Does Benefit Corporation Status Matter to Investors? An Exploratory Study of Investor Perceptions and Decisions

2020 ◽  
pp. 000765031989846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren A. Cooper ◽  
Jill Weber
Keyword(s):  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Mba Students ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
Financial Gain ◽  
New Type ◽  
Csr Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Social

We investigate whether the disclosure of a firm’s decision to organize as a benefit corporation (BC) rather than a traditional C corporation (CC) influences investors. We survey 136 investors and 57 MBA students and find that they expect BCs to attain higher future corporate social responsibility (CSR) than CCs even when both have equal CSR ratings. Approximately one third of our sample prefers to invest in BCs when CCs have greater financial returns, indicating a willingness by some investors to sacrifice personal financial gain for social good. Our results suggest that investors weight the information contained in BC disclosures as reliable and value-relevant in their investment decisions. We extend the CSR disclosure literature by indicating how investors weight this new type of CSR information, which may affect how BCs fare as publicly traded companies.

scholarly journals Pengaruh Dimensi Pengungkapan Corporate Social Responsibility Terhadap Future Institutional Ownership

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Rizky Eriandani
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Institutional Investors ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Measurement Instrument ◽  
Institutional Ownership ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Csr Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Social

<em>Corporate social responsibility practice becomes important subject in company`s activity, because it will affect the company's reputation. Besides, institutional investors likely prefer to invest in companies that have a social responsibility as it is considered to increase the legitimacy and future performance. This study aims to investigate the effect of CSR disclosure on institutional ownership. We use percentages ownership to measure institutional ownership. CSR measurement instrument used in this study adopted a previous research. The instrument comes from research Hackston and Milne, which was adjusted with Bapepam regulation in Indonesia. We also divided CSR disclosures in four sub-dimensions. The samples used in this research were 115 listed agriculture, mining, and manufacturing companies in indonesian Stock Exchange which studied during the years of 2010. Using SPSS 20, The analysis methods of this research used multiple regression analysis. Studies shows that not all dimensions of CSR disclosure effect on institutional ownership. Only product dimensions of CSR disclosures has a significant positive impact on institutional ownership. However, this paper fail to find any significant impact of another CSR dimensions. Thus, our study suggests that the dimensions of the product can affect investment decisions. In contrast, institutional investors have not focused on environment, employee relation, and community activities in investment decisions.</em>

To B or not to B: Etsy’s decision whether to re-incorporate as a public benefit corporation and maintain its B Lab certification

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 510-527
Author(s):  
Gabriele Lingenfelter ◽  
Ronnie Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
Business Law ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Corporate Social

Theoretical basis As the regulatory system begins to recognize the role of social responsibility reporting, reliable disclosure measures will be required. Issues of transparency, reliability and assurance are likely to arise as securities regulators consider whether and how to require disclosure of non-financial information. Various reporting models are presented in the case to illustrate different ways that these issues can be addressed by privately held and publicly traded corporations. Research methodology The case uses the company, Etsy, Inc., which has established itself as a publicly traded, socially responsible corporation. Etsy must decide whether it will re-incorporate as a benefit corporation in order to maintain its B Lab certification. This decision introduces students to the various measures of corporate social responsibility, the interests of the stakeholders of a corporation and the regulatory environment in which socially responsible, publicly traded corporations operate. The case uses only publicly available information. Case overview/synopsis This teaching case addresses the decision faced by Etsy, Inc. when it became a publicly traded corporation. In order to maintain its certification as a socially responsible corporation by B Lab, it would have to re-incorporate as a Delaware Benefit Corporation. In making this decision, the company had to consider various measures used for corporate social responsibility reporting and transparency and how these might affect Etsy’s stakeholders. Complexity academic level Undergraduate or masters level case that could be used in a business law, commercial law, legal environment or auditing course.

scholarly journals Independent Audits of Conflict Minerals Reports

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. A24-A32 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Herda ◽  
Herbert W. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Conflict Minerals ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Final Rule ◽  
Audit Reports ◽  
Corporate Social

SUMMARY There has been an increasing international focus on “conflict minerals,” which are sourced from mines in Central Africa and believed to benefit armed groups that engage in serious human rights abuses. In August 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC 2012) issued a final rule (Release No. 34-67716) related to implementing new disclosures required by the Dodd-Frank Act that are aimed at dissuading publicly-traded companies from engaging in trade that supports conflict minerals. Beginning in 2014, many publicly traded companies will be required to issue Conflict Minerals Reports, and have the reports independently assured. For the first time, there is an SEC audit requirement for corporate social responsibility information. Significant uncertainty surrounds the nature of the requisite audit procedures and the form and content of the audit reports themselves. For example, issuers have the option of engaging auditors for either an attestation engagement or a performance audit. We summarize the SEC's final rule, with particular focus on the audit requirement, and discuss some challenges that audit firms face.

Corporate Social Responsibility for Irresponsibility

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kotchen ◽  
Jon J. Moon
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Abstract This paper provides an empirical investigation of the hypothesis that companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to offset corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We find general support for the relationship that when companies do more “harm,” they also do more “good.” The empirical analysis is based on an extensive 15-year panel dataset that covers nearly 3,000 publicly traded companies. In addition to the overall finding that more CSI results in more CSR, we find evidence of heterogeneity among industries, where the effect is stronger in industries where CSI tends to be the subject of greater public scrutiny. We also investigate the degree of substitutability between different categories of CSR and CSI. Within the categories of community relations, environment, and human rights—arguably among those dimensions of social responsibility that are most salient—there is a strong within-category relationship. In contrast, the within-category relationship for corporate governance is weak, but CSI related to corporate governance appears to increase CSR in most other categories. Thus, when CSI concerns arise about corporate governance, companies seemingly choose to offset with CSR in other dimensions, rather than reform governance itself.

scholarly journals Better Benefits for Better Business: Certified Benefit Corporations Connected Through Internal Communications

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carly Adair ◽  
Holly Overton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Social Good ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
Benefit Corporations ◽  
Social And Environmental Performance ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Internal Communications ◽  
Qualitative Characteristics

Despite the broad body of research examining Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communications, there remains a lack of literature discussing the expansion of Certified Benefit Corporations (B Corps), which are businesses that meet a verified social and environmental performance to advance social good. Existing research analyzes the connection of internal communications and CSR. The following research reviews this relationship and suggests that more for profit companies qualify to be an effective B Corp due to shared qualitative characteristics of internal communications. The characteristics reviewed are corporate storytelling, triple bottom line values, and the importance of key decision makers. The literature review connects CSR and internal communications to form the foundation of 21 interview questions. The interview questions were used to identify qualitative characteristics of B Corps through an in-depth interview process. Top key decision makers in B Corps were selected to interview to gather qualitative information on their internal communications. The interview questions led to an open dialogue about the influence B Corps has had on each company. Each interview was transcribed accordingly and discussed in the research below. Three themes were discovered after reviewing the primary research. The overall consensus suggests that a sense of strong internal communications in a company can be represented in a Certified Benefit Corporation.

scholarly journals Does capital structure influence the performance of corporate social responsibility? An analysis in companies of the world's largest economies

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. e174007
Author(s):  
Paula Pontes de Campos-Rasera ◽  
Gabriela de Abreu Passos ◽  
Romualdo Douglas Colauto
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Capital Structure ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Debt Financing ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Capital Structure

Companies are under external and internal pressure to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. Positive and significant results of the relationship between CSR and financial performance are not always confirmed in empirical studies, demonstrating, thus, no consensus has been achieved in CSR literature yet. Thereby, we seek to understand the influence of capital structure on the performance of CSR practices, since there is a theoretical omission about intangible attributes. We formulated three hypotheses about the relationship between CSR and: the capital structure (H1); the debt financing (H1a); and the shareholder’s equity (H1b). We used a sample of 1,642 publicly traded companies on the 10 highest GDP countries. Using GMM 2SLS estimator, the results reveal positive and significant relationship between shareholders’ equity and CSR, while for the relationship between debt financing and CSR shown a negative and significative correlation. Our findings suggest that companies with higher scores of CSR tend to finance itself through equity. We found differences between countries related to the Capital Structure volume required to achieve a CSR positive index. Our findings provoke further debate concerning the reasons that conduct organizations to adopt such practices and foster new discussions about the aspects that involve social practices responsible adoption in companies.

Boards of directors in Russian publicly traded companies: the gender aspect

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. A. Garanina ◽  
A. A. Muravyev
Keyword(s):  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Company Performance ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Female Directors ◽  
Female Director ◽  
Gender Aspect ◽  
Longitudinal Dataset

This article studies the gender composition of corporate boards of Russian companies, including its relation to company performance. The analysis is based on a unique longitudinal dataset of virtually all Russian companies whose shares were traded on the stock market in 1998-2014. It shows a relatively small representation of women, just 12% of all the seats, while about 40% of the companies did not have any female director. At the same time, both the share of companies that appoint female directors and the share of female directors on boards show a clear upward trend. The econometric analysis suggests a positive link between the presence of female directors on boards and company performance, especially when firms appoint several, rather than one, female directors.

Pengungkapan Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dan Kinerja Keuangan Perusahaan dengan Pengungkapan Anti Korupsi sebagai Variabel Moderasi

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arief Hidayatullah Khamainy ◽  
Dessy Novitasari Laras Asih
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Financial Performance ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Study Population ◽  
Csr Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Impact

The research was carried out to find the influence of training material and methods of training toward workability. The study was conducted respectively from an employee of PD BPR Bantul Yogyakarta. The purpose of this research is expected to be useful for stakeholders in seeing CSR disclosure in the company in testing and analyzing its effect on the company's financial performance and with the presence of anti-corruption exposure, whether it will strengthen the impact of CSR disclosure on the company's financial performance. The study population in this study were all mining companies registered on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2016-2018 with a total of 63 companies. The research sample was taken using a random sampling technique that was calculated by the Slovin formula so that 54 samples were obtained for analysis. Linear Regression Analysis and Moderation Regression Analysis were chosen as the analysis technique used in this study. The results show that CSR disclosure does not affect the company's financial performance, and anti-corruption disclosure does not affect the relationship between the two.

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