Board Characteristics and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Meta-Analytic Investigation

Abstract

<jats:p> Boards of directors affect corporate strategy and decision-making through monitoring of management and resource provision. Recently, an increasing number of studies have examined the relationships between board characteristics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). These studies have yielded inconsistent findings. This article therefore reports the results of a study applying meta-analytical techniques to a sample of 82 empirical studies to help clarify the relationships between board characteristics and CSR. Although prior research has tended to apply relatively simplistic models investigating the impact of individual board characteristics independently and only directly, we adopt a more complex perspective to shed new light on the board characteristics–CSR nexus. Specifically, we use a meta-analytic path model that accounts for the potential interplay between board characteristics in determining CSR and tests whether the presence of a CSR committee plays a meditating role. Our findings suggest that board size, board independence, and female board representation are partially interrelated with each other and jointly influence CSR directly as well as indirectly via the presence of a CSR committee. In addition, we find that country-level institutional factors act as moderators and that the relationships differ with regard to the specific dimension of CSR (i.e., social, environmental, or aggregate). </jats:p>

Do chief sustainability officers and CSR committees influence CSR-related outcomes? A structured literature review based on empirical-quantitative research findings

“…These restrictions in vote counting and narrative literature reviews might be overcome by the use of quantitative meta-analysis (Combs et al 2011). Although meta-analyses are not very common in management control and corporate governance research, we found that an increasing number have been published over the years (Byron and Post 2016;Endrikat et al 2020;Khlif and Chalmers 2015). As there are very conflicting results from empirical-quantitative studies in sustainable corporate governance research, meta-analyses statistically summarise existing research and increase the quality of results compared with literature reviews.…”

“…Regarding the restricted number of studies and the low number of cross-country studies, a meta-analysis on this topic would not be useful yet. In a recent meta-analysis, Endrikat et al (2020) analysed the link between several board composition variables (board size, board independence, gender diversity and CEO duality) and CSR, and included the implementation of CSR committees as a mediator. Thus, in light of increased research and practical and regulatory relevance, our literature review on the link between institutionalised sustainability board expertise via CSR committees and CSOs and CSR effects makes a useful contribution to present research on sustainable corporate governance.…”

Meta-analyses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): a literature review

“…Board independence represents one major requirement of board effectiveness, as non executives should conduct their monitoring tasks without major conflicts of interests in line with stakeholders' needs. There are clear indications that board independence significantly increases both CSR performance (Endrikat et al 2020;Ortas et al 2017) and CSR reporting (Lagasio and Cucari 2019; Velte 2019a; Guerrero-Villegas et al 2018). However, Majumder et al 2017found insignificant results, based on just 29 included studies.…”

“…A greater range of board diversity, especially with regard to gender, should lead to increased awareness of CSR strategies. Thus, prior meta-analyses state that board gender diversity is linked with better CSR performance (Endrikat et al 2020;Byron and Post 2016) and CSR reporting (Lagasio and Cucari 2019; Velte 2019a; Guerrero-Villegas et al 2018). Again, Majumder et al (2017) did not find any significant results.…”

The Role of CSR on Social Entrepreneurship: An International Analysis

“…Considering the institutional theory of CSR [110], firms will behave in a responsible way as a consequence of external pressures by confronting stakeholder groups-mainly investors, competitors, and the concerned public-due to their corporate visibility [111]. From an internal perspective, corporate governance plays an important role in determining CSR actions [112][113][114][115]. In this way, we can conceptualise CSR as a business driver to transfer cultural values from the macro-level and transform them into part of the corporate culture at the micro-level.…”