Keywords

stakeholder attention, corporate social responsibility, financial performance

Abstract

Stakeholder theory suggests a relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) because certain stakeholders reward certain types of CSR. This argument assumes that stakeholders attend to firms’ CSR activities—an assumption that has yet to be examined. We fill this gap by extending stakeholder theory to the context of stakeholder attention to firm CSR and exploring the antecedents and consequences of stakeholder attention to corporate disaster relief CSR. We test the resulting hypotheses on a sample of public companies that engaged in natural disaster relief efforts, finding that stakeholder attention partially mediated the relationship between disaster relief and CFP and that stakeholder attention to corporate disaster relief was driven by the legitimacy, urgency, and enactment of disaster relief CSR initiatives.

Original Publication Citation

"Looking Good by Doing Good: The Antecendents and Consequences of Stakeholder Attention to Corporate Social Performance", Strategic Management Journal, 2015

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2013

Publisher

Strategic Management Journal

Language

English

College

Marriott School of Business

Department

Marketing

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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