전문경영 환경에서의 ESG 제도화 과정: 대기업과 중소기업 조직 담론 비교

ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has emerged as a new criterion for assessing corporate sustainability, yet its transition is not a simple paradigm shift. Instead, it requires a concrete process through which organizations internally adopt and interpret the concept. This study conducts a comparative analysis of how large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within S-Group respond to ESG. First, we examine changes in emotional responses embedded in organizational member discourse through sentiment analysis (Study 1). We then track the emergence and contextual meanings of ESG-related keywords using topic modeling, semantic network analysis, and correlation analysis (Study 2). The findings show that large firms predominantly began incorporating keywords such as “eco-friendly” after 2021, framing them in terms of investment and strategic transformation. In contrast, SMEs had already used similar keywords since 2019, but framed them in connection with negative experiences such as “workload,” “misconduct,” and “it is difficult.” hese differences demonstrate that the same institutional demand—ESG—materializes into distinct behavioral patterns and discursive scripts depending on organizational context, and that through repeated enactment by members, such interpretations are either maintained or altered and eventually settle as institutional reality over time. Thus, ESG should not be understood as a concept simply adopted as an externally imposed guideline, but rather as something reconstructed and institutionalized through internal organizational interactions and lived experiences. This study highlights the need to interpret the ESG transition not as declarative compliance, but as a dynamic process shaped by the interaction between external pressures and internal actions.