Companies are expected to monitor sustainable behaviour to help improve performance, enhance reputation and increase chances of survival. This paper examines the relationship between sustainability committees and independent external assurance on the inclusion of sustainability-related targets in CEO compensation contracts. Using a sample of UK FTSE350 companies for 2011–2015 and controlling for governance and firm characteristics, we find both board-level sustainability committees and sustainability reporting assurance have a positive and significant association with the inclusion of sustainability terms in compensation contracts. (...) However, there is no joint impact between the voluntary use of independent external assurance and the role of sustainability committees on CEO compensation contracts. Sustainability-related terms in compensation contracts are more likely to be included, and higher compensation is likely to be paid, when assurance is provided by a Big4 firm and when a company operates in a sustainability-sensitive industry. Our findings highlight the potential of assured sustainability reports in assessing CEO performance in sustainability-related tasks, especially when sustainability metrics are included in CEO compensation contracts. Overall, our results suggest companies that invest in voluntary assurance are more likely to monitor management’s behaviour and be concerned about the achievement of sustainability goals. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the empirical association between corporate social responsibility and information asymmetry by investigating their simultaneous and endogenous effects. Employing an extensive U.S. sample, we find an inverse association between CSR engagement and the proxies of information asymmetry after controlling for various firm characteristics. The results hold using 2SLS considering the reverse side of information asymmetry influencing CSR activities. The results also hold after mitigating endogeneity based on the dynamic panel system generalized method of moment. Furthermore, the (...) CSR–information asymmetry relation is amplified in high-risk firms due to managers’ efforts to build a good reputation. Last, we find that CSR engagement is inversely associated with reputational risk measure and lower predicted value of reputational risk is positively associated with lower information asymmetry measures. We interpret these results as supporting the stakeholder theory-based, reputation-building explanation that considers CSR engagement as a vehicle to build and maintain firm reputation thereby enhancing the information environment. (shrink)

We hypothesize that CSR serves as a control mechanism to reduce deviations from optimal risk taking, and therefore, CSR curbs excessive risk taking and reduces excessive risk avoidance. Based on the stakeholder theory, firms with CSR focus must balance the interests of multiple stakeholders, and therefore, managers must allocate resources to satisfy both investing and non-investing stakeholders’ interests. Using five measures of corporate risk taking and a sample of 1718 US firms during 1998 to 2011, we find that stronger CSR (...) performance is associated with smaller deviations from optimal risk taking levels. We examine the mechanism through which CSR has an impact on firm value and find a positive indirect impact of CSR on firm value through the impact of CSR on risk taking. CSR performance is positively associated with firm value because CSR reduces excessive risk taking and risk avoidance. (shrink)

The literature on antecedents of corporate social responsibility strategies of firms has been predominately content driven. Informed by the managerial sense-making process perspective, we develop a contingency theoretical framework explaining how political ideology of managers affects the choice of CSR strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. We also explain to what extent the outcome of this process is shaped by the firm’s internal institutional arrangements and external factors impacting on the firm. We develop and test several hypotheses using (...) data collected from 129 Chinese managers. The results show that managers with a stronger socialist ideology are likely to develop a mindset favouring CSR, which induces the adoption of a proactive CSR strategy. The CSR mindset mediates the link between socialist ideology and CSR strategy. The strength of the relationship between the CSR mindset and the choice of CSR strategy is moderated by customer response to CSR, industry competition, the role of government, and CSR-related managerial incentives. (shrink)

To deal with potential conflicts between the triple-bottom-line expectations of investors and the performance of executives, firms can use incentives by integrating corporate social performance targets into executive compensation. No evidence yet exists that CSP targets in executive compensation actually lead to an improvement of CSP results. Using a panel data set of 400 firms for the years 2008–2012 leading to 1846 firm-year observations, the relationships between CSP targets and CSP results and CSP improvements are analyzed. The results show that (...) the level of CSP has no effect on the use of CSP targets, the use of CSP targets in general does not automatically lead to better CSP results, and the use of quantitative, hard CSP targets is an effective way to improve CSP results, especially to lower CSP weaknesses. (shrink)

This study relies on environmental stewardship, a stakeholder-enlarged view of stewardship theory, and institutional theory to analyze the relationship between CEO compensation and firms’ environmental commitment in a worldwide sample of 520 large listed firms. Our findings show that environment friendly firms pay their CEOs less total compensation and rely less on incentive-based compensation than environment careless firms. This negative relationship is stronger in institutional contexts where national environmental regulations are weaker. Our findings have important theoretical meaning and practical implications. (...) Results show that CEOs do not necessarily act opportunistically; rather some of them may be willing to act as stewards of the natural environment and accept a lower, less incentive-based compensation from environment friendly firms. This study also provides evidence of the important influence of the institutional context in setting-up CEO compensation as the relationship is stronger when national environmental regulations are weaker. Our findings question the universal validity of agency theory in explaining CEO compensation. Compensation based on pecuniary incentives might be less indicated to motivate CEOs who feel rewarded by playing a stewardship role for environment friendly firms. When designing compensation for CEOs, compensation committees and external compensation advisors should consider psychological and institutional factors that might affect CEO motivation. (shrink)

Based on a survey and content analysis of 462 peer-reviewed academic articles over the period 1990–2014, this article reviews theories related to the external drivers of corporate social responsibility and the internal drivers of CSR that have been utilized to explain CSR. The article discusses the main tenets of the principal theoretical perspectives and their application in CSR research. Going beyond previous reviews that have largely failed to investigate theory applications in CSR scholarship, this article stresses the importance of theory-driven (...) explanations of CSR and the complementarity of different theories. The article demonstrates that the current mainstream theorizing of CSR is dominated by theories related to the external drivers of CSR and is less developed with regard to the internal dynamics. The article outlines several productive avenues for future research: the need for multi-theory studies and more research at multiple levels of analysis, particularly at the individual level of analysis. It suggests that CSR scholarship can benefit from combining theoretical insights from a range of established theoretical lenses such as institutional theory and RBV, and can gain new insights from theoretical lenses such as Austrian economics and micro-level psychological theories. (shrink)

For Aristotle, virtues are neither transcendent nor universal, but socially interdependent; they need to be understood chronologically and with respect to character and context. This paper uses an Aristotelian lens to analyse an especially interesting context in which to study virtue—the state’s response when social order breaks down. During such periods, questions relating to right action by citizens, the state, and state agents are pronounced. To study this, we analyse data from interviews, observation, and documents gathered during a 3-year study (...) of riot policing in the U.K. In doing so, we contribute by joining a number of other conversations within JBE, suggesting detailed empirical examination of this context is useful in opening up considerations relevant to ‘virtue’ elsewhere. This extreme context helps us raise interesting and empirically informed questions that can encourage future theoretical and empirical contributions to virtue in business ethics. One such question is on the role of habituation in virtue, which is not just the inculcation of a reflex or automaticity, but can also refer to a trained and developed tendency to behave in the right way, for the right reasons, at the right time. Whilst we stop short of a simplistic alignment of habituation and virtue, we show ways in which it can inform understanding of both courage and phronēsis. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have (...) an impact on people’s views: the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, the global economic context in which the company has performed, the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate or not very legitimate. People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either never legitimate, or legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed. (shrink)

The issue of management’s relations to the environment has received a significant amount of attention in the literature on corporate social responsibility. Yet the influence of religion on managers’ environmental decisions has until now remained unexamined despite its known importance. In this article, we examine the empirical association between religion—primarily Christianity—and the environmental practices a firm’s management undertakes by investigating their OLS, principal component, simultaneous, and endogenous effects. Employing a large and extensive U.S. sample, we find a negative association between (...) the environmental practices initiated by a firm’s managers and the religiosity of the surrounding community, after controlling for various firm and demographic characteristics. In addition, after mitigating endogeneity with the dynamic system generalized method of moment, we still find an inverse association between religiosity and environmental-friendly decisions of management. We interpret these results as providing some support for the “dominion hypothesis” that claims Christian beliefs discourage environmental concern, but not for the “stewardship hypothesis” that implies that Christianity encourages people to “exercise a responsible stewardship over nature.” Nevertheless, additional analysis shows Christian groups differ significantly in how each influences managers’ environmental decisions. (shrink)

This study examines how the sell-side analysts interpret firms’ corporate social responsibility activities. Specifically, we examine the differential impact of overall, legal, and normative CSR on the analysts’ earnings forecast dispersion, stock return volatility, cost of equity capital, and firm value. Employing a sample of U.S. public firms during 1993–2009, we find that overall CSR intensities reduce analyst dispersion of earnings forecast, volatility of stock return and cost of capital , and increase firm value. However, its impact is reduced for (...) firms with better accounting and disclosure quality. When we disaggregate CSR into legal and normative CSR, we find that legal CSR decreases analysts’ dispersion, stock return volatility, and COC, while legal CSR increases firm value. The sell-side analysts tend to have less information asymmetry regarding the net benefits of pursuing CSR that is required by laws. We find, however, that the benefit of having normative CSR realized in 1 year lag such that analyst dispersion, stock return volatility, COC decrease, respectively, and firm value increases. Furthermore, we find that the benefit of normative CSR is offset for firms with higher accounting and disclosure quality. (shrink)

This study reviews and synthesizes the contemporary business literature that focuses on the role of corporate social responsibility to enhance firm value. The main objective of this review is to proffer a precise understanding of what has already been investigated and the findings of those investigations regarding the value-enhancing capabilities of CSR for public firms. In addition, this review identifies gaps in the existing literature, evaluates inconsistent findings, discusses possible data sources for empirical researchers, and provides direction for exploring other (...) promising avenues in future studies. The thrust of the CSR literature largely acknowledges the value-enhancing capabilities of firms’ social and environmental activities. However, the predominance of inconsistent theoretical grounds in major CSR-benefits-related areas suggests that there is ample room for future research to contribute to the extant literature. Anecdotal evidence, the prevalence of theoretical arguments, and the availability of large cross-sectional firm-level data suggest that future research will enrich the literature by investigating the real insights behind several unanswered questions, by establishing implicit understandings regarding recognized findings, and by developing new theories in this emerging field. (shrink)