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Despite the extensive body of research on absolute corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, limited attention has been given to the distinct concepts of optimal and aggressive CSR engagement, as well as their associations with CSR awarding. This study aims to differentiate between optimal and aggressive CSR engagement and examine their relationship with CSR awarding while considering the moderating influence of board characteristics from the perspectives of stakeholder and agency theories.

This empirical analysis draws on an international dataset comprising 43,803 observations from nine sectors across 41 countries. We employ a least squares dummy variable regression approach that accounts for country, industry and year effects to conduct the analysis.

The results reveal that engagement in aggressive CSR activities beyond the optimal level leads to the generation of a social reputation through CSR awarding. However, the influence of board characteristics on this relationship is significant. Specifically, the presence of a dedicated CSR committee encourages CSR awarding in the context of aggressive CSR engagement. Conversely, board independence constrains the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and CSR awarding. Notably, board gender diversity does not have a discernible impact on this connection.

Our evidence provides valuable insights to help firms seeking to enhance their social reputation through CSR activities better allocate their resources and avoid unnecessary financial commitments.

This study advances the current understanding by exploring the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and the recognition of CSR awards. Furthermore, it scrutinises the factors that dictate when such aggressive CSR engagement translates into enhanced social reputation, as evidenced by the attainment of CSR awards.

This study aims to investigate the effect of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and aggressive tax avoidance.

Using a sample comprising firms domiciled in Europe for the period 2008–2016, this study uses regression analysis to test the impact of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between CSR and aggressive tax avoidance.

The empirical results show that there is a positive association between CSR and tax avoidance, and firms headquartered in low financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions are more likely to engage in CSR to hedge against the potential negative consequences of aggressive tax-avoidance practices as compared to firms domiciled in countries with high level of financial-tax reporting conformity.

This study confirms Sikka’s (2010, 2013) view of “organised hypocrisy” act committed by firms to cover their socially irresponsible activities of aggressive tax avoidance by engaging in CSR. Results have implication for various regulatory bodies and investors in that the type of financial-tax conformity does impact the link between CSR and tax avoidance, and based on that, CSR firms may engage in CSR to overcome any negative reactions that could be caused as a result of tax avoidance.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the impact of financial-tax reporting conformity jurisdictions on the association between CSR and aggressive tax avoidance. This study also contributes to the literature in that, it uses an alternative data set which offers a more objective assessment of CSR measure and covers multiple countries.

This paper addresses the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance as a potential mechanism for reducing firms' likelihood of engaging in tax aggressiveness (TAG). The paper also contributes to the existing literature by addressing the moderating effect of national cultures on the link between CSR performance and corporate TAG.

The focus is placed on an unbalanced panel of 2,696 companies distributed in 30 countries and seven economic sectors over the period of 2002–2014.

The results provide support for those companies achieving high corporate social performance (CSP), corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate governance performance (CGP) being less likely to engage in aggressive tax practices. Finally, the results identify some national cultural dimensions moderating the link between disaggregated measures of CSR performance and firms' TAG.

The difficulty of accessing CSR and TAG data for non-listed companies could bias the data set towards a compliant company profile because of the higher visibility. In addition, the use of effective tax rates to examine firms' TAG should be interpreted with some caution.

The paper's findings provide unique and useful information for company stakeholders and managers aiming to address the factors that enhance firms' incentives to engage in aggressive tax practices.

This paper addresses the multidimensional nature of CSR performance by analysing the links between CSP, CEP and CGP and corporations' TAG. Furthermore, the research addresses the way in which national culture moderates the links between disaggregated measures of CSR performance and corporate TAG.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the effect of tax avoidance on corporate social responsibility performance. It also investigates whether audit quality affects tax avoidance practices by socially responsible performance.

Based on a sample of French non-financial companies over the period 2005 to 2016, this paper uses panel data regressions. The authors apply generalized least square panel regression to overcome autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems. For further robustness, this paper runs instrumental variable regressions using the three-stage instrument variable method (three-stage least square).

The results show that firms with high CSR scores are more likely to engage in aggressive tax avoidance. The findings also show that firms audited by high-quality auditors are more likely to get involved in CSR for hedging against the potential consequences of aggressive tax avoidance practices.

The findings are consistent with risk management theory, which suggests that firm’s hedge against any reputational risks that might arise from avoiding taxes by engaging more in CSR.

Results have implications for policymakers in that CSR firms audited by high-quality auditors may engage in CSR to overcome any negative reactions that could be caused as a result of tax avoidance. Thus, they need to be cautious about managers’ opportunistic behavior and enhance monitoring to enforce social compliance and to be tax compliant.

This paper extends the existing literature by examining the effect of audit quality on the relationship between CSR performance and corporate tax avoidance. Audit quality is deemed to be an important governance feature that is likely to constraint managerial opportunistic behaviors. Audit quality, along with CSR performance, are associated with a higher level of tax avoidance.

The present work aimed to present the perception of Tunisian professionals towards companies engaged in social responsibility practices and describe the tax evasion strategies of socially responsible Tunisian companies following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (COVID-19) shock.

A survey was sent to 119 Tunisian tax administration auditors. Data analysis methods principal component analysis (PCA) and regression analysis were used. The data were collected through a questionnaire after the general containment of Tunisia from September 2020 to February 2021. These quantitative data were analysed using processing software (STATA).

Professionals of the tax authorities, particularly those in charge of the audit mission, aim for corporate profitability from the perspective of stakeholders that seek to integrate ethics and social responsibility into companies and consider employee morale a top priority. The results show that highly ethical and socially responsible professionals are far from practising aggressive strategies. Thus, an auditor from the tax administration is far from engaging in social responsibility to justify fraudulent acts. During the COVID-19 period, the role of these professionals was to prevent and detect fraud in the tax sector to fight corruption and investigate taxes based on sound regulations.

The results are consistent with optimal taxation theory, which postulates that a tax system should be chosen to maximise a social welfare function subject to a set of constraints. Professionals seek to make taxation much simpler for taxpayers by providing advice and consultation to manage tax obligations. The minimisation of tax or the play of tax values requires expertise in the field to respect legal constraints. Therefore, these professionals play a crucial role in tax collection, as the professionals' advice and suggestions can influence taxpayers' decision-making.

In recent years, academic researchers, policy makers and the public have become increasingly interested in corporate tax evasion behaviour. At the same time, companies are under increasing pressure to integrate CSR into the companies' decision-making processes, which has led to increased academic interest in CSR. Opportunistic tax minimisation reduces state resources and funds needed for government programmes to improve the social welfare of the entire community. This study represents an overriding concern not only for legal and tax authorities and companies, but also for shareholders and stakeholders.

The authors' study contributes to the existing literature by determining the state of play on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices amongst Tunisian tax authorities' professionals. In Tunisia, an executive of the tax authorities in charge of the verification mission is required to verify the proper application of the accounting and tax legislation in force, follow up on tax control operations on declared taxes and validate the sincerity of the accounts. This study focussed on the tax evasion of companies engaged in social responsibility practices according to the judgements of Tunisian tax authorities' auditors during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the recently highly debated topics of the Tax avoidance–Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance nexus and to further investigate the impacts of engaging in socially responsible activities on financial performance and bank debt financing constraints, at a disaggregate level (firm level).

The sample for this study includes all publicly listed companies headquartered in BRICS countries from 2014 to 2020. The study employs detailed financial accounting information and the Environmental, Social and Governance scores released by Thomas Reuters EIKON database, which is regarded as the most authoritative indicator of CSR performance. Both pooled and panel data regression models are employed, and robustness tests that use a wide range of model specifications, measures and estimators are performed.

The study finds robust evidence that corporate tax avoidance is negatively associated with CSR performance. The authors also find that firms with better CSR performance have healthier financial performance and lower costs of bank debt. Overall, the research findings are supportive of the corporate culture theory, which suggests that firms behave ethically consistent in both CSR practices and tax payment.

CSR performance and the engagement of tax avoidance activities have been documented in the literature to be vital elements investors care about. This study focuses specifically on the association between them and further elaborates their impacts in the financial markets. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the nexus in a sample that includes the most powerful emerging markets in the world. The results of this study are generalisable in terms of the implications of CSR management to many other emerging markets.

How do corporations define their communities? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one issue that may help us to answer this question. We argue that CSR represents actively adopted strategies in response to the pressures corporations face in the local institutional environments in which they are embedded, where corporations define geographically situated institutional variations as community. We show corporations (especially publicly traded corporations) have been aggressive in adopting CSR practice when they are located in (1) areas high in union density or (2) federal appellate jurisdictions that have been aggressive in protecting workers' rights, while being far less philanthropic if located in Right-to-Work jurisdictions. Drawing on research in neoinstitutional analysis, we interpret these findings to indicate corporations respond to localized union strength by adopting strategies that allow them to appear responsive to their social contract, and hence legitimate. Interestingly, corporations appear more concerned with their community's union strength than with regard to their own particular union exposure, at least as related to CSR practices.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) – earnings response coefficient (ERC) relation in the code-law tradition and the early stage of CSR practice to fill the research gap in the literature on CSR–ERC relation.

The authors use an association framework for the study. They use the firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange because Korea is classified as a code-law country and most of firms in Korea are in the early stages of CSR development, and Korean samples are considered credible and stable because of the effective financial reforms initiated by Korean government in the late 1990s. The authors collected data from the two data sources: KisValue and Korea Corporate Governance Service.

The authors find the following. First, CSR is negatively associated with ERC, which indicates that the ability of earnings to capture CSR implication is lower under the circumstances of the code-law and the early stage of CSR development. Second, political sensitivity (business group effect) is positively (negatively) associated with CSR–ERC relation, which means that the politically noticeable CSR concerns strengthen the CSR–ERC relation, and the inclusion of a firm in a business group weakens the CSR–ERC relation.

The paper derives theoretical implications on the quality of earnings reflecting CSR activities, provides practical implications to the investors who target international capital markets and is expected to help broaden the understanding of CSR–ERC relations in international capital markets.

The paper provides practical implications to the investors who target international capital markets. Regarding the interpretation of accounting earnings that contain information on CSR activities, the legal origin and the CSR development stages are considered as key factors. Specifically, in the code-law and the early CSR environment, the potential benefits of CSR activities tend to be evaluated optimistically and reflected aggressively in reported earnings. Thus, if investors are in a similar international investment environment, they may need to recalibrate estimates in their decision model with additional CSR information from non-financial sources (e.g. sustainability reports).

The paper is based on the international institutional theory and the discussion of CSR development stages. The international institutional theory states that the legal origin is one of the factors that can help explain the differential aggressiveness of reported earnings by country. In addition, the discussion of CSR stages argues that the CSR practices can be differentially implemented by CSR stages. The authors try to fill the gap in the existing literature by conducting an empirical study based on data from Korea Stock Exchange.

This study examines the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets among Chinese listed firms, taking into account the firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice.

The sample consists of all A-shares listed in the Chinese stock market from 2001 to 2019, except firms in the financial industry. Probit estimator is employed to observe the effect of audit quality, proxied by a binary variable indicating whether a firm is audited by a Big 4 audit firm, on the behavior of earnings management to beat earnings targets. Industry and year fixed effects are incorporated into the models to control for differences among industries and time periods.

The result of this study reveals that audit quality disciplines earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. This result holds across different specification and endogeneity tests. The authors further find that auditors seem to be more tolerant to earnings-managed firms that actively disclose CSR activities. However, this moderating effect of CSR disclosure only exists among firms that manage earnings less aggressively.

The findings of this study suggest that market participants should be mindful of the earnings management phenomenon and make their investment decisions after carefully dissecting and confirming the truthfulness of firms’ financial reporting. Regulators should raise the requirement on the capacity of auditing services to ensure the quality of the audit outcome.

This study is the first to investigate the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. Moreover, this study pioneers in observing the moderating effect of CSR disclosure on the relationship between audit quality and earnings management.

This paper aims to investigate whether government-mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) engenders conservative financial reporting in emerging markets. It is expected that CSR plays a substitute role for governance mechanisms in reducing information asymmetry.

The C-Score developed by Khan and Watts (2007) was adopted to measure the degree of firm-year specific accounting conservatism. This study uses the CSR rating established by the Shanghai National Accounting Institute.

Empirical evidence indicates that the government-mandated CSR policy may be sufficient to induce conservative financial reporting. However, due perhaps to political affiliations, the evidence to support this claim is weaker for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than for non-SOEs.

The findings provide a deeper understanding of the potential role of CSR in firms. The results also provide evidence on the dynamics between CSR activities and the reporting behavior of managers. These findings have important implications for investors, analysts and regulators.