กองทุนปริญญาเอกจัดสัมมนา โดย Asst. Prof. Bell Piyasinchai จาก Tilburg University, Netherlands เมื่อวันที่วันที่ 8 มกราคม 2569 ที่ผ่านมา

While firms are facing increased pressure from investors to generally engage in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices, it is less clear how they should specifically engage given the wide and varied scope of sustainability-related concerns and opportunities. Drawing on optimal distinctiveness and social evaluations research, we argue that depending on the extent of public criticism directed toward an industry, organizations are likely to face oscillating pressures from investors to both conform with and deviate from industry sustainability norms. Using a dataset of 8,176 global companies from 2013 to 2022, we find that although firms that conform with normative ESG practices benefit from positive investor evaluations, once industry peers’ public criticism accumulates, ESG practice differentiation is rewarded. This differentiation imperative is further shaped by the materiality of those practices. Our study effectively bridges and extends the literature on optimal distinctiveness and social evaluations.