The impact of ESG and personal environmental concern on performance of Russian companies

The article aims to empirically test the hypothesis on the impact of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) practices and employees’ personal environmental concerns on the performance of Russian companies. The methodological basis is the theory of corporate social and environmental responsibility embodied in the ESG concept. Exploratory factor analysis and linear regression are used to assess individual factors of corporate responsibility and personal environmental concerns on the ability of companies to perform better, i.e. to achieve their long-term goals. The empirical basis is the survey data of 339 employees of Russian companies. The research results show that strategic aspects of environmental responsibility and corporate governance are strongly connected within a single theoretical framework, while social responsibility of companies and environmental concern can be identified as a separate area of managerial efforts. Originality of the chosen approach is related to the proposed structured questionnaire that reveals various aspects of personal environmental concern and contributes to ESG practices assessment. The conducted regression analysis has demonstrated a positive impact of ESG strategies on the performance of the Russian companies in question, showing that social responsibility plays a decisive role in the ESG formula. Environmental concerns of employees do not have a significant effect on their personal assessment of organizational performance. The authors propose that managers should implement the most relevant ESG practices discussed in this article to sustain high levels of organizational performance.