A Study on the Impact of Corporate ESG Ratings on Employment Output from the Configurational Perspective

Strengthening information disclosure through Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices has been confirmed by both academia and the business world to guide companies in fulfilling their social responsibilities and promoting the prosperity of the labor market. However, previous literature lacks studies on the output pathways and efficiency of corporate ESG ratings. Therefore, this paper takes A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2009 to 2022 as the research sample. By employing the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methods, this study verifies the employment output pathways and efficiency of ESG. The analysis focuses on how ESG ratings affect the employment output efficiency of companies in different industries and of different types. The findings indicate that corporate size, wage levels, and ESG ratings can all independently serve as core conditions for employment levels. However, the employment output efficiency of ESG ratings is significantly lower than that of corporate size and wage levels. Moreover, state-owned enterprises exhibit a higher proportion of decreasing returns to scale, with varying returns to scale observed across industries.