Promote Corporate Social Responsibility Research Articles

Assessing the Nexus between Social Responsibility, Environmental Initiatives, and Profitability: A Sustainable Finance Perspective of the Universal Banks in the Philippines

This study examines the impact of social responsibility and environmental projects on the profitability of 10 Universal Banks in the Philippines within the context of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) through sustainable finance framework. The research adopts a quantitative approach and analyzes data from 2019 to 2021 using exploratory data analysis and regression analysis was used to capture any evolving trends or shifts in the relationship between banks' engagement in these projects and their financial performance. The study found that the number of social responsibility and environmental projects undertaken by Universal Banks did not exhibit a statistically significant impact on their profitability during this period (2019-2021). However, the study emphasizes the broader value of these initiatives, as they contribute to sustainability, promote corporate social responsibility, and align with global trends towards a more environmentally conscious and socially responsible business landscape. The research suggests that banks should continue to invest in social and environmental projects for their substantial societal and ecological impacts, aligning with the evolving needs and expectations of customers, investors, and the broader community.

Do Old Board Directors Promote Corporate Social Responsibility?

AbstractThis study investigates the influence of old directors on corporate social responsibility (CSR) using roughly 25,000 firm-year observations from 2001 to 2015 in the United States. We employ the widely used selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) model from psychology to explain the CSR decisions of old directors. Our results indicate that firms with a higher percentage of old directors tend to have lower engagement in CSR activities. To address endogeneity, we adopt the difference-in-differences method and use the event of sudden deaths and unexpected retirements of old directors and find that our results remain robust. Our analysis also reveals that the negative impact of old directors on CSR is more significant in firms where directors receive fewer reputational spillover benefits from CSR initiatives and/or firms exhibiting poor corporate governance. In addition, this adverse impact of old directors comes from two effects: a reduction in efforts to enhance CSR strengths and an increase in inaction to address CSR concerns. Overall, these findings suggest that the CSR decision-making process of old directors involves assessing the costs and benefits of CSR engagements, consistent with our hypothesis derived from the SOC model.

THE EFFECTS OF LOCAL SHAREHOLDERS ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

This paper shows that local institutional shareholders tend to improve firm performance through corporate social investments. Using an extensive U.S. mutual fund-firm dataset, we find that local mutual funds tend to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR). In addition, the social investments are positively associated with firm performance. Finally, it is evident that CSR mediates the relation between local ownership and firm performance. Consistent with instrumental stakeholder theory, our findings suggest that local shareholders help firms develop reputational and relationship capital through CSR and lead to higher firm performance.

Do anticipated government environmental audits promote corporate social responsibility? Evidence from China

AbstractWe examine the impact of China's announcements of upcoming government environmental audits (GEAs) on firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR). We hypothesize that firms, especially heavily polluting firms, engage in more CSR to proactively burnish their public image to weather forthcoming adverse outcomes from a GEA. Our baseline findings confirm that firms respond to the government's GEA announcement by engaging in more CSR. Additional analysis suggests that reputation concerns and environmental fines mediate the impact of GEA announcements on CSR. Cross‐sectional analyses show that the effect of GEA announcements on CSR is more salient for firms: (1) in a business environment in which GEAs are more effective, (2) that CSR engagement is critically important, or (3) that CSR can serve some special function. Overall, our findings imply that it is generally a good government policy to implement GEAs.

Research on the Relationship Between ESG Rating and Stock Pricing

Nowadays, the development of green industries is the focus of Chinese ecological civilization construction and the main growth point of China's economic development. As an important evaluation index, Emotional, Social and Governance(ESG) rating can not only reflect the development quality of listed enterprises, but also promote corporate social responsibility. At the same time, ESG will convert external costs in the production process of the enterprise into internal costs, affecting the resource allocation of the enterprise, and guiding the enterprise to adopt corresponding sustainable strategies and plans. Therefore, this article focuses on the relationship between ESG and stock pricing ratings. The data in this paper comes from the Wind database and the relevant data of listed companies in the stock market from 2018 to 2022 from the CSMAR database, and through the fixed-effects model, it is concluded that the relationship between corporate ESG and the price-to-book ratio of their stocks is inversely correlated.

Financing a Sustainable Future: The Role of Equity and Credit Market Development in Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility

Financing a Sustainable Future: The Role of Equity and Credit Market Development in Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility

Gender pay gap in the Czech Republic: focused on management

The existence of a gender pay gap is well known. This paper focuses on the issue of the pay gap in managerial positions. It aims to examine the development of the gender pay gap in managerial positions in the Czech Republic and to identify the unexplained part of the gender pay gap, which could be an indication of gender pay discrimination. To estimate the unexplained part of the gender pay gap data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) was used and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition was applied. The results show that in the period 2005-2019, the average raw gender pay gap in management was 0.22 and the unexplained part was 0.13, using the Neumark’s variant of the decomposition. Differences in women’s and men’s personal and firm characteristics could explain about one-third of the pay gap. The results also suggest that the situation has not changed much over the period considered and that the unexplained part of the gender pay gap has decreased only slightly between 2005 and 2019. Thus, reducing the gender pay gap remains a major challenge for both economic policy makers and companies in promoting corporate social responsibility policies.

Research on the impact of the integration of digital economy and real economy on enterprise green innovation

Enhancing the green innovation capability of enterprises holds pivotal significance in achieving the “dual carbon” target. The integration of digital economy and real economy provides new ideas for promoting green innovation in enterprises. Based on the Chinese A-share listed companies panel data from 2011 to 2022, this paper empirically tests the impact of the integration of the digital economy and real economy on enterprise green innovation. The results show that integrating the digital economy and the real economy significantly positively affects green innovation. Improving the integration level of the digital and real economies is conducive to promoting green innovation. Intrinsic mechanisms show significant mediating effects on financing constraints, enterprise digital transformation, and corporate social responsibility. The integration of the digital and real economies can promote enterprise green innovation by alleviating enterprise financing constraints, driving enterprise digital transformation, and promoting corporate social responsibility. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of integrating the digital and real economies on enterprise green innovation affects state-owned enterprises more than private enterprises. The effect on small enterprises is significantly positive at the 1 % confidence level; however, the impact on the green innovation of large enterprises is not significant.

Mechanisms to promote household investment in wind energy: A national experimental survey

Citizen investment into wind energy is conducive to public acceptance and can contribute to closing the renewable energy investment gap, while promoting corporate social responsibility. This study addresses this topic and conducts a novel choice experiment to determine the investment preferences of a representative sample of 1,009 Irish households. First, the paper investigates the attributes determining willingness to invest into wind farms. Second, it considers to what extent public attitudes and proximity to wind farms affect investment. Third, it assesses the suitability of five specific investment mechanisms. Through these activities the findings enhance current understanding of the opportunities and challenges concerning the design of citizen investments within a centralised system which is predominantly reliant on incumbent wind energy developers. The findings show that the risk of loss and the expected annual return on investment are the main attributes determining investment decisions, but secondary criteria, such as the project location and ownership characteristics, also affect willingness to invest. Respondents living within 10 km of a wind farm or expressing support for wind energy are significantly more likely to consider investing. Recommendations include interventions to encourage joint ventures between community organisations and specialised developers as a mechanism to promote investment in wind farms.

Economic policy uncertainty and green innovation: Does corporate social responsibility matter?

This research examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and green innovation, highlighting the mediating effect of corporate social responsibility. The results indicate a pronounced negative correlation between the two, with firms reducing green efforts during periods of heightened policy uncertainty. However, higher corporate social responsibility ratings moderate this effect, highlighting firms' unwavering commitment to green initiatives in the face of uncertainty. The findings advocate for prudent policymaking and promotion of corporate social responsibility to support green efforts amidst fluctuating economic scenarios.

Bank connections, corporate social responsibility and low-carbon innovation

This paper discusses the relationship between bank connections and low-carbon innovation. It is empirically found that the existence of bank connections is expected to decrease the corporate low-carbon innovation level by 0.0369 standard deviations. The results hold after a series of robustness tests, including the introduction of the propensity score matching method. In addition, this paper discusses the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and finds that CSR promotion can significantly mitigate the negative impact of bank connections on corporate low-carbon innovation. Furthermore, this paper explores the reasons why enterprises construct bank connections from the environmental perspective and finds that both strict environmental regulation and a low level of green credit development may contribute to enterprises’ construction of bank connections. These findings reveal for the first time the environmental costs of corporate banking relationships and form policy recommendations on how to reduce adverse effects.

Analyzing Social Media Adoption for Promoting CSR: A Study of UAE Healthcare Sector

Despite the significant potential presented by social media and its strategic relevance in driving business activities, its adoption continues to pose a considerable challenge, with rates remaining notably low. The primary objective of this study is to examine the factors that influence the application of social media for the promotion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the healthcare industry. To achieve this goal, the research employs the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to establish a hierarchy and assign importance to the elements that shape the utilization of social media in advancing CSR objectives. The results reveal key drivers that impact the integration of social media for CSR promotion in the healthcare industry. These drivers encompass effective CSR communication, differences among social media platforms, the advantages stemming from social media use, stakeholder expectations, and the chosen implementation strategy. Furthermore, these findings hold the potential to provide important guidance for policymakers and pertinent organizations, aiding them in devising targeted strategies grounded in the specific factors of social media adoption that have demonstrated efficacy in CSR promotion.

Controlling Shareholder Equity Pledge and Corporate ESG Responsibility Fulfillment Inhibition or Promotion

Corporate ESG responsibility fulfillment has become an important measure for enterprises to practice low-carbon development concepts at the micro level and promote corporate social responsibility fulfillment and corporate governance. During this process, the behavior of corporate shareholders has also become an important factor affecting the fulfillment of corporate ESG responsibilities. Based on the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022, this paper studies and analyzes the impact of the controlling shareholder's equity pledge behavior on the performance of corporate ESG responsibilities. The study found that the controlling party's equity pledge behavior inhibits the fulfillment of ESG responsibilities; optimizing the internal control environment and increasing corporate social attention can reduce the negative impact of pledge behavior on the fulfillment of ESG responsibilities to a certain extent; in the analysis of corporate heterogeneity, Equity pledge has less inhibitory effect on state-owned enterprises' performance of ESG responsibilities, and the effect on non-state-owned enterprises is more obvious. Based on this, the research puts forward three dimensions of policy suggestions to improve ownership structure, strengthen internal control and strengthen external supervision, in order to bring effective guidance for standardizing enterprise ESG performance.

Corporate Volunteering Impacts

Institutions such as the European Commission have committed themselves to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their 2020 Strategy for Europe, being that an increasing number of companies are developing corporate volunteering (CV) as part of their CSR policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the impacts of CV implementation on three stakeholders: the company, the community, and the employees. Through a survey targeting employees with experience in CV, it was possible to conclude, generally, that the main perceived impact is increasing employee satisfaction level; that CV impacts are partially influenced by gender, the respondents' frequency in CV activities, and preferences; and, finally, that CV impacts are mainly explained in the company by self-serving purposes, in the community by the anticipation of benefits, and for employees by the social exchange, attribution, and identification psychological theories.

Does CSR Information Disclosure Improve Investment Efficiency? The Moderating Role of Analyst Attention

Since 2009, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has begun to require listed firms on the specified boards to disclose their corporate social responsibility and encouraged others to report corporate social responsibility voluntarily. Based on the data of domestic A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2019, this paper studies the relationship between corporate social responsibility information disclosure and corporate investment efficiency and the role of analysts in moderating the relationship. The empirical results show that the social responsibility information disclosed under China’s mandatory guidance has a positive effect on alleviating information asymmetry and improving investment efficiency, and this role becomes even more crucial when the external information environment fails to meet market demands. Overall, our findings suggest the important role of corporate social responsibility information disclosure in guiding investment behavior and improving investment efficiency, especially for those companies with low analyst attention. This article expands the research perspective on social responsibility information disclosure and investment efficiency. Furthermore, our research contributes to promoting corporate social responsibility and facilitating sustainable development.

Firm Performance, Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Effect of Corporate Reputation and Corporate Governance: A Cross Country Analysis

This study examines the impact of corporate governance and corporate reputation on firm performance and corporate social responsibility disclosure. For this purpose, we use a moderating-mediation approach, utilizing data from 4255 observations across 732 enterprises from 2009 to 2021. The research findings reveal that corporate social responsibility disclosure significantly influences corporate reputation, particularly in enhancing business performance. The findings also demonstrate a moderate association between corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and corporate reputation. Moreover, the investigation highlights the critical role of corporate reputation, ownership concentration, and CEO integrity in promoting corporate social responsibility disclosure and improving business performance. Finally, the paper discusses the practical and theoretical contributions of the research.

Environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives and the attitude-intention-behavior gap in green consumption

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to use the theory of planned behavior and a moderated mediation model to bridge the gap between attitude, intention and behavior in the context of green consumption. The study will focus on how environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives play a positive moderating role in the mediation effect of green purchase intention on the relationship between attitude toward green products and environmentally friendly purchasing behavior.Design/methodology/approachA representative sample of 583 consumers was gathered from five major cities in Vietnam using a mall-intercept survey method. The moderated mediation model and the formulated hypotheses were tested using the PROCESS macro.FindingsThe results of our study reveal that green purchase intention is not only positively and directly associated with environmentally friendly purchase behavior but also significantly mediated the green purchase attitude–behavior link. Environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives were found to positively moderate the direct effect of attitude toward green products on green purchase intention. More importantly, our study also yielded that the mediation effect of green purchase intention on the relationship between attitude toward green products and environmentally friendly purchase behavior is positively moderated by environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives. As such, the indirect impact of environmentally friendly purchase attitude on green purchase behavior through green purchase intention was stronger when the level of environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives was higher.Practical implicationsThe results of this study have practical implications and offer valuable recommendations for marketing practitioners, administrators and policymakers. These recommendations can help promote corporate social responsibility practices among firms, encourage environmentally friendly consumption among consumers and contribute to the overall sustainable development of the country.Originality/valueThis study has made significant contributions to the existing literature on pro-environmental behavior by addressing the gap between attitude, intention and behavior in sustainable consumption. Furthermore, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to use a moderated mediation model to shed light on the moderating effect of environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives on the direct and mediated relationships among attitude, intention and behavior in the context of green consumption.

Human versus Virtual Influencer: The Effect of Humanness and Interactivity on Persuasive CSR Messaging

Virtual influencers (VIs) are computer-generated avatars whose purpose is to exert influences on social media. The unique features of VIs have the potential to overcome several shortcomings that plague human influencers (HIs) while maintaining the advantages of HIs. Hence, this study (1) compares the persuasiveness of HIs and VIs with different humanlike visual cues; (2) examines how interactivity and visual humanness interplay in determining source credibility; and (3) investigates how credibility of endorsers can promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement and brand reputation. Conducting an online experiment with 2 (humanness: VIs versus HIs) × 2 (interactivity: high versus low) between-subjects design (n = 219), the study found that social media influencers (SMIs) with higher humanness led to higher source credibility. Further, an interaction effect between humanness and interactivity has been found, as interactivity played more critical role in elevating credibility for VIs than HIs. Source credibility mediated the positive effect of humanness over CSR engagement and brand reputation. Moderated mediations have also been found, as the mediating effect of source credibility was more pronounced in the low-interactivity condition than in the high-interactivity condition. Overall, the study provides empirical evidence suggesting that VIs’ credibility and effectiveness can be greatly enhanced via active interaction.

Exploring the domain of relationship between happiness management in organizations and the environment

PurposeOrganizational happiness has received exponential attention in recent years. To offer an over-view for future research gap, this article produces a comprehensive review by combining bibliometric analysis and interviews to key authors in the field. The main objective of this paper is to show the state of research regarding the environment in the management of happiness in organizations: the evolution of scientific activity, current trends in authorship, topics and future setting research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological process focuses on a mixed method. A systematic review of the relevant literature; bibliometric analysis and network mapping in the Web of Science and Scopus data-bases; bibliometric network analysis of authorship, citation and co-occurrence of key words in scientific publications.FindingsThe results reveal that happiness management is gaining importance and, moreover, more than half of the publications about happiness management are related to the environment in which the organizations are immersed. Therefore, the study provides some research directions and insists on role of environment to better understand the theoretical and practical perspectives. Likewise, bibliometric analysis and interviews allow to measure quality, impact, productivity and scientific evolution which are increasingly valued in order to identify the main concepts and topics that are considered key, drivers of research and those gaps that should be addressed in future research work for the conceptual framework of happiness management in organizations.Originality/valueConclusions are drawn that promoting corporate social responsibility strategies, aimed at fostering sustainability and care for the environment result in the well-being of organizations and the performance of their workers are highlighted.

Stock index constituent adjustments and corporate social responsibility: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of CSI 300 index adjustments

ABSTRACT The stock price index is a thermometer reflecting changes in the stock market, and can convey key information on capital market dynamics and trends to investors. This paper empirically investigates the impact of index adjustments on corporate social responsibility performance by employing the quasi-natural experiment of CSI 300 index adjustments. We find that index additions significantly promote corporate social responsibility performance. Mechanism analysis supports the shareholder value maximisation motivation that drives the fulfilment of corporate social responsibility. In addition, more analyst following and investor attention plays a significant mediating role in the promotion impact of stock index additions on corporate social responsibility. Further analyses show that the positive impact of the stock index additions on corporate social responsibility performance is more pronounced in industries with more competitive product market. However, index deletions do not significantly reduce corporate social responsibility performance, implying that index additions and index deletions have asymmetric effects.