We investigate the nature of the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) by examining how it changes across a third dimension that accounts for firm-specific factors. We propose a semi-latent specification of an endogenous control variable, which can, for the first time, explicitly identify, for each individual firm, the threshold level where the marginal impact of CSR on CFP turns positive. We provide empirical evidence that this threshold depends on the additional dimension and consequently, the previously reported U-shape seems to be an aggregation of relationships of differential magnitude and direction. This disaggregation fits the data better and therefore, we maintain that the addition of a higher dimension, along with the identification of the threshold level, can first, explain the conflicting results in the literature and second, provide a managerial tool for identifying an optimal CSR investment strategy with respect to profitability.

中文翻译：

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企业社会责任：多少才够？财务与社会绩效关系的高维视角

我们通过检查企业社会责任 (CSR) 与企业财务绩效 (CFP) 之间的关系如何在考虑公司特定因素的第三个维度上发生变化，来研究企业社会责任 (CSR) 与企业财务绩效 (CFP) 之间关系的性质。我们提出了一个内生控制变量的半潜在规范，它第一次可以明确地确定每个公司的阈值水平，CSR 对 CFP 的边际影响变为正值。我们提供的经验证据表明，该阈值取决于附加维度，因此，先前报告的 U 形似乎是不同幅度和方向关系的聚合。这种分解更适合数据，因此，我们认为添加更高的维度以及阈值级别的识别可以首先，