Investigating the impacts of microlevel CSR activities on firm sustainability: mediating role of CSR performance and moderating role of top management support

The peer effects of corporate poverty alleviation behavior: Empirical evidence from China

This study explores the peer and economic effects of corporate poverty alleviation behavior. Using the data of A-share non-financial listed corporates in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China from 2016 to 2020, the empirical analysis of this study finds that: corporate poverty alleviation behavior has significant peer effects; the guidance of local poverty alleviation policies weakens the peer effects of corporate poverty alleviation behavior; compared to private enterprises, the poverty alleviation behavior of the peer firms has a more significant impact on state-owned enterprises; and corporate poverty alleviation behavior can result in the backflow of economic benefits and achieve the organic unity of economic and social benefits. The purpose of this paper is to explore the peer effects of corporate poverty alleviation behaviors through empirical analysis using available public data. The results of the study not only increase the motivation of corporate to participate in poverty alleviation from a peer effects perspective, but also reveal key factors for sustaining corporate poverty alleviation behaviors.

Nexus of the CSR disclosures and corporate financial performance: evidence from Asian countries climate policy uncertainty

Financial performance is a critical aspect of a company's overall health and sustainability. It directly influences investor decisions, stock market performance, credit ratings, and the company's ability to access capital. Corporate financial performance is influenced by multitude of facts, both internal and external such as disclosure of the information, and social and environmental factors. On the ground of the facts, we aimed to investigate non-financial firms that belong to Asian economies affected by climate policy uncertainty and corporate social responsibility disclosures in terms of their financial performance. To conduct quantitative study analysis, we used the two effective statistical tools such as two-stage regression method and generalized method of movement (GMM). Our results show that corporate high value of social responsibility disclosure and climate policy uncertainty has significant negative impact on return on asset (ROA) of the listed organizations of China, Pakistan, and India. Moreover, CSR disclosure attributes higher values such as social (SC) and governance score (GOV), and climate policy uncertainty (CPU) has significant negative relationship with return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS) respectively, while a higher value of ESG total score and the environmental (ENV) score has a significant positive impact on ROE and EPS. Additionally, the research concludes that climate policy uncertainty is a key factor that motivates CSR disclosure practices, which ultimately improves corporate financial performance. Moreover, we concluded from our finding that the climate policy uncertainty creates ambiguity surrounding government regulations, international agreements, or market mechanisms that affect financial performance. Moreover, environmental disclosure information that has the large part in total ESG scores attract the investors around the globe which leads to rise in the financial performance, while the other attributes of the CSR disclosure decrease performance. This study advocated the great implications for researchers, investors, the government, and regulatory authorities. Policy makers can make the policy about the CSR disclosure for creating the good image of the organization to attract investors around the globe.

Challenges to corporate social responsibility adoption for sustainability: A picture fuzzy approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become crucial to businesses seeking to adopt sustainable development. However, there are several challenges to CSR adoption for sustainability that the present research aims to identify and evaluate, in addition to assessing the EU's response to these challenges. To this end, a novel picture fuzzy SWARA-TOPSIS method is proposed to rank EU countries after identifying the challenges that they face through a literature review. The results indicate that out of eight identified challenges, "Leadership Mindset and Corporate Commitment" is the most significant issue to CSR adoption for sustainability. Additionally, Italy shows the best performance in adopting CSR for sustainability, while Malta shows the worst. These results are discussed, and policy implications are presented. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:1254-1275. © 2023 SETAC.

Nexus between corporate social responsibility and firm performance: a green innovation and environmental sustainability paradigm

Climate change concerns have become severe challenges in developing countries' sustainable development due to the immense usage of fossil fuels. The government has effectively employed green practices to solve these challenges in developing countries. This study explores how corporate social responsibility influences firm performance by analyzing the data collected from 650 respondents of manufacturing firms in a developing country, i.e., China. Structural equation modeling has been applied to analyze and investigate the proposed hypotheses. The results showed that corporate social responsibility does not directly affect the firm performance. In contrast, corporate social responsibility is positively related to green transformational leadership and green innovation, which improve firm performance. The results further indicated that green innovation and green transformational leadership significantly mediate the link between corporate social responsibility and firm performance. This study offers essential insights for managers and policymakers of manufacturing firms in managing corporate social responsibility, green innovation, and green transformational leadership when analyzing firm performance. It may aid general managers of major manufacturing firms in strengthening internal resources to improve the firm performance.

Adoption of Digital Technologies by SMEs for Sustainability and Value Creation: Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

Digital business transformation is considered an effective business strategy that appears to have gained attention since the enterprises are challenged to continuously improve their business practices as well as capabilities. The use of digital technologies could reduce the influence of external crises and could introduce massive changes in business operations by providing better business models. Moreover, adopting digital technology can influence both economic sustainability and social value of enterprises and can improve regional socio-economic conditions. There are few recent studies on how technology can empower enterprises at different phases of growth and sustainability; furthermore, very few studies are available that determine how adopting different modern digital technologies can create value for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, this study aims to close this gap and investigate the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation. With the support of resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV) theories, along with a literature review, a theoretical model has been developed. It was then validated using the PLS-SEM technique considering 319 respondents who are SME employees in India. The findings show that adopting digital technologies has a significant impact on the creation of economic sustainability and social value for SMEs. The study also found a significant moderating impact of entrepreneurial orientation on the relationship between social and economic value creation and SME performance.