기업의 ESG 노력과 경영성과, 그리고 도덕면허 현상의 실증

Amidst the growing emphasis on corporate ESG efforts, this research conducts an empirical study on the compounded effect of corporate ESG efforts on business performance using a 10-year dataset of Korean listed companies from the perspective of Moral Licensing Theory, which suggests that ESG efforts can paradoxically lead to unethical behavior. The analysis reveals that the higher the ethical level of a company, the more positively it impacts both short-term and long-term business performance, thereby validating the instrumental validity of stakeholder theory. Furthermore, the ethical efforts of a company, as newly proposed in this study, are also found to positively impact short-term business performance, supporting the stakeholder theory. Additionally, the study confirms the presence of a short-term moderating effect due to moral licensing. The results support existing instrumental stakeholder theory and provide evidence of a systematic risk of the moral licensing phenomenon at the corporate level. Ultimately, this study suggests that while neglecting ethical efforts may provide temporary advantages to business performance in the short term, maintaining higher ethical level is more beneficial to business performance in the long term. This provides meaningful implications for both academia and practice, emphasizing that companies should consistently strive for ESG efforts without becoming overly focused on short-term performance gains.