IJARSAI International Journal of Advanced Research Scientific Analysis & Inferences
Volume 2, Issue 1, January-June, 2026
Monetary Intelligence and the ESG Paradox: A Conceptual Framework for Ethical Stewardship
IJARSAI Int. J. Adv. Res. Sci. Anal. Infer.
Monetary Intelligence and the ESG Paradox: A Conceptual Framework for Ethical Stewardship
Yadhukrishnan G
Research Scholar
Department of Commerce
Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha
Affiliated to the University of Kerala, India
E-mail: yadhukrishnan.research@sdcollege.in
Dr. Priya R
Assistant Professor
Department of Commerce
Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha
Affiliated to the University of Kerala, India
E-mail: priya.r@sdcollege.in
As more organisations integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards into corporate strategy, a major psychological dilemma emerges: the “ESG Paradox”, the tension between intrinsic moral obligation and extrinsic monetary incentives. A critical human gap may explain why some organisations achieve sustainability, and some engage in greenwashing. This paper combines two major theories into a new conceptual framework – Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) and the Monetary Intelligence (MI) construct – to describe the gap between genuine Ethical Stewardship and greenwashing. Although CET implies that extrinsic ESG rewards may crowd out intrinsic moral motivation when the rewards are viewed as manipulative, we assume that the Monetary Intelligence of the manager is the critical cognitive moderator. Managers who have a stewardship-based MI view incentives as informational, and this reinforces their adherence to substantive sustainability. On the other hand, managers who have greed-oriented MI view incentives as controlling, and this increases the propensity for symbolic decoupling or greenwashing to meet financial targets. By refining MI constructs from an ESG perspective, this study simplifies MI constructs from an ESG perspective and shifts the focus from institutional regulation to managers’ thinking, which has important implications for choosing executives and designing sustainable incentive schemes.
Keywords: Monetary Intelligence, Cognitive Evaluation Theory, ESG Paradox, Ethical Stewardship, Green washingG, Yadhukrishnan, and Priya R. “Monetary Intelligence and the ESG Paradox: A Conceptual Framework for Ethical Stewardship”. IJARSAI International Journal of Advanced Research Scientific Analysis & Inferences 02, no. 01 (May 30, 2026): 87–98. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20588274.