The impact of corporate governance on corporate social performance: Cases from listed firms in Taiwan

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 101332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei-Gi Shu ◽  
Sue-Jane Chiang
Author(s):  
Punit Arora

Over 30 years of research on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP) has yielded no conclusive results. Researchers have tried to legitimize (or discredit) social performance on the basis of its surmised impact on corporate profitability. However, the empirical evidence on the topic has been as divisive as the theoretical propositioning. By reviewing the theory and evidence on the topic, this article puts forth four intertwined propositions that could be confounding these results: failure to consider the impact of corporate governance, lumping together all sorts of expenditures under the rubric of social performance, failure to consider the stakeholder relationships, and above all, not accounting for the past reputation and stakeholder influence capacity of the firm. In particular, we contend that it is the employment relations that run like a common thread among these factors and hold the key to the dynamics of CSP-FP link.


Author(s):  
Frank Sampong ◽  
Na Song ◽  
Gilbert K. Amoako ◽  
Kingsley O. Boahene

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.


2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 641-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-Jui Huang

AbstractPrevious research has analyzed and debated corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) independently. This paper aims to empirically explore the interrelationship between CG, CSR, financial performance (FP) and Corporate Social Performance (CSP) using a sample of 297 electronics companies operating in Taiwan, a newly industrialized Asian economy. The results show that a CG model which includes independent outside directors and which has specific ownership characteristics has a significantly positive impact on both FP and CSP, whereas FP itself does not influence CSP. The presence of independent outside directors in the firm has the greatest impact on the social performance of the firm's worker, customer, supplier, community and society dimensions. Government shareholders enhance a firm's social performance extraordinarily because government shareholders will be more likely to request that companies fulfill their social responsibilities. Only government shareholders positively and significantly relate to a firm's environmental performance. Furthermore, foreign institutional stockholders help to increase worker and supplier performance by paying more attention to employee policies and supply chain relationships. Finally, independent outside directors, foreign institutional stockholders and domestic financial institutional stockholders are shown to improve financial performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Landi ◽  
Mauro Sciarelli

Purpose This paper fits in a research field dealing with the impact of Corporate Ethics Assessment on Financial Performance. The authors argue how environmental, social and governance (ESG) paradigm, meant to measure corporate social performance by rating issuance, can impact on abnormal returns of Italian firms listed on Financial Times Stock Exchange Milano Indice di Borsa (FTSE MIB) Index, developing a panel data analysis which runs from 2007 to 2015. Design/methodology/approach This study aims at exploring whether socially responsible investors outperform an excess market return on Italian Stock Exchange because of their investment behavior, testing statistically the relationship between the yearly ESG assessment issued by Standard Ethics Agency on FTSE MIB’s companies and their abnormal returns. To verify the impact of an ESG Rating on a company’s abnormal return, the authors developed a panel data analysis through a Fixed Effects Model. They measured abnormal returns via Fama–French approach, running a yearly Jensen’s Performance Index for each company under investigation. Findings The empirical results denote in Italy both a growing interest to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability by managers over the past decade, as well as an improving quality in ESG assessments because of a reliable corporate disclosure. Thus, despite investors have been applying ESG criteria in their stock – picking operations, the authors found a not positive and statistically significant impact in terms of market premium, when they have been undertaking a socially responsible investment (SRI). Practical implications The findings described above show that ethics is not yet a reliable fundraising tool for Italian-listed companies, despite SRIs having a positive growth rate over past decade. Investors seem to be not pricing CSR on Stock Exchange Market; therefore, listed companies cannot be rewarded with a premium price because of their highly stakeholder oriented behavior. Originality/value This paper explores, for the first time in Italy, when market extra-returns (if any) are related to corporate social performance and how managers leverage ethics to build capital added value.


2022 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-146
Author(s):  
Farman Ullah Khan ◽  
Junrui Zhang ◽  
Sajid Ullah ◽  
Muhammad Usman ◽  
Shahid Ali

This study aims to investigate whether government withdrawal affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, and how CEO’s political connection moderates its relationship. We use sample data from Chinese listed firms over the 2010 to 2015 period to test our hypotheses. We find that decrease in state ownership through government withdrawal tends to negatively affect firms’ CSR performance, but the CEO’s political connection weakens its negative relationship and increases the firm’s likelihood towards CSR activities. Our findings imply that firm’s social engagement mainly result from high governmental involvement, and usually from political connections, because such firms are subject to close scrutiny by stakeholders and thus are more likely to improve social performance. Moreover, this research provides important implications to policy makers regarding the social outcomes of government withdrawal and the usefulness of firms’ political connection in developing economies like China. Este estudio tiene como objetivo investigar si la retirada del gobierno afecta al rendimiento de la responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC), y cómo la conexión política del CEO modera su relación. Utilizamos los datos de una muestra de empresas chinas que cotizan en bolsa durante el período 2010-2015 para comprobar nuestras hipótesis. Encontramos que la disminución de la propiedad estatal a través de la retirada del gobierno tiende a afectar negativamente a los resultados de RSC de las empresas, pero la conexión política del CEO debilita su relación negativa y aumenta la probabilidad de la empresa hacia las actividades de RSC. Nuestras conclusiones implican que el compromiso social de las empresas se debe principalmente a la alta participación gubernamental, y normalmente a las conexiones políticas, porque estas empresas están sometidas a un estrecho escrutinio por parte de las partes interesadas y, por lo tanto, es más probable que mejoren sus resultados sociales. Además, esta investigación ofrece importantes implicaciones para los responsables políticos en relación con los resultados sociales de la retirada del gobierno y la utilidad de la conexión política de las empresas en economías en desarrollo como China.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmi A. Boshnak

Purpose This paper aims to examine firm characteristics and ownership structure determinants of corporate social and environmental voluntary disclosure (CSEVD) practices in Saudi Arabia to address the paucity of research in this field for Saudi listed firms. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses manual content and regression analyses for online annual report data for Saudi non-financial listed firms over the period 2016–2018 using CSEVD items drawing on global reporting initiative-G4 guidelines. Findings Models show that Saudi firm CSEVD has increased over time compared to previous studies to an average of 68% disclosure due to new corporate governance regulations and IFRS implementation. The models show that firm size, leverage, manufacturing industry type and government ownership are positive determinants of CSEVD, while family ownership is the negative driver of CSEVD. However, firm profitability, audit firm size, firm age and institutional ownership have no impact on the level of CSEVD. Originality/value Using legitimacy and stakeholder theories, the paper determines the influence of firm characteristics and ownership structure on CSEVD, identifying implications for firm stakeholders and providing some evidence on the impact of corporate governance regulation and IFRS implementation on such disclosure. The paper provides additional evidence on progress towards Saudi’s Vision 2030.


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