ESGDisclosure Quality and Human Capital Investment: The Moderating Role of Financing Constraints and the Mediating Effect of Managerial Talent Allocation

Abstract

Taking Chinese A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2024 as the research sample, this paper empirically tests the impact of ESG disclosure quality on corporate human capital investment, and deeply explores the mediating role of managerial talent allocation and the moderating role of financing constraints. The study finds that high-quality ESG disclosure can significantly improve the level of corporate human capital investment, and this conclusion remains robust after replacing core variables, changing the sample interval, controlling firm fixed effects, and using instrumental variable method and propensity score matching method to alleviate endogeneity. Managerial talent allocation plays a partial mediating role between ESG disclosure quality and human capital investment, that is, ESG disclosure indirectly promotes corporate human capital investment by attracting excellent managerial talents. Financing constraints have a negative moderating effect on the above relationship, and the higher the degree of financing constraints, the weaker the promoting effect of ESG disclosure on human capital investment. This paper enriches the research literature on the economic consequences of ESG and the influencing factors of human capital investment, and provides empirical evidence for enterprises to optimize human capital allocation, regulatory authorities to improve ESG disclosure system and investors to make investment decisions.