Abstract
The main aim of this study is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the financial performance of selected companies listed in the BSE, formerly known as the Bombay Stock Exchange in India.
This study is purely based upon the secondary data collected from companies’ annual reports and sustainability reports for last three years ranging from 2016–2017 to 2018–2019. The results indicate that the involvement in socially responsible initiatives has a significantly positive effect on the financial performance of the firms. These findings provide insights to the management to assimilate firm’s CSR initiatives with its strategic business policies and, thus, to renovate the business philosophy from a traditional profit-oriented approach to a socially responsible approach.
Keywords
Introduction
Although corporate social responsibility have been a topic for debate for centuries, yet it is recently, that it has joined the conventional management literature. Levy (1999) in his book Give and Take advocates the belief that corporate philanthropy together with social initiatives are the heart and soul of every successful business. He emphasizes that social endeavours must run consistently parallel with business goals for earning profit; which is the heart and must exhibit the values of serving society; which is the soul for every business.
Increasing research based upon corporate social responsibility (CSR) has indicated that firms have responded to these concerns by devoting more resources towards CSR initiatives. Researchers also believe that CSR can be a proactive business strategy and an effective marketing tool to create and sustain competitive advantage. Firms now realize that to survive and compete in the hyper-competitive global business market, they must evolve from ‘doing good’ to ‘doing better’ and finally to ‘doing best’ by building value creation.
However, previous studies also suggest that in some firms, management has repelled, arguing that supplementary CSR activities are inconsistent with efforts to maximize profits. This divergence has stimulated researchers to examine the relationship between CSR and financial performance in an effort to find out the rationality of these apprehensions. Also, this study not only explores the impact of CSR activities on financial performance but also investigates the role of control variables, namely, size of the firm, age of the firm, presence of women directors on board and total compensation paid to directors to enhance the business performance.
This article also attempts to fill the gap in the existing literature; while there have been numerous studies in the west on the relationship between CSR and financial performance, there have been very few studies in the Indian context. The existing studies on CSR in India are mostly restricted to self-reported questionnaires examining the nature and features of CSR along with the CSR framework of MNCs without any connection with firms’ performance. Also, most of the studies that have examined the relationship between CSR and financial performance have not considered the control variables as they are also the important dynamics affecting a company’s performance.
Literature Review
The concept of CSR has attracted worldwide attention and acquired a novel meaning in the global economy. The interest in CSR activities in recent years has originated from the beginning of globalization and international trade, which has been reflected in increased business involvedness and new demands for enhanced transparency and corporate citizenship.
Although the origin of CSR lies in philanthropic activities such as donations, charity, relief work, and so on, of businesses globally, the concept of CSR as a whole has advanced and now incorporates all related concepts such as triple bottom line, corporate citizenship, philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, shared value, corporate sustainability and business responsibility.
The conception of CSR is generally understood to be the way a firm balances the economic, environmental and social facets of its operations, addressing the expectations of all its stakeholders. According to World Business Council for Sustainable Development, ‘CSR is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large’.
The interest in CSR has been seen to be growing particularly in multi-national, multi-divisional firms that are exposed to differing business norms and standards, regulatory frameworks, and where stakeholders demand for CSR across the nations that they are operating in. As these firms are bearing so much pressure from their stakeholders, opinions on whether these firms should engage in CSR initiatives have however varied in the past literature.
Friedman (1970) opines that CSR is a result of possible agency problems within the firm, a misuse of resources that instead could be spent on value-creating activities, whereas Freeman (1984) argues that a firm has to satisfy all its stakeholders, as they can influence the firm’s performance and outcomes, and hence supports firm’s CSR activities. Peloza and Shang (2011) use three different categories for distinguishing CSR activities, namely, philanthropy, business practices, and products based. They argue that generalisation of CSR activities is not at all easy as there is a wide variety of CSR activities already included in these different measures.
Not only the opinions regarding CSR differs but also the understanding of ‘being good’ also differs between firms that take on different approaches to CSR. Johnson (2003) considers social responsibility of firms as a continuum ranging from ‘illegal/irresponsible’ companies acting on an illegal level to ‘social advocacy’ where companies consider CSR to be a central part of their mission. Based on the continuum proposed, Johnson (2003) examines whether it pays to be good; where he concludes that it does not pay to be bad as illegal activities have a negative impact, but that good behaviour on the other hand definitely pays off to a limited extent.
The relationship between social welfare and firm’s profitability constitutes one of the main subjects of study in today’s scenario. CSR refers to a firm’s obligation to protect and improve social welfare by generating sustainable benefits for stakeholders.
The model of corporate sustainability is derived from the concept of sustainable development. According to Adams (2019), ‘Corporate sustainability is an approach which aims to create long-term stakeholder value through the implementation of a business strategy that focuses on the ethical, social, environmental, cultural, and economic magnitudes of doing business.’ The strategies created are intended to foster longevity, transparency, and proper employee development within business organizations.
Corporate sustainability is often mixed with CSR, though the two are different. Bansal and DesJardine (2014) clarify that the notion of ‘time’ discriminates sustainability from CSR and other similar concepts. CSR in India tends to concentrate on what is done with profits after they are made. However, sustainability is about focussing on the social and environmental impacts of conducting business; that is in a way, how profits are made. Thus, Indian business practices of doing CSR is an important component of sustainability or responsible business, which is a superior idea, a fact that is evident from various sustainability frameworks.
Globally, the concept of CSR and sustainability seems to be converging, as is evident from the various definitions of CSR put forth by global administrations. The genesis of this convergence can be observed from the policies relating to the CSR clause within the Companies Act, 2013. These rules not only look after the interest of the stakeholders but also integrate it with the social, environmental and economic objectives, which together constitute the idea of a triple bottom line approach. The approach where, Elkington (1997), proposed that business goals were inseparable from the societies and environments within which they operate. While short-term economic gains can still be pursued, but failure to account for the social and environmental impacts of these pursuits is believed to make those business practices practically unsustainable.
In India, the concept of CSR is defined and governed by clause 135 of Companies Act, 2013. The CSR provisions within the act are applicable to companies with an annual turnover of Rs. one thousand crore and more, or a net worth of Rs. five crore and more, or a net profit of Rs, five crore and more. The guidelines also require firms to set up a CSR Committee consisting of their board members, including at least one independent director and also at least one women director as a board member for listed companies. The act encourages companies to spend at least 2% of their average net profits of the previous three years on CSR activities.
Now, the importance of CSR measurement approaches has been highlighted by Harrington (1987) who states that ‘if you cannot measure a thing, you cannot understand it; if you cannot understand it, you cannot control it; and finally, if you cannot control it, you cannot improve it’. Thus, different methodological assessment approaches have been developed in the past to calculate and assess companies CSR performance. Igalens and Gond (2005) point out five basic measurement approaches, these are: pollution indices, perceptual measurements derived from questionnaire based surveys, corporate reputation indicators, assessment made by measurement agencies and content analysis of annual reports.
Out of these different approaches available, this study incorporates content analysis of annual reports through varied financial measures and tries to investigate the impact of CSR on financial performance through panel data, by also taking into account the control variables.
Objectives
To know the impact of CSR on financial performance of selected firms listed in BSE based upon the financial parameters like: profit after tax (PAT), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earnings per share (EPS).
To know the impact of CSR on financial performance of selected firms after considering the control variables like: size of the firm, age of the firm, presence of women directors on board and total compensation paid to directors.
Hypothesis
H1: There is a significant positive relationship between CSR and PAT.
H2: There is a significant positive relationship between CSR and ROAs.
H3: There is a significant positive relationship between CSR and ROE.
H4: There is a significant positive relationship between CSR and EPS.
Research Methodology
Measurement of CSR Score
In the study, a third-party rating calculation is used to estimate the extent of CSR disclosure score in order to assure a subjective assessment. The score of 50 BSE listed firms were taken from Csrhub.com, whose rating methodology includes valid estimates of various aspects of corporate social performance like: how a firm pays backs to the community by measuring how much funds it contributes to local charities, whether a firm has programmes that allow its employees to take time off for charitable work or the number of charity board memberships held by the company’s board members etc.
Measurement of Corporate Financial Performance and Control Variables
The dependent variable in this study is corporate financial performance. In order to measure corporate financial performance (CFP), this research uses the financial parameters like: PAT, ROAs, ROE and EPS.
Also some measures of corporate governance were introduced as control variables, since they are the important measurements for the company’s financial performance, namely, size of the firm, age of the firm, women on board and the executives’ compensation since they are important factors in explaining the company’s financial performance. The reason behind introducing these control variables is to ensure that the final results are not subject to biased results.
Table 1 summarises the variables used in this research.
Description of Variables
Data Analysis and Findings
The models estimated to investigate the impact of CSR on CFP are as follows:
where,
CFP (γ1) = CFP measured by PAT,
CFP (γ2) = represents CFP measured by ROA,
CFP (γ3) = represents CFP measured by ROE,
CFP (γ4) = represents CFP measured by EPS,
Also, (β0) is constant and (β1: β5) are the parameters for the independent variable, CSRS = CSR Score, FS = Firm Size, FA = Firm Age, WB = Women directors on Board, EC = Executives’ compensation, uit = error term, i = company, t = time
Thus, the following model is estimated to investigate the impact of CSR on Corporate financial performance:
where CFP = corporate financial performance is measured in terms of PAT, ROA, ROE and EPS, whereas (β0) is constant and (β1: β5) are the parameters for the independent variable, CSRS = CSR score, FS = Firm Size, FA = Firm Age, WB = Women directors on Board, EC = Executives’ compensation, uit = error term, i = company, t = time
Table 2 presents the summary of the descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables used in the study.
Descriptive Statistics
The descriptive statistics table consists of statistics measures like mean, median, minimum maximum and standard deviation. The mean of CSR disclosure score is 27.32, which is considered to be satisfactory. Regarding the presence of women on board, still it seems quite low, only 8% with high standard deviation. Also the average age of the firms comes around 15 years.
Correlation Matrix
In order to check the problem of multi-collinearity, Pearson’s correlation among the set of independent variables was performed and correlation matrix is constructed and presented in Table 3.
Correlation Matrix
Notes:**Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (two-tailed).
*Correlation is significant at 0.05 level (two-tailed).
Table 3 depicts that correlations between variables ranges from 0.10 to 0.23, therefore, it shows no signs of multi-collinearity, as the correlations between independent variables does not exceed 0.80.
Empirical Results
PAT and CSR
Table 4 presents the result of the fixed effect regression model for understanding the relationship between PAT and CSR.
Table 4 depicts that for F-test value is 7.68 (p < .01); thus favours fixed asset regression model and signifies that the model is appropriate for analysis. Further, R-square interprets that the explanatory power of the model is 54%.
Relationship between PAT and CSR Performance
**Significant at 0.05 level (two-tailed)
***Significant at the 0.1 level (two-tailed). Bold values of F-Test and R-square is to indicate the relationship between PAT and CSR, ROA and CSR, ROE and CSR and EPS and CSR.
PAT is the earnings of the business after all tax deductions. Thus, the results show positive impact of commitment towards social expectations on PATs. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.336 increase in PAT.
ROA and CSR
Table 5 presents the result of the Fixed effect Regression Model for understanding the relationship between ROA and CSR
Table 5 depicts that for F-test value is 4.08 (p < .01); thus favours fixed asset regression model and signifies that the model is appropriate for analysis. Further, R-square, interprets that the explanatory power of the model is 65%.
Relationship between ROA and CSR Performance
**Significant at 0.05 level (two-tailed)
***Significant at 0.1 level (2-tailed). Bold values of F-Test and R-square is to indicate the relationship between PAT and CSR, ROA and CSR, ROE and CSR and EPS and CSR.
ROA is an indicator of how much profit the firm can generate through its assets. The results show that when a firm scores better in CSR initiatives then it can be more profitable with their assets. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.220 increase in ROA.
ROE and CSR
Table 6 presents the result of the Fixed effect Regression Model for understanding the relationship between ROE and CSR
Table 6 depicts that for F-test value is 2.08 (p < .01); thus favours fixed asset regression model and signifies that the model is appropriate for analysis. Further, R-square, interprets that the explanatory power of the model is 55%.
Relationship between ROE and CSR Performance
**Significant at 0.05 level (two-tailed)
***Significant at 0.1 level (two-tailed). Bold values of F-Test and R-square is to indicate the relationship between PAT and CSR, ROA and CSR, ROE and CSR and EPS and CSR.
ROE measures how efficiently a company is making profits from the funds contributed by the shareholders. The results show that better the CSR score, the higher the return on shareholder’s equity. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.110 increase in ROE.
EPS and CSR
Table 7 presents the result of the Fixed effect Regression Model for understanding the relationship between EPS and CSR
Table 7 depicts that for F-test value is 1.28 (p < .01); thus favours fixed asset regression model and signifies that the model is appropriate for analysis. Further, R-square interprets that the explanatory power of the model is 57%.
The results shows that better the CSR score, the higher the EPS. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.090 increase in EPS.
Relationship between EPS and CSR Performance
**Significant at 0.05 level (two-tailed)
***Significant at 0.1 level (two-tailed). Bold values of F-Test and R-square is to indicate the relationship between PAT and CSR, ROA and CSR, ROE and CSR and EPS and CSR.
Findings
This research study basically intends to examine the impact of CSR initiatives by a firm on its financial performance. The assumption behind the study was based upon the following two concepts. First and foremost that investment in CSR activities reduces the implicit costs of the firm and thus having a significant effect upon its financial performance and the second, fulfilment of stakeholders’ expectations improves a firm’s reputation in a manner, that it has a significant positive effect on its financial performance.
In this research, to measure financial performance of a firm, the financial indicators used were: PAT, ROAs, ROE and EPS. To study the impact of CSR on these financial indicators four hypotheses have been formulated. In order to prove these hypotheses, fixed effect regression model was used on the panel data set of 50 firms for 3 years. The results of the study clearly indicate that all stated hypotheses have been accepted and that CSR activities definitely have significant and positive impact upon the financial performance of the selected firms. Also, the study used certain control variables like: size of the firm, age of the firm, presence of women directors on board and total compensation paid to directors, as they are also the important measures to enhance business performance. It can easily be seen from the results, that mostly, these corporate governance measures also have significant and positive impact on the financial performance of the firm, though the results for firm’s age and women directors on board were negative in certain cases such as: PAT and EPS.
This study reveals that commitment towards social expectations definitely reward firms through increased financial performance, these results were consistent with the stakeholders’ theory which implies that satisfied employees compensate the firm through higher productivity and reduced hiring and training cost; satisfied customers enhance gains though repeated buying behaviour; satisfied investors offer capital at a lower cost; while satisfied community reduces the advertising cost and creates favourable conditions for the firm to operate.
Suggestions
Thus, the firms should definitely go for the CSR activities. The results indicate that the companies that focus on the CSR activities increase their overall financial performance. This can be very well seen in the results as; the results show positive impact of commitment towards social expectations on PATs. As every one-point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.336 increase in PAT.
In comparison with ROA, the results show that when a firm score better in CSR initiatives then it can be more profitable with their assets. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.220 increase in ROA. In particular, CSR score is positively significant to ROA which can be a very interesting conclusion to stakeholders, such as investors and managers.
The results also show that better the CSR score, the higher the return on shareholder’s equity. As every one-point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.110 increase in ROE.
Lastly, when we talk about EPS, it is a measure of profitability per outstanding share, serving as an indicator of the financial health. The results show that better the CSR score, the higher the EPS. As every one point increase in CSR score can bring around 0.090 increase in EPS. Thus, the firm’s involvement in CSR is definitely going to affect the Corporate Financial Performance in context with PAT, ROA, ROE and EPS, is definitely proved in this research.
Conclusion
It can also be inferred that CSR disclosure score can be used as an additional source of information by the investors for analysing the profitability and growth prospects of a particular firm; as superior social responsibility initiatives can be linked easily with its financial performance. The firms that are consistent with their socially responsible initiatives can be perceived as trustworthy, which in turn creates reputation and develop competitive advantage. These findings also validate the results of the previous studies and have important implications for the strategic managers that when CSR activities are integrated with business activities both social and financial goals become easier resulting in better financial performance.
Limitations
However, these results should be integrated with certain limitations. First, this study does not consider the kind of CSR a firm should initiate like: strategic or philanthropic; as it is empirically proved that different CSR has diverse impact on firms’ financial performance. The grouping of CSR initiatives into a single score conceals its genuine effect. Second, this study is based upon the cross section of industries providing generalised results, so future research can concentrate upon a single industry. Third, the study takes into account the panel data for three years; however, it is believed that a longer period can be incorporated, in order to validate the positive relationship between CSR and financial performance. Despite the limitations, the study contributes to the existing literature as the results provide conclusive evidence of CSR performance, in view of commitment in socially responsible initiatives.
Scope for Future Research
Several limitations of the study point out towards future scope of the study like a comparative study can be conducted based upon strategic and philanthropic CSR activities and results can indicate which has an increased effect on financial performance of the firms. Secondly, research can be conducted on a single industry to know the impact of CSR activities on the financial performance of a single industry, thirdly longitudinal data for ten years can be taken for a deeper and a more insightful analysis and lastly Board Size and CEO duality can also be taken as the control variables for future researches.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Appendix
| Sr. No. | Sector | Company Name |
| 1 | Automobiles |
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| 2 | Banking | ICICI Bank |
| Axis Bank | ||
| HDFC Bank | ||
| IndusInd Bank | ||
| Kotak Mahindra | ||
| Bandhan Bank | ||
| 3 | Cement | Ambuja Cement |
| ACC | ||
| Shree Cement | ||
| Ultratech Cement | ||
| J K Cement | ||
| 4 | Chemicals | Vikas Multi |
| Resonance | ||
| Polylink Polyme | ||
| Deep Polymers L | ||
| Sanathnagar Ent | ||
| 5 | FMCG | Hindustan Unilever ltd |
| ITC ltd | ||
| Nestle India ltd | ||
| Britannia Industries ltd | ||
| Godrej Consumer Products Ltd | ||
| 6 | Metals and Mining | Vedanta |
| Hindustan Zinc | ||
| Coal India | ||
| Hindalco Industries | ||
| Bharat Aluminium Company | ||
| 7 | Oil and Gas | Indian Oil Corporation |
| ONGC | ||
| Bharat Petroleum | ||
| Reliance Petroleum Limited | ||
| Essar Oil Limited | ||
| 8 | Pharmaceuticals |
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| Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd | ||
| Cipla | ||
| Lupin Ltd | ||
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| 9 | Power | Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd |
| NTPC | ||
| Adani Transmission Ltd. | ||
| NHPC Ltd | ||
| Tata Power Company Ltd. | ||
| 10 | Steel | Tata Steel Ltd. |
| JSW Steel Ltd. | ||
| SAIL | ||
| Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. | ||
| Essar Steel India Ltd. |
