Does corporate social responsibility engagement benefit distressed firms? The role of moral and exchange capital

Abstract

Extant literature supports the view that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagement could potentially act as a risk mitigation device. We extend this literature to address the issue of whether CSR engagement could benefit firms which are already in bankruptcy. A unique feature of our empirical tests is the decomposition of CSR into two components – moral capital and exchange capital. We find that moral capital is associated with the likelihood of a distressed firm emerging from bankruptcy. Further, moral capital appears to reduce the number of days a distressed firm spends in bankruptcy. Our empirical evidence also suggests that moral capital increases the likelihood that a distressed firm successfully negotiates a pre-packaged agreement with its creditors. Finally, our empirical results indicate that the exchange capital component of CSR is positively related to the probability of procuring debtor-in-possession financing by a distressed firm whilst in bankruptcy. Overall, our results imply that both moral and exchange capital components of CSR play a role in facilitating a firm's emergence from bankruptcy.