Governing Corporate Social Responsibility Decoupling: The Effect of the Governance Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility Decoupling

Ammar Ali Gull, Nazim Hussain, Sana Akbar Khan, Zaheer Khan, Asif Saeed

Journal of Business Ethics · 2023 · Volume 185 · Issue 2

Abstract

This paper presents an examination of the relationship between the presence and composition of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee on the corporate governance board and CSR decoupling. Using a sample of listed firms drawn from 41 countries, we found that the presence of a CSR committee on the corporate board is negatively associated with CSR decoupling. We also noted that the nature of the industry to which a firm belongs, a firm's level of CSR orientation, and corporate governance quality strengthen such association. Further analysis of the relationship between the structure of the CSR committee and CSR decoupling shows that larger CSR committee size and a greater independence and longer tenure of its members negatively affect CSR decoupling. Our results are robust to various alternative specifications and offer important research and managerial implications. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature on corporate governance and CSR.

Keywords

Corporate social responsibility, CSR decoupling, Corporate governance, CSR Committee, Committee size, Gender diversity, Independence, Agency theory

Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.