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This chapter examines the association between corporate governance and environmental performance. The purpose of governance mechanisms is to build trust by ensuring that corporate responsibilities, including environmental responsibilities, are met. We obtain corporate governance data from the Investor Responsibility Research Center, Inc’s (IRRC’s) governance and director database and additional corporate governance and environmental performance data from Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini’s (KLD’s) database. Our analyses document a significant positive association between corporate governance and environmental performance. Moreover, we find that corporate governance is positively related to environmental strengths, and negatively related to environmental concerns. Our findings contribute to and extend our understanding of the relationship between governance and performance and have important implications for policy makers, managers, investors, and others.

This paper examines whether shareholders consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance when voting on corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders. These proposals recommend changes to the corporate governance status quo and are made by dissident shareholders who are dissatisfied with the company’s existing governance practices.

Using 195 governance change proposals voted on during 2013, the paper examines the relationship between CSR performance (obtained from the MSCI database) and the level of voting support for these proposals.

This study finds that shareholder support for corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders is positively related to firms’ CSR concerns, especially environmental concerns.

The findings suggest that shareholders may be concerned with the potentially adverse effects of weak CSR performance, especially poor environmental performance, and may support changes to corporate governance structures when a company’s CSR and environmental performance is weaker.

As the first research to examine the relationship between CSR and proposed changes to corporate governance, this study provides unique insights into shareholder perceptions of the value of CSR based on shareholders’ support (or lack thereof) for governance changes proposed by dissident shareholders.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationships among environmental performance (EP), environmental disclosure (ED), and financial performance (FP) (three corporate constructs) using data from Newsweek’s green rankings.

Previous studies document mixed results about the relations among the three constructs. A firm’s overall management strategy may affect the three constructs simultaneously; therefore, the interrelationships among EP, ED, and FP were jointly examined. A simultaneous equations approach was used to test the hypothesis.

The three-stage least square (3SLS) estimation results show a negative relationship between EP and FP and a positive relationship between EP and ED, suggesting that financially successful firms are less likely good environmental performers but green firms are more likely to disclose their EP.

Since the sample firms examined in this study are US large-size companies, the results found in this paper may not apply to small- and/or medium-size firms or to companies in other countries.

Three corporate constructs are jointly correlated with each one. A firm’s overall strategic plan on environmental engagement is likely reflected in how it engages in each of the constructs that affect costs and benefits. Sustainable efforts, in short term, may put firms at risk. Companies may need to take a long-term perspective when cutting costs is curtailed.

The research contributes to the ED and EP literature by using a 3SLS simultaneous equation method and analyzing a more recent and comprehensive multi-industry data. By controlling industry effect, the research investigates the interrelationships among three corporate constructs and finds interesting results. An interpretation and discussion are provided.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) score/index. Specifically, the study describes extant research on theoretical perspectives, and the impact of women on corporate boards (WOBs) on carbon emission issues in the global perspective.

This study uses the carbon disclosure scores of the CDP from 2011 to 2013 (inclusive). A total observation for the three-year periods is 1,175 companies. However, based on data availability for the model, the sample size totals 331 companies in 33 countries with firms in 12 geographical locations. The authors used a model which is estimated using the fixed-effects estimator.

The outcomes of the study reveal that there is a positive relationship between gender diversity (WOB) and carbon disclosure information. In addition to establishing a relationship between CDP score and other control variables, this study also found a relationship with Board size, asset size, energy consumption and Tobin’s Q, which is common in the existing literature.

The limitations of the study mostly revolve around samples and the time period. To further test the generalizability and cross-sectional validity of the outcomes, it is suggested that the proposed framework be tested in more socially responsible firms.

There are increasing pressures for WOBs from diverse stakeholders, such as the European Commission, national governments, politicians, employer lobby groups, shareholders, Fortune and Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) rankings and best places for women to work lists. The study offers insights to policy makers implementing gender quota legislation.

The study has important implications for putting into practice good corporate governance and, in particular, gender diversity. The outcomes of the analyses advocate that companies that included women directors and had a smaller board size may expect to achieve a higher level of carbon emission performance and to voluntarily disclose the level of carbon information assessment requested by the CDP.

Over the last several decades, businesses have faced mounting pressures from diverse stakeholders to alter their corporate operations to become more socially and environmentally responsible. In turn, many firms appear to have responded by implementing more sustainable practices — measuring, documenting, and publishing annual CSR or sustainability reports to showcase how they are addressing important issues in this area, including: resource stewardship, waste management, greenhouse gas emission reductions, fair and safe labor practices, amongst other stakeholder concerns. And yet, research in this domain has not yet systematically examined whether businesses have, on the whole, changed their practices in tandem with the important changes in its institutional context over time. Have corporate CSR initiatives, in fact, been growing over the last 25 years or has the increased attention to CSR actually been much ado about nothing? In this chapter, we review the empirical literature on CSR to uncover that common measures of CSR such as the KLD do not support the concept that CSR practices have increased substantively over the last 25 years. We supplement this historical review by modeling the growth curves of CSR implementation in practice and find that the pace of positive change has indeed been glacial. More alarmingly, we also look at corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) and find that, contrary to expectations, businesses have become more, not less, irresponsible during this same time period. Implications of these findings for theory are presented as are suggestions for future research in this domain.

Increasingly, U.S. firms voluntarily issue standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports to demonstrate to society a commitment to social and environmental activities (Bebbington, Larrinaga, & Moneva, 2008; Erusalimsky, Gray, & Spence, 2006). To ascertain the effect of standalone CSR reports on investors, we compared the association between CSR performance scores and subsequent stock returns for firms that issue standalone CSR reports versus those that do not. Consistent with a signaling perspective (Akerlof, 1970), we found that firms that voluntarily issue standalone CSR reports have a stronger association between total CSR and CSR strengths and subsequent stock returns than firms that do not. Our findings indicated that investors are relying on standalone CSR reports because they reward CSR performance for firms that issue standalone CSR reports CSR performance for those that do not issue standalone CSR reports.

We examine the perceived influence of externally generated firm ratings of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on voting for shareholder-sponsored CSR proposals. Using stakeholder and legitimacy theories, we introduce two rationales that relate shareholder voting decisions to the firm’s CSR performance: the complementary perspective where investors rely on management’s branding or image of the firm for CSR performance, and the sufficiency perspective where shareholders consider legitimacy effects of firm CSR performance. Our examination of 473 CSR shareholder-sponsored proposals during the 2013 to 2015 proxy seasons reveals a negative relationship between support for shareholder-sponsored CSR proposals and CSR strengths, particularly for social and environmental CSR strengths. We also find a positive relationship between support for shareholder-sponsored CSR proposals and CSR concerns, particular in the area of environmental CSR concerns. These results partially support the sufficiency perspective that incorporates shareholder legitimacy concerns. When companies have poor CSR performance, shareholders may view further CSR initiatives as beneficial to the firm.

Our paper explores the evolution in the reporting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for 115 Canadian firms (51 cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges) throughout the seven year period of 1999–2006, which was the period before and after SOX and Bill 198 were enacted, resulting in a period of increasing pressure for CSR and CSR disclosure (Ballou, Heitger, & Landes, 2006). We examined CSR scores for Canadian firms listed only on Canadian stock exchanges and for Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. exchanges. During this period, our analysis shows an overall decrease in CSR scores for all Canadian firms in our sample, and for both our subsamples of firms: Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges and Canadian firms listed only on Canadian exchanges. Our analysis suggests that as a result of increased scrutiny facilitated by the regulatory changes, CSR disclosures become more transparent and comprehensive: CSR Strengths and CSR Weaknesses Scores both declined after 2002 resulting in an overall decline in Total CSR scores. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The extant literature provides much-needed support to understand marketing accountability and how marketing actions are related to financial performance (FP). However, we have limited understanding of the relationships between marketing actions and firms' social performance (SP) and environmental performance (EP). Understanding these links is critical to enhancing sustainable FP, SP, and EP. Moreover, the literature provides limited understanding of the measures by which SP and EP may be operationalized, or the data necessary to reach a conclusion. This study bridges these gaps by extensively reviewing the extant literature to offer a set of measures and data sources to operationalize SP and EP, and empirically show their relationships with marketing actions. We find that greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, environmental disclosure score, waste reduction, energy consumption, and recycling are prominent measures of EP, and that social disclosure score, philanthropy or community spending, and diversity of gender and race are prominent measures of SP. The KLD, ASSET4, and Bloomberg are prominent sources of data that can be used to operationalize SP, to which CDP may be added for EP. We also show that marketing actions positively affect EP and SP. This study contributes to the extant literature on SP and EP by identifying measures and data sources and linking marketing actions to both performance types. It contributes to policy development by identifying the importance of EP and SP and how marketing actions can help achieve such performance.

This paper aims to answer how corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) affect the relationship between value creation and tax avoidance. This study further analyses the impact of the institutional environment, i.e. whether a country is rather a liberal or a coordinated market economy, on the relationship between CSR and tax avoidance.

The empirical analysis comprises a panel data set of 7,924 observations for the years from 2005 to 2014 for European companies. The relationship between value creation and tax avoidance is tested by grouping the sample in high and low CSR performers. Similarly, the impact of the type of market economy is analysed for the firms.

The research design does not find evidence that tax avoidance is creating value. The empirical findings reveal that there is a positive relationship between value creation and the effective tax rate for firms with low social and environmental characteristics. Further, this analysis could show that stronger corporate governance is associated with a lower effective tax rate in both coordinated and liberal market economies. The analysis identifies social strengths being associated with a higher effective tax rate for coordinated market economies.

It is proposed to encourage CSR disclosure. The creation of incentives for social strengths could increase tax revenue. Firms should reconsider whether the engagement in tax avoidance is worth it and pursue social responsibility to achieve higher value creation for their stakeholders.

The paper challenges the intuitive expectation that tax avoidance creates value. It is suggested that the governance and CSR culture, as well as the tax legislation in Europe, is different to the USA. Conclusively, tax avoidance is not generating value for the European sample.