Empirical examination of the direct and moderating role of corporate social responsibility in top executive compensation

Mahfuja Malik and Eunsup Daniel Shim

Pacific Accounting Review, 2022, vol. 34, issue 5, 708-727

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the direct association between firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores, CSR disclosures and executive compensation. This study further investigates the moderating role of CSR in the association between executive compensation and firms’ stock market and accounting performances. Design/methodology/approach - This study collects CEO compensation information from the Execucomp database and CSR performance information from the MSCI ESG database. The final sample consists of 4,193 firm-year observations for 1,318 US public firms for the period 2009–2013. This study uses lagged regression analysis to test the direct and moderating roles of CSR in executive compensation. Findings - Regarding the direct role of CSR, this study finds that CEO compensation is positively related to CSR performance but not to firms’ issuance of CSR reports. This study also finds a positive moderating role of CSR in the relationship between CEO compensation and firms’ stock performance. However, the authors do not identify any role for CSR in the relationship between CEO compensation and accounting performance. The results also show a negative association of CSR in the relationship between CEO compensation and firm size. Originality/value - This study fills a gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the direct association between CSR and CEO compensation and how the association between CEO compensation and firm performance is moderated by CSR scores. The novel findings of this study will benefit managers, boards of directors, shareholders and other stakeholders, including regulators and policymakers.

Keywords: Firm performance; CSR performance; Direct role; Moderating role; Top executive compensation; ESG ratings; Accounting returns; Market performances; M41; M52; M55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:parpps:par-09-2021-0162

DOI: 10.1108/PAR-09-2021-0162

Access Statistics for this article

Pacific Accounting Review is currently edited by Professor Tom Scott, Dr Pei-Chi Kelly Hsiao, Associate Professor Chelsea Liu, Associate Professor Sophia Su, Associate Professor Thu Phuong Truong and Dr Lily Chen

More articles in Pacific Accounting Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().