Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate if and how firm performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is related to corporate payouts and how competition in product markets influences this relation.

Design/methodology/approach

Logit and Tobit regressions are used to estimate the relation between firm performance in CSR and corporate payouts.

Findings

The empirical results show that firm performance in CSR is positively related to the propensity and level of dividends, repurchases and total payouts (dividends plus repurchases). However, the positive relation between CSR performance and corporate payouts is significant only for firms that operate in low competition markets. In high competition markets, CSR performance does not seem to have any significant relation with corporate payouts.

Research limitations/implications

This study uses MSCI social ratings data to measure net scores on CSR. There is no systematic conceptual reason for measuring social performance using MSCI social ratings. Future research should use other measures of social performance (e.g. Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Accountability Ratings and Global Reporting Initiative to estimate the relation between CSR and corporate payouts).

Practical implications

CSR firms are more likely to choose higher payouts when they operate in low competition markets.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the stream of research that evaluates the payout choices of CSR firms and competition in product markets. To the author's knowledge, this is the first study that documents the impact of market competition on the relation between firm performance in CSR and corporate payouts.

中文翻译：

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企业社会责任与企业支付政策：产品市场竞争的影响

目的

本文的目的是实证研究公司在企业社会责任 (CSR) 方面的表现是否以及如何与企业支付相关，以及产品市场的竞争如何影响这种关系。

设计/方法/方法

Logit 和 Tobit 回归用于估计公司在 CSR 中的表现与公司支出之间的关系。

发现

实证结果表明，企业在企业社会责任方面的表现与股息、回购和总支付（股息加回购）的倾向和水平呈正相关。然而，企业社会责任绩效与企业支出之间的正相关关系仅对在低竞争市场中运营的企业才显着。在竞争激烈的市场中，企业社会责任绩效似乎与企业支出没有任何显着关系。

研究限制/影响

本研究使用 MSCI 社会评级数据来衡量 CSR 的净得分。使用 MSCI 社会评级来衡量社会绩效没有系统的概念上的理由。未来的研究应该使用其他衡量社会绩效的指标（例如道琼斯可持续发展指数、责任评级和全球报告倡议来估计企业社会责任和企业支出之间的关系）。

实际影响

企业社会责任公司在低竞争市场中运营时更有可能选择更高的支出。

原创性/价值

本研究有助于评估企业社会责任公司的支付选择和产品市场竞争的研究流。据作者所知，这是第一个记录市场竞争对企业社会责任绩效与企业支付之间关系的影响的研究。