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Research on the effect of executive equity incentives is equivocal. Based on agency theory, some scholars take the convergence of interest logic to highlight the benefits of executive equity incentives. In contrast, others adopt the entrenchment logic to emphasize the increased agency costs. This study attempts to reconcile the debate on executive equity incentives and integrates the opposing views to unveil how executive equity incentives impact corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance.

Using the panel dataset of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2006 to 2022, this study integrates the convergence of interest and entrenchment logic to examine how executive equity incentives affect CSR performance.

We find that the relationship between executive equity incentives and CSR performance follows an inverted U-shaped form. According to the convergence of interest logic, executive equity incentives reduce agency costs when allocating resources to engage in CSR activities and enable firms to increase their CSR investments, ultimately realizing increased CSR performance. After a threshold, however, the accumulation of extensive equity incentives causes the entrenchment effect, resulting in declined CSR performance. Our empirical results also shed new light on its contingent perspective – the inverted U-shaped relationship is attenuated when firms’ stock liquidity is high.

This study attempts to reconcile the debate on executive equity incentives and integrates the opposing views to unveil the inverted U-shaped relationship between executive equity incentives and CSR performance. Our study opens promising avenues for further research on corporate governance and CSR strategies.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance of the banking sector from the prospective of emerging countries.

This study obtained balance sheet and income statement data for 173 banks in 20 emerging countries from the Bankscope database from 2005–2018. The CSR-related data were taken from the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database. Moreover, macroeconomic controls such as GDP per capita, inflation, and financial development are attained from the GFDD. The series of institutional quality indices (Political Stability, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption, Government Effectiveness, and Regulatory Quality) is obtained from the WGI. At the same time, national culture and bank regulation are attained from Hofstede Insights and Barth et al. (2013). We used the panel fixed-effects model in our baseline estimations, while 2SLS and GMM were applied to control for endogeneity.

The finding shows that CSR activities significantly improve bank performance, but the effect varies across the bank. Only environmentally friendly activities have shown a significant positive relationship with banking performance for CSR dimensions. However, the social and government dimensions did not significantly affect bank performance. Moreover, a sound institutional and regulatory environment and national norms play an important role in the nexus of CSR activities and bank performance.

This study provides empirical evidence that sheds light on CSR and bank performance in an emerging market context.

This paper aims to investigate whether executive compensation, corporate social responsibility (CSR)-based incentives, environmental social and governance (ESG) performance and firm performance are the significant predictors of CSR committees, in addition to CEO, firm and corporate governance characteristics, from the tenet of stakeholder and managerial power theories.

Switzerland is an exemplary country from the perspective of corporate governance and executive compensation. This empirical study includes a panel data set of listed Swiss companies, so fixed-effect logistic regression has been used.

It has been found that the companies that offer CSR-based incentives and higher compensation to their CEOs and have better ESG performance are more likely to have CSR committees.

This empirical paper fills the gap in the literature, guides practitioners about the factors that influence the creation and efficiency of CSR committees, and inspires regulatory bodies to ponder on a mandatory CSR committee to form resilient and sustainable organizations worldwide.

COVID-19 has re-emphasized the prominence of sustainability and the stakeholder approach. Thus, this paper indicates that CSR committees require the adaption and implementation of a holistic sustainability policy that integrates both external and internal factors and thereby provides a whole process for sustainability issues.

The impact of CSR committees on corporate social performance (CSP) has already been investigated. However, the predictors of CSR committees have been less scrutinized in the literature.

This study aims to examine the impact of independent directors' ownership on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. In line with the stakeholder-agency paradigm's prediction, the authors propose that higher independent directors' ownership is associated with higher CSR performance. By drawing on the attention-based view, the authors further examine firm-level conditions that impact the situated attention of independent directors holding high equity ownership as they are active agents.

The authors collected data covering the years 2009–2013 for firms listed in the S&P 500 index. The authors tested the hypotheses using firm fixed-effects models.

The results show that higher independent directors' ownership is associated with higher CSR performance. Prior firm performance and available slack resources are found to have diverse impacts on the association between independent directors holding high equity ownership and CSR performance.

This study highlights the importance of examining the performance-based incentives of independent directors on firms' CSR performance. This study also provides a better understanding of factors impacting independent directors' situated attention as boundary conditions.

This study aims to provide archival evidence on the impact of board characteristics on corporate social responsibility (CSR) monetary performance and how they interact with the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of CSR monetary performance.

This study analyzes listed companies in Oman’s capital market from 2016 to 2021, using pooled ordinary least squares and unique CSR performance measures such as budgeting and spending.

The study finds that companies with more expertise and frequent meetings are more likely to allocate a larger budget for CSR activities. However, this does not apply to larger boards or to independent directors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of independent directors on CSR budgeting and spending is more pronounced, and boards with more expertise and meetings show a negative interaction with the pandemic. The interaction of board characteristics with COVID-19 in terms of CSR monetary performance varies depending on company size. Board independence and expertise show a significant reaction to COVID-19 infection and death cases when setting CSR budgeting and spending.

The findings of this study are stimulating, but stem from an emerging country with unique cultural and institutional characteristics. Methodological issues were also encountered during the analysis, so readers should exercise caution when applying the results to other settings.

This study highlights board involvement in deciding a company’s CSR investment, as it was believed that chief executive officers are considered responsible for CSR activities. Additionally, this research underscores the significance of incorporating the financial aspects of CSR into reporting.

This study examines the seldom explored relationship between corporate boards and CSR monetary aspects during regular and irregular times, offering theoretical and practical insights that benefit multiple stakeholders.

Agency problems are more severe for multinational corporations (MNCs) and multinational enterprises compared to their domestic counterparts. As companies develop diversified operations, their managers face more challenges. An incentive compensation structure has been designed to align the benefits of managers with those of shareholders. Additionally, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly crucial for companies. MNCs must gain the trust of more investors to improve their corporate reputation and financial performance. CSR enables MNCs with a high sense of social responsibility to expand their investor base, reduce perceived risks, and decrease information asymmetry. Our empirical findings reveal that Taiwanese MNCs can enhance their performance by implementing cash-based compensation and pursuing CSR activities.

This study aims to explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and examines the role of management accounting practices (MAPs) in the relationship between CSR and performance in SMEs.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,000 SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia, and 203 valid replies were received.

The results indicate that most SMEs are informed about their social responsibilities across several CSR dimensions. There is evidence that supports the significant direct relationship between CSR and firm performance, and MAPs significantly and indirectly contribute to the effect of CSR on firm performance.

The findings contribute to an understanding of how the integration of CSR and MAPs can amplify the effect of CSR implementation on performance in SMEs. The finding may be useful for the relevant policymakers to increase socially responsible activities among SMEs to spur further growth for SMEs and society. SMEs may acknowledge MAPs as a significant intermediary in making CSR activities financially and operationally feasible.

This study aims to examine the potential threshold effect in the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and social reputation.

This study includes an international and cross-sector sample covering 41 countries, nine sectors and 45,395 firm-year observations. It applies a parabolic relationship, rather than linear regressions, between CSR engagement and social reputation via CSR awarding. This implies that CSR performance should increase until a certain point to gain a social reputation but then should decrease after reaching that threshold point considering limited financial resources.

The findings of country-industry-year fixed-effects logistic regressions confirm the threshold effect with an inverted U-shaped relationship between CSR and CSR awarding. More specifically, firms increase their environmental and social engagement until a certain point, and then they reduce it after reaching a social reputation. This finding is confirmed by three dimensions of the environmental pillar (i.e. resource use, emissions and eco-innovation) as well as four dimensions of the social pillar (i.e. workforce, human rights, community and product responsibility). The findings are robust to alternative samples, alternative methodology and endogeneity concerns.

The findings of this study have implications for firms about the better allocation of available funds between CSR and operations. The findings could be particularly useful for CSR teams/committees of the firms who formulate CSR policies and how to mobilize firm resources for better social enhancement via environmental and social reputation.

This study examines deeper the nature of the association between CSR engagement and social reputation and considers the possibility of an inverted U-shaped relationship between them. The determination of a threshold effect suggests that CSR engagement increases social reputation, but once it reaches a certain point, social reputation will decrease owing to financial resource constraints.

This study aims to investigate how organizational culture (OC) and transformational leadership (TL) affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance (environmental performance and social performance) and financial performance (FP) in the context of the Italian manufacturing sector. Grounded in resource-based view theory, this study explores how these factors influence sustainable firm performance.

Data gathered from 260 employees were analyzed to examine the multidimensional aspects of CSR, encompassing social and environmental sustainability.

The findings highlight the pressing need for sustainable firm performance in the existing environment, supporting the hypothesis that firms achieve sustainable and FP through the recognition of TL and OC. Moreover, a positive and significant relationship between CSR performance and FP was established, underscoring the strategic importance of integrating CSR initiatives into core business practices. This study offers valuable insights for both academia and firms, providing theoretical and practical implications that underscore the importance of cultivating a robust OC to drive performance enhancements.

This study is novel because it is one of the first, to the best of the author’s knowledge, to analyze the relationships between TL, OC and performance components associated with CSR.

This study aims to guide firms in emerging markets on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement facilitates their access to debt with the moderation of asset structure and firm performance. Considering the moderating effect analysis, this study explores the substitutive or complementary effect of these two contingencies on CSR-oriented firms in accessing debt financing.

Drawing on data collected for 16 emerging markets between 2008 and 2019, this study runs country–industry–year fixed-effects regression.

This study finds that CSR performance and reporting facilitate access to debt in emerging markets. However, CSR performance does not have an inverted U-shaped influence on firms’ access to debt financing. The moderation analysis of this study shows that asset tangibility has a negative moderating effect on the link between CSR engagements (i.e. both CSR performance and reporting) and access to debt, confirming a substitutive relationship between asset tangibility and CSR engagements in accessing debt. In contrast, firm performance is positively moderating the nexus between CSR engagement proxies and access to debt, which confirms a complementary type of relationship between firm performance and CSR engagements in accessing debt.

The empirical evidence of this study implies that creditors critically consider CSR engagements of firms in the loan-granting decision process. Similarly, the inverted U-shaped relationship between CSR and access to debt implies that there is an optimal level of CSR engagement creditors might consider in their decision. Likewise, the moderating effects analysis highlights that asset tangibility and firm performance are two conditions under which CSR performance and reporting are linked to access to debt.

Emerging countries are a different set of countries than developed ones; they have high growth rates and hence need financing, have a weaker institutional environment and have weaker stakeholder power. These particularities motivated the authors to conduct a separate study focusing on CSR and debt financing links drawing on a wide range of emerging countries. Thus, this study adds to the ongoing debate by examining the conditions under which CSR-oriented firms can access debt financing in emerging economies.