When doing good for society is good for shareholders: importance of alignment between strategy and CSR performance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Banker, Rajiv D.; Ma, Xinjie; Pomare, Carol; Zhang, Yue
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Temple University; National University of Singapore; Mount Allison University; Lingnan University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ACCOUNTING STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1380-6653
• DOI: 10.1007/s11142-021-09664-y
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1074-1106
• 关键词: corporate social-responsibility; research-and-development; empirical-analysis; INFORMATION; INVESTMENT; respond

摘要

We investigate the association between firms' strategy and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and whether the alignment between strategy and CSR activities affects firms' financial performance. We describe firms' strategies as innovation differentiation, marketing differentiation, and cost leadership Miller, (1986). We expect a higher benefit from CSR for firms that rely more on innovation differentiation and a lower benefit for firms that rely more on marketing differentiation and cost leadership. We measure firms' strategy through a textual analysis of 10-K filings and collect CSR data from KLD Ratings. We find that innovation differentiation strategy is positively associated with CSR performance, while cost leadership (marketing differentiation) is negatively (insignificantly) associated with CSR performance. Moreover, we find that innovating differentiators with higher CSR performance achieve higher financial performance. Finally, we provide additional evidence that information asymmetry and financial constraints moderate the alignment between firms' strategy and CSR performance.