소비자 인식기반 ESG 경영 척도 개발 연구

Abstract

As uncertainties in the business environment increase due to COVID-19, companies are interested in ESG management as a strategy to overcome this. In addition, unlike the existing consumption environment, today's consumption environment values value consumption reflecting consumers' beliefs and values, and companies' management activities also focus on consumer value consumption. As the concept of value consumption expressed as mining-out emerged as a new consumption trend, companies began to recognize and evaluate ESG management in the non-financial aspect, which had been recognized as external costs. However, existing ESG management research has been mainly conducted from an investor's point of view, especially focusing on corporate financial performance or corporate value, and has presented the effects of ESG management. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop an ESG management scale based on consumer perception. Specifically, this study aims to measure how consumers perceive a company's ESG management activities and expand the measured ESG management factors to the marketing area.

In order to achieve the purpose of this study, a consumer awareness-based ESG scale was developed according to Churchill (1979)'s multi-item scale development process. In Study 1, the measurement concept was derived and preliminary stages were conducted during the scale development process. This researcher defined the concept of consumer awareness-based ESG management through previous studies and created preliminary questions through metrics such as KEJI Index, Korea Corporate Governance Service(KCGS) ESG evaluation index, Bloombrg ESG evaluation index, and K-ESG evaluation index. A total of 91 initial measurement items were derived through in-depth interviews with FGI and experts for the first measurement items.

The first data collection was conducted on 200 adults, and exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed using the SPSS 27.0 and LISREL 8.3 programs. The optimal factor was derived by performing a competition model verification on the derived factors and measurement items. As a result, the environment (E) dimension was composed of three sub-dimensions, and the three sub-dimensions were derived as nine questions of 'environmental risk management report', four questions of 'environmental management pursuit activity', and three questions of 'response to climate change'. The social (S) dimension consisted of four sub-dimensions, and the three sub-dimensions were derived from six questions of 'community', five questions of 'stakeholders', five questions of 'employment equality', and four questions of 'protection of consumer rights'. The governance (G) dimension was composed of four sub-dimensions, and the four sub-dimensions were derived into five questions of 'corporate fairness', five questions of 'shareholders', two questions of 'corporate soundness', and two questions of 'social director'. The final result was derived as a total of 50 questions.

In Study 2, this stage was carried out among the scale development stages. To this end, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted through secondary data collection for 280 adults, and then the validity of interest was verified through model verification. As a result of the verification, consumer-based ESG management was found to have a positive (+) effect on corporate trust and corporate image, confirming the validity of the interest.

This study is an early study that developed an ESG management scale based on consumer perception, and has academic significance in that it presents a consumer-centered ESG marketing measurement method by applying factors that constitute ESG management in terms of consumers.