Corporate Social Responsibility and Long-term Compensation: Evidence from Canada

This paper examines the association between long-term compensation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) for 90 publicly traded Canadian firms. Social responsibility is considered to include concerns for social factors and the environment (e.g. Johnson, R. and D. Greening: 1999, Academy of Management Journal 42(5), 564-578; Kane, E. J. (2002, Journal of Banking and Finance 26:, 1919-1933; McGuire, J. et al. 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 45 (4), 341-359). Long-term compensation attempts to focus executives efforts on optimizing the longer term, which should direct their attention to factors traditionally associated with socially responsible executives (Mahapatra, S. 1984, Journal of Financial Economicsit 20, 347-376). As hypothesized, we found a significant relationship between the long-term compensation and total CSR weakness as well as the product/environmental weakness dimension of CSR. In addition, we found a marginally significant relationship between long-term compensation and total corporate responsibility. Our findings are that executives long-term compensation is associated with a firms environmental actions, and that firms that utilize long-term compensation are more likely to mitigate product/environment weaknesses than those that do not. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

CEO Incentives and Corporate Social Performance

This paper examines the relationship between CEO incentives and strong and weak corporate social performance. Using the KLD database we find that incentives have no significant relationship with strong social performance. Salary and long-term incentives have a positive association with weak social performance.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: Views from the Frontline

This paper offers an evaluation of corporate policy and practice in respect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) deriving from an analysis of qualitative data, obtained during semi-structured interviews with the representatives of 16 companies from a variety of UK sectors including retail, mining, financial services and mobile telephony. The findings of the empirical survey are presented in five sections that trace chronologically the process of CSR policy development. The first identifies the meaning attributed to CSR by the respondent companies followed in the second section by the factors that are driving them to implement the CSR agenda. The third examines the use of the language of CSR and the concept’s role as either a substantive concept or simple label. The fourth identifies the criteria used for determining CSR policies and the objectives underlying them. The fifth and final section offers an analysis of the respondents’ predictions as to the future development of CSR. On the basis of the findings of the survey, this paper argues that, despite genuine attempts on the part of those responsible for CSR policy development to address stakeholder concerns, the context within which CSR has been implemented hinders its potential to offer stakeholders sufficient information by which to evaluate corporate performance in respect of CSR and the ability of CSR to operate as a meaningful and systematic constraint on corporate behaviour. Lisa Whitehouse is a Senior Lecturer in the Law School at the University of Hull. She has published in the areas of the English law of mortgage, the UK railway infrastructure and corporate social responsibility. She received her Ph.D. in Law from the University of Hull.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Resource-Based Perspectives

Firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) because they consider that some kind of competitive advantage accrues to them. We contend that resource-based perspectives (RBP) are useful to understand why firms engage in CSR activities and disclosure. From a resource-based perspective CSR is seen as providing internal or external benefits, or both. Investments in socially responsible activities may have internal benefits by helping a firm to develop new resources and capabilities which are related namely to know-how and corporate culture. In effect, investing in social responsibility activities and disclosure has important consequences on the creation or depletion of fundamental intangible resources, namely those associated with employees. The external benefits of CSR are related to its effect on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation can be understood as a fundamental intangible resource which can be created or depleted as a consequence of the decisions to engage or not in social responsibility activities and disclosure. Firms with good social responsibility reputation may improve relations with external actors. They may also attract better employees or increase current employees’ motivation, morale, commitment and loyalty to the firm. This article contributes to the understanding of why CSR may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how RBP can be used in such endeavour. Manuel Castelo Branco is Invited Lecturer of Accounting at the Faculty of Economics, University of Porto. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Economics and Management, University of Minho. His research has been published in journals such as the Social Responsibility Journal and Corporate Communications: An International Journal. Lúcia Lima Rodrigues, Ph.D is Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, University of Minho. She is the Head of the Department of Management and the Director of the Master in Accounting and Management. She is the Editor of the Portuguese Journal of Accounting and Management, Editor for Europe of the international journal Accounting History. She is referee in several Portuguese and International journals. Her research has been published in several major international journals in Accounting such as The Accounting Historians Journal, Accounting Education: An International Journal, Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Accounting Forum.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Social Investment: The South African Case

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social investment (CSI) have become terms that are used to examine some activities of businesses. With globalization pressures and increasing burdens on governments to provide comprehensive social services, the microscope has been trained on how firms play their part in sharing this burden. Views vary from those who believe that CSR and CSI are a distraction from profit maximization to those who argue that participation in such activities contributes to positive social transformation, while benefiting participating firms themselves. In this article, the author seeks to organize these debates within particular theoretical frameworks, positing CSR and CSI, together with the Socially Responsible Investment Index that has been used to evaluate corporate behavior in South Africa, as a novel way of addressing pressing development problems.     

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance: An Application of Quantile Regression

This study empirically examines the relationship between a firm’s fulfilling of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and performance. We developed a CSR index (CSRI) to quantitatively evaluate CSR, which consists of four dimensions measuring a firm’s contributions to the economy, society, environment, and corporate governance, respectively. With data from publicly-listed firms in Taiwan during the period of 2004–2009, results of quantile regression show that fulfilling CSR has a significantly positive impact on firm performance, and that the impact in a more profitable firm tends to be significantly greater than that in a less profitable firm. Specifically, when a firm is more profitable, its management would be more willing to implement CSR. The implication is that a firm could pursue better performance while serving as a good corporate citizen.     

企业社会责任与财务绩效关系研究综述

20世纪90年代起,企业社会责任与利益相关者在理论与实证检验方面呈现出相互整合的趋势。本文通过探析企业社会责任与利益相关者缘何走向理论结合,分别基于利益相关者整体视角与利益相关者分维度视角,对国内外企业社会责任与财务绩效关系的实证研究进行回顾与总结,并在此基础上提出了未来的研究方向。     

企业社会责任与企业财务绩效关联性分析——基于浙江纺织企业的调查数据

企业社会责任与企业财务绩效的关联性决定企业的社会责任态度和行为。通过对浙江纺织行业样本企业数据的计量分析发现,前期企业财务绩效和后期企业的社会责任状况显著正相关;而前期企业社会责任和后期企业财务绩效之间、同期企业社会责任和企业财务绩效之间呈负相关趋势,但统计不显著。出现这种结果的原因可能在于当前中国社会责任市场缺乏,企业社会责任行为的推动力是行政力量而非市场力量,企业社会责任不能顺利转化或提升企业绩效。构建社会责任市场以实现企业和社会的双赢,将有效改善中国企业社会责任状况并促使持久的企业社会责任行为。     

What Corporate Social Responsibility Activities are Valued by the Market?

Corporate management is torn between either focusing solely on the interests of stockholders (the neo-classical view) or taking into account the interests of a wide spectrum of stakeholders (the stakeholder theory view). Of course, there need be no conflict where taking the wider view is also consistent with maximising stockholder wealth. In this paper, we examine the extent to which a conflict actually exists by examining the relationship between a company’s positive (strengths) and negative (concerns) corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and equity performance. In general, we find little evidence to suggest that managers taking a wider stakeholder perspective will jeopardise the interest of its stockholders. However, our findings do suggest that the market is not only influenced by the independent CSR activities, but also the totality of these activities and that the facets that they value do vary over time. It seems that␣most recently, the market has valued most firms that satisfied minimum requirements in the areas of diversity and environmental protection but were most proactive in the area of employee-relations. Ron Bird is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Finance and Economics at the University of Technology, Sydney. His research interests focus on market implications of corporate social responsibility and also dysfunctionality within capital markets. He received his Master's degree in economics at Monash University in 1971. Anthony D. Hall is currently the Head of the School of Finance and Economics and Director of the Quantitative FinanceResearch Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney. His research interests cover all aspects of financial econometrics. He was awarded a PhD in econometrics from the London School of Economics in `976.Francesco Momente is Professor of Corporate Finance at the Bocconi University, Milan (Italy). His research intersts focus on the market valuation of corporate social responsibility and the value relevance of accounting information.He received his PhD in General Management at Ca' Foscari University, Venice (Italy) in 1998. Francesco Reggiani is Professor of Corporate Finance at the Bocconi University, Milan (Italy). His research interests focuson the market valuation of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance. He received his PhD in GeneralManagement at Bocconi University in 2001.     

社会责任履行与企业信誉资本生成——基于问卷调查的实证分析

信誉是企业利益相关者对企业的一种综合评价,社会责任影响利益相关者行为,因此对企业信誉可能产生积极的影响。通过问卷调查的实证分析,发现顾客责任、环境责任和慈善责任对企业信誉有显著的正向影响,而政府责任和员工责任对企业信誉影响不明显。     

Roadmapping Corporate Social Responsibility in Finnish Companies

This paper presents a roadmap of Finnish companies adopting and managing corporate social responsibility (CSR). It discusses the companies' views on CSR and highlights the practices that Finnish companies have adopted or are currently adopting. It also presents a framework that outlines the CSR processes and management prospects.Results showed that Finnish companies are progressively managing CSR. This newly revived thinking about social responsibility is viewed as an issue traced back from Finland's history of industrial development. There is no general definition of CSR; however, various concepts are connoted into it. Driven by several factors, CSR is developing gradually as indicated by the positive responses and initiatives of the companies.CSR management and practices towards employees, suppliers, community and customers are well defined locally based generally on established socially responsible behavior which could be articulated by laws and regulations, corporate values and business ethics. However, managing CSR with a global scope, problems such as; lack of information and structured management system, different views and interpretations, supply chain complexities, overlap with environmental issues, etc. often lead some companies to manage CSR haphazardly. Views and management of CSR are also influenced by some distinct Finnish cultural attributes.An initial conceptual framework for CSR is drawn reflecting the current practices and prospects for management strategies. Such framework can be used in organizing and streamlining CSR elements for effective management approaches and measuring of performance. It could be expected that in due time, the efforts of the companies will become more evident, organized and systematically managed.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Farmer Suicides: A Case for Benign Paternalism?

Although arguments are a good way of exploring the limitations and complexities of a concept or a theory we may find ourselves faced with a real phenomenon that challenges the existing formulations of a concept or a theory so strongly and reveals its limitations to us so starkly that we are forced to break away from the current discussion and start anew. Such is the challenge posed by the phenomenon of farmer suicides on our existing theories of corporate social responsibility. Contemporary discussions in corporate ethics are replete with many theories of corporate social responsibility which in one way or the other rely on the concept of the social contract. For the most part these theories have gone unchallenged and no fundamental limitations have been revealed. However, the phenomenon of farmer suicides in central India poses a serious challenge to them. This article attempts to show how the phenomenon of farmer suicides in central India starkly exposes some of the fundamental limitations of the contractarian formulations of corporate social responsibility.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Social Enterprise

In this article, we contend that due to their size and emphasis upon addressing external social concerns, the corporate relationship between social enterprises, social awareness and action is more complex than whether or not these organisations engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This includes organisations that place less emphasis on CSR as well as other organisations that may be very proficient in CSR initiatives, but are less successful in recording practices. In this context, we identify a number of internal CSR markers that may be applied to measuring the extent to which internal CSR practices are being observed. These considerations may be contrasted with the evidence that community based CSR activities is often well developed in private sector small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) (Observatory of European SMEs, 2002), a situation which may be replicated in social enterprises especially those that have grown from micro-enterprises embedded in local communities. We place particular emphasis upon the implications for employee management. Underpinning our position is the Aristotelian-informed capabilities approach, a theory of human development and quality of life, developed by Sen (1992; 1999) and Nussbaum (1999) which has been developed further, in an organisational context, (e.g., Cornelius, 2002); Cornelius and Gagnon, 2004; Gagnon and Cornelius, 1999; Vogt, 2005. We contend that the capabilities approach offers additional insights into CSR in social enterprises in general and internal CSR activity in particular. Our article concludes with proposals for future research initiatives and reflections upon social enterprise development from a capabilities perspective.     

Social Marketing and Privately Held Companies: The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities on Romanian Consumers

The notion of corporate social responsibility has evolved into a fairly complex concept that can influence the very world we live in. Today's society is interested not only in companies' financial results but also in the way they conduct their businesses. Corporations everywhere try to respond to new environmental challenges by actively engaging in the life of the community and by developing relationships based on mutual trust with consumers. This article introduces the corporate social responsibility domain by underlining the importance of this concept to the later development of a company. The article denounces the results of research conducted on Romanian consumers regarding corporate social responsibility campaigns undergone by firms in Romania. Its purpose is to bring insight into Romanian consumers' perceptions of recent social campaigns, reviewing the extent to which these consumers are willing to become involved in society's well-being. The survey conducted here attempts to provide answers to issues that concern the companies' involvement type, their purview, the reasons for participating in society's welfare, as well as the social campaigns' most common action areas. The results gathered show that corporate social responsibility is not only a promotion method, but a method that implies the effective involvement in the life of the community and in its subsequent issues, therefore representing a real means of support for the economic development of the community in question. In conclusion, companies must put their social conscience into use when dealing with their clients and stakeholders, by offering solutions to environmental concerns, resource management, mutual aid, and welfare rising from corporate support.     

社会责任活动、社会责任沟通与企业价值

企业履行适当的社会责任是大势所趋,但目前理论与实务界对社会责任经济后果的认识存在困惑,难以指导企业的社会责任实践。企业社会责任对企业价值的影响因不同社会责任类型的收益、成本特征而异,并且社会责任价值实现受制于社会责任沟通的影响,企业应该在整体战略规划的视野里树立社会责任管理理念,对企业社会责任进行事前决策和实时的过程管理。     

Corporate Governance Reform and CEO Compensation: Intended and Unintended Consequences

Recent scandals allegedly linked to CEO compensation have brought executive compensation and perquisites to the forefront of debate about constraining executive compensation and reforming the associated corporate governance structure. We briefly describe the structure of executive compensation, and the agency theory framework that has commonly been used to conceptualize executives acting on behalf of shareholders. We detail some criticisms of executive compensation and associated ethical issues, and then discuss what previous research suggests are likely intended and unintended consequences of some widely proposed executive compensation reforms. We explicitly discuss the following recommendations for reform: require greater independence of compensation committees, require executives to hold equity in the corporation, require greater disclosure of executive compensation, increase institutional investor involvement in corporate governance (including executive compensation), and require firms to expense stock options on their income statements. We provide a brief summary discussion of ethical issues related to executive compensation, and describe possible future research.     

Corporate Social Responsibility as Argument on the Web

This paper critically examines the language drawn on to describe socially responsible activities (CSR) in the context of the corporate web page. I argue that constructions of CSR are made plausible and legitimised according to the context of the expression. The web site is a genre of communication which addresses a broad and discerning audience; hence fractures in the institutionalised nature of argument may be apparent. The focus of this paper is to examine how the rhetoric of CSR is legitimised and to develop a framework of argumentation repertoires that operate in this context     

An Ethical Framework for the Marketing of Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an ethical framework for the marketing of corporate social responsibility. Methods The approach is a conceptual one based on virtue ethics and on the corporate identity literature. Furthermore, empirical research results are used to describe the opportunities and pitfalls of using marketing communication tools in the strategy of building a virtuous corporate brand. Results/conclusions An ethical framework that addresses the paradoxical relation between the consequentialist perspective many proponents of the marketing of CSR adopt, and ethical perspectives which criticize an exclusive profit-oriented approach to CSR. Furthermore, three CSR strategies in relation to the marketing of CSR are discussed. For each CSR strategy it is explored how a corporation could avoid falling into the promise/performance gap.