INTEGRATING ESG ANALYTICS INTO CORPORATE DECISION-MAKING: A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH FOR ENHANCING SUSTAINABLE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

This study investigates how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Analytics Capability (EAC) functions as a dynamic organizational resource that enhances Sustainable Financial Performance (SFP). Unlike conventional ESG ratings, which are often inconsistent and backward-looking, EAC is conceptualized as an internal capability that enables firms to sense, interpret, and embed ESG information into decision-making processes. Drawing on the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, stakeholder theory, and institutional perspectives, the study advances a multi-theoretical framework that explains why EAC is valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable, and how it creates resilience under institutional and market pressures. Empirically, the research employs a multi-method design using a longitudinal panel of publicly listed firms (2010–2024), combining econometric analyses, staggered adoption designs, event studies, survival models, and machine learning on unstructured ESG textual data. Results demonstrate that EAC improves profitability, valuation, financing conditions, and resilience, with effects mediated by risk management and capital allocation efficiency, and moderated by governance quality, digital maturity, and industry salience. Event studies show that investors reward EAC by attenuating downside risks and amplifying positive responses to ESG events, while survival models reveal that high-EAC firms resolve ESG incidents faster. Predictive models confirm that unstructured data contain forward-looking signals that strong-EAC firms effectively harness. The study contributes theoretically by reconceptualizing ESG as a capability rather than a static rating, methodologically by integrating causal inference with predictive modeling, and practically by guiding managers and policymakers on embedding analytics into governance and regulation. Overall, the findings affirm that ESG analytics, when institutionalized as a capability, serve as a cornerstone for sustainable financial performance in the twenty-first century