Examining the Relation of Corporate Social Responsibility to Firm Performance and Insider Shareholding

Abstract: With the trend of globalization and prominence of environment and social issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually been integrated into company's business strategy and core vision. Companies have also extended to sustainable development to enhance stakeholders’ value. This study explores the impact of CSR on firm performance and insider ownership, with a dataset of firms awarded the “Excellence in CSR” from 2015 to 2019. Results show that companies actively engage in CSR not only have better firm performance, but also improve the trust of stakeholders and the increase of insider shareholding ratio, implying that the higher the CSR performance, the better the firm’s financial performance and recognition from investors. In recent years, regulators have encouraged companies to disclose more information and effort to fulfill firm’s CSR duty, in an attempt to enhance company's reputation and in turn improve firm’s value. Results and implication imply that firm’s CSR fulfillment decision is closely related to overall performance and value of company.

Keyword: Corporate Social Responsibility, Firm Performance, Tobin’s Q, Insider Shareholding