This study aimed to examine the impact of management strategies and technological innovation activities in pharmaceutical and bio companies on ESG evaluation ratings. ESG is widely used as an indicator of corporate sustainability.Previous research on ...
This study aimed to examine the impact of management strategies and technological innovation activities in pharmaceutical and bio companies on ESG evaluation ratings. ESG is widely used as an indicator of corporate sustainability.Previous research on management strategies, technological innovation activities, and ESG primarily focused on financial performance. There is limited research examining the impact of these factors on non-financial performance. Accordingly, this study classified the management strategy types of pharmaceutical and bio companies into Prospector strategy and defender strategy types to confirm the relationship between various complex factors surrounding pharmaceutical and bio companies, and examined the impact on ESG evaluation ratings. Additionally, we examined whether companies’ innovation activities could be categorized as closed of open innovation for better control. We conducted an analysis on 90 pharmaceutical and bio companies that received an evaluation grade from the Korea ESG Standards Institute. The company’s management strategy score was derived from Fn Dataguide. Technological innovation activities were measured using the Korean patent information search service and the moderating effect of ESG was analyzed using a hierarchical regression model. The result of the analysis) confirmed that the leading management strategy had a positive (+) effect on all grades of ESG integration (T), environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G). In addition, it was found that open innovation activities have a negative (-) regulation effect in the impact of leading management strategies on integration (T) and social (S) ratings. Several implications can be presented based on the findings of this study. First, since leading management strategies have been shown to have a positive (+) effect on ESG evaluation, companies should strive to improve their non-financial performance by establishing leading management strategies and reflecting ESG evaluation criteria well. Second, since open innovation activities have a negative control effect on ESG (T) and social (S) ratings, efforts should be made to minimize the impact of open technology innovation activities to prepare a response strategy according to changes in the business environment.