Corporate Social Responsibility Literature Research Articles

The impact of corporate social responsibility on innovation in small and medium‐sized enterprises: The mediating role of debt terms and human capital

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to study the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) innovation and the effect of two mediating variables, debt terms and human capital. Based on a sample of 2825 Spanish SMEs and applying a structural equations modeling, the results demonstrate that the effect of CSR on innovation is mediated by debt terms and by good human resource practices. Part of the positive effect of CSR on innovation occurs through these two variables, which, alone, positively and significantly affect innovation in SMEs. Consequently, the positive effect of CSR practices on debt terms through a decrease in asymmetric information goes further, also having repercussions on innovation. Additionally, the suitable development of human resource practices based on strategies oriented toward CSR allow companies to carry out greater and more efficient innovative activities. This paper contributes to the CSR literature considering the human resource management and the debt access in the relationship between CSR and innovation. The findings reveal important implications for policy makers and managers. For the former, the results show that it would be interesting to carry out actions aimed at assisting SMEs, especially those with fewer resources available, to implement a suitable CSR strategy, supporting sustainable development in SMEs. And, for the latter, CSR‐oriented innovation has proven to be a valuable strategy for more efficient SMEs management because of the multiple competitive advantages it generates.

Board Gender Diversity: A Review

Gender diversity has gained significant attention in accounting, finance, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. This literature will enlighten the readers regarding the valuable understandings obtained from these studies, and to define knowledge holes and potential research paths. Though many papers are examining the determinants and consequences of gender diversity, however, this review suggests that organizations with weak corporate governance have a tendency to respond to the call of gender diversity regulations to capture the need of society. Additionally, the firm’s determinants and consequences of gender diversity vary across the countries based on local/regional demand, demographic attributes, and the nature of gender regulation. Most of the reviewed papers explore the consequences of firm gender diversity studies, and we classify these into (i) accounting implications, (ii) financial implications, and (iii) corporate governance implications (iv) CSR implications. This review indicates that corporate gender diversity has significant influences on organizations' financial reporting and corporate disclosures, financing, corporate investment, cash holding and dividends decisions, on overall corporate governance and socially responsible behavior. In analyzing the growing body of corporate gender diversity literature, this paper identifies critical flaws of past researches, and recommend suggestions for future studies.

Too Cold to be Skeptical: How Ambient Temperature Moderates the Effects of CSR Communication

Consumer reactions to firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication range from favorable approval to outright skepticism toward the company. This paper contributes to the CSR literature by introducing a so-far overseen but relevant variable that helps to explain why consumer sometimes react positively and sometimes negatively to CSR communication: the ambient temperature. With a controlled 2 (CSR communication with ecological vs. economic motives) × 3 (ambient temperature: warm vs. moderate vs. cold) between-subject laboratory experiment, the authors confirm that ambient temperature moderates consumer evaluations of CSR communications. In warmer ambient temperatures, reports of ecological (vs. economic) motives induce consumer skepticism toward the CSR communication from the firm; colder temperatures appear to have no influence, in line with prior findings suggesting that the human body has a greater tolerance for cold than heat. Our findings bear several implications for managers. If they lack knowledge about ambient temperature when placing CSR campaigns, firms may risk unexpected backfiring effects. If managers can control the ambient temperature (e.g., in retail stores), they are well-advised to be cautious when placing CSR-related advertisements in warm settings.

Examining the relative role of CSR activity and service experience on cruise customers’ behavior

PurposeIn the service industry, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered a strategic valuable resource. Although previous studies emphasized CSR activities in the service industry, a limited number of studies have examined the combined effect with the service experience. Thus, this study aims to examine the potential antecedents of cruise customers’ positive responses toward the cruise company.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed model includes CSR activities, service experiences, satisfaction and revisit intention. The model is tested using samples of cruise customers from the USA. Tests of the proposed model produce significant results for path coefficients from two-dimensional service experience (i.e. physical quality and staff behavior) and not from CSR activities (i.e. environmental and philanthropic).FindingsHypothesis testing indicates that among cruise customers, perceived physical quality and staff behavior are more relevant for creating satisfaction and revisit intention than environmental and philanthropic CSR support.Research limitations/implicationsThe results provide important implications for scholars concerning the effects of CSR activities on customer behavior for efficaciously managing customers’ positive experience with facilities and employees.Originality/valueThere has been a paradigm shift in the cruise industry. The recent trend shows an increasing number of cruise businesses leading to intense competition. Yet, researchers have not adequately examined the impact of service experience and CSR experience simultaneously. Thus, this study contributes to the existing CSR literature by identifying the important determinants of cruise customers’ behavior.

ROLE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN EMERGING ECONOMY

This research aims to evaluate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on sustainable energy development (SED) by developing the role of mediating variables such as usage of renewable energy resources (URR) and sustainable energy supply (SES). We use qualitative and quantitative technique such as Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data of collection from experts, economists, executives in Vietnam in 2020. The study has proved the corporate social responsibility (CSR) affecting directly to the sustainable energy development (SED). Besides, the findings suggest a positively significant impact of both sustaining energy supply (SES) and the usage of renewable energy resources (URR) on sustainable energy development (SED). Thus, the research brings the whole view of corporate social responsibility affects to the sustainable energy development (SED) through the URR and SES. This study contributed empirical work in the literature of corporate social responsibility, renewable energy, sustainable energy supply (SES) and sustainable energy development (SED). The outcomes of this study can be used by policy makers, economists, top management in the governmental office and even the corporate. A mediating role of SES as a value-added contribution to this study and can be consolidated and strengthened more in coming research. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Energy Development, Renewable Energy Resources, Sustaining Energy Supply.JEL Classifications: M14, Q21, Q25, Q43, Q56DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.10774

Does perceived morality of CEO activism matter? Understanding employees' responses to CEO actions on sociopolitical issues

PurposeFrom an internal perspective, the purpose of this study is to understand employees' responses to chief executive officer (CEO) activism, a phenomenon wherein a company's CEO expresses his/her own opinions and ideas on controversial sociopolitical issues. Integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR), public relations and leadership literature, this study examines the effects of employees' expectations toward CEOs and transformational CEO leadership on the perceived morality of CEO activism and its attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted with 417 full-time employees in the US whose CEO has been engaging in sociopolitical issues.FindingsThe results showed that employees' ethical expectations toward their CEOs and transformational CEO leadership were positively associated with perceived morality of CEO activism, whereas economic expectations toward CEOs had no significant relationship with it. In turn, perceived morality of CEO activism contributed to employees' positive attitudes and supportive behaviors for their CEOs and their companies.Originality/valueThis study is among the first attempts to examine the effectiveness of CEO activism from an internal perspective, drawing from CSR, public relations and leadership literature.

Voluntary social performance disclosure and firm profitability of South African listed firms: Examining the complementary role of board independence and managerial ownership

Background: There is growing literature promoting corporate governance mechanisms as important elements that could mitigate the inconclusive findings within the corporate social performance and firm profitability research. A key theoretical assumption within the extant literature that provides support for this proposition is that corporate social performance and firm profitability are organisational outcomes in the presence of good corporate governance.Aim: Firstly, the aim is to re-investigate voluntary social performance disclosure (SPD) and long-term profitability association from the perspective of international standards, using the Global Reporting Initiative G3.1 guidelines. Secondly, to examine the joint moderating effect of board independence and managerial ownership (MO) on the voluntary SPD and profitability nexus.Setting: The South Africa institutional setting, where recent corporate governance regimes require firms to voluntarily make corporate governance related disclosures on both shareholder-and stakeholder-related information is used as the study context.Method: Utilising manually extracted data of listed firms, over the period 2010 to 2015, the generalised least square regression and seemingly unrelated regression (with a 1-year lag as the main independent variable) are used to examine the stated hypotheses.Results: We found a positive association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. We also found that the presence of non-executive directors positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Thirdly, the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Lastly, the complementary role of the presence of non-executive directors and the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability.Conclusion: This study finds support for scholarly theoretical arguments that organisational outcomes are largely possible in the presence of good corporate governance, which has a long-term implication for firms’ shareholder wealth maximisation. This study contributes to the ongoing research examining the notion of substitutive versus complementary effects of governance mechanisms, and a growing research literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure from the perspective of international standardisation. This study therefore makes far-reaching contributions to the corporate governance and social responsibility literature in an African context.

Message framing strategies, food waste prevention, and diners’ repatronage intentions: the mediating role of corporate social responsibility

Building on prospect theory, construal level theory, and corporate social responsibility literature, this study investigated how messaging framing strategies impact buffet diners’ food waste and repatronage intentions using three experimental studies. Findings suggested that framing strategies (gain vs. loss) and point of reference (self vs. others vs. environment) interactively influence diners’ behavioral intentions through corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, a gain-framing strategy with self or other-referencing points could enhance perceived CSR and repatronage intentions. However, when the referencing point changes to environment, gain-framed and loss-framed messages result in similar levels of perceived CSR, food waste reduction intentions, and repatronage intentions. Evidence also suggests that the “out of sight, out of mind” phenomenon could occur when it comes to food waste prevention. This study contributes to the literature by delineating the mediation mechanism of perceived CSR between message framing and diners’ behavioral intentions. It also shed light on restaurants’ food waste management, with implications for designing effective communication messages to enhance diners’ engagement in food waste prevention.

CEOs’ religiosity and corporate green initiatives

The purpose of this study is to determine the ways in which the religiosity of a firm’s CEO affects his/her firm’s green initiatives. Previous research on corporate green initiatives offers limited insights into the micro-foundations of such behaviors. From an upper echelon perspective, we argue that CEOs with religiosity are more likely to engage in corporate green initiatives, because they hold higher perceptions about being monitored to fulfill religious role expectations, driving individuals to maintain public goods. Furthermore, this positive impact of CEOs’ religiosity is weaker when he/she uses participative decision-making processes. We examine a sample of 1184 small- and medium-sized manufacturers in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Using latent class modeling, we classify respondent CEOs’ religious belief systems into eight classes and find general support for the hypothesized relationships. Our findings contribute to the upper echelon and corporate social responsibility literature by revealing the missing link between a CEO’s religiosity and his/her firm’s corporate green initiatives.

MBA CEOs and corporate social responsibility: Empirical evidence from China

Abstract Drawn on upper echelons theory, this study examine how CEO’s MBA degree drivers corporate social responsibility (CSR). We propose that MBA CEO has a positive impact on a firm’s CSR performance. Furthermore, we explore the moderating role of managerial discretion on the relationship between CEO MBA degree and CSR performance determined by personal and organizational factors. We find that CEO founder status and organizational slack positively moderates the relationship between CEO MBA degree and CSR performance. Using data on Chinese listed companies, our results support these hypotheses. Our research contributes to the upper echelons theory and CSR literature and has substantial practical implications.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Business Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

The global health, economic, and social impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are growing day by day. Over the past few months, first China, and now the whole world has been grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in businesses, employees, customers, communities, and each other. The people worldwide are strongly committed to working together and supporting each other in every way possible during this critical period filled with fear and uncertainty. Grounded on stakeholder theory and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the study attempts to explore business responses to the COVID-19 pandemic to support its vital stakeholders such as employees, customers, communities, and society as a whole through CSR initiatives. The study based on the contemporary phenomenon considered multi-items as data sources such as press releases, newsletters, and letters to shareholders, which were retrieved from the top 25 (the sample) corporations of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens-2019 (the population) in the United States’ respective websites on the internet. The outcomes of this research report that sampled companies show respect to their employees and focus on stewardship relations between corporations and customers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will have a significant theoretical application and practical implication on business duty to society and future research on CSR as a strong arm to deal with a critical disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of corporate social responsibility on consumer’s relationship intention: Evidence from MENA countries

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) raised the attention of the MENA market, given its capacity to influence consumers’ purchase intention and, particularly, consumers’ repurchase intention. Therefore, CSR helps to build a long-term relationship between the companies with its consumers. Following this new trend, our work contributes to the understanding of how CSR contributes to a long-term relationship with consumers. To achieve that, we considered the four dimensions of CSR (philanthropic, legal, organisation, and ethics) and used those constructs to evaluate the consumers’ relationship intention with companies. Our research was performed in MENA countries by interviewing 1632 consumers. Our findings showed that the philanthropic, legal, and ethical dimensions played a relevant role in determining a long-term relationship between the companies and consumers. This research results differ from the results gained by other researchers in previous studies. Therefore, to establish a long-term relationship with consumers, MENA countries’ companies should focus on philanthropy, legal, and ethics. This study extends, as well as contributes to the extant corporate social responsibility literature by offering new evidence on the impact of corporate social responsibility on consumer relationship intention. The findings will help regulators and policy-makers in evaluating the adequacy of the current corporate social responsibility reforms to prevent management misconduct and scandals.

Responsabilidade social corporativa e o desempenho de mercado de empresas brasileiras

Purpose – This research aimed to analyze the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the market performance of Brazilian companies.Design/methodology/approach – A descriptive, documentary and quantitative research was carried out using panel data regression. The analysis period covered 2010 to 2018 and the sample comprised 41 companies.Findings – The results revealed that investments in external CSR and the fact that companies are listed on the ISE index increase their market value. The CSR information of Brazilian companies aimed at investments made for a society helps to increase market performance.Research limitations/implications – It should be noted that the results cannot be generalized for all Brazilian companies. This research contributes to the accounting and CSR literature, by analyzing the benefits of CSR on companies' market performance.Practical implications – The findings assist investors in the decision-making process, as companies that have CSR actions have positive impacts on their value, operational efficiency and the ability to generate financial performance.Social implications – The results have social implications, as they reinforce the importance of companies investing in CSR, which can improve their market value and benefit society with practices aimed at social well-being.Originality/value – CSR was analyzed in several aspects in the accounting literature. However, the focus of the relationship between CSR and specifically market performance has been little explored in Brazil, a fact that denotes research value.

Environmental information disclosure and Labour investment efficiency

ABSTRACT This article examines the correlation between environmental information disclosure and labour investment efficiency (LIE) using a sample of 343 Chinese-listed companies from 2015 to 2019. Empirical results show that firms with a high level of environmental information disclosure (EID) have significantly higher LIE. Further analysis indicates that the higher LIE is achieved by resolving under-hiring problems rather than over-hiring problems. Our findings enrich the labour investment researches in the finance literature and the environment studies in corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature and provide additional evidence for firms to improve EID quality.

Philanthropy and the Contribution of Andrew Carnegie to Corporate Social Responsibility

The idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted the interests of both practitioners and scientists, particularly since 1953, when H. R. Bowen published The Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. Over the years, the CSR concept evolved and became a managerial phenomenon; it was applied to different sectors with supposedly excellent effects. Unfortunately, there was discourse around the meaning of CSR. In the world of science, there is no agreement as to the semantic area of CSR. Academics face absolute, undisturbed freedom in the formulation of its elements and definitions. That abovementioned ambiguity determined the situation the recent CSR literature is vague and biased, and an extensive analysis of the latest contributions are lacking. To address this gap, there has been proposed a systematic literature review and bibliometrics of 119 articles published in 45 peer-reviewed, high-quality academic journals and 19 books, from January 1950 to July 2020. There are three objectives of this paper: to analyze the recent CSR definitions in the context of Carnegie’s principles, to identify trends in that field and evaluate the utility of the scientific efforts in the abovementioned context, and to indicate the future research paths in the context of corporate social responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Individual Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Gratitude and Compassion at Work

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and activities are aimed at, executed for, and witnessed by individuals, yet CSR literature has long overlooked assessing CSR outcomes at the individual level. Previous CSR research has focused primarily on macro- and institutional-level outcomes. The current paper addresses this issue by analyzing the influence of CSR on a crucial stakeholder for hospitality organizations: their employees. Specifically, gratitude and compassion at work were tested as parallel mediators between employees’ perceptions of CSR and their well-being and organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the organization (OCBO). Drawing from the affect theory of social exchange and moral emotions, this article aims to understand how CSR leads to improving employees’ well-being and OCBO through the underlying emotional mechanisms of gratitude and compassion. Survey data from two independent samples were gathered to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that employees’ perceptions of CSR activities had a significant positive direct effect on eudaimonic well-being but not on hedonic well-being. Gratitude mediated the relationship between perceived CSR and OCBO as well as hedonic well-being. Compassion mediated the relationship between perceived CSR and hedonic well-being as well as OCBO. Besides theoretical contributions of testing these mechanisms together in a hospitality context and evaluating the influence of CSR efforts on certain dimensions of well-being, this research will be particularly relevant to hospitality managers when formulating CSR strategies and promoting a CSR culture.

Voluntary social performance disclosure and firm profitability of South African listed firms: Examining the complementary role of board independence and managerial ownership

Background: There is growing literature promoting corporate governance mechanisms as important elements that could mitigate the inconclusive findings within the corporate social performance and firm profitability research. A key theoretical assumption within the extant literature that provides support for this proposition is that corporate social performance and firm profitability are organisational outcomes in the presence of good corporate governance. Aim: Firstly, the aim is to re-investigate voluntary social performance disclosure (SPD) and long-term profitability association from the perspective of international standards, using the Global Reporting Initiative G3.1 guidelines. Secondly, to examine the joint moderating effect of board independence and managerial ownership (MO) on the voluntary SPD and profitability nexus. Setting: The South Africa institutional setting, where recent corporate governance regimes require firms to voluntarily make corporate governance related disclosures on both shareholder-and stakeholder-related information is used as the study context. Method: Utilising manually extracted data of listed firms, over the period 2010 to 2015, the generalised least square regression and seemingly unrelated regression (with a 1-year lag as the main independent variable) are used to examine the stated hypotheses. Results: We found a positive association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. We also found that the presence of non-executive directors positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Thirdly, the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Lastly, the complementary role of the presence of non-executive directors and the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Conclusion: This study finds support for scholarly theoretical arguments that organisational outcomes are largely possible in the presence of good corporate governance, which has a long-term implication for firms’ shareholder wealth maximisation. This study contributes to the ongoing research examining the notion of substitutive versus complementary effects of governance mechanisms, and a growing research literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure from the perspective of international standardisation. This study therefore makes far-reaching contributions to the corporate governance and social responsibility literature in an African context.

The effects of board size and board composition on CSR disclosure: a study of banking sectors in Bangladesh

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide a profound understanding of the nature and extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the annual report by the listed banking sectors in Bangladesh for examining the effect of board size and board composition on CSR disclosure.Design/methodology/approachThe sample selected of all the 30 listed banks enlisted in the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the study used a content analysis approach. An ordinary least square regression model is fitted to the data for assessing the effect of independent variables on the total CSR disclosure score. An un-weighted approach has been used for this study.FindingsThe results of the study demonstrate that the extent of CSR disclosure of listed banks in Bangladesh varies from 11.11% to 73.33%, and on average, they report 45.37% and 43.44%, respectively. Moreover, the study observed a significant relationship between the proportion of female directors and CSR disclosure. Conversely, board size has been found no significant relationship with the CSR disclosure but the proportion of independent directors has been found a significant relationship with the CSR disclosure in the annual report by the listed banking sectors in Bangladesh.Social implicationsThe study is expected to get a maximum scenario of CSR disclosure of banking sectors in Bangladesh. Government and other regulatory bodies can also get full information concerning CSR disclosure practices for formulating guidelines in this regard. If the Government of Bangladesh implicates the policies that the banks are to nominate a required number of female directors to boards, the consideration of the significant number of female directors and their power will be able to protect the interests of different stakeholder groups notably.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the CSR literature as it presents empirical evidence of the effects of board size and board composition on the CSR disclosure of banking sectors in developing countries such as Bangladesh.

Differences in CSR Disclosure in the Annual Reports of Islamic and Conventional Banks: Evidence from Kuwait

This paper explores the differences in corporate social responsibility disclosure in the annual reports of Islamic and conventional banks operating in Kuwait. A content analysis of the six banks’ annual reports from 2007 through 2009 was conducted to examine their corporate social responsibility practices in relation to the marketplace, workplace, community, and environment. The results show that both types of banks made certain social disclosures in the years studied. Interestingly, despite Islamic Sharia calls for and emphasizes ethical business behavior, the Islamic banks studied disclosed less corporate social responsibility information as compared with conventional banks. Furthermore, the corporate social responsibility information disclosed by the Islamic banks declined noticeably over time. The conventional banks, however, increased their disclosures during the financial crisis of 2008. By measuring and comparing the volume of corporate social responsibility information disclosed by the three Islamic banks and the three conventional banks in Kuwait the results of this study contribute to the corporate social responsibility literature.

PENGARUH PENERAPAN SRHRM DENGAN DUKUNGAN KARYAWAN BAGI KEGIATAN CSR EKSTERNAL PERUSAHAAN DI JAKARTA DAN SEKITARNYA

<p class="Style4">This study aims to look at the relationship between Socially Responsible Human Resource Management (SRHRM) and employee support for the perception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The data collection method used for the research is through surveys, which are distributed to employees of several companies in various industries in Indonesia and the collected data are analyzed using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) method. The findings of this research suggest that SRHRM practices will affect employee support for external CSR through the creation of a socially responsible organizational climate. Therefore, it should be considered by companies in Indonesia throughout its operations particularly for the company’s human resource department. This research contributes to expanding the CSR and HR literature which is still uncommon particularly in Indonesia.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Corporate Social Responsibility, Organizational Climate, Socially Responsible Human Resource Management</p>