[雙語翻譯]--外文翻譯--企業(yè)社會責(zé)任對企業(yè)價值的影響客戶意識的作用（原文）

1、MANAGEMENT SCIENCEVol. 59, No. 5, May 2013, pp. 1045–1061 ISSN 0025-1909 (print) ? ISSN 1526-5501 (online) http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1630 © 2013 INFORMSThe Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Firm

2、 Value: The Role of Customer AwarenessHenri ServaesLondon Business School, London NW1 4SA, United Kingdom, hservaes@london.eduAne TamayoLondon School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom, a

3、.m.tamayo@lse.ac.ukT his paper shows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm value are positively related for firms with high customer awareness, as proxied by advertising expenditures. For firms with low cus

4、tomer awareness, the relation is either negative or insignificant. In addition, we find that the effect of awareness on the CSR–value relation is reversed for firms with a poor prior reputation as corporate citizens. Thi

5、s evidence is consistent with the view that CSR activities can add value to the firm but only under certain conditions.Key words: corporate social responsibiliy; firm value; customer awareness; reputation History: Receiv

6、ed September 21, 2009; accepted June 13, 2012, by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy. Published online in Articles in Advance January 8, 2013.1. Introduction Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral pa

7、rt of business practice over the last decade or so. In fact, many corporations dedicate a section of their annual reports and corporate websites to CSR activities, illustrating the importance they attach to such activiti

8、es. But do such activities create value for the firm’s shareholders or do they focus too much on other stakeholders, thereby lowering firm value? Despite much research on the topic (for reviews of the literature, see Gri

9、ffin and Mahon 1997, Orlitzky 2001, Orlitzky et al. 2003, Margolis and Walsh 2003, Margolis et al. 2009), few firm conclusions can be drawn, except that the literature is divided. Although there appears to be more suppor

10、t for the view that CSR activities are positively related to profitability and firm value, a large number of studies find the opposite relation. As a result, the normative implica- tions of research on corporate social r

11、esponsibility are still uncertain. The relation between CSR activities and firm value is unclear partly because of methodological concerns (Margolis and Walsh 2001) and, in particular, model misspecification. Even more i

12、mportant is, perhaps, the lack of understanding about the channels through which CSR affects firm value. Most theoretical mod- els assume a direct link between CSR and firm value. In this paper, we propose an indirect li

13、nk. In particu- lar, we rely on Barnett’s (2007) insight that the impact of CSR on firm value depends on the ability of CSR to influence stakeholders in the firm. We focus on one of the key stakeholders, consumers, and s

14、uggest thata necessary condition for CSR to modify consumer behavior and, hence, affect firm value, is consumer awareness of firm CSR activities. Moreover, we argue that consumers are less likely to respond to CSR activ-

15、 ities, even if they are aware of them, if the CSR activ- ities are not aligned with the firm’s reputation as a responsible citizen (see also Du et al. 2010, Schuler and Cording 2006). In this paper, we revisit the relat

16、ion between CSR and firm value, taking into account the concerns men- tioned above. Using models with firm fixed effects to address model misspecification problems, we exam- ine whether and under what conditions CSR can

17、add value to the firm. More specifically, we study whether CSR activities are more value enhancing if they are conducted by firms with more consumer awareness. Although the relation between CSR and firm value ought not t

18、o be confined to the consumer channel, consumers constitute a natural starting point to uncover such a relation, given that their purchasing behavior clearly affects a company’s financial perfor- mance and, ultimately, f

19、irm value. We also investi- gate whether the impact of awareness is attenuated for firms with a poor prior reputation for responsi- ble behavior, and contrast the consumer awareness story with an alternative in which CSR

20、 is employed by socially conscious entrepreneurs who wish to sig- nal product quality. In our analyses, we employ the KLD Stats database over the period 1991–2005, which covers CSR activ- ities of a large subset of U.S.

21、companies, and combine it with financial statement data obtained1045Servaes and Tamayo: The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Firm Value Management Science 59(5), pp. 1045–1061, © 2013 INFORMS 10472.2. Cu

22、stomer Awareness and CSR There is a substantial theoretical literature suggest- ing that CSR activities can enhance profitability and, hence, the value of the firm. Berman et al. (1999) provided an excellent overview of

23、the various ele- ments of CSR and the ways in which these activi- ties can increase firm value.2 The concern, of course, is that CSR activities are costly and that the costs do not (always) outweigh the benefits. In fact

24、, empirical studies on the relation between the value of the firm and CSR activities find mixed results, including an impressive number of studies reporting a negative rela- tion (see Griffin and Mahon 1997; for a differ

25、ing view, see Roman et al. 1999). Our goal is to examine under which circumstances CSR involvement may be beneficial. We focus on the customer channel and examine the effect of a poten- tial moderating variable, advertis

26、ing intensity, on the CSR–firm value relation. We posit that through adver- tising a firm reduces the information gap between itself and its customers, which, in turn, makes it more likely that customers will find out ab

27、out the firm’s CSR involvement, and reward the firm for its CSR efforts. In developing our prediction that advertising inten- sity enhances the benefits of CSR, we turn to the lit- erature in strategy, marketing, and bus

28、iness ethics, which has established two facts. First, customers take into consideration firms’ CSR activities when making purchase decisions (see, for example, Brown and Dacin 1997, Creyer and Ross 1997, Sen and Bhattach

29、arya 2001, Bhattacharya and Sen 2004, Penn Schoen Berland 2010). Some of this research sug- gests that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for products of firms with more CSR engage- ment; other work suggests tha

30、t, although consumers are not willing to pay a higher price, they will more likely purchase goods from firms that are more socially responsible. These findings support Baron’s (2001) original insight that “a practice lab

31、elled as socially responsible???increases the demand for its (the firm’s) product. This strategic CSR is sim- ply a profit-maximizing strategy motivated by self- interest???” (p. 9). In this context, CSR is considered a

32、product attribute, and therefore a strategic investment chosen to maximize firm value. The second fact is that consumers are often not aware of a firm’s CSR activ- ities (see, for example, Sen and Bhattacharya 2001, Bhat

33、tacharya and Sen 2004, Pomering and Dolnicar 2009, Du et al. 2010). There is a clear disconnect between these two facts. As articulated by Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) and2 See also Bies et al. (2007) and the other papers

34、 in the special topic forum on “Corporations as Social Change Agents,” published in the Academy of Management Review, Volume 32, 2007.Schuler and Cording (2006), the lack of customers’ awareness about CSR initiatives is

35、a major limiting factor in their ability to respond to these initiatives. Similarly, McWilliams and Siegel (2001) argued that potential customers must be fully aware of CSR char- acteristics for CSR differentiation to be

36、 successful; they also predicted a positive correlation between advertising intensity and the provision of CSR.3 All of these authors recommended that companies work on increasing CSR awareness levels, if CSR is to be a

37、profitable strategic investment.4 This work also sug- gests that not all firms fully appreciate the impor- tance of customer awareness when evaluating CSR as a strategic investment. In this paper, we posit that advertisi

38、ng enhances a firm’s information environment, thereby increas- ing the firm’s (potential) customers’ awareness about the firm and likely prompting them to become fur- ther informed about the firm, its products, and prac-

39、 tices, including its corporate social performance. The notion that advertising provides information about the firm goes back at least to Nelson (1974) (see also Bagwell 2007 for a review of the literature). More recentl

40、y, relating advertising to CSR, McWilliams and Siegel (2000, 2001) suggested that CSR-related adver- tising and media coverage may increase consumer awareness of CSR. This, in turn, increases the demand for socially resp

41、onsible behavior and the returns to engaging in such behavior. They did not, however, formally model or test this conjecture. All these arguments lead to our main prediction that the impact of CSR activities on the value

42、 of the firm will be positively related to advertising intensity. We note that this prediction does not imply that firms need to advertise their CSR activities (as suggested by McWilliams and Siegel 2000, 2001); all that

43、 is required is that advertising intensity leads to increased aware- ness of the firm, including its CSR activities. Our prediction differs from the predictions derived from Schuler and Cording’s (2006) model. Schuler an

44、d Cording (2006) also argued that information intensity is one of the key elements in the CSR–value relation. Their argument relies on the dissemination of CSR information by the firm or other parties. This could happen

45、through advertising, but it is likely that most advertising does not directly speak to the firm’s CSR activities. Moreover, Schuler and Cording’s (2006) argument would only apply to firms with particular3 See also Bramme

46、r and Millington (2008), who estimated a model of the relation between charitable giving and advertising intensity (and a number of other variables).4 As early as 1975, Stone (1975) pointed out more generally that for ma