The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm performance regarding Chinese firms

Abstract

The concept of corporate social responsibility has been gaining more and more attention in the last decades. Nevertheless, there remains the debate over the legitimacy of doing socially responsible business. In order to prove that being socially responsible can contribute to firm value, lots of research have been done in this area. China, though as a late comer, has also seen a rapid development of CSR in different industries over the years. Using extensive data of firms from different industries for the year of 2013, this thesis attempts to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on firm financial performance regarding Chinese firms. The data on corporate social performance was obtained from hexun.com and related financial data was obtained from CSMAR. Multiple regression model is used. The results indicate that the impact of CSR on firm financial performance is significantly positive and there are industrial differences in terms of the impact of CSR on firm performance.