In the context of advocating the high-quality development of companies, this study explores the mechanism underlying the relationship between ESG performance and profit quality (PQ) and the moderating effect of media reputation. Given the wide variety and large number of indicators of corporate profitability, establishing evaluation methods for assessing PQ presents a critical challenge. We adopted the game theory combination weight method to construct a multi-dimensional PQ evaluation system. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2024, the study applies two-way fixed effects estimation and instrumental variable analysis to test study hypotheses. The research findings indicate that (1) ESG performance and its sub-dimensions positively influence PQ and that (2) media reputation positively moderates the relationship between ESG performance and PQ. We further discovered that different ESG dimensions have distinct effects on various dimensions of PQ. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature on ESG and PQ while providing practical guidance for companies pursuing high-quality development.
Gao et al. (2026) studied this question.