An analysis of relationship between environmental regulations and firm performance with moderating effects of product market competition: Empirical evidence from Pakistan

The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) as proxy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate firm’s performance (CFP) in the context of Pakistani financial and non-financial firms sectors. This study comprises two main firm’s performance indicators such as market base (excess stock returns) and accounting base (returns on assets and returns on capital). The data set starts from 2011 to 2017 and consists of three hundred and fifty (350) firms on equal numbers of financial and non-financial firms. This study uses a non-linear and disaggregated approach for data analysis. The results of the linear model indicate that CSP and returns on capital have a negative relationship, while the non-linear model of CSP and accounting base performance as CFP have positive association in the domain of long run. There is a significant relationship that exist among environmental social governance (ESG) disclosure score, government sub-components score, and social performance. However, a U-shaped association found between CFP and government sub-components, which further suggest that governance has a vital role toward CSP and CFP components.

Nexus between corporate social responsibility and financial and non-financial sectors’ performance: a non-linear and disaggregated approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an emerging and fast-growing concept for both academic research and organizations. In recent years, the far-reaching influence of CSR practices on stakeholders has made both researchers and practitioners pay heed to this dimension. Employees are one of the most important stakeholders influenced by CSR practices. CSR brings in many ideas, concepts, and techniques. In the past, different antecedents and consequences of corporate social responsibility have been studied, but there is still a deficit in regard to whether employee creative performance is an outcome of corporate social responsibility, and the interlinked variables that might enhance this relationship. The main objective of this study is to examine how CSR practices enhance employee performances within the organization, and which other variables may enhance this relationship. The literature suggests that employees who value CSR campaigns and other practices identify with their company to a greater degree, work with more devotion and loyalty, and show more creativity in their work performance. In this study, organizational identification has been taken as the mediator, and creative self-efficacy has been taken as the moderator. The hypotheses were tested within the sample of companies engaging in CSR practices in Pakistan. A questionnaire survey was conducted using simple random sampling. Simple linear regression, hierarchical regression, and Barron and Kenny tests were applied through SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) for data analysis, and results were found according to the proposed model of the study.

The Organizational Identification Perspective of CSR on Creative Performance: The Moderating Role of Creative Self-Efficacy

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the relationship between some characteristics of corporations including firm size, financial leverage, profitability, firm age and the type of industry with social responsibility disclosure of firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE); and second, to study the association between the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and some of the audit variables such as audit fees, audit tenure and audit firm’ size.




Design/methodology/approach




The study population consists of 125 firms listed on the TSE during the years 2010–2015. Following Salehi et al. (2017), content analysis is used to measure the level of social responsibility disclosure, and hypotheses are performed using multiple regression analysis and R software.




Findings




The results represented that there is a positive significant relationship between a firm size and a firm age with the level of CSRD. However, there is a negative significant association between financial leverage and profitability with the level of CSRD. Given that CSRD is different among various industries and the type of industry can be an influential factor in CSRD, an industry type’ variable in the fourth hypothesis is of a type of index variable and has eight levels, of which the first level is ranked as the base level. Our findings showed that the level of CSRD at industries of machinery and appliances, production of metal products, food and beverage products, and textiles is lower than the baseline level (pharmacy). Nevertheless, companies in the fifth industry (mineral products) have a higher level of CSRD in comparison with the pharmacy industry. Moreover, the authors find that there is a significant positive connection between audit fees and CSRD. This implies that Iranian managers in an inflationary economy probably manage earnings when they provide more CSRDs, which leads to increase in the audit risk and audit fees.




Practical implications




Needless to say, the findings of this paper will have practical implications for investors, auditors and other users of financial statements. First of all, this study will aware them of the fact that when a country faces economic sanctions and most of its companies are in financial strain investors should not consider the firms engaging in corporate social responsibility activities to behave morally and provide transparent financial reports. Second, the results will convince auditors to be conservative toward the firms that are financially distressed, for audit risk of them will be high. Thus, policymakers should be cautious concerning directors’ opportunistic actions and increase monitoring to enforce social obedience.




Originality/value




The turning point of this research is related to the time period of research related to firms that have faced severe financial problems due to economic sanctions. In fact, the study revealed another aspect of CSRD that could have negative consequences when managers are in financial strain and take opportunistic actions.

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Empirical study on the effective factors of social responsibility disclosure of Iranian companies

This study intends to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Pakistan’s banking sector, CSR disclosure practices and their impact on financial performance. For the study, relevant data was collected from the banks’ annual reports, financial websites, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE) from 2008 to 2018. The methods utilized in this research study were content analysis and panel data techniques. The results indicate an increase in overall CSR disclosure by all banks in the sample and the findings suggest the involvement of commercial banks in CSR activities, and its proper disclosure has helped to improve their accounting-based financial performance proxied by the return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA). The research findings contribute to a better understanding of the CSR practices in the financial sector of an emerging country, which makes a dynamic effort to develop its financial culture and can encourage rapprochement with Pakistan’s financial sector.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/4080/pdf

Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistani Listed Banks

The purpose of this research study is to lower the knowledge gap by exploring the degree of corporate social responsibility disclosures (CSRD) made by top Pakistani (Karachi Stock Exchange [KSE] 100 listed non-financial) companies and investigating the financial and non-financial CSRD determinants which aid to the policy development in implementing required regulatory reforms.,KSE 100 index listed companies are covered in this study that published their annual reports consistently during the time period of five years from 2009 to 2013. Financial and non-financial data will be collected from the sample of KSE-listed company’s annual reports. Information related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be collected by hand from reports of disclosure of CSR, disclosures of corporate governance, report of the directors, a statement of Chairman’s and notes to the financial statement enclosed in companies’ annual reports. Content analysis technique to measure corporate environmental and social disclosures for items scoring the approach is, in essence, dichotomous, one score assigned to the item in the scores of instrument of research if it disclosed, otherwise assigned zero, and no penalty or negative score is imposed to the item which is reflected irrelevant.,Family ownership, industry type and firm size have positive significant relationship with CSR disclosure, and the authors found negative significant relationship between risk and CSRD. Results of this study propose that, in developing countries like Pakistan, the extent of determinant of CSRD is based on the number of important firm and industry characteristics and are aligned with empirical evidence.,This research uses only annual reports of the companies for the data of CSRD but companies also use other sources for disclosure of their CSR information such as mass media, etc. Content analysis is performed by one author and the second author cross-checked the companies, so biasness may remain a limitation due to the fact that errors attach in rating scale due to judgments of human.,The finding of this study helps policymakers to quantify and know the degree of CSRD and its determinants which enables them to boost the organizational legitimacy and CSR practices by adopting the needed regulatory reform.,The results of this study provide warning signals to the management of the companies in some cases where disclosure level of CSR is lower in the period before issuance of SECP CSR guidelines of 2013.,This research study offers valuable inputs in the development and betterment of CSR rules for the reason that the findings of the research provide information to the future CSR rules and guidelines. The results of this study also help the regulator (SECP) in Pakistan to revise the CSRD to align with the need of changing industrial characteristics and economic environment.

Muhammad Ahsan Syed

Papers

Financial and non-financial determinants of corporate social responsibility: empirical evidence from Pakistan