ESG Issues and Career Prospects of Directors : Evidence from the International Director Labor Market

• Published in: Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments
• Main Authors: Colak, Gonul, Hickman, Kent, Korkeamäki, Timo, Meyer, Niclas
• Other Authors: Finance, Helsinki, Statistics, Helsinki
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: 512 Business and Management; Director Career Prospects; Director Labor Market; Environmental; Social; and Governance (ESG); Legal Origin; Shareholder Value; Stakeholder Orientation; KOTA2022; PREM2022_10; 2 - Hybrid open access publication channel; 1 - Self archived; http://hdl.handle.net/10227/518667; 1- Minst en av författarna har en utländsk affiliation; 1- Publicerad utomlands; 0- Ingen affiliation med ett företag; AoS: Financial management; accounting; and governance; PRJ; 0,75; AACSB year; 2022; sami
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10227/518667; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132549336&partnerID=8YFLogxK

Funding Information: This paper previously circulated under the title “Corporate Social Responsibility and Director Reputation”. The authors thank Niklas Ahlgren, Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, Eliezer Fich, Mikko Leppämäki, Eva Liljeblom, Thomas Noe, Charlotte Østergaard, Luc Renneboog, Konrad Raff, Lisa Schopohl, Sami Torstila, Sami Vähämaa, Kam‐Ming Wan, Yaoyi Xi, and Bünyamin Önal as well as seminar participants at the 2018 FMA Annual Meeting in San Diego, the 2018 Nordic Finance Network (NFN) workshop in Lund, the 2017 FMA Annual Meeting in Boston, the 2017 GSF Seminar in Helsinki, and the 2018 and 2017 November Brown Bag seminars at Hanken for valuable comments that helped improve the paper. Niclas Meyer also thanks OP Group Research Foundation (grant nr. 201600098 and 20170020), the Foundation for Economic Education (170257, 190260, and 190261), the Hanken Support Foundation (197‐4992), Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (2078), and the Foundation of Jakob Palmstierna (SIFR, Institute for Financial Research, Stockholm) (1) for financial support for his doctoral dissertation (this paper is part of the dissertation). All remaining errors are of course our own. * Publisher Copyright: © 2022 New York University Salomon Center. Using an international sample of firms, we investigate the career prospects of directors of firms experiencing negative ESG issues. By tracking the same director at the same firm over time, we document a significant drop in seats held at other public firms’ boards following intense negative media coverage of an ESG problem occurring at a given director's focal firm. Losses of seats at other firms are concentrated among executive directors, among directors of firms located in countries with high environmental and social norms, and among directors of firms located in countries with bank-based systems. Nonexecutive directors and directors of firms located in less stakeholder-oriented countries are not penalized for ESG issues by the director labor market. Using an international sample of ...