The growing interest in the impact that organizations have on society has made Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a matter of extraordinary relevance. Religions are among the factors that may drive the adoption of more CSR practices and, as such, may play a significant role in their promotion. The aim here is to discover whether religions contribute to the development of a broader range of CSR initiatives on the basis of Stakeholder, and Legitimacy theories. We studied the impact of different religions on an index made up of 122 CSR practices that include social and environmental issues. We tested the hypothesis proposed through panel data models for a sample composed of 13,884 firm-year observations from 30 countries. Our findings suggest that certain religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, have a positive influence on the adoption of CSR practices. Companies operating in countries with a high percentage of adherents to these religions are more prone to undertake CSR activities. However, Islam, Hinduism, and Folk religions record an inverse trend that evidences a negative link.

JEL codes: M14, M16

人们对组织对社会的影响越来越感兴趣，这使得企业社会责任 (CSR) 变得非常重要。宗教是可能推动采用更多企业社会责任实践的因素之一，因此，可能在促进这些实践中发挥重要作用。这里的目的是发现宗教是否有助于基于利益相关者和合法性理论的更广泛的企业社会责任倡议的发展。我们研究了不同宗教对包括社会和环境问题在内的 122 项企业社会责任实践组成的指数的影响。我们测试了通过面板数据模型提出的假设，样本由来自 30 个国家的 13,884 个公司年度观察组成。我们的研究结果表明，某些宗教，例如基督教、犹太教和佛教，对企业社会责任实践的采用产生积极影响。在这些宗教信徒比例高的国家运营的公司更倾向于开展企业社会责任活动。然而，伊斯兰教、印度教和民间宗教记录了一种相反的趋势，表明存在负相关。

JEL 代码：M14、M16