| Name | An Investigation of Real Versus Perceived Corporate Social Performance in S&P 500 firms |
| Author(s) | Liston-Heyes, Catherine and Gwen Ceton |
| Editor | |
| Year | 2009 |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Web Location | http://www.springerlink.com/content/y6g32k4197537757/ |
| Keywords | corporate reputation - corporate social responsibility - Fortune America’s Most Admired Companies - KLD data regression analysis |
| Areas of Interest | Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility; SRI/Responsible Investment; Theory - Stakeholder |
| Citation | Liston-Heyes, Catherine and Gwen Ceton. 2009. An Investigation of Real Versus Perceived Corporate Social Performance in S&P 500 firms. Journal of Business Ethics 89 (2):283-296. |
| Summary | Firms are spending billions annually in the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Whilst markets are increasingly willing to reward good and responsible firms, they lack the instruments to me |
| Abstract / Description | Firms are spending billions annually in the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Whilst markets are increasingly willing to reward good and responsible firms, they lack the instruments to measure corporate social performance (CSP). To convince investors and other stakeholders, firms invest heavily in building a reputation for good corporate behaviour. This article argues that reputations for CSP are often unrepresentative of true CSP and investigates how differences in 'perceived' and 'actual' -- as measured by the Fortune and KLD databases, respectively -- can partly be explained by firm characteristics. Amongst other things, it finds that overrated firms are more likely to be relatively big, profitable, operating in non-polluting but competitive industries and with no history of wrong doings to their primary stakeholders. They will also typically spend a lot of effort satisfying the claims of their secondary stakeholders. Above all, the results emphasise the need for researchers to recognise that the databases measure different phenomenon and are not interchangeable. |
| Publisher/Organization | Journal of Business Ethics |
| Cluster Library | Socially Responsible Investment |