Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility Activities and Corporate Governance in Imperfectly Competitive Markets

We investigate the incentives of firms' owners to commit voluntarily to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in an oligopolistic market. The socially responsible attributes attached to products are considered as credence goods, with consumers forming expectations about their existence and level. We show that hiring an ‘individually’ socially responsible CEO and delegating to him the CSR effort and market decisions acts as a commitment device for the firm's owners and credibly signals to consumers that the firm will undertake the ‘missioned’ CSR activities. We also find that CSR activities are welfare enhancing for consumers and firms and thus, they should be encouraged. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Board Structure on Corporate Social Responsibility: A Temporal View

Time plays an important role in corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions. In the context of time and the boardroom, the consideration of CSR can be affected by board structure. For example, because of considerable short‐term pressures, this study posits that insiders on the board are less likely to prioritize the longer‐term time horizons needed to affect CSR. Following this perspective, a hypothesis is put forth that insiders generally have temporal orientations that are more short term in nature and that they therefore have a negative effect on CSR. A study of 300 of Australia's largest firms confirmed this hypothesis. However, when inside director compensation linked to environmental and social metrics and inside director CSR training are introduced as moderating variables, their interactive effects lead to positive results: both positively moderate the negative insider–CSR relationship in environmental and social dimensions. The study contributes to a temporal view of boards of directors, as well as to corporate governance and CSR. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The impact of supplier dependence on suppliers' CSR: The moderating role of industrial dynamism and corporate transparency

To improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the supply chain, focal buyers may use supplier dependence to influence the supplier's resource strategy to promote the supplier's CSR initiatives. Thus, supplier dependence is particularly critical to the supplier's CSR, especially for Chinese suppliers with resource constraints. However, there is limited understanding and research on the degree to which a supplier depends on major buyers for the supplier's CSR from the supplier's perspective. Based on a sample of 284 Chinese listed companies, this study analyses the relationship between supplier dependence and suppliers' CSR through the lens of resource dependence theory (RDT). In addition, we investigate the moderating roles of industrial dynamism and corporate transparency in the relationship between supplier dependence and suppliers' CSR. The results indicate that supplier dependence has a negative impact on the Chinese supplier's CSR performance. Meanwhile, the negative impact of supplier dependence is mitigated for the supplier's more volatile industrial context, while improving corporate transparency enhances the negative impact of supplier dependence. This study verifies the applicability of RDT for the analysis of CSR in the supply chain in emerging markets such as China. Moreover, the study further extends research on the role of buyer-supplier relationships in CSR in the supply chain by extending the research perspective to the supplier side and adding the external and internal uncertainty of the supplier to the theoretical framework for analysis. We also provide managerial implications for implementing Chinese suppliers' CSR from the buyer's and supplier's perspectives.     

Standardization or localization? Executing corporate philanthropy in international firms

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a key component of a firm's reputation. The reputational vulnerabilities and pressure for CSR are perhaps greatest among international firms with business activities across many countries and cultures. Although the strategies of firms entering new markets have been well researched, the CSR component of the market entry decision has been largely ignored, despite its significant relationship with the financial performance of the firm. Further, previous research has largely considered CSR from an environmental performance point of view, and thus has focused on a minimum level of investment in CSR as opposed to the optimal form of the investment. Our paper seeks to address this gap by examining market entry decisions as they relate to corporate philanthropy.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial delegation games and corporate social responsibility

In a duopoly in which firms universally engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, this paper shows that, in contrast to the main tenet of the received managerial delegation literature, if the CSR sensitivity is sufficiently high: (a) when both firms delegate output decisions to managers, at the equilibrium profit (resp. consumer welfare) is higher (resp. lower) than when firms are pure CSR; (b) in a managerial delegation game, asymmetric multiple subgame perfect Nash equilibria emerge in which one firm delegates and the rival does not. These results hold under both the “sales delegation” and “relative profits” manager's bonus schemes.     

THE ECONOMICS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A FIRM‐LEVEL PERSPECTIVE SURVEY

This paper analyzes the economics of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as a private response to market imperfections in order to satisfy social preferences. Depending on whether they affect regulation, competition or contracts, market imperfections driving CSR decisions are classified in three categories: public goods and bads and altruism; imperfect competition; and incomplete contracts. We successively present these drivers of CSR decisions and highlight the nature of incentives (external or internal) at work and the testable (and tested) hypotheses in the reviewed studies. We finally review the link between CSR and financial performance, as well as between CSR and social and environmental performance. A twofold discrepancy appears in the literature, opening future research paths: a disconnection between our understanding of CSR drivers and CSR impacts; and a knowledge gap between CSR financial and social consequences, the latter having received little attention.     

Are CSR Disclosures Value Relevant? Cross-Country Evidence

Using proprietary data that rate corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures of firms in 21 countries, this study examines how the strength of nation-level institutions affects the extent of CSR disclosures. We then examine the valuation implications of CSR disclosures and consider how the relation between CSR disclosures and firm value varies across countries. In contrast to prior studies, we separate CSR disclosures into an expected and unexpected portion where the unexpected portion is a proxy for the incremental information contained in CSR disclosures. We observe a positive relation between unexpected CSR disclosure and firm value measured by Tobin's Q. We also find that, while countries with strong nation-level institutions promote more CSR disclosures, the valuation of a unit increase in unexpected CSR disclosures is higher when nation-level institutions are weak.     

When Necessity Becomes a Virtue: The Effect of Product Market Competition on Corporate Social Responsibility

We test whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is driven by strategic considerations by empirically studying the link between competition and firms' social performance. We find that firms in more competitive industries have better social ratings. In particular, we show that (i) different market concentration proxies are negatively related to widely used CSR measures; (ii) that an increase in competition due to higher import penetration leads to superior CSR performance; (iii) that firms in more competitive environments have a superior environmental performance, measured by firm pollution levels; and (iv) that more product competition is associated to a larger within‐industry CSR variance. We interpret these results as evidence that CSR is strategically chosen.     

A coordination mechanism through value-added profit distribution in a supply chain considering corporate social responsibility

The consumers pay more and more attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has been a new competitiveness for the enterprises. This paper constructs a supply chain consisting of a dominated retailer, a socially responsible supplier and a non-socially responsible supplier (compared with the socially responsible supplier), consider the consumer preference and exploit the game analysis technique to analyze the optimal decisions under the decentralized and concentrated decision, and then design a coordination mechanism based on value-added profit distribution. The results show that compared with the decentralized decision, the retail price and order quantity of two products are lower, the CSR effort degree of socially responsible supplier is higher, and the performance of the whole supply chain is better under the concentrated decision. In addition, the mechanism designed can induce the socially responsible supplier to undertake CSR without damaging its profit, prompt the supply chain members to make the concentrated decisions, and promote the competitiveness of the retailer-dominated supply chain.     

企业社会责任报告语调与分析师预测：信号还是迎合？

运用文本分析方法提取了2010—2018年上市公司社会责任报告的文本语调信息，基于信号理论和迎合理论探讨企业社会责任报告语调对分析师预测的影响。研究发现，企业社会责任报告的净正面语调降低了分析师预测偏差和分析师预测分歧度，并且在分析师预测存在乐观偏差时这种作用更加显著。进一步分析发现，企业社会责任报告语调对分析师预测的积极作用仅发生在强制披露和不遵守可持续发展报告指南的企业中以及经验较少、非明星分析师中。经济后果检验发现，社会责任报告语调通过降低分析师预测偏差和分歧度缓解了公司股价崩盘风险。研究结论不仅有助于丰富非财务信息披露经济后果和分析师预测影响因素两个领域的学术文献，而且可以为监管部门合理规范企业社会责任报告披露和投资者有效利用企业社会责任报告中的语调信息提供有益借鉴。     

When do corporate social responsibility initiatives impact on customer-facing employees? Evidence from India and the Netherlands

The vast majority of the extant literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has focused on the macro (firm) level of analysis by examining the linkage between CSR and firm-level outcomes. As such, very few studies have focused on the micro (individual) level of analysis. Against this backdrop, the present study focuses on the individual level of analysis thereby contributing to the emerging psychology of CSR literature, which considers employees' perceptions of their employing organizations' social actions as more important than organizations' objective CSR performance (Rupp, Shao, Thornton and Skarlicki (2013), ‘Applicants’ and Employees’ Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility: The Moderating Effects of First-Party Justice Perceptions and Moral Identity,’ Personnel Psychology, 66, 895–933). Moreover, the study is one of the first examining the role of context in employee attitudes toward CSR. In particular, it builds on the psychology of CSR (e.g. Rupp et al. 2013) literature to propose a research framework that delineates the moderating effects of satisfaction with payment, satisfaction with the job itself and individualism in the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) perceptions and customer-facing employees' behavioral outcomes. Data are collected from customer-facing employees in two major organizations in the Netherlands and India. Results suggest a complex interplay between CSP perceptions and the two facets of job satisfaction, and that national context is likely to moderate the contingent effects of CSP perceptions on customer-facing employees' behavioral outcomes.     

强制社会责任披露能否驱动企业绿色转型?——基于我国上市公司绿色专利数据的证据

基于2008年企业社会责任（CSR）强制披露政策出台这一外生冲击事件构造准自然实验,利用手工搜集的绿色专利数据,通过PSM DID的方法,从绿色创新的角度考察强制CSR披露对企业绿色转型的影响。研究表明,强制CSR披露通过加强企业规制合法性和规范合法性动机,驱动企业绿色转型;这种驱动作用在非国有企业、信息环境较好的企业和低集中度市场中更为明显。进一步研究发现,强制CSR披露能够通过驱动企业绿色转型来提高企业绩效。研究结论验证了强制CSR披露在驱动企业绿色转型方面的有效性,深化和丰富了强制CSR披露相关理论,对优化企业环境治理决策与驱动经济绿色发展具有重要指导意义。     

Temporal Orientation and Corporate Social Responsibility: Global Evidence

There has been a growing emphasis on the importance of a long-term perspective in academia and practice. Yet understanding of the interdependency of those factors – the temporal preferences embedded in organizations and in societal values as well as the influence of temporal orientation of investors – remains limited. We theorize whether and how a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) is affected by the societal temporal orientation, its time horizon, and its investors' time horizon. Using a global sample, we confirm that CSR activity is higher when a country has a long-term orientation culture, when the firm has a long-time horizon, and when the controlling institutional investor has a long-term investment horizon. We also find that the national culture's long-term orientation heightens the effect of a firm's long-time horizon on its CSR. Further, our results show that the effects of temporal orientation are more pronounced in environmental than in social CSR.     

真实活动盈余管理影响审计师的风险决策吗？

以2000—2012年我国上市公司为样本,分析并检验客户公司的真实活动盈余管理对审计师风险决策的影响。研究发现：客户公司的真实活动盈余管理程度越大,审计师出具非标准审计意见的概率越大、审计收费越高,但和审计师变更没有显著关系。进一步研究还发现：在纵向上,随着法律制度不断完善,审计费用、非标准审计意见的概率和真实活动盈余管理程度之间的关系更敏感;在横向上,审计收费策略和非标准审计意见策略之间存在替代效应。     

Voluntary Assurance of Voluntary CSR Disclosure

We study a firm's decisions to engage in socially responsible activities, voluntarily report on them, and purchase external assurance of the report. In our signaling model, neither firm type nor the level of activity is observed. We show that if voluntary assurance is not too expensive, the firm that engages in more socially responsible activities purchases external assurance and thus “selects” a separating equilibrium. As a result, CSR reports can be used to infer the level of activity and this causes all firms to engage in more socially responsible activity. Further, when voluntary assurance is required to support a separating equilibrium, greater monitoring by social activists increases the chosen quality of voluntary assurance—voluntary assurance and monitoring by social activists are complements, not substitutes.     

Lost and Found in Translation: How Firms Use Anisomorphism to Manage the Institutional Complexity of CSR

Prior research on the internationalization of firms from emerging countries has fruitfully invoked institutional theory to emphasize the legitimacy benefits that firms that obtain from showing isomorphism with international norms such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Without denying the intuitive appeal for these firms to communicate acceptance of CSR, we suggest that firms face a legitimacy trade-off, where the hoped-for legitimacy benefits of isomorphism must be weighed against other home-country institutional considerations. We advance and test this notion that firms will navigate this institutional complexity by engaging in anisomorphism, i.e., espousing general acceptance with international values but with selective ‘translation’ based on home country differences. We test our predictions by analysing firms' communication of CSR, using a unique dataset comprised of 245 firms observed over the period from 2000 to 2018. Consistent with our predictions, we find that firms from countries more reliant on natural resource extraction (e.g., mining and fossil fuel industries) de-emphasize the environmental component of CSR, and firms from more autocratic countries de-emphasize the human rights component of CSR. Additionally, and consistent with our presumption of firms' weighing the international versus home-country legitimacy trade-off, we find that these main effects are sensitive to changes in firms' levels of internationalization.     

Do Board's Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Orientation Influence Environmental Sustainability Disclosure? UK Evidence

The environmental implications of corporate economic activities have led to growing demands for firms and their boards to adopt sustainable strategies and to disseminate more useful information about their activities and impacts on environment. This paper investigates the impact of board's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and orientation on the quantity and quality of environmental sustainability disclosure in UK listed firms. We find that effective board CSR strategy and CSR‐oriented directors have a positive and significant impact on the quality of environmental sustainability disclosure, but not on the quantity. Our findings also suggest that the existence of a CSR committee and issuance of a stand‐alone CSR report are positively and significantly related to environmental sustainability disclosure. When we distinguish between firms with high and low environmental risk, we find that the board CSR/sustainability practices that affect the quantity (quality) of environmental sustainability disclosure appear to be driven more by highly (lowly) environmentally sensitive firms. These results suggest that the board CSR/sustainability practices play an important role in ensuring a firm's legitimacy and accountability towards stakeholders. Our findings shed new light on this under‐researched area and could be of interest to companies, policy‐makers and other stakeholders. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Cross-national differences in stakeholder management: Applying institutional theory and comparative capitalism framework

Drawing upon the research in institutional theory and comparative capitalism, the present study investigates how cross-national differences in the political, business, and economic institutional contexts of the United States, Italy, and Japan are associated with the ways in which companies in each of these countries prioritize and engage in their stakeholder engagement activities (SEAs). Using Porter and Kramer's framework, which classifies corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as falling into four categories (good citizenship, mitigating harm from value chain, transforming value chain activities, and strategic philanthropy), we investigate how companies in the United States, Japan, and Italy prioritize and engage in these four SEAs. An analysis of data collected from 340 companies across these countries reveals that while companies in each of these three countries undertake the four types of SEAs, the prioritization and prevalence of the four types of SEAs vary from one country to the other, in ways that align with the prevailing institutional contexts of each country. The results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of why and how companies' approaches to CSR differ across countries. From a practitioner's perspective, the findings highlight the cultural specificity of CSR, implying that despite the global nature of CSR, the implementation of CSR needs to be tailored to a country's context.     

Has the CSR engagement of electrical companies had an effect on their performance? A closer look at the environment

Even though electrical companies attain a top ranking in the publication of CSR reports, they are often accused of 'green‐washing' due to their bad environmental reputation. The current economic crisis is testing their real CSR commitment more than ever, especially when this goes beyond its economic consequences. Based on a worldwide sample of electrical companies, we are going to study why companies are being socially responsible. We wish to know if it is due to the impact on the firms' performance or whether there are other motives (legitimation, improving their reputation) that lead companies to carry out these practices. We will also consider if it changes across the kind of CSR action considered. The results show that there is an economic justification beyond the socially responsible behaviour of the electrical companies. Additionally, most kinds of CSR action (community, diversity, corporate governance, product responsibility) are also carried out looking for economic rewards. However, the CSR actions oriented to the environment are mainly motivated by their need to improve their image and reverse their negative impact. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Corporate Social Responsibility in China: a Preferential Stakeholder Model and Effects

Research interest in examining corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing economies is on the rise; however, our knowledge of the role of government in CSR remains limited. The aim of this paper is therefore to bridge this gap with an investigation into the specific CSR strategies that global firms have developed in the world's largest emerging economy and a nominally communist country, namely China. Drawing on institutional theory and a relational governance perspective, we posit that rather than adopting a canonical holistic CSR stakeholder model as typically observed in Western countries, these firms adopt a preferential stakeholder model using government‐aimed and consumer‐aimed CSR strategically. Our empirical study sampled 17 global retailers operating in China, with a dataset compiled to include their CSR web announcement data and firm performance data. The results of partial least squares modelling suggest that only government‐aimed CSR plays a salient role in enhancing retailers' performance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment