SUFE-DAFI, Published at 08:12, Aug 22, 2023 in Shanghai
What exactly is the value
created by a company?
Besides figures,
is there anything recorded
on nature’s ledger?
Besides reputation,
is there a place
for social responsibility?
Besides rules,
is there always awe
in heart?
Environmental protection, social responsibility, corporate governance
This is ESG!
SUFE-DAFI has launched an ESG Feature column – in which our teachers are invited to share ESG research and discuss the future path to sustainable development, so that ESG could lead the green age and contribute to a sustainable future!
A paper titled “The Value of Employee Satisfaction in Disastrous Times: Evidence from COVID-19” – authored by Shan Chenyu, Director of ESG Finance Program at SUFE-DAFI, and her collaborators – has been published in the top international journal Review of Finance.
Please click “Read the Original Text” to access the paper’s electronic version.
Fruitful Research
The Value of Employee Satisfaction in Disastrous Times: Evidence from COVID-19
Chenyu Shan, Dragon Yongjun Tang
Review of Finance, publishied.
About the Author
Shan Chenyu
Shan is Associate Professor at the School of Finance, SUFE, Director of ESG Finance Program at SUFE-DAFI, and a Fulbright Scholar, with a PhD in finance at the University of Hong Kong. She specializes in ESG, corporate finance, banking and credit markets, with research papers published in world-class journals such as The Journal of Finance, Journal of Accounting and Economics, and Review of Finance. Her papers have also been selected for many academic conferences such as the Western Finance Association (WFA) Annual Conference, the European Finance Association (EFA) Annual Meeting, the China International Conference in Finance (CICF), and the Conference of Financial Intermediation Research Society (FIRS), and have been awarded the CICF Best Paper, the TCFA Best Paper, the CFMCG Best Paper, the CAFM Outstanding Paper and so on. The research project chaired by her, “Do Contingent Convertible Bonds Issued by Banks Reduce Systemic Risks?” was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China – Young Scientists Fund in 2019. “Do Banks Affect Environmental Protection? Research on the Interactive Effects of Debt Financing, Green Finance and Corporate Pollution” was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China – Key Program in 2021.
About the Journal
Review of Finance
Review of Finance is an international top journal in finance that publishes theoretical and empirical studies in all aspects of financial economics. Its impact factor in the past five years is 5.071, with an acceptance rate of 7.88%.
Paper Abstract
Employee treatment is an important but challenging element of corporate environmental, social, and governance policies. Satisfying employee needs can increase corporate productivity, but is also costly to shareholders. Using unique data of Chinese publicly listed firms, we show that having satisfied employees is valuable to the firm. Specifically, firms with higher employee satisfaction scores withstand COVID-19 better, in terms of stock market performance. Such an effect is more pronounced for firms with more intangible assets and in knowledge-based industries. Moreover, higher employee satisfaction scores predict better operating performance. While not fully revealed in tranquil times, the effect of employee satisfaction is materialized when the firms experience negative shocks, such as COVID-19. Our findings suggest that firms can do well in crisis periods by doing good in normal times.
