Top 8 Research Findings on Whether CSR Pays

NBS presents the top eight most critical research findings on the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance.

The following is NBS’s compilation of the eight most important research from 2012.

1. When Shareholders Are Scarier than Greenpeace

Ion Bogdan Vasi (Columbia University) and Brayden King (Northwestern University) reveal that shareholders unhappy with your environmental track record hurt your company’s stock price far more than a GreenPeace boycott.

2. The 5 Traits of Firms that Create Sustainability ROI

Robert Eccles, George Serafeim (Harvard University), and Ioannis Ioannou (London Business School) reveal the five cultural traits of companies with strong social, environmental, and financial performance.

3. Investors Reward Environmental Results – Not Promises

Timo Busch and Volker Hoffman (ETH Zurich) discover investors are unimpressed by grand goals to curb carbon emissions: they want to see results.

4. Three Ways to Reap Value from CSR Initiatives

After a survey of Spain’s 500 largest firms, Brian Husted (York University) and David Allan (IE Business School) pinpoint the three ways companies can ensure their CSR efforts create tangible financial value.

5. Philanthropy Is Not a Quick Fix for a Damaged Reputation

Alan Muller (University of Amsterdam) and Roman Kraussl (VU University of Amsterdam) discover that making financial donations to natural disaster victims doesn’t engender immediate goodwill.

6. How to Manage Your Company’s Reputation through a Crisis and Come Out On Top

Studying market reactions following the U.S. stock options “backdating scandal,” Jay J. Janney (University of Dayton) and Steve Gove (Virginia Tech) discover guilty firms suffered less severe declines in stock prices if they had strong reputations for social responsibility.

7. Making Money & Sustainable Progress with Entrepreneurship

Sarah Dixon and Anne Clifford (Kingston Business School) reveal the cost-saving and money-making tactics managers can borrow from “eco-preneurs” – from hiring strategies that lower your salary expenses to the free publicity you can generate for your CSR projects.

8. Employee Commitment Can Turn Ethics Into Dollars

Research by Jinseok Chun (Seoul National University) finds that a company’s higher ethical standards spur “good citizenship” between employees and ultimately improve financial performance.

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  • The Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) is a non-profit advancing sustainable development to build a fairer and more environmentally sound future. We aim to improve business practice by facilitating knowledge sharing across an international community of business leaders, scholars, students and policy makers. With these stakeholders, we co-create high-quality content that enables practical action. Our content focuses on 6 critical sustainability themes, from climate change to social justice.

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