Demand for CSR: Insights from Shareholder Proposals

Abstract

all participants at the 3 rd CSEAR France for their useful comments. We are grateful to the Chaire de recherche en gouvernance de sociétés of the Université Laval for providing funding for this project. We also thank Janie-Claude Bouchard and Marie-Ève Buist for their helpful research assistance. 2 DEMAND FOR CSR: INSIGHTS FROM SHAREHOLDER PROPOSALS ABSTRACTMotivated by the increasing popularity and attention shareholder proposals on CSR attract, the purpose of this study is to provide a detailed portrayal of shareholders' demands for CSR through their proposals. To this end, we conduct a descriptive longitudinal study of the CSR proposals submitted to US corporations for the fiscal years 1996 to 2009. We use a unique coding process in which we identify both the CSR area of concern to the shareholders and the desired effect the proposal is intended to stimulate on the corporation. Our findings expose how shareholders engage with corporations mostly around the issues of governance and environment, requesting more transparency from the companies and sometimes improved actions or business decisions. Firms from a wide range of industries are targeted, with their levels of CSR performance, profitability and size attracting different kinds of requests in terms of CSR areas and expected outcomes for the corporation. Shareholders can be relatively intense in their requests for CSR, with the majority of the firms in our sample being targeted more than once a year by CSR proposals. Our study deepens our understanding of shareholders' concerns and requests for improvements in CSR.

Using big data to evaluate corporate social responsibility and sustainable development practices

“…Companies' stakeholders not only expect this CRS behaviour but also demand transparency (Gray, 2006) and disclosure of information that enables them to evaluate companies' CSR impacts (Michelon & Rodrigue, 2015). Therefore, companies have to communicate their CSR issues to their stakeholders.…”

Relevansi Nilai Laporan Keberlanjutan Di Indonesia

“…Dengan adanya sustainability reporting, investor dapat mengantisipasi bahwa suatu perusahaan akan memiliki kinerja yang baik pada periode di masa depan (Ameer & Othman, 2012;Greiling & Grüb, 2014;Massa, Farneti, & Scappini, 2015;Waworuntu, Wantah, & Rusmanto, 2014). Ada dua teori yang dipakai di dalam penelitian ini dalam menjelaskan pengaruh antara sustainability reporting dan nilai perusahaan yaitu teori signaling (Ahn, 2019;Chen & Lee, 2017;Michelon & Rodrigue, 2015) dan teori stakeholder (Kim, Kim, Marshall, & Afzali, 2018;She & Michelon, 2019).…”

“…Menurut teori signaling informasi yang diungkapkan perusahaan dapat memberikan sinyal kepada investor. Sinyal ini di-gunakan investor untuk membuat keputusan investasi (Ahn, 2019;Chen & Lee, 2017;Michelon & Rodrigue, 2015). Informasi keuangan yang sering diungkapkan oleh perusahaan salah satunya yaitu informasi earning.…”

Who Saves Our World? the Impact of Executives' Gender on Corporate Social and Ecological Investments.

“…Finally, as public attention to firms' involvement in socially and environmentally responsible business practices has risen and investors with a focus on socially and ecologically responsible investments have gained prominence (Boiral, Heras-Saizarbitoria, & Testa 2017;Michelon & Rodrigue, 2015), we also predict that shareholder pressure affects executives' CSR decision making (Hypothesis 3). However, using the relative financial performance of our hypothetical firm in our experiment to manipulate shareholder pressure, we do not find an effect on executives' CSR decision making.…”

“…We thus expect that greater relevance of financial goals achievement in executives' incentive program leads executives' to focus more on short-term financial return when making CSR investment decisions. In recent years, public attention to firms' involvement in socially and environmentally responsible business practices has risen, while investors with a focus on socially and ecologically responsible investments have gained prominence and increased their activism (Boiral et al, 2017;Michelon & Rodrigue, 2015). Research shows that external pressure, such as shareholder concentration or regulatory and institutional pressure, can influence a firm's CSR activities (Beddewela & Fairbrass, 2016;Dam & Scholtens, 2013).…”