Exploring managerial intentions to implement ESG Activities: The role of facilitating conditions in the UTAUT2 framework

Abstract

This research investigates the factors influencing managers' willingness to adopt Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As these practices are becoming increasingly important, it is crucial to understand what factors can increase managers' acceptance of them for both theory and practice. Our analysis was conducted on a sample of 306 managers from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Anchored in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2), we tested three models to identify predictors of intention to adopt ESG practices and to explore the moderating role of facilitating conditions (FC) on the relationship between performance expectancy and intention to adopt ESG practices. Our findings indicate that there are consistent factors that predict the managers’ intention of adopt ESG practices, including Performance Expectancy (PE), Social Influence (SI), and Habitual Tendency (HT). We found that the FC negatively moderate the link between PE and intention to adopt social and governance practices within ESG framework. We argue that the nature of each domain within ESG, ceiling effect, and resource constraints and trade-offs might be possible explanations for these results.