Lone founders, family founders, and corporate social responsibility

Olivier Meier () and Guillaume Schier
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Olivier Meier: UPE - Université Paris-Est, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, CNU - Conseil national des universités, FNEGE - Fondation Nationale pour l'Enseignement de la Gestion des Entreprises
Guillaume Schier: ESSCA School of Management Angers

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Abstract: This study explores the relationship between founder CEOs and corporate social responsibility (CSR). We use 1093 firm-year observations and CSR scores (Environment, Business Behavior, Community Involvement, etc.) from Vigeo-Eiris, the leading European social rating agency. As lone and family founders develop differentiated and statistically significant behaviors toward CSR, our results suggest that founders' social context is important. More precisely, we provide evidence that lone founders are less likely to invest in external CSR than are other CEOs. In contrast, their behavior toward internal CSR is not statistically different from that of non-founder CEOs. Conversely, family founders are more likely to invest in internal CSR activities. In addition, our results are strongly moderated by CEOs' age, indicating non-homogenous behavior toward CSR over time and suggesting a tendency to instrumentalize their CSR investments to address personal and family agendas.

Keywords: Founder CEO; Lone Founder; Family Founder; CSR; CEO’s age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05261437v1
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Published in Journal of Business Research, 2022, 148, pp.149-160. ⟨10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.04.056⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05261437

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.04.056

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