VALUATION IMPLICATIONS OF ESG INITIATIVES AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HIGH-TECH AND LOW-TECH INDUSTRIES

초록

The growing emphasis on sustainability and continuous innovation has changed the way firms approach value creation and performance. As firms increasingly adopt ESG initiatives and invest in technological innovation, understanding how these strategies jointly affect financial outcomes across different industry contexts becomes essential. The purpose of this study is to explore the valuation implications of the interplay between ESG initiatives and technological innovation, specifically in terms of account-ing, valuation, and growth metrics of corporate operations, with a focus on comparing high-technology and low-technology industries. Utilizing random effects generalized least squares (GLS) regression, this paper examines 4,000 high-technology and 4,739 low-technology firm-year observations from KOSPI and KOSDAQ listed firms in Korea from 2012 to 2022. The results show that while the influence of environmental, social, and governance factors on corporate performance, firm value, and growth show specific implications across the two industries, both ESG adoption (ROA: –0.0025; p < 0.01; TQ: –0.0298; p < 0.05; SGR: –0.0052; p < 0.05) and research and development investments (ROA: –0.0928; p < 0.01; SGR: –0.1192; p < 0.01) tend to manifest a costly impact on corporate operations. Nevertheless, when these two elements are pursued together, the negative impacts are mitigated, ultimately leading to improvements in corporate performance (ROA: 0.0453; p < 0.01; TQ: 0.8902; p < 0.01 for high-tech industries; SGR: 0.0920; p < 0.10 for low-tech industries). This study provides a comparative analysis of the impact of ESG and innovation on corporate metrics across high-and low-technology industries. The findings show that integrating ESG with technological innovation can promote sustainable corporate operations across varying levels of technological intensity. © Kevin Troy Chua, Hae-Young Byun, 2025.

키워드