CSR disclosure and firm performance: evidence from an emerging market

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahad P ◽  
Showkat Ahmad Busru

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on firm performance, considering both firm profitability and firm value in an emerging market, India. Design/methodology/approach The study examines the effect of CSR disclosure on firm performance using panel regressions for the final sample that consists of 386 companies listed in the BSE 500 index, India. It covers all major players in the capital market for ten years from 2007–2016. Findings The result shows a trend toward the negative effect of CSR disclosure on firm profitability and firm value in India; this negative effect is mainly influenced by environmental disclosure score and social disclosure score. An adverse effect of firm profitability and firm value on CSR disclosure is also observed to underline the inverse relationship. Practical implications The study provides implications to consumers, investors, managers and policymakers. Firstly, consumers have to be more aware of CSR initiatives of companies, and they should support those companies to do more. Secondly, investors can use the ESG disclosure score as a signal for the level of CSR activities, which negatively affects firm performance. Thirdly, managers have to consider CSR more seriously and spend CSR amount wisely after proper research and not just to meet the mandatory limit. In addition, managers have to take necessary actions to make the public aware of the CSR activities of the company to gain an advantage in the future. Finally, policymakers have to give more emphasis on the promotion of CSR activities to reach the ultimate consumers who lie in the remote areas of the country, and more awareness has to be given to them regarding CSR activities. Originality/value The findings contribute to the literature by providing insights on CSR disclosure and firm performance relationship in India, an emerging market with increasing international attention where such studies are scant and less clear, especially after the amendments in the Companies Act, 2013. Furthermore, the measurement of CSR disclosure using environmental, social and governance (ESG) score is novel in the Indian context.

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amal Hamrouni ◽  
Ali Uyar ◽  
Rim Boussaada

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test whether or not CSR disclosure (i.e. aggregate as well as its three sub-indicators) reduces the cost of debt for French corporations listed in the SBF 120 index between 2010 and 2015. Design/methodology/approach CSR disclosure ratings of firms were collected from the Bloomberg database under three dimensions such as environmental, social and governance (ESG). Then, a pooled regression analysis was run. Findings The results indicate that overall CSR disclosure score as a combination of ESG disclosure scores has a negative effect on the cost of debt (i.e. lowers the cost of debt). While environmental disclosure is negatively associated with the cost of debt, social disclosure is unexpectedly positively associated, and governance disclosure has an insignificant association with the cost of debt. Research limitations/implications The study has two main limitations. First, the analysis does not consider contractual constraints and obligations that might exist in debt contracts (Jung et al., 2018). Second, the analyses cover a specific time period (i.e. between 2010 and 2015) for a specific country (i.e. France) excluding utilities and the financial sector. Practical implications Overall, it is inferred from the results that financial markets for lenders take into account CSR disclosure when assessing the creditworthiness of borrowers. Specifically, environmental disclosure is the only subdimension of CSR that is influential on creditors’ decisions to offer favorable interest rates. In line with this outcome, companies can assess their processes and be more aligned with eco-friendly practices, and investors are particularly advised to invest in those types of firms. Originality/value This study extends scant literature on the association between CSR and the cost of debt by exploring how creditors treat CSR dimensions dissimilarly in granting loans to firms. The findings of this study have particular importance as financial debt is one of the most predominant forms of external financing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupinder Kaur ◽  
Balwinder Singh

Purpose The center of concern of this empirical paper is the connection between chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics and firm performance. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The paper inquires into the hypothesis on the relationship between CEO characteristics (demographic and professional) and accounting measures of firm value. The study is based on second-hand information comprising of Nifty 500 firms for a period of five years ranging from 2012 to 2016. Panel regressions are run on the final sample composed of 1,535 observations to test the hypothesized relationship. Findings The stated findings specify that long-tenured CEOs and firms led by female CEOs are negatively related to firm performance. Moreover, the authors find that the greater the CEO share ownership, higher the firm performance stands. Further, duality and foreign CEOs make a significant contribution when firm value is based on ROA. Results also show that CEO outside directorships have a noteworthy positive relationship with ROE. Research limitations/implications The findings are limited to non-financial listed companies of the index. Future research can also experiment with financial and unlisted companies to have a different perspective. Practical implications The study may provide worthwhile insights to shareholders as they largely seek to hire the most capable CEOs with the relevant combination of skills to achieve shareholders’ goals and improve the Indian competitive power in the global market. Originality/value This paper provides a comprehensive picture by inculcating different CEO traits especially in a progressing nation like India with a unique set of economic, political and cultural environment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qazi S. Kabir ◽  
Kevin Watson ◽  
Theekshana Somaratna

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address a deficiency in the literature by exploring the impact of negative workplace safety announcements on firm performance. The authors analyze the issue from a corporate social responsibility perspective and explore ways supply chain managers can contribute to improve firm performance through the development of safe working environments. Design/methodology/approach Utilizing a sample of 227 negative workplace safety announcements, this paper explores the implications of negative workplace safety announcements on the stock price of a firm using event study methodology. Findings The authors find that negative workplace announcements are associated with an abnormal decrease in shareholder value. Furthermore, the authors find evidence that negative workplace safety announcements have a more pronounced negative effect on firm value in the present environment than in any previous time period. Practical implications Operations managers need to play leading roles in ensuring safe working environments. The results provide the support needed to acquire the financial resources necessary to mitigate exposure to unsafe working conditions. Originality/value This study explores the impact of negative workplace safety announcements on a firm’s stock performance. It is the first large-scale study to look at public announcements of workplace incidents and to explore the impact of such announcements in the context of time.


2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pınar Mandacı ◽  
Guluzar Gumus

Ownership Concentration, Managerial Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from TurkeyThis study examines the effects of ownership concentration and managerial ownership on the profitability and the value of non-financial firms listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) in the context of an emerging market. We measure the firm's performance by Return on Assets (ROA) and Tobin's Q ratios, where the former measures profitability and the latter the value of the firm. In addition, we give detailed information on the main characteristics of the ownership structures of the firms in our sample and find that ownership of Turkish firms is highly concentrated. In addition, the unlisted holding companies have the highest average percentage of shares, which supports the belief that individuals or families establish the holding companies in order to control their listed firms. After controlling for investment intensity, leverage, growth and size, we find that ownership concentration has a significantly positive effect on both firm value and profitability, while managerial ownership has a significantly negative effect on firm value.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruopiao Zhang ◽  
Teresa Chu ◽  
Carlos Noronha ◽  
Jieqi Guan

PurposeThis study introduces Social Contribution Value per Share (SCVPS), an indicator devised by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), as an easy-to-interpret Measurement of Corporate Social Performance (MCSP) to the international research arena. The authors first explore the informativeness role of voluntary disclosure of SCVPS in the stock market. The authors then go one step further to demonstrate the relationship between corporate value creation quantified by SCVPS and firm value.Design/methodology/approachThe study takes a new perspective – a quasi-natural experiment of SCVPS disclosure in 2008 and uses a Propensity Score Matched Difference in Difference model (PSM-DiD) to investigate the impact of SCVPS disclosure policy on stock price synchronization and firm value. Through manually recalculating all the values of SCVPS and its components, this study enables us to further investigate the relationship between corporate value creation for various stakeholders and firm value.FindingsThis study reveals that voluntary disclosure of SCVPS can signal firm-specific information to the market and reduce noise in returns, thus affecting stock price synchronization. The findings further demonstrate that such firm-specific information has value relevance to firm performance. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that corporate value creation for different stakeholders measured by SCVPS can significantly affect firm value. The moderating effects of ownership structures and industry types are also investigated, and an endogeneity test confirms the robustness of the findings.Practical implicationsThis study argues that SCVPS offers an economically viable way for firms, including small-and-medium-sized enterprises, in emerging economies to disclose corporate value creation and provide the public with a direct understanding and appreciation of the values created by corporations for stakeholders.Originality/valueThe result makes contributions to the MCSP literature and explores the informativeness of SCVPS disclosure. Besides, this paper demonstrates that SCVPS offers a good setting to explore the effect of corporate value creation on firm performance in an emerging market.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Woo Sung Kim ◽  
Halil Kiymaz

PurposeThe impact of founder CEOs on firm value continues to be debated in the finance literature. While earlier studies suggest that founding family ownership and founding CEO structure create less value than public ownership, later studies provide contradicting evidence. This study examines how founder CEOs affect firm value in the business group context while controlling for firm-specific variables and various CEO characteristics.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a sample of publicly listed Indian firms from 2010 to 2015 with 997 firm-year data observations. While 306 of these are in business groups, the remaining 691 are in a nonbusiness group. The authors also divide the sample into various sector subgroups, including materials (170), industrials (198), consumer (422) and others (198). They use two different models, including the fixed effect model (FEM) and pooled generalized method of moments (GMM) model to run regressions.FindingsThe authors find that firms with founder CEOs have lower firm value than those with nonfounder CEOs. These results show the importance of the role of founder CEOs in the Indian business groups. The authors further find a positive relationship between founder CEO and business group interaction variable, showing that an increase in founder CEO (or business group) increases the significance effect of business group (founder CEO) on firm performance. After separating the sample business and nonbusiness groups, the relationship between founder CEOs and firm value in both groups remains negative. Using various firm-specific control variables, the authors find that highly leveraged and smaller firms experience lower Tobin's Q. In contrast, firms with more investment in research and development perform better. Among CEO characteristics, the authors find that firms with highly educated CEOs do not perform well, while firms with older CEOs do better. Finally, they find that CEO tenure and duality are associated with lower firm performance.Originality/valueThis study adds value by providing evidence on the founder CEOs and firm performance in business groups from a fast-developing emerging market.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1061-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merve Acar ◽  
Hüseyin Temiz

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the association between environmental performance of firms and the level of voluntary environmental disclosure in emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachWe used tobit regression OLS and t-test methods to reveal the association between environmental performance and the level of voluntary environmental disclosure.FindingsWe find a significant positive association between the level of discretionary environmental disclosures and corporate environmental performance. The result is in line with the arguments of economics disclosure theory that argues environmentally good performers disclose more.Practical implicationsMany of the environmentally good firms in Turkey are also listed in the “BIST Sustainability Index,” and this situation can be the result of the relative power of external regulations. Accordingly, it can be suggested to increase the community and governmental pressures for environmental reporting but also gives importance to increase intrinsic motivations for companies to engage in disclosure practices.Originality/valueThis study shed light on relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure in an emerging market context. Also, it is revisited that the relation between environmental performance and the level of environmental disclosure by testing two different predictions on the level of environmental disclosures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Lazăr

AbstractThe paper investigates firm-specific determinants of firm profitability for Romanian listed companies over the 2000-2011 period within the framework of resource based view of the firm. The results show that tangibles, leverage, size and labour intensity have negative effect on firm performance, while sales growth and value added have a positive effect. The results prove robust when introducing two-way fixed effects model and industry year effects model (in order to simultaneously account for specific industry characteristics and time effects).


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-248
Author(s):  
Manogna R.L. ◽  
Aswini Kumar Mishra

Purpose The study aims to analyze the impact of Research & Development (R&D) intensity on the firm’s performance, measured by growth of sales in the emerging market like India. Innovation strategy and its outcomes for firms may be different in developing countries as compared to developed countries. Thus, a study that focuses on the emerging economy like India, with a majority of the population dependent on agriculture, is of prime importance to the firm performance in the food and agricultural manufacturing industry. For this study, the broader focus will be on one widely recognised factor which may influence the growth rate of firms, i.e. investment in innovations which is in terms of R&D expenditure. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates the relationship between the R&D efforts and growth of firms in the Indian food and agricultural manufacturing industry during 2001–2019. To empirically test the relationship between firm’s growth (FG) and R&D investments, system generalised method of moments technique has been used, hence enabling to avoid problems related to endogeneity and simultaneity. Findings The findings reveal that investments in innovations have a positive effect on the growth of firms in the Indian food and agricultural manufacturing industry. Investment in R&D also enables the firms to reap benefits from externalities present in the industry. Further analysis reveals that younger firms grow faster when they invest in R&D. More specifically, this paper finds evidence in the case of the food and agricultural industry that import of raw materials negatively affects the FG and export intensity positively affects the growth in the case of R&D firms. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that the government should encourage the industries to invest optimally in R&D projects by providing favourable fiscal treatments and R&D subsidies which are observed to have positive effects in various developed countries. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, the current paper is the first to analyse the impact of innovation in food and agricultural industry on firm’s performance in an emerging economy context with the latest data. This paper agrees that a government initiative to increase private R&D expenditure would have favourable effects on FG as growing investments in R&D lead to further growth of the firms.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amal Hamrouni ◽  
Mondher Bouattour ◽  
Nadia Ben Farhat Toumi ◽  
Rim Boussaada

PurposeThe current study aims to investigate the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and information asymmetry, as well as the moderating effect of board characteristics (gender diversity, size and independence) on this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a panel data regression analysis with the system generalized method of moments (SGMM) estimator of nonfinancial French firms included in the SBF 120 index. The environmental and social disclosure scores are collected from the Bloomberg database, while financial data are collected from the FactSet database.FindingsThe empirical results demonstrate that environmental disclosure has a positive impact on the level of information asymmetry, while social disclosure has no effect on the information environment. Gender diversity and board independence negatively impact the opacity index, while board size has a positive effect. The presence of women in board composition has a substitution effect on the relationship between environmental disclosure and information asymmetry. There is no moderating effect of board size on the association between CSR disclosure and information asymmetry. However, the proportion of independent female directors and board independence operates as substitutes to social disclosure on reducing information asymmetry.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the models include the most common control variables used in the literature, they omit some variables. Second, the results should be interpreted with caution and should not be generalized to the entire stock market since the sample is based on large French companies.Practical implicationsThe results of this study may be of interest to managers, investors and French market authorities since France is characterized by highly developed laws and reforms in the area of CSR. In addition, the paper leads to a better understanding of how women on the board, in particular, independent female directors, affect the relationship between CSR disclosure and information asymmetry. This could be of interest to French authorities, which has encouraged the appointment of women through the adoption of the Copé–Zimmermann law.Originality/valueFirst, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the moderating effect of board characteristics on the relationship between CSR and information asymmetry. Second, unlike previous studies using individual proxies to measure information asymmetry, the authors favor the opacity index of Anderson et al. (2009). They calculate this index by including a fifth individual measure, namely, share price volatility. The opacity index better describes the information environment of companies than individual measures since it reflects the perceptions of investors and analysts together.


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