Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 8, 1997

Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting

A Direct Examination of the Indirect Relationship Between CSR and Financial Performance

Despite a considerable and impressive empirical tradition, the corporate social performance/financial performance (CSP/FP) relationship is in its theoretical infancy. Drawing on resource dependence, and recent advancements in the understanding of stakeholder analysis and CSP, this paper suggests that the CSP/FP relationship is moderated by the strength of a firm's social capacity.