Existing global ESG models are limited in terms of applicability and predictability, especially in countries with an unstable environment. On the other hand, utilizing internally made or privately sourced ESG models have caused issues relating to generalizability, comparability, and continuity. In our research, we present an ESG framework that is specific to South Korea, which has both global and country-specific factors in all three categories. The AHP model is used to determine how the three categories’ materiality would be viewed by institutional investors as well as how country-specific factors rank against global factors. The results of this study show that institutional investors place more importance on environmental and governance factors compared to social factors. Factors including shareholders’ rights, pollution and waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and risk and opportunity management are found to have greater influences on investors’ investment decisions. In addition, it was confirmed that both of the country-specific variables for South Korea, partnership with subcontractor and CEO reputation, have a significant influence on investment decisions. By having the ESG model validated by institutional investors, who are the main users of ESG disclosures of corporations, our methodology of presenting a country-specific model can be benchmarked by studies on other emerging markets with a variety of country-level specificities.

Global investors’ investment in local currency bonds, especially Korea Treasury Bonds, has increased significantly since the mid-2000s, and their influence on bonds and financial markets has grown consistently. In this paper, we investigate global investor’s priority of decision factors in investing in Korea Treasury Bonds by distributing a pairwise comparative survey to experts and analyzing the results using the analytical hierarchy process technique. For analysis, we created model frames with experts in the field of investment based on literature analysis, selected survey participants by considering their institution of their employment, work experience and region, and obtained responses. We find that investors with short-term investment propensities are more sensitive to international and domestic factors and less to risk factors, and more heavily influenced by U.S. dollar funding conditions. On the other hand, investors with long-term investment tendencies are found to be more sensitive to international and risk factors as opposed to domestic factors, and influenced by: global policy rate decisions and fiscal soundness, sovereign credit rating, possible global economic recession, and geographical risks. Our findings not only contribute to enhancing investors’ understanding of the Korean bond market by discussing consensus among investors, but also provide policy implications for Korean government policymakers who need stable and sustained funding.

Han Ah Lee, Seung Up Kim, Jihwan Lim, Moon Young Kim, Sang Gyune Kim, Ki Tae Suk, Jae Young Jang, Hyonggin An, Hyung Joon Yim, and Yeon Seok Seo. Gut and Liver 2023;17:299-307. https://doi.org/10.5009/gnl220032

Foreign investors’ interest in Korean local currency bonds, and especially in Korea Treasury Bonds (KTBs) has increased significantly since the mid-2000s. This paper examines the determinants of foreign investors’ KTB investments by means of a lag-augmented vector autoregressive model with exogenous variables (LA-VARX). The model specification includes variables capturing the domestic, international, and risk factors. The risk factors are especially important in the context of South Korea since geopolitical tensions and economic policy uncertainty might adversely affect all investment decisions by foreigners. We find that expected return rates, country default risks, and global economic conditions have a significant impact on foreign investors’ KTB investment, but geopolitical risks have only a short-term negative impact. Our findings not for only provide a better understanding of the determinants of financial investments in South Korean financial markets, but they have broader implications in terms of the economic and social aspects of sustainability in South Korea. This is because KTBs provide a source of funding for the South Korean government for social projects and that KTBs are also held largely by long-term investors such as pension funds and insurers which require stable and sustainable investments.

Jang JY, et al. Nat Prod Sci. 2019 Dec;25(4):354-357. https://doi.org/10.20307/nps.2019.25.4.354

This study examines how institutional investors adopt and utilize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information by integrating the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with expert-based pairwise comparisons from 20 senior investment professionals at major South Korean financial institutions, we identify and weight key determinants influencing ESG information use among South Korean institutional investors. The results show that performance expectancy emerged as the most influential determinant (33.7%), followed by facilitating conditions (24.6%), social influence (22.8%), and effort expectancy (18.9%). At the sub-criterion level, usefulness for investment decision-making (11.2%), institutional encouragement (10.2%), and utilization of ESG information as a fiduciary duty (9.4%) recorded the highest global weights, whereas psychological comfort in utilizing ESG information (2.0%) and practical guidelines and training programs (3.7%) exhibited the lowest. These findings suggest that ESG adoption has evolved beyond early legitimacy-seeking behavior toward substantive and performance-driven integration, consistent with UTAUT predictions that performance expectancy and facilitating conditions gain salience in mature adoption phases, while effort expectancy and social influence diminish. This weight distribution indicates that ESG has been internalized as core analytical infrastructure informing investment decision-making and risk management, rather than functioning as a peripheral compliance tool. By empirically mapping ESG adoption determinants into a hierarchical structure, this study contributes to the literature on ESG diffusion, institutional investor behavior, and adoption theory, offering practical implications for regulators and financial institutions seeking to deepen substantive ESG integration.