IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v75y2025ics1544612325001047.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do good and talk about it: The impact of investor relations quality on ESG ratings

Author

Listed:
  • Bock, Lennart
  • Thun, Toni W.
  • Zülch, Henning

Abstract

This study provides robust evidence that higher investor relations (IR) quality goes in tandem with enhanced ESG ratings. Building on the extensive data from an established investor relations award in Germany, covering the largest listed firms between 2014 and 2022, we use both panel-data and two-stage least-squares regressions to analyze the effect of IR quality on ESG ratings. Our results hold true for various robustness checks. Moreover, not only do our results introduce a suitable measure for IR quality, but they also demonstrate the relevance of IR quality as an additional determinant of ESG performance measured by rating agencies. Finally, our results provide practical guidelines to firms struggling with their ESG ratings by providing reasoning that investing in higher IR quality eventually meets with success.

Suggested Citation

  • Bock, Lennart & Thun, Toni W. & Zülch, Henning, 2025. "Do good and talk about it: The impact of investor relations quality on ESG ratings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:75:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001047
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.106839
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325001047
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.106839?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ESG performance; ESG score; Investor relations; Financial communication; Rating;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:75:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001047. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.