Does corporate social responsibility affect the performance of cross-border M&A of emerging market multinationals?

Abstract

How can emerging market multinationals (EMMs) overcome the outsider disadvantage and thus improve performance of cross-border Mergers and acquisitions(M&A)? This article discussed that corporate social responsibility(CSR) has influence on performance of cross-border M&A under regulation of institutional distance, to address this inquiry based on the theory of social license to operate, We empirically demonstrate that:(1) corporate social responsibility has remarkable forward correlation with completion rate of cross-border M&A, while corporate social responsibility has a strong negative influence on the length of time spent on completing cross-border M&A, indicating corporate social responsibility is beneficial to enhance the performance of cross-border M&A; (2) Large institutional distance between cross-border M&A parties can diminish the strong positive influence of corporate social responsibility on performance of cross-border M&A of EMMs.