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This study aims to empirically examine environment, social, and governance (ESG) as an effective strategy to reduce major impediments for a corporation in the form of costs of capital (COC) and systematic risk, especially for emerging markets such as India.

A sample of 114 Indian firms from eight prominent industries based on Thomson Reuters classification (TRBC) are used in the study. A panel regression with industry-fixed effects is carried out to account for industry heterogeneity. For robustness, the authors also carry out a matched sample analysis.

The authors observe a negative and significant relationship between ESG performance with COC and systematic risk, respectively. For the pillar-wise analysis, the authors observe that only governance performance is negatively and significantly related to COC whereas the environmental and social performances are negative and insignificant. For ESG pillar level analysis for beta, the authors observe that all pillars are negative and significant, thus making a case for how firms can fine-tune their ESG strategies according to each pillar.

As the ESG concept is still in a very nascent stage, data availability is a definite challenge in India.

As ESG is increasingly becoming relevant for multiple stakeholders, this study aims to provide evidence that can potentially guide the regulators, practitioners, and academicians to address the contemporary needs of these stakeholders, while also doing good for the firm in the traditional sense.

The transition to a sustainable economy is a challenge for emerging economies, especially for a country like India where stakeholders are not only varied but also huge in number. With this study's contribution towards an incremental understanding of ESG, Indian regulators and policymakers can bring forward mandates as to ESG compliances that are rewarding for the firms and give them enough impetus towards complying with ESG norms.

The extant literature on ESG majorly discusses the relationship between ESG performance and financial performance. This study addresses the lacuna of the relationship of ESG with COC and beta in the Indian context.

Based on the conservation of resources theory, this study aims to investigate if the fear of career harm influences employees’ knowledge-hoarding behavior. The study further examines felt violation as the predictor of employees’ fear of career harm. The study also explores leader-member exchange as a boundary factor influencing the effect of felt violation on employees’ fear of career harm.

The data were collected in three waves from 402 professionals working in the information technology industry in Bengaluru, popularly known as the Silicon Valley of India.

The findings indicate fear of career harm as a critical predictor of employees’ knowledge-hoarding behavior. Moreover, felt violation indirectly impacts knowledge-hoarding behavior by enhancing employees’ fear of career harm. The adverse effect of felt violation was found to be stronger for employees with poor-quality relationships with their leaders.

The study carries important managerial implications as it uncovers the antecedents of knowledge hoarding. First, the human resource department can devise specific guidelines to ensure that the employees are treated the way they were promised. They can also organize training opportunities and mentoring so that the employees’ performance and growth do not get hampered, even if there is a violation. Moreover, such cases should be addressed in an adequate and expedited manner. More significantly, leaders can compensate for the failure of organizational-level levers by developing quality relationships with their subordinates.

The study advances the existing literature on knowledge hoarding by establishing a novel antecedent. Furthermore, it identifies how the employee-leader relationship’s quality can mitigate the adverse effect of felt violation.