Shifting from short-term profit maximizing strategies to more sustainable long-term ones, the corporate world has been exerting extra effort to adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performances. However, the loop question remains unsolved: is ESG financially-driven or is financial performance (FIN) ESG-driven? Building on the slack resources theory and bridging three management literatures, this analysis relies on a six-year panel dataset of multinational organizations from different industries. A distributed lag regression model is proposed to empirically investigate the impact of FIN performance on ESG and to test the moderator effect of total quality management (TQM). The findings reveal a stimulus effect between free cash flow (FCF) and ESG scores. While the interaction between TQM and FCF has a negative effect on ESG, the interaction between TQM and Tobin’s Q reveals a positive relationship with ESG. This study sheds further insights for both research and practice towards the operationalization of sustainability management.

中文翻译：

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角色反转！财务绩效作为 ESG 的前因：全面质量管理的调节作用

从短期利润最大化战略转向更可持续的长期战略，企业界一直在付出额外的努力来采用环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 绩效。然而，循环问题仍未解决：ESG是财务驱动还是财务绩效 (FIN) ESG 驱动？该分析建立在松弛资源理论的基础上，并连接了三个管理文献，依赖于来自不同行业的跨国组织的六年面板数据集。提出了一种分布式滞后回归模型，以实证研究 FIN 绩效对 ESG 的影响，并测试全面质量管理 (TQM) 的调节作用。研究结果揭示了自由现金流 (FCF) 和 ESG 分数之间的刺激效应。虽然 TQM 和 FCF 之间的相互作用对 ESG 有负面影响，但 TQM 和 Tobin's Q 之间的相互作用显示出与 ESG 的正相关关系。本研究为可持续性管理的可操作化研究和实践提供了进一步的见解。