Os desafios do ESG: uma leitura a partir da teoria da agência

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the way ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) may influence investors' decision-making, as well as how such criteria bind their actions and can, at least abstractly, be one of the solutions to the agency conflict that arises from information asymmetry, in the light of the notions developed by Eisenhardt (1989), Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling (1976). For this purpose, a bibliographic review will be carried out, through the hypothetical-inductive method, of the concepts of ESG, Socially Responsible Investments, Corporate Governance, Compliance and Agency Theory, and their interrelationships with the ESG theme. The hypothesis before the presented questioning is that ESG metrics - by raising the criteria of Corporate Governance, as well as raising transparency, besides being linked to ethical and moral standards - can mitigate agency conflicts, as they interact with decision-making in business companies and can align and even link the shareholders' purposes to those of the management of the business organization