ESG, Customer Equity and Shareholder Value in the Digital Economy: The Moderating Effect of AI-Enabled Digital Transformation Intensity among Listed Banks in ASEAN and ECOWAS (Research Square)

Summary

• The study uses 1,193 bank-year observations from 79 listed commercial banks over 2010–2025.p.2
• ESG performance has a positive but statistically insignificant association with shareholder value (β = 0.031, p = 0.197).p.23
• ESG performance is positively linked to customer equity (coefficient 0.286).p.24
• Customer equity has a positive and significant relationship with shareholder value (β = 0.247, p < 0.01).p.24
• The indirect effect of ESG on shareholder value through customer equity is positive and significant (β = 0.071, 95% CI [0.036, 0.119]), indicating indirect-only mediation.p.25
• The marginal ESG effect on customer equity rises from 0.095 at −1 SD to 0.214 at the mean and 0.333 at +1 SD of AI-enabled digital transformation intensity.p.26

Key insights

1. Customer equity has a relatively high mean of 0.673 (SD = 0.154).p.20
2. AI-enabled digital transformation records a mean of 0.487 and the highest dispersion among the bounded constructs (SD = 0.221).p.20
3. Shareholder value is positively correlated with customer equity (r = 0.214, p < 0.01).p.21
4. VIF values range from 1.28 to 2.16, with a mean of 1.63, indicating no problematic multicollinearity.p.21
5. The Hausman test yields χ² = 54.28 with p = 0.063, supporting fixed effects over random effects.p.22
6. Customer equity shows considerable persistence, with a lagged coefficient of 0.512.p.24