An Empirical Research On Female Directors,Corporate Performance And Corporate Philanthropy

In recent years, with the frequent occurrence of corporate scandals, company managers have begun to assume corporate social responsibility. Under these circumstances, companies can not only fulfill its legal and economic responsibilities, so the public began to pay attention to voluntary charitable responsibility, which can improve corporate image.Under the background of the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 and Yushu Earthquake in 2010, the paper chooses all A-share listed companies of stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen as research samples to study the relationship between female directors, corporate financial performance and corporate charitable donation. The theoretical research of this paper includes the significance of corporate social responsibility of listed companies, motivation of charitable donation and the characteristics of female directors’decision making. First, I use the method of literature analysis to summarize the development of corporate social responsibility, and then classify and summarize associated with the current status of corporate social responsibility associated with the stakeholder theory, the decision relevance, legitimacy theory, sustainable development theory, social contract theory and signal theory of domestic. Next, I classify corporate philanthropy motivations from the three aspects——economic motivation, cultural motivation and organizational motivation. Finally, to start with the present situation of female directors’working environment, the paper focuses on two features of female directors——conservatism and willing to donate.In the empirical analysis, this paper first chooses all A-share listed companies of stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen as research samples to study the effects of female directors on corporate charitable donation. The results show that companies with higher proportion of female directors tend to charitable donations. Afterwards, the paper chooses A-share listed companies of stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen that have donated for Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 and Yushu Earthquake in 2010, and study the influence of female directors on charity donation form and value of charity donation.Specifically, the forms of charitable donations include cash donation and property donation. The paper considers property donation as a more conservative form of donation, because cash donation has a direct impact on corporate financial performance. The results of the study show that companies with higher proportion of female directors tend to choose property donation, and to have less value for charitable donation, which reflects the prudent characteristics of female directors’decision-making.Finally, respectively choosing all A-share listed companies of stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen and A-share listed companies of stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen that have donated for Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 and Yushu Earthquake in 2010 as research sample, the paper studies the influence of corporate financial performance behind one year on corporate charitable donation, donation form and donation value.The results show that, compared to non-donation companies, donation companies have better financial performance for the next one year. Compared to companies of cash donations, donated companies of property donation have better financial performance for the next year. Companies with higher charitable donation value have a better financial performance for the next year. The conclusions show the financial motivation of listedcompanies’ charitable donation behavior obviously.