Abstract This study examines how the gender of corporate social responsibility (CSR) leaders (as signers of the CSR reports) could affect two psychometric properties (i.e., solidarity and certainty) and the readability of the reports. We also investigate how these gender-based differences are associated with firms' future perceived social performance. We conduct textual analyses on a sample of 346 firms in the S&P500 index that issued annual CSR reports during the period of 2006 to 2015. Our findings show that CSR reports with a female (vis-a-vis male) executive as the signer or co-signer are more readable, show more solidarity with readers, but express less certainty in the narratives. In examining their impacts, we find that readability and solidarity, but not certainty, are positively associated with firms' future social performance. Our results suggest the value relevance of leveraging greater female representation in firms' CSR reporting leadership teams so as to help firms enhance their social objectives and signal their future social performance.

中文翻译：

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企业社会责任报告中的女性领导力：对写作，可读性和未来社会绩效的影响

摘要这项研究探讨了企业社会责任（CSR）负责人的性别（作为CSR报告的签署人）如何影响两个心理计量属性（即团结和确定性）以及报告的可读性。我们还研究了这些基于性别的差异如何与企业未来的感知社会绩效相关联。我们对S＆P500指数中346家公司的样本进行了文本分析，该公司在2006年至2015年期间发布了年度企业社会责任报告。我们的研究结果表明，企业社会责任报告由女性（相对于男性）高管作为签署人或共同人。 -签名更具可读性，与读者更加团结，但叙事表达的不确定性较低。在检查它们的影响时，我们发现可读性和团结性（但不确定性）与企业未来的社会绩效呈正相关。