Between Calm and Passion for Organizational Authenticity: Seeking Efficiency Within the Financial-ESG Trade-Off

Abstract

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is pivotal for firms and their stakeholders, highlighting the importance of organizational authenticity (OA) in mitigating information asymmetry between signalers and receivers, thereby enhancing effective communication of social strategies. However, firms communicate with heterogeneous audiences whose interests and levels of information access differ, resulting in uneven reception of signals and complicating the communication process. Given the heterogeneity in signal receivers, stakeholder recognition of signals varies and aligning social strategies with executives' intrinsic values may conflict with certain stakeholders' expectations, creating an authenticity paradox. Therefore, clarifying whether OA strengthens or weakens signaling warrants careful examination. We tested our hypotheses using executive statements from S&P-listed firms' earnings call transcripts on Seeking Alpha, supplemented with firm-level data from multiple sources, including Morgan Stanley Capital International, Center for Research in Security Prices/Compustat, and ExecuComp. The findings indicate that the optimal level of social strategies depends on heterogeneity among receivers and that low OA enhances signaling efficiency.