Nasta, LuigiMagnanelli, Barbara SvevaCiaburri, Mirella2025-03-192025-03-192023Nasta, Luigi, Barbara Sveva Magnanelli, and Mirella Ciaburri. “From Profits to Purpose: ESG Practices, CEO Compensation and Institutional Ownership.” Management Decision 62 (13): 46–68. 2024.https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2023-0932https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14490/938Purpose – Based on stakeholder, agency and institutional theory, this study aims to examine the role of institutional ownership in the relationship between environmental, social and governance practices and CEO compensation. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing a fixed-effect panel regression analysis, this research utilized a panel data approach, analyzing data spanning from 2014 to 2021, focusing on US companies listed on the S&P500 stock market index. The dataset encompassed 219 companies, leading to a total of 1,533 observations. Findings – The analysis identified that environmental scores significantly impact CEO equity-linked compensation, unlike social and governance scores. Additionally, it was found that institutional ownership acts as a moderating factor in the relationship between the environmental score and CEO equity-linked compensation, as well as the association between the social score and CEO equity-linked compensation. Interestingly, the direction of these moderating effects varied between the two relationships, suggesting a nuanced role of institutional ownership. Originality/value – This research makes a unique contribution to the field of corporate governance by exploring the relatively understudied area of institutional ownership’s influence on the ESG practices–CEO compensation nexus.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Corporate governanceSocial responsibility of businessArticle