Executive Background Characteristics And Corporate ESG Performance

At present,the expectation of the outside world on corporate social responsibility and sustainable development ability is growing day by day.The concept of ESG investment is gradually popular in the field of capital market,and corporate ESG performance has gradually become an important factor in the evaluation of enterprises in the capital market.Enterprise ESG performance refers to Environmental,Social and Governance,which respectively measure the positive or negative impact of the enterprise on the natural environment,the trust and good communication established between the enterprise and customers,employees and other stakeholders.The soundness of a company’s structure and procedural norms,and whether directors and executives are acting in the best interests of their long-term shareholders.International institutional investors regard corporate ESG performance as a new standard for portfolio and risk management in the process of investment decision-making.The growth of funds containing ESG elements has gradually surpassed that of traditional funds.The increasing attention of investors to the ESG performance of enterprises also encourages the investee enterprises to stimulate the internal motivation of sustainable development.Expressing and improving their ESG performance has become the direction pursued by most listed companies at present.Numerous studies have confirmed that superior ESG performance can provide a practical guarantee for enterprises to withstand risks and maintain long-term competitiveness.However,most current studies focus on the economic consequences of ESG performance of enterprises,such as business conditions and capital market performance,and are conducted from a single aspect of environmental,social and governance.In fact,with the increasing richness of relevant researches,it is a more important direction to focus on the influencing factors of enterprise ESG performance and the ways or mechanisms of ESG performance’s influence on enterprise performance.In view of this,this paper selects a-share listed companies on the main board of Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2017 to 2021 as the research object,takes four background characteristics of senior executives including gender,age,educational background and overseas background as independent variables,and selects ESG rating results published by Syn Tao Green Finance Rating Agency as data indicators to measure corporate ESG performance.This paper discusses the influence of executive background characteristics on the ESG performance in listed companies.The results show that:(1)there is a positive correlation between the existence of female executives and ESG performance;(2)The older the average age of corporate executives,the better the performance of ESG;(3)The higher the educational level of the executive team,the more positively promoting the ESG performance of the enterprise;(4)The ESG performance of enterprises with overseas executives will be significantly improved.After the regression of variable substitution method and high-dimensional fixed effect test,the conclusion is still valid.Further research results show that the positive effects of female executives and executive age on ESG performance are more effective in low-polluting enterprises than in high-polluting ones.Based on regional differences,the positive promoting effect of executive age and executive education on ESG performance of enterprises is more significant in the eastern region.This study enriches the research on the influencing factors of enterprise ESG performance and broadens the thinking and Angle of the research on the background characteristics of senior executives.It provides a new perspective and direction for enterprises to improve ESG performance,and guides enterprises to promote ESG performance by selecting and cultivating senior managers more efficiently.