Skip to main content
Fachgebiete
Automobil + Motoren Bauwesen + Immobilien Business IT + Informatik Elektrotechnik + Elektronik Energie + Nachhaltigkeit Finance + Banking Management + Führung Marketing + Vertrieb Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe Versicherung + Risiko
DE
EN
Themenseiten
Organisationspsychologie Projektmanagement Marketing Smart Manufacturing
Bücher
Zeitschriften
Weitere Formate
Podcasts Webinare Technik Webinare Wirtschaft Kongresse Veranstaltungskalender Awards
Jetzt Einzelzugang starten
Zugang für Unternehmen
Referenzkunden
MTZ-Fachkongress

Antriebe und Energiesysteme von morgen


Austausch von Automobil- und Energiewirtschaft

Am 14./15. Mai geht es in Chemnitz um die Mobilitätswende durch Elektro- und Wasserstofffahrzeuge.
Erweiterte Suche
Anmelden
nach oben
Journal of Management and Governance
Erschienen in: Journal of Management and Governance 3/2016

14.01.2015

Corporate social responsibility reporting and firm performance: evidence from China

verfasst von: Suwina Cheng, Kenny Z. Lin, William Wong

Erschienen in: Journal of Management and Governance | Ausgabe 3/2016

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

A series of product safety and child labor scandals in the mid-2000s aroused global concerns over business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China. The general public expects companies to be socially responsible and to look beyond the maximizing of profits. In this study, we examine the relationship between the issuance of CSR reports and performance, in terms of accounting income, market return, and growth by firms listed in China in 2008–2009. We find that the historical performance of firms has significant and positive effects on the issuance of standalone CSR reports. There is also a positive correlation between current CSR disclosures and subsequent performance. Finally, we find that corporate donations are positively associated with improved performance in the following year. Our results support the view that CSR is a useful business strategy even in a developing country such as China. We call for government authorities in emerging markets to advocate CSR practices and for the market participants to change their perception of and attitude towards CSR.
Vorheriger Artikel Audit committee perspectives on mandatory audit firm rotation: evidence from Canada
Nächster Artikel Dual-class shares, external financing needs, and firm performance

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren
Fußnoten
1
For example, 81 % of European, Japanese, and Australian firms and 40 % of American firms produced a CSR report in 2010, an increase of more than 60 % over 2008 in all four regions (Craib and PwC 2010).
 
2
The CSR index is developed in accordance with the third OECD Corporate Governance Principle (OECD 2004), which addresses the role of stakeholders in corporate governance and is related to the CSR of a company. The index is a measure of employee benefits, long-term employee incentive plans, staff development policy, employee safety, the firm’s policies on recruitment, environmental issues, philanthropy, and relationships with other stakeholders.
 
3
Companies traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange are not considered in this study, as the different regulatory rules and CSR guidelines of the two exchanges are not comparable in during the investigation period.
 
4
In developed countries, CSR reports are usually classified as environmental reports, social reports, and sustainability reports. However, classification of CSR reports by function is less clear in China. Though the contents of most CSR reports are similar, management arbitrarily names these reports as corporate social responsibilities reports, sustainability reports, or corporate citizenship reports (China Sustainability Reporting Resource Center 2010).
 
5
The website is maintained by the Center for Environmental Education and Communications (CEEC) of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) of China and Syn Tao. The former is a government agency that promotes environmental publicity and the latter a consulting company that cooperates with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to promote CSR in China.
 
6
The commonly used frameworks are AA1000, the Global Compact Advanced Level COP (GC COP), and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. We chose the GRI framework, as it is an official collaborating center of the United Nations Environment Program, and has worked in co-operation with the Global Compact since 1997. The GRI framework helps firms prepare CSR reports with comparability, accuracy, timeliness, reliability, and clarity (GRI 2006). It not only provides standardized measures of performance for environmental, social, and economic impacts (Adams 2004), but also includes some of the principles or characteristics of AA1000 (Reynolds and Yuthas 2008). The GRI is the framework most widely used to support firms in their sustainability reporting (Menichini and Rosati 2014).
 
7
We also examine the effects of contemporaneous corporate actions on firm performance, and find a weak contemporaneous effect.
 
8
Having agreed on the proxies for the CSR actions, one of the authors (coder) manually searched the CSR reports with words such as “charity”, “donation”, “gift”, “contribution”, “award” and “honour” in sections related to social public welfare and undertakings and community recognitions for the sample firms. With a crosscheck by another coder, we identified a total of 102 (98) firms in 2008 and 88 (96) firms in 2009 that reported monetary donations (social responsibility awards) in a firm’s CSR reports. We added up the number of awards and amounts of monetary donations respectively for each firm year.
 
Literatur
Adams, C. A. (2002). Internal organisational factors influencing corporate social and ethical reporting: beyond current theorising. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 15(2), 223–250.CrossRef
Adams, C. A. (2004). The ethical, social and environmental reporting-performance portrayal gap. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 17(5), 731–757.CrossRef
Adams, C. A. (2008). A commentary on: Corporate social responsibility reporting and reputation risk management. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 21(3), 365–370.CrossRef
Bourgeois, L. J. (1981). On the measurement of slack resources. Academy of Management Review, 6(1), 29–39.
Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4, 97–105.
Chen, H., & Wang, X. (2011). corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance in china: an empirical research from Chinese firms. Corporate Governance, 11(4), 361–370.CrossRef
Cheung, Y., Jiang, K., & Tan, W. (2012). ‘Doing-good’ and ‘Doing-well’ in Chinese publicly listed firms. China Economic Review, 23(4), 776–785.CrossRef
Cho, S. Y., Lee, C., & Pfeiffer, R. J. (2013). Corporate social responsibility performance information and information asymmetry. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 32(1), 71–83.CrossRef
Commission of the European Communities. (2011). A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for corporate social responsibility. Brussels: European Commission.
Cosans, C. (2009). Does Milton Friedman support a vigorous business ethics? Journal of Business Ethics, 87(3), 391–399.CrossRef
Craib Design and Communications and Price Waterhouse Cooper LLP. (2010). CSR Trends 2010 Stacking up the Result.
Davis, K. (1973). The case for and against business assumption of social responsibilities. Academy of Management Journal, 16(2), 312–322.CrossRef
Dingwerth, K., & Eichinger, M. (2010). Tamed transparency: How information disclosure under the global reporting initiative fails to empower. Global Environmental Politics, 10(3), 74–96.CrossRef
Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence, and implications. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65–91.
Economics Division of China Academy of Social Sciences. (2009). Blue book of corporate social responsibility: research report on corporate social responsibility of china (Blue Book 2009). China: Social Sciences Academic Press.
Elkington, J. (1998). Cannibals with Forks: The Triple bottom line of 21st century business. Gabriola Island: New Society.
Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston: Pitman.
Friedman, M. (1970). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profit. The New York Times Magazine, Sept 13, 1970.
Grant, C. (1991). Friedman fallacies. Journal of Business Ethics, 10(12), 907–914.CrossRef
Gray, R. (2006). Social, environmental and sustainability reporting and organisational value creation. Whose value? Whose creation? Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, 19(6), 793–819.CrossRef
Heal, G. (2005). Corporate social responsibility: An economic and financial framework. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance-Issues and Practice, 30(3), 387–409.CrossRef
Heckman, J. (1979). Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error. Econometrica, 47(1), 153–161.
Jia, M., & Zhang, Z. (2011). Agency costs and corporate philanthropic disaster responses: The moderating role of women on two-tier boards—Evidence from People’s Republic of China. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(9), 2011–2031.CrossRef
Jones, T. M., & Wicks, A. C. (1999). Convergent stakeholder theory. Academy of Management Review, 24(2), 206–221.
Judge, G. G., Hill, R. C., Griffiths, W. E., Lutkepohl, W. E., & Lee, T. C. (1988). Introduction to the theory and practice of econometrics (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Julian, S. D., & Ofori-Dankwa, J. C. (2013). Financial resource availability and corporate social responsibility expenditures in a sub-Saharan economy: The institutional difference hypothesis. Strategic Management Journal, 34, 1314–1330.CrossRef
Kang, K. H., Lee, S., & Huh, C. (2010). Impacts of positive and negative corporate social responsibility activities on firm performance in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 29, 72–82.CrossRef
Kong, N., Salzmann, O., Steger, U., & Ionescu-Somers, A. (2002). Moving business/industry towards sustainable consumption: The role of NGOs. European Management Journal, 20(2), 109–127.CrossRef
Latemann, C., Fetscherin, M., Alon, I., Li, S., & Schneider, A. (2009). CSR communication intensity in Chinese and Indian multinational firms. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 17(4), 426–442.CrossRef
Lin, C., Yang, H., & Liou, C. (2009). The impact of corporate social responsibility on financial performance: Evidence from business in Taiwan. Technology in Society, 31, 56–63.CrossRef
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance. (2010). CSR in Asia: The real picture LRQA. Vietnam: LRQA.
Lungu, C. I., Caraiani, C., & Dascalu, C. (2011). Research on corporate social responsibility reporting. Corporate Social Responsibility, XIII, 29, 117–131.
Lynch, N. C., Lynch, M. F., & Casten, D. B. (2014). The expanding use of sustainability reporting. The CPA Journal, 84(3), 18–24.
McAleer, S. (2003). Friedman’s stockholder theory of corporate moral responsibility. Teaching Business Ethics, 7, 437–451.CrossRef
McGuire, J. B., Sundgren, A., & Schneeweis, T. (1988). Corporate social responsibility and firm financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 31, 854–872.CrossRef
McWilliams, A., & Siegel, D. (2001). Corporate social responsibility: A theory of the firm perspective. Academic Management Review, 26(1), 117–127.
Menichini, T., & Rosati, F. (2014). A fuzzy approach to improve CSR reporting: An application to the global reporting initiative indicators. Procedia-Social and behavioral Sciences, 109, 355–359.CrossRef
Organisation For Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2004). OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. France: OECD Publications.
Patten, D. M., & Zhao, N. (2014). Standalone CSR reporting by U.S. retail firms. Accounting Forum, 38, 132–144.CrossRef
Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper and Row.
Pietersz, G. (2011). Corporate social responsibility is more than just donating money. KPMG Advisory Services B.V., KPMG Caribbean Network.
Pyo, G., & Lee, H. (2013). The association between corporate social responsibility activities and earnings quality: Evidence from donations and voluntary issuance of CSR reports. The Journal of Applied Business Research, 29(3), 945–960.CrossRef
Qu, R. (2007). Corporate social responsibility: Impact of regulations, market orientation and ownership structure. Chinese Management Studies, 1(3), 198–207.CrossRef
Reynolds, M., & Yuthas, K. (2008). Moral discourse and corporate social responsibility reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 78, 47–64.CrossRef
Roman, R., Hayibor, C., & Agle, B. A. (1999). The relationship between social and financial performance. Business and Society, 38, 109–125.CrossRef
Scholtens, B. (2008). A note on the interaction between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. Ecological Economics, 68, 46–55.CrossRef
Shafer, W. E., Fukukawa, K., & Lee, G. M. (2007). Values and the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility: The U.S. versus China. Journal of Business Ethics, 70(3), 265–284.CrossRef
Solomon, A., & Lewis, L. A. (2002). Incentives and disincentives for corporate environmental disclosure. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11(3), 154–169.CrossRef
Stainer, L. (2006). Performance management and corporate social responsibility: The strategic connection. Strategic Change, 15(5), 253–264.CrossRef
Surroca, J., Tribo, J. A., & Waddock, S. (2010). Corporate responsibility and financial performance: The role of intangible resources. Strategic Management Journal, 31(5), 463–490.CrossRef
Tang, L., & Li, H. (2009). Corporate social responsibility communication of chinese and global corporations in China. Public Relations Review, 35, 199–212.CrossRef
Turban, D. B., & Greening, D. W. (1997). Corporate social performance and organizational attractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 658–672.CrossRef
Van Der Laan, G., Van Ees, H., & Van Witteloostuijin, A. (2008). Corporate social and financial performance: An extended stakeholder theory and empirical test with accounting measures. Journal of Business Ethics, 79(2), 299–310.CrossRef
Vives, A. (2006). Social and environmental responsibility in small and medium enterprises in Latin America. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 21, 39–50.CrossRef
Wu, M., & Shen, C. (2013). Corporate social responsibility in the banking industry: Motives and financial performance. Journal of Banking and Finance, 37, 3529–3547.CrossRef
Metadaten
Titel
Corporate social responsibility reporting and firm performance: evidence from China
verfasst von
Suwina Cheng
Kenny Z. Lin
William Wong
Publikationsdatum
14.01.2015
Verlag
Springer US
Erschienen in
Journal of Management and Governance / Ausgabe 3/2016
Print ISSN: 1385-3457
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-963X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-015-9309-1

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 3/2016

Journal of Management and Governance 3/2016 Zur Ausgabe

OriginalPaper

The how and why of a firm’s approach to CSR and sustainability: a case study of a large European company

OriginalPaper

Religion, governance and performance: evidence from Islamic and conventional stock exchanges

OriginalPaper

Corporate governance and accounting irregularities: Canadian evidence

OriginalPaper

Value-based management as a tailor-made management practice? A literature review

OriginalPaper

Does the presence of independent and female directors impact firm performance? A multi-country study of board diversity

Reviews and overviews

Revamping research on unrelated diversification strategy: perspectives, opportunities and challenges for future inquiry

Premium Partner

    Bildnachweise