۱- Introduction

۲- Institutional background, theoretical framework, and hypothesis development

۳- Research design and methodology

۴- Empirical results

۵- Discussion

۶- Conclusion

References

Abstract

We examine the effect of managerial professional connections and social attention on corporate social responsibility disclosure. Using a unique sample of Chinese listed firms that includes 7462 firm-year observations from 2009 to 2017, we hypothesize and provide supporting evidence that in emerging markets such as China, firms whose top managers have professional connections are more incentivized to improve corporate social responsibility disclosure. This is particularly the case when firms face significant public and media attention. Additional analysis shows that firms with professional connections tend to be more conservative when choosing accounting policies to maintain their professional reputations. Professional connections bring value to both firms and managers in that professionally connected managers are valued by external investors, have greater job security, and are better compensated. Our results are robust to a series of endogeneity tests and perform well in various robustness tests. Overall, our study suggests that corporate social responsibility decisions are shaped by managerial idiosyncratic characteristics and external institutions.

INTRODUCTION

Over recent decades, one of the most significant trends in business studies has been the growth in academic research on CSR. Among studies in this line of enquiry, one stream of the literature has focused on the determinants of firms’ CSR reporting. Numerous theoretical studies have attempted to develop a theoretical framework that explains the underlying determinants of CSR from different perspectives such as agency theory, legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, and the resource-based view. Empirical studies have sought direct evidence to either support or reject these theoretical arguments. Such studies suggest that firms’ CSR disclosure varies across companies, industries, and time (Gray et al., 1995, 2001) and that firms’ CSR disclosure is importantly and systematically determined by a variety of firm and industry characteristics that influence the relative benefits or costs that firms may realize from their CSR disclosure (the characteristics include firm size and age, financial performance, corporate go vernance, ownership structure, culture, media exposure, political influence, political beliefs, the nature of the industry, and geographical proximity. See, for example, Roberts, 1992; Hackston and Milne, 1996; Cormier and Magnan, 2003; Cormier et al., 2005; Haniffa and Cooke, 2005; Reverte, 2009; Barnea and Rubin, 2010; Li and Zhang, 2010; Khan et al., 2013; Marquis and Qian, 2013; Gupta et al., 2017; and Zamir and Saeed, 2018).