Seeing Is More than Believing: ESG Performance Aspiration Gap and Institutional Investors’ Site Visits

ESG has profoundly influenced asset pricing and resource allocation in capital markets. However, existing research largely focuses on the economic consequences of absolute ESG levels, with limited attention paid to how the gap between corporate ESG performance and aspiration levels—the ESG performance aspiration gap—is related to the behavior of information intermediaries in the capital market. Using a sample of A-share non-financial listed companies on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2024, this paper empirically examines the relation between the ESG performance aspiration gap and institutional investors’ site visits and its potential underlying channel. The findings are as follows. First, the ESG performance aspiration gap is positively correlated with institutional investors’ site visits. This conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests. Second, the mechanism analysis is consistent with information asymmetry serving as a potential channel linking the ESG performance aspiration gap and institutional investors’ site visits. Third, the moderating effect analysis shows that both marketization level and analyst coverage negatively moderate the positive relation between the ESG performance aspiration gap and institutional investors’ site visits. This paper extends the research boundaries of the economic consequences of ESG and institutional investors’ information search behavior, providing a new theoretical explanation for how the capital market responds to the dynamic changes in corporate ESG performance. It also offers policy implications for improving the ESG information disclosure system and enhancing the information efficiency of the capital market.