TY - JOUR
T1 - Navigating the ESG seascape
T2 - media sentiment toward ESG and corporate strategies
AU - Tan, Weijie
AU - Dong, Qi
AU - Xu, Cheng
AU - Sun, Yanqi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - Purpose: This study investigates how corporations navigate the increasingly prominent field of environmental, social and governance (ESG) through the lens of resource dependence theory (RDT). It aims to elucidate the strategic responses of companies to media-driven public sentiment on ESG, examining the alignment of their operations and competitive strategies – specifically differentiation and cost leadership – to the external resource of media ESG sentiment. Design/methodology/approach: Employing Python software, this research extracted over two million ESG-related news articles from Baidu News. Using machine learning and text analysis, the study assesses the media ESG sentiment and its correlation with the competitive strategies of China’s A-share listed companies over a period from 2007 to 2022. The approach leverages RDT to understand how firms adjust their strategies in response to media-driven public sentiment on ESG. Findings: The findings indicate that positive media ESG sentiment acts as a crucial external resource, significantly influencing firms’ strategic alignment toward minimizing ESG public sentiment risks and enhancing competitive positioning, especially in the social (S) and governance (G) domains. This alignment is evident in firms’ adoption of differentiation and cost leadership strategies, affirming the study’s theoretical prediction within the RDT framework. Originality/value: This paper provides a novel contribution by integrating RDT with the analysis of media-driven ESG sentiment to explore corporate strategic adjustments. It offers empirical evidence on the theory’s applicability in contemporary strategic corporate management, particularly in the context of ESG challenges. The research deepens the understanding of the interplay between media ESG sentiment and corporate strategy, highlighting the strategic importance of positive media sentiment in the ESG landscape.
AB - Purpose: This study investigates how corporations navigate the increasingly prominent field of environmental, social and governance (ESG) through the lens of resource dependence theory (RDT). It aims to elucidate the strategic responses of companies to media-driven public sentiment on ESG, examining the alignment of their operations and competitive strategies – specifically differentiation and cost leadership – to the external resource of media ESG sentiment. Design/methodology/approach: Employing Python software, this research extracted over two million ESG-related news articles from Baidu News. Using machine learning and text analysis, the study assesses the media ESG sentiment and its correlation with the competitive strategies of China’s A-share listed companies over a period from 2007 to 2022. The approach leverages RDT to understand how firms adjust their strategies in response to media-driven public sentiment on ESG. Findings: The findings indicate that positive media ESG sentiment acts as a crucial external resource, significantly influencing firms’ strategic alignment toward minimizing ESG public sentiment risks and enhancing competitive positioning, especially in the social (S) and governance (G) domains. This alignment is evident in firms’ adoption of differentiation and cost leadership strategies, affirming the study’s theoretical prediction within the RDT framework. Originality/value: This paper provides a novel contribution by integrating RDT with the analysis of media-driven ESG sentiment to explore corporate strategic adjustments. It offers empirical evidence on the theory’s applicability in contemporary strategic corporate management, particularly in the context of ESG challenges. The research deepens the understanding of the interplay between media ESG sentiment and corporate strategy, highlighting the strategic importance of positive media sentiment in the ESG landscape.
KW - Cost leadership strategy
KW - Differentiation strategy
KW - Media ESG sentiment
KW - Resource dependence theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=86000229206&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/JAL-04-2024-0057
DO - 10.1108/JAL-04-2024-0057
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:86000229206
SN - 0737-4607
JO - Journal of Accounting Literature
JF - Journal of Accounting Literature
ER -