Corporate social initiatives and wealth creation for firms-an empirical examination
subject: Firm performance; Human rights; Social initiatives; Two-stage least squares (2SLS) system; Workforce
description: Purpose: This study aims to examine whether social initiatives adopted by firms lead to improved financial performance. The authors analyse the impact of different elements of social initiatives on wealth creation for firms in terms of operating and market performance. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on the social initiative scores of over 4,500 firms collected from Thomson Reuters' ESG database. The study uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) to analyse the relationship between social initiatives and firm performance. Findings: Profitable, mature, capital intensive and firms with high sales growth rate tend to invest more in social initiatives. Firms with high agency costs invest in social initiatives for workforce efficiency, maintaining human rights and product responsibility. The study documents evidence that social investments are value creating mechanism for firms which leads to improved financial performance in terms of operating and stock market performance. Firms with high dividend intensity invest in social initiatives for workforce welfare and human rights initiatives. Investment in employee well-being and community initiatives results in intangible benefits such as improved stock market valuation. Practical implications: The research model has not considered the impact of intervening variables to understand the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. Social implications: Firms ought to recognize that social investment is beneficial in terms of value creation of firms as stock market perceive such investments favourably. Firms must focus more on community development initiatives and workforce initiatives for the value creation of firms compared to investments directed towards human rights initiatives and product responsibility initiatives. Originality/value: This study focusses exclusively on the social dimension of the CSR activities. The authors examine the impact of social welfare scores on f…
creator: Bhaskaran, Rajesh Kumar; Sukumaran, Sujit K; Abdul Waheed, Kareem
source: Journal of Global Responsibility;Volume;16;Issue;3;pp.451-473
publisher: Emerald Publishing
date: 01-01-2025
rights: Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library
relation: ISSN: 20412568;
format: online
language: English
type: Article
coverage: Bhaskaran R.K., Department of Finance, Institute of Management Technology Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Sukumaran S.K., School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India; Abdul Waheed K., Department of Marketing, Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, India