ESG Controversies: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis for the Sociopolitical Determinants in EU Firms

Ioannis Passas (), Konstantina Ragazou, Eleni Zafeiriou, Alexandros Garefalakis and Constantin Zopounidis
Additional contact information
Ioannis Passas: Department of Business Administration and Tourism, Hellenic Mediterranean University, GR71410 Heraklion, Greece
Konstantina Ragazou: Department of Business Administration and Tourism, Hellenic Mediterranean University, GR71410 Heraklion, Greece
Eleni Zafeiriou: Department of Agricultural Development, Democritus University of Thrace, GR68200 Orestiada, Greece
Alexandros Garefalakis: Department of Business Administration and Tourism, Hellenic Mediterranean University, GR71410 Heraklion, Greece
Constantin Zopounidis: School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, GR73100 Chania, Greece

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-17

Abstract: Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria are novel and exciting tools of corporate disclosure for decision making. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, the present study examined the key characteristics and trends of ESG controversies in the European market. At the same time, it identified the controversies’ determinants. A bibliometric analysis was the qualitative method employed on the data derived from Scopus using Biblioshiny software, an R package. The quantitative analysis involved an international sample of 2278 companies headquartered in Europe from 2017–2019 being studied using a Generalized Linear Model. The findings of this research highlighted the role of the “S” and the “G” dimensions of the ESG controversies as the most crucial in affecting controversies. Women are under-represented in the business hierarchy, but their natural characteristics such as friendliness and peaceability lead to a low level of illegal business practices. However, independent of gender, executives have personal gains that they want to satisfy. Thus, executives may become involved in unethical practices and harm their colleagues and the business’s reputation. On the other hand, democracy emerged as one of the most disputed factors. Democracy gives people the voice to express themselves and publicly support their ideas without restrictions. Although, the regression results showed that democracy is not always operated as the “pipe of peace” and can affect, to some extent, controversies.

Keywords: ESG; Generalized Linear Models; Biblioshiny; democracy; corporate ethics; controversies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12879/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12879/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:19:p:12879-:d:937228

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().