Does the Board of Directors affects Corporate Social Responsibility Performance?: Insights from an SEM-PLS Approach

• Autores: Pedro Pinheiro, Manuela Sarmento
• Localización: Dirección y organización: Revista de dirección, organización y administración de empresas, ISSN 1132-175X, Nº 80, 2023, págs. 42-59
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • ¿La Composicion del Consejo de Administración afecta el Desempeño de la Responsabilidad Social Empresarial?: Perspectivas desde un enfoque SEM-PLS
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• Resumen
  • español

    Los determinantes del desempeño de la responsabilidad social empresarial corresponden a un campo de investigación que no ha sido completamente explorado cuando se utiliza una muestra multinacional. Asi, la investigación pretende analizar la relación entre las características del consejo de administración y el desempeño de la responsabilidad social utilizando una muestra de 776 organizaciones de 20 países entre 2014 y 2021 a través de la utilizacion de un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales. Los resultados muestran una relación positiva entre las características del consejo de administración y el desempeño de la responsabilidad social, principalmente el papel de las mujeres y de los miembros independientes y non executivos

  • English

    The determining factors of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance correspond to a field of research that has not been fully explored, mainly when using a multinational sample. This issue is usually mentioned as a gap in the literature. Among the determinants referred to in prior literature, those related to corporate governance mechanisms, namely board characteristics, are the object of study of this paper due to the importance of the board in defining corporate strategy and practices. Several authors sustain that stakeholders’ theory is perhaps the one that brings together more literary analyses within the context of corporate social responsibility but since we consider that a multi theory approach is the only way to analyze all the CSR disclosure specter agency theory and legitimacy theory are also considered important to bring new insights into our research. In this context, our research intends to analyze the relationship between the board of directors’ characteristics and corporate social responsibility performance using a sample of 776 public listed companies located in 20 different countries across Europe, between 2014 and 2021. We use board dimension, board independence, gender diversity, CEO duality and non-executive board members as proxies for the latent variable called the board of directors and to measure corporate social performance, we use the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 ESG index that encompasses three pillars, ten categories, and 178 indicators. The environmental pillar brings together three categories and 61 indicators. The social pillar brings together four categories and 63 indicators. The pillar of corporate governance brings together three categories and 54 indicators. To achieve our objective a methodology of structural equations was used. The results show a positive relationship between the board of directors’ characteristics and corporate social responsibility performance. Our results show also that, in average terms, boards have 11 members, about half of them are considered independent, are considered as non-executives and that social pillar is the one with the highest level of performance. The obtained results allow us also to highlight the importance of the board of directors’ composition concerning social responsibility performance due to the positive association that was found between the variables. These findings might have several implications; firstly, it is important to highlight the role of women on the board, i.e. the importance of gender diversity in promoting corporate social responsibility and the importance of independent and non-executive board members, not only as a control mechanism but also as a way to promote social responsibility issues among organizations. Our results also aim to contribute to the design of governance structures that enhance the disclosure of information related to corporate social responsibility.