This study aims to
explore the relationship between ESG and organizational reputation and
attractiveness in the eyes of job seekers covering newly graduates and current
employees in Taiwan. Drawing upon signaling theory and social identity theory,
we investigate the environmental, social, and governance issues, respectively, and
ESG as a whole as the drivers of organizational attractiveness, especially in
the eyes of job seekers. To this end, we adopted a deductive approach to
finalize the 34-item ESG measurement. Next, we collected data from 106
participants, including 49 students about to graduate or social freshmen
looking for work and 57 current employees. Our findings indicate that (1)
environmental issue, social issue, governance issue, and ESG as a whole are
positively and significantly related to organizational reputation,
respectively, (2) organizational reputation is the critical linkage between
environmental issue, social issue, governance issue, and ESG as a whole,
respectively, and organizational attractiveness, and (3) organizational
reputation, rather than organizational attractiveness, is an underlying
mechanism in the relationships as mentioned above. This study contributes to
the current ESG literature by revealing the significant implications for
organizations concerning ESG implementation and organizational attractiveness.
