The Effect Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Corporate Financial Performance Of Real Estate Companies

The real estate industry plays an important role in the development of China ’s economy.Under the background of the popular trend of corpor ate social responsibility,it is theoretically and practically necessary to dig out the impact of corporate social responsibility(CSR)on financial performance(CFP)of real estate companies.It can not only help real estate companies make decision on whe ther and how to undertake social responsibilities,but also help them seek new ways to build sustainable core competitive advantage and improve their corporate performance.However,relevant research in this field is still relatively weak overall recently.Given the particularity of the real estate industry,this paper will study the direct and indirect,short-term and long-term effects of real estate CSR on CFP.Firstly,this paper clarifies the concepts of real estate CSR and CFP,and clearly defines the content of real estate CSR based on the theory of stakeholder.On this basis,from the perspective of the real estate company’s responsibility to its creditors,shareholders,consumers,upstream and downstream enterprises,employees,the government,and society,this paper constructs an evaluation index system and model for real estate CSR and analyzes the current status of China’s real estate CSR practice.After that,this paper constructs an empirical model of the impact of real estate CSR on CFP,focusing on the direct and indirect,short-term and long-term effects of real estate CSR on CFP.Finally,this paper tests the robustness of the empirical model.According to the results of empirical research,it can be found that,first,corporate social responsibility has a significant positive impact on the performance of real estate listed companies,and this positive impact is mainly affected by the company’s responsibility to consumers,shareholders,and upstream and downstream companies..Second,corporate social responsibility has a certain lag effect on the performance of listed real estate companies,and this lag effect generally shows a downward trend.Third,there is a significant lag effect on the performance of listed real estate companies’ protection of government,creditors,upstream and downstream enterprises,and consumers on their corporate performance,and the lag effect of the latter three shows an overall downward trend.Taking the listed real estate company for example,using factor analysis,the paper makes a comparative analysis on the level of CSR among 107 real estate A-listed companies base on Choice data and Rankins CSR Ratings data from 2008 to 2017.The results show that the current comprehensive performance of CSR of real estate listed companies in China is still at a relatively low level,and there is a certain polarization phenomenon in the performance of CSR among these companies with different registration locations,different natures and different sizes.At the same time,China’s real estate listed companies have the best CSR performance for shareholders,but they ignore the responsibility for upstream and downstream enterprises,consumers,employees,government and social.According to the results of empirical research,it can be found that CSR of real estate listed companies has a significant positive impact on their CFP,and this positive impact is mainly through the company’s responsibility to consumers,shareholders,upstream and downstream enterprises to affect its CFP perfor mance.Meanwhile,CSR of real estate listed companies has a certain lag effect on their CFP,and this lag effect is generally declining.In addition,CSR for different stakeholders of real estate listed companies has a significant lag effect on their CFP,and this lag effect is also generally declining.