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Review of Managerial Science

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30-03-2022 | Original Paper

Corporate social responsibility, intellectual capital and financial performance: evidence from developed and developing Asian economies

Authors: Eugene Burgos Mutuc, Sladjana Cabrilo

Published in: Review of Managerial Science | Issue 4/2022

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Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and knowledge-based resources, i.e. intellectual capital (IC), improve financial performance. We combine these to examine how IC moderates the influence of CSR on financial performance. We analyzed 4722 firm-year observations of 787 listed firms, from 2012 to 2017, for five developed (Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and six developing (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand) economies. Empirically, for the whole sample, CSR has a positive effect, amplified by IC, on financial performance. The individual CSR dimensions—environmental (ENV), social (SOC) and governance (GOV)—are, however, insignificant. For the developed economies, CSR is negatively related to financial performance, with no IC moderation effect. Furthermore, SOC and GOV enhance financial performance; IC positively moderates only for GOV. For the developing economies, in contrast, CSR enhances firm performance, amplified by IC. And all three CSR dimensions have positive influence on financial performance; IC enhances only the effect of ENV. Hence, only certain CSR-IC dimensions in certain contexts improve financial performance.

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Title: Corporate social responsibility, intellectual capital and financial performance: evidence from developed and developing Asian economies
Authors: Eugene Burgos Mutuc
Sladjana Cabrilo
Publication date: 30-03-2022
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Review of Managerial Science / Issue 4/2022
Print ISSN: 1863-6683
Electronic ISSN: 1863-6691
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00542-8

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