The Impact of Social Norms of Responsibility on Corporate Social Responsibility Short Title: The Impact of Social Norms of Responsibility on Corporate Social Responsibility
Leyuan You ()
Additional contact information
Leyuan You: Texas State University
Journal of Business Ethics, 2024, vol. 190, issue 2, No 3, 309-326
Abstract:
Abstract Social norms of responsibility are shared beliefs on what constitutes responsible behavior, and they play a significant role in determining CSR. This study analyzes how social norms of responsibility permeate corporate boundaries and influence CSR through political leaders, corporate executives, employees, and the public. Socially irresponsible behaviors of the above populations are used as proxies for local social responsibility norms and related to CSR ratings for firms headquartered in the twenty largest U.S. metro areas. The empirical results show that firms headquartered in cities with more responsible social norms exhibit higher ESG scores even after controlling for various demographic, regional, and economic factors. Social responsibility norms encourage firms to be more responsible but are ineffective in deterring irresponsible corporate behaviors. Corporate and political leaders are the essential channels through which social norms of responsibility influence CSR, highlighting the importance of instituting regulations and setting high ethical standards for political and business leaders. This study also demonstrates that social norms have a significant impact on firms with leaders who are more susceptible to local social norms (i.e., local leaders) than non-local leaders. In addition, this study documents a negative bias for responsible social norms in that they condemn irresponsible behaviors more than reward responsible ones. Collectively, the above findings underline the importance of social norms of responsibility in shaping CSR and provide additional insights into societal motivations for CSR.
Keywords: CSR; Social norms; Socially responsible; Irresponsible; Misbehaviors; ESG (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-023-05417-w Abstract (text/html)
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:kap:jbuset:v:190:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-023-05417-w
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05417-w
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman
More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().