Study On The Institutional Pressure,Corporate Social Responsibility And Financial Performance

Since the 1990s,the developed countries in Europe and the United States has launched a sweeping global sport of corporate social responsibility(CSR).According to the theory of stakeholder,by undertaking social responsibility,corporates can obtain the resources of stakeholders to improve their financial performance.A large number of facts show that the behavior of taking social responsibility is an important way for corporates to enhance their core competitive advantage.For this reason,the issue of CSR has always received much attention in the academic,and the scholar has achieved many innovative theoretical results.However,there are few studies on the relationship between CSR and financial performance using institutional pressure as a moderating effect.The existence and development of a corporate cannot be separated from its institutional environment.According to institutional theory,institutional pressure will affect the strategic decision-making of corporates,especially the behaviors of their social responsibility.Therefore,the study of this paper has important theoretical and practical significance.Based on the data of Chinese listed company excluded financial firms in 2011-2017,this paper uses the theory of stakeholder and the theory of institution,combining theoretical derivation and empirical research,and along the research route of ’theoretical research-empirical research-countermeasure research’,to research the impact of CSR on financial performance and the moderating effect of institutional pressure in it.This paper includes the following three parts:first,the mechanism of the impact of CSR on financial performance and the moderating effect of institutional pressure;Second,the empirical research on the impact of CSR on financial performance;Third,the empirical research on the moderating effect of institutional pressure in CSR affecting financial performance.According to the result of research,this paper find:(1)CSR has a significant positive impact on financial performance,and this effect has a ’lag’.CSR will cause an increase in the current cost of companies operating,and the positive impact of CSR on financial performance needs a period of time to respond.(2)All of regulatory pressure,cognitive pressure and normative pressure play positive moderating roles in CSR affecting financial performance,but there are some differences in the degree and the time of these effects.In the short term,regulatory pressure has a significant positive adjustment on CSR affecting financial performance,but this moderating effect will weaken with the extension of time.Cognitive pressure has a weak positive adjustment on CSR affecting financial performance in the short term,but it has a significant positive adjustment on CSR affecting financial performance in the long term.With the extension of time,the positive adjustment of normative pressure on CSR affecting financial performance increases gradually,and its moderating effect is the strongest.(3)In enterprises with different property rights,the moderating effect of institutional pressure on CSR affecting financial performance is different.The positive moderating effect of regulatory pressure and cognitive pressure on CSR affecting financial performance is more significant in state-owned enterprises,while the positive moderating effect of normative pressure on CSR affecting financial performance is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises.There are some innovations of this paper:firstly,in order to fully explore the impact of CSR on financial performance in different time,this paper research the effect of lag about CSR affecting financial performance.And in order to avoid errors result from index selection,this paper uses accounting performance indicators and market performance indicators to measure the financial performance at the same time.Secondly,this paper researches on the moderating effect of institutional pressure in CSR affecting financial performance.Most of previous studies are about the mechanism of efficiency,and lack the empirical research on mechanism of legalization.Based on the theory of new institutionalism,this paper analyzes the moderating effect of institutional pressure on CSR affecting financial performance,and further deepens the importance of institutional environment and legalization mechanism for corporates’ development.Thirdly,this paper divides the institutional pressure into three levels:regulatory pressure,normative pressure and cognitive pressure.Most of previous studies regard institutional pressure as a whole,but in fact,institutional pressure is generated by the synergistic effect from different pressure sources.And the mechanisms of different institutional pressure are not the same,so it is impossible to explain some phenomena in reality if we only analyze them as a whole.