부정사건이 적발된 기업의 ESG 개선 활동과 언론의 보도 행태

The fraud detection drives the loss of firm’s growth and reputation. Specifically, the market and stakeholders react negatively to fraud detection. So, future cash flows and costs of capital are negatively impacted by fraud detection. According to prior studies, firms try to restore firm value and reputation after detecting fraud. At this point, We investigate whether the fraud detection firm improves ESG. And then we analyze media coverage regarding the ESG of the firm detected fraud event, such as accounting fraud, misappropriation and breach of trust. The sample period starts from 2015 and ends at 2020. Our findings are summarized as follows. First, we find that, ESG performance significantly increased after fraud detection. Second, the corporate governance improved after fraud detection. In short, to restore firm’s reputation after fraud detection, firms improve ESG activities, focusing on the corporate governance. Third, negative media coverage of ESG significantly increased after fraud detection. Finally, negative media coverage of social sector also increased. In other words, the media reports negatively on the ESG of fraud detection firm, and this trends also extends in not related to fraud detection sector, such as social. In sum, We provide empirical results that firms improve ESG performance after the fraud detection, but negative media coverage of ESG trends to increases. Our study suggests that there is an ESG information gap between firms and the media. Therefore, investors need to increase understanding of asymmetric information. Our results recommend that ESG disclosure standards should be secured to allow investors to access such ESG information. Overall, our paper contributes to the empirical analysis of ESG activities and various media coverage patterns.