Industry Effects on ESG Performance in Asia–Pacific: Robust Welch ANOVA Games–Howell Evidence

Industry Effects on ESG Performance in Asia–Pacific: Robust Welch ANOVA Games–Howell Evidence | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Industry Effects on ESG Performance in Asia–Pacific: Robust Welch ANOVA Games–Howell Evidence Toai Kim Tran, Hung Van Tran This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8914535/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores are increasingly used in valuation, risk assessment, and sustainable investment, yet robust evidence on whether industry membership systematically shapes ESG performance in Asia–Pacific markets remains limited. A key challenge is that cross-industry ESG data are typically unbalanced and heteroskedastic, which undermines conventional mean-comparison approaches and may lead to unreliable sectoral conclusions. This study addresses this gap by applying variance-robust cross-industry inference to firm-year ESG data from approximately 1,000 listed Asia–Pacific firms over the period 2015–2025. Given significant heterogeneity in variance across industries, Welch’s ANOVA is employed for omnibus testing, followed by Games–Howell post hoc comparisons and effect-size reporting to distinguish statistical significance from economic relevance. The results reveal substantial dispersion in ESG scores (mean ≈ 54.6; SD ≈ 15.9), indicating marked cross-sectional heterogeneity across sectors. Both classical and variance-robust tests confirm a highly significant industry effect, with industry affiliation explaining a meaningful share of ESG variation (η² ≈ 0.166). Pairwise comparisons indicate substantial sectoral gaps, with finance-related industries exhibiting higher ESG scores, whereas energy-intensive sectors consistently rank lower. Overall, the findings demonstrate that ESG performance in Asia–Pacific markets is structurally segmented by industry rather than driven solely by firm-level factors. This highlights the importance of industry-aware ESG benchmarking and supports the use of variance-robust statistical methods in environmental economics and sustainable finance research, where heterogeneous data structures are the norm. Environmental Policy ESG Performance Industry Heterogeneity Asia–Pacific Markets Sustainable Finance Welch ANOVA Variance-Robust Inference Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Supplementary Files gameshowellrankedpairs.csv Ranked Games–Howell Pairwise Industry Contrasts (Variance-Robust) industrymeanssdci.csv Descriptive Statistics of ESG Scores by Industry (Asia–Pacific Samp Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8914535","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":593709802,"identity":"5bdd1c15-4e36-4cb7-b953-0edf82feb8c1","order_by":0,"name":"Toai Kim Tran","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA1ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYJCCAwwHbBJgHMYGQsp5QFoOHEhLgKkmTgtQz2EStNizNz88/OHM+Tz+aWfMH3xgsJHdcIDH7AFeW3iOGRw4cON2scTtHMPGGQxpxkAt5gZ4tUgkALV8uJ24QTrHsJmH4XDihgNsaRL4taR/AGo5B9Hyh+E/MVpyQA47ANECDAmgFuZj+LWcOVNw4MyZ5MQZt9MKZ/YYJBvPPExAC3t7++YPFcfsEvtnJ2/48KPCTrbveGMbXi1oABRUzCSoHwWjYBSMglGAHQAAf0dWNe4wuScAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Engineering, Vietnam. 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A key challenge is that cross-industry ESG data are typically unbalanced and heteroskedastic, which undermines conventional mean-comparison approaches and may lead to unreliable sectoral conclusions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study addresses this gap by applying variance-robust cross-industry inference to firm-year ESG data from approximately 1,000 listed Asia–Pacific firms over the period 2015–2025. Given significant heterogeneity in variance across industries, Welch’s ANOVA is employed for omnibus testing, followed by Games–Howell post hoc comparisons and effect-size reporting to distinguish statistical significance from economic relevance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe results reveal substantial dispersion in ESG scores (mean ≈ 54.6; SD ≈ 15.9), indicating marked cross-sectional heterogeneity across sectors. 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