Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ron Bird
Anthony D. Hall
Francesco Momente`
Francesco Reggiani
190
which all persons or groups with legitimate interests in participating in an enterprise do so to obtain
benefits, and there is no prima facie priority of one
set of interests and benefits over another. It goes
beyond the simple idea that organisations have many
different stakeholders to the more fundamental
questions of what interest should drive the companies and in whose interest the companies should
operate. Stakeholder theory gives rise to the concept
that companies have a CSR to take into consideration the impact of its activities on all of its
constituents.1 For example, the company may aim to
benefit the community by such activities as supporting the construction of a theatre complex or
reducing the pollution in the river systems; to benefit its employees by providing childcare facilities or
by including a performance-based bonus scheme in
its salaries packages; to benefit its clients by
producing cheaper and/or safer products.
One might ask where stakeholder theory actually
leaves management given that it suggests that they
have to take into account the sometimes potentially
conflicting interests of a wide and diverse spectrum
of stakeholders when deciding how best to employ
corporations resources. As Jensen (2001) points out,
under Stakeholder Theory management is given no
direction as to how to differentiate between the
interests of the different stakeholders and so there is
no best outcome and so no way of judging manager
performance. In effect, the boundaries of legitimate
stakeholders are not defined nor are the weights to
be attached to the interests of each stakeholder and
so the objective function on which management is
to base their decisions is ill-defined.2 De George
(1990) provides an insight to the possible resolution
of this conflict affirming that A stakeholder analysis
does not preclude the interests of the shareholders
overriding the interests of the other stakeholders
affected but it ensures that all affected will be considered. Jensen (2001) brings the original idea of
De George a step further in proposing the Enlightened Stakeholder Theory, which recognises that a
single-minded approach to realise maximum value
for shareholders to the detriment of various stakeholder groups is unlikely to succeed. For example,
paying minimum salaries to employees and requiring
them to work in very poor conditions is likely to
have a negative effect on productivity which may
more than offset any cost-savings and so actually
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may translate to increases in both profitability and market valuation in the longer-term.
Other activities that dissuade future action
by Government and other regulatory bodies
which might impose significant costs on the
company. An example of this might be taking action to voluntarily control pollution
emission which may again come at an initial
cost but might dissuade government from
introducing regulations and/or taxes on the
company which may have imposed even
greater costs on the company and so resulted
in even a greater erosion in the companys
market value.
What the above examples emphasise is that management in companies already have strong incentives to consider the interests of a wide spectrum
of stakeholders in the pursuit of a goal of value
maximisation. As a consequence the extent of the
actual conflicts that exist for management drawn
between the demands placed on them by shareholders and those placed by a wider circle of stakeholders might be somewhat limited. Where no
conflict exists, then there is likely to be a market
solution, which ensures that the interests of that
particular stakeholder are protected. Where there is
a conflict, then management might compromise
the interests of shareholders by taking account of
those of other stakeholders or may choose not to
do so which leaves the option for interested parties
to lobby the government to change the rules of
the game to protect one or more stakeholder
groups.
In the next section of the paper, we consider the
existing evidence on the relationship between CSR
activities and financial and market performance as a
precursor to conducting our own analysis.
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193
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COMMUNITY
DIVERSITY
EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS
ENVIRONMENT
PRODUCT
Maximum score
STRENGTHS
CONCERNS
7
8
6
4
3
5
7
4
7
4
195
196
rit at
n
X
ajt CVjit
j1
m
X
p1
TABLE II
Number of stocks in data set each year
Year
Number 340
351
347
357
371
369
Year
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Number 380 389 386 399 417 420
372
197
The findings
TABLE III
Coefficient attached to the control variables: one-year
excess returns (19912003)
Variable
Coefficient
p-Value
Constant
MTBV
Momentum
Gearing
LOGMV
Adjusted R2
0.2438
)0.0067
0.1500
0.0005
)0.0263
2.76%
0.0000
0.0003
0.0000
0.0031
0.0000
198
TABLE IV
Coefficients of significant CSR variables: one-year excess returns (19912003)
Variable
Coefficient
p-Value
0.0205
)0.0180
2.34%
0.0001
0.0019
0.0057
0.0001
0.1094
0.0263
0.0002
0.0380
199
TABLE V
Coefficients of significant CSR variables: one-, two- and three -year excess returns (19912003)
Variable
One-year returns
Coefficient
COMMUNITY_CONCERNS
COMMUNITY_STRENGTHS
DIVERSITY_CONCERNS
DIVERSITY_STRENGTHS
EMPLOYEE_CONCERNS
EMPLOYEE_STRENGTHS
ENVIRONMENT_CONCERNS
ENVIRONMENT_STRENGTHS
PRODUCT_CONCERNS
PRODUCT_STRENGTHS
Adjusted R2
Two-year returns
p-Value
0.0205
0.0001
)0.0180
0.0019
2.34%
Three-year returns
Coefficient
p-Value
Coefficient
p-Value
0.1053
0.0009
0.1785
0.0000
)0.0673
0.0018
)0.1010
0.0007
0.0370
)0.0414
)0.0458
0.0345
0.0022
0.0000
0.0080
0.0079
0.0447
)0.0637
)0.0454
0.0564
0.0070
0.0000
0.0566
0.0015
2.28%
2.14%
200
Analysis of independent CSR activities over
two sub-periods
TABLE VI
Coefficients of significant CSR variables: 19911996 and 19972003
Variable
COMMUNITY CONCERNS
COMMUNITY STRENGTHS
DIVERSITY CONCERNS
DIVERSITY STRENGTHS
EMPLOYEE CONCERNS
EMPLOYEE STRENGTHS
ENVIRONMENT CONCERNS
ENVIRONMENT STRENGTHS
PRODUCT CONCERNS
PRODUCT STRENGTHS
Adjusted R2
19911996
19972003
One-year
returns
Two-year
returns
Three-year
returns
0.0193*
0.0425*
0.0551*
One-year
returns
Two-year
returns
Three-year
returns
0.1267*
0.1498*
)0.0766*
)0.1150*
0.0460*
)0.0394*
)0.0441**
)0.0431*
0.0236*
)0.0786*
)0.0322*
)0.0718*
0.0233*
0.0834*
0.1480*
7.15%
5.23%
4.51%
0.0212**
)0.0237*
)0.0298**
2.72%
2.33%
2.41%
1-year
Returns
2-year
Returns
3-year
Returns
201
202
TABLE VIII
Coefficients attached to changes in CSR variables (19912003)
Variable
COMMUNITY_CONCERNS PLUS
COMMUNITY_STRENGTHS PLUS
EMPLOYEE_CONCERNS MINUS
Adjusted R2
1-year Returns
2-year Returns
3-year Returns
Coefficient
p-Value
Coefficient
p-Value
Coefficient
p-Value
0.1438
0.0023
0.1817
0.0153
)0.0980
1.37%
0.0354
0.2603
)0.1471
-0.1710
2.27%
0.0179
0.0276
0.0144
1.53%
203
TABLE IX
Valuation multiples: coefficients of significant CSR variables (19912003)
Variable
COMMUNITY_CONCERNS
COMMUNITY_STRENGTHS
DIVERSITY_CONCERNS
DIVERSITY_STRENGTHS
EMPLOYEE_CONCERNS
EMPLOYEE_STRENGTHS
ENVIRONMENT_CONCERNS
ENVIRONMENT_STRENGTHS
PRODUCT_CONCERNS
PRODUCT_STRENGTHS
Adjusted R2
Market-to-book
Price-to-earnings
Coefficient
p-Value
Coefficient
p-Value
)0.5133
)0.2664
0.0003
0.0000
-1.2950
0.0000
0.4274
)0.3422
0.2766
)0.2670
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
1.1289
0.0000
1.2487
-0.5921
0.0000
0.0039
0.2412
8.30%
0.0001
1.3328
9.47%
0.0068
204
Acknowledgments
Funding was provided by Telecom Italia - Group
Sustainability. We would like to thank Mauro Bini,
Enrico Parazzini and Paolo Nazzaro for precious
suggestions and support throughout the development of this work.
Notes
1
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Francesco Momente`
and Francesco Reggiani
IAFC, Bocconi Univesity,
Piazza Sraffa 11, Milano, Italy
E-mails: francesco.momente@unibocconi.it;
francesco.reggiani@unibocconi.it