Corporate Social Responsibility Performance,Trade Credit Financing And Investment Efficiency

In recent years,with the outbreak of a series of CSR events and the introduction of social responsibility policies,the academic community has begun to study the economic consequences of fulfilling social responsibility,but the existing researches focus more on the impact of social responsibility on corporate value and corporate performance.Due to the immature development of Chinese capital market,the phenomenon of inefficient investment caused by information asymmetry and agency problem is widespread.There are many factors that affect the investment behavior of enterprises,but few literatures that study the impact of social responsibility performance on investment efficiency.This paper tries to study the relation between social responsibility performance and investment efficiency.Given social responsibility performance not only can directly affect the efficiency of investment,as an important no-financial component of evaluating enterprises,but also can affect the financing activities.The financing conditions can also restrict the investment activities of enterprises.Therefore,in this paper,trade credit financing,an important form of debt financing,is incorporated into the research framework to explore whether it is one of the indirect ways that social responsibility performance affects investment efficiency.Based on the stakeholder theory,signal transfer theory,information asymmetry theory,principal-agent theory,etc.,this paper constructs a theoretical connection among social responsibility performance,trade credit financing and investment efficiency.Then this paper selects 2010-2018 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies as the research sample,takes the social responsibility performance score published by Hexun as the measurement standard of social responsibility performance,takes accounts payable,notes payable and deposit received as the measurement standard of trade credit financing,uses Richardson(2006)residual model as the measurement standard of investment efficiency.Finally,this paper examines the relations among social responsibility performance,trade credit financing and investment efficiency,we find evidence that:(1)Social responsibility performance is significantly positively correlated with investment efficiency,that is to say,good social responsibility performance is conducive to the improvement of enterprise investment efficiency.(2)Social responsibility performance is significantly positively correlated with trade credit financing,in other words,good social responsibility performance is conducive to the improvement of the utilization rate of trade credit financing.(3)Trade credit financing plays a part of the intermediary role between social responsibility performance and investment efficiency,it is one of the indirect ways that social responsibility performance affects investment efficiency.(4)Property right plays a regulating role in the mediating effect of social responsibility performance,trade credit financing and investment efficiency.Specifically,in non-state-owned listed companies,trade credit financing plays a more obvious mediating effect in the relation between social responsibility and investment efficiency.The innovations of this paper are reflected in integrating social responsibility performance,trade credit financing and investment efficiency into a research framework,constructing a mediating effect model to examine the way that social responsibility performance affects investment efficiency,and expanding the influence path of social responsibility on investment efficiency.This will help enterprises to enhance their understanding of the economic consequences of fulfilling social responsibility,improve their initiative in fulfilling social responsibility,promote them to actively integrate social responsibility into the development strategy,enhance their financing capacity,improve investment efficiency,and achieve sound and sustainable development.In addition,the research in this paper also provides empirical data for the government and other regulatory authorities,which can help them to play a better guiding role and create a better market-oriented environment for enterprise operation.