This study examines the impact of chief executive officer ability on firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. We find that firms’ CSR performance increases with CEO ability. Specifically, firms with more able CEOs are associated with more socially responsible activities and fewer socially irresponsible activities, and are associated with more stakeholder CSR rather than third-party CSR. We further find that the positive relation between CEO ability and CSR is weakened for CEO who is also the chair of the board and for (...) CEO who is close to retirement; and is weakened when the CSR emphasis exerted by a firm’s external environment is high. Our results are robust after controlling for firm fixed effects and to the use of multiple measures of CSR performance and CEO ability. Overall, our evidence is consistent with our conjecture that more able CEOs have less career concerns so that these CEOs are more willing to undertake long-term investments in socially beneficial activities, leading to better CSR performance. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between a firm’s business strategy and its corporate social responsibility performance. Using a comprehensive measure of business strategy based on the Miles and Snow theoretical framework, we find that firms following an innovation-oriented strategy are associated with better CSR performance than those following an efficiency-oriented strategy. Specifically, compared with defenders, prospectors engage in more socially responsible activities, fewer socially irresponsible activities, and perform better in both stakeholder- and third-party-related CSR areas. Taken together, our results suggest (...) that business strategy is an important determinant of CSR performance. Prospectors take advantage of CSR, as their innovation-oriented strategy allows them not only to benefit more from CSR, but also to have more tolerance for the uncertainty, risk, and long time-horizon associated with CSR engagement. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of CEO ability on corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. We take samples from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and use the ordinary least squares as a baseline regression model to check the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. Our findings are robust to different corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure measures and CEO ability. We found a positive association between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure; thus, firms (...) with a more able CEO are more likely to disclose more corporate environmental sustainability information. Our results also found a significant negative interaction coefficient between CEO ability and CEO career concerns. As the CEO grows older, his/her ability decreases; therefore, corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure reduces. Furthermore, we document that a female CEO strengthens the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. The study results are important for understanding corporate environmental responsibility development and implementation, particularly in China. (shrink)

This paper investigates the correlation between the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure and financial performance. It also investigates the moderating role of chief executive officer power in the relationship between the quality of CSR disclosure and firm value in Chinese listed companies. The evidential research used the up-to-date sample of unbalanced findings for the period of 2014–2020, from the registered Chinese firms in the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges as samples for the study. As a starting point technique, the (...) STATA 15 has been used to test pooled ordinary least squares regression on a sample of Chinese listed companies. We use 1-year lagged regression and two SLS regressions to monitor the potential endogeneity problem. The imbalanced data set was received from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research web page, which is the most significant source of information for Chinese publicly listed firms. Data on CSR information items and media reporting are compiled manually. The findings of the study revealed that there are positive FP consequences for the companies engaged in the quality of CSR disclosure. We also report that higher CEO power negatively enhances the quality of CSR disclosure effect on the FP of FV. The research investigates the impact of CSR disclosure and FP by presenting evidence of the moderating role of CEO power. Therefore, it is suggested that a higher law for CSR engagement and disclosure be implemented in China, and robust measures for the implementation of CEO power, although there are financial advantages to be gained. A key relevance to the empirical quality of CSR disclosure research can be recognized as the moderating role of CEO power in the quality of CSR disclosure, FP, and FV in the context of Chinese study. The findings are robust with the use of an instrumental variable method. (shrink)