Investigating the Dimensions of Social Responsibility and the Consequences for Corporate Financial Performance

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility as an area of scientific inquiry has received little attention in the popular and academic press during the last decade. Efforts to investigate social responsibility and its relationship to corporate performance have been frustrated by a lack of adequate operationalizations and measures of social responsibility. Regardless of the reasons for this inattention to the is- sues of corporate responsibility, the tide appears to be turning. Recently, TIAA-CREF, the largest institutional trader in the country, initiated an optional fund which invests exclusively in firms that are deemed socially responsible. Such actions suggest that corporations will increasingly be held accountable for activity of concern to multiple stakeholder groups. As a result there will likely be a renewed interest in identifying the dimensions and consequences of corporate social responsibilities.