The effect of environmental, social and governance on the Southeast Asian bank reputation

Lack of understanding of how Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices affect a company's reputation differently based on the age of the company, uncertainty regarding the influence of moderation variables such as company age in the context of ESG, and the need to understand how varying ESG implementations affect reputation in the Southeast Asian banking sector. Therefore, this study examines the impact of ESG performance on the reputation of existing banks in Southeast Asia, with the company's age as a moderation factor. Hypothesizing that environmental and governance performance have significant impacts, social performance does not, and company age moderates these relationships. Using a quantitative approach, this study analyzed data from 109 banks in the Southeast Asian region from 2013 to 2022 using panel data regression and processed using STATA software. The findings show that environmental performance and governance affect reputation, while social performance does not. The age of a company moderates the relationship between environmental performance and reputation but weakens the relationship between social performance and reputation and the relationship between governance performance and reputation. Control variables such as firm size, ROA, and ROE did not have a significant effect on reputation. The results of this study can provide valuable insights for policymakers, investors, and corporate managers in understanding the dynamics between ESG performance, foreign ownership, and financial health, as well as contribute to readers' knowledge and become a source of information and reference for companies.