusing on representative domestic cases, and derive policy and institutional measures to spread it in the financial industry. Specifically, we will adopt MSCI rating indicators, which are internationally accepted by various industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation, to evaluate the 35 ESG management subcategories of FinTech companies. As a result, a total of 22 compliance items were disclosed in the ESG report, and it was possible to confirm the detailed management. Through this, we intend to propose effective management strategies for the organizational structure, operations, programs, and performance evaluation of FinTech companies, which are positioning themselves as sustainable growth drivers in the domestic industry.

• 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.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.195-208
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• 2021

Purpose - The primary objective of this paper is to empirically examine whether the engagement of socially responsible activities in corporations affect the tendency of tax-avoidance by using the sample of Korean companies. We are particularly interested in Chaebol-affiliated firms, which are a special type of Korean conglomerates. Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on a sample of 5,496 firm-year observation data from 2011 to 2017 by using the ESG ratings from the Korea Corporate Governance Service(KCGS), a ESG rating agency in Korea. For our analysis, the firms were separated into 1,547 Chaebol-affiliated firms and other 3,949 firms. All financial and firm data were extracted from Fn-guide, which provides financial information for Korean listed firms. Findings - We find that CSR is generally positively related to the effective tax rate, which indicates a lower level of tax avoidance for more socially responsible firms. In particular, a positive relationship of social score with GAAP ETR was observed. Research implications or Originality - We find that the positive relationship is robust to the group of chaebol and non-chaebol affiliates unlike extant literature.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.5586-5593
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• 2013

This study investigates how the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance of a firm is associated with its financial performance in the stock market. Prior studies provide mixed evidence on the relation between CSR and financial performance. This study sheds some lights on the positive effect of CSR on firms' financial performance. Using a unique set of data on CSR performance of Korean firms provided by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MCSI), we find that firms' CSR performance is positively associated with their contemporaneous stock returns and Tobin's Q in the Korean market. This finding suggests that stock market participants value firms' CSR activities. This is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the existence of the positive association between the CSR performance of Korean firms and their financial performance using MCSI data which is considered more reliable than the data used in the prior CSR studies in Korea.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.554-561
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• 2023

Purpose: To urge the necessity of disclosure by identifying the relationship between the disclosure status of greenhouse gas emissions from domestic business sites and other indirect emissions to total emissions. Method: The 2021 emission data disclosed in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) was collected by industry and emission category for comparative analysis. Result: The more companies that calculated and disclosed emissions by category within Scope 3, the more active they were in responding to or disclosing evaluation factors other than disclosure of emissions, and those companies were able to obtain higher grades in CDP and ESG evaluations. The number of Scope 3 calculations and disclosures was found to be high. In addition, there was a significant difference in the correlation between the number of Scope 3 disclosures by industry and the share of each scope out of the total in some manufacturing industries. Conclusion: As the number of Scope 3 disclosures, corporate ratings, and total emissions are proportional, it was confirmed that the higher the number of Scope 3 disclosures and GHG emissions, the higher the level of Scope 3 management. Based on Scope 3 emissions calculation and disclosure, effective emissions management and reduction activities are required.