Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility

Jongmoo Jay Choi (), Hoje Jo (), Jimi Kim () and Moo Sung Kim ()
Additional contact information
Jongmoo Jay Choi: Temple University
Hoje Jo: Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
Jimi Kim: University of New South Wales
Moo Sung Kim: Zayed University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2018, vol. 153, issue 4, No 2, 954 pages

Abstract: Abstract There is a growing literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR), but few have focused on the implications of business groups for CSR. We examine the antecedents and outcomes of CSR behaviors of group firms in Korea. We find that group affiliation is associated with higher CSR overall and for its major societal and environmental components. However, the ownership disparity between cash flow and control by controlling inside shareholders is associated with lower CSR, consistent with opportunistic rent expropriation theory. We further find that CSR initiatives can impact group firms positively in the event of bad events, consistent with insurance theory. This motive for CSR as a means of enhancing reputation capital to buffer the bad events is pronounced for group firms because of group-wide dissemination of negative reputational externality.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Business group; Chaebol; Ownership disparity; Reputational externality; Reputation capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3916-0

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