Corporate Social Responsibility Reputation (CSSR): Do Companies Comply to their Raised CSR Expectations?

Abstract

This paper develops the concept of CSR reputation (CSRR) both theoretically and empirically. The first part examines the literature on CSR reputation extensively in an attempt to develop both a qualitative and a quantitative interpretation to measure CSR reputation. A sample of 2447 firms covering approximately 176 survey questions on corporate social responsibility, obtained from 29 countries, was then implemented to measure CSR reputation per company, per country and per sector. Crisp and Fuzzy models were subsequently explored. On average, companies were found to comply with their expectations. In conclusion, Europe was found to be the best CSRR performing continent, and the United Kingdom and Finland the top performing countries. We also found the ‘utilities’ sector to be the best performing sector, with ‘health care’ and ‘financials’ at the lowest end of the distribution.

Keywords: CSR, reputation

JEL Classification: C51, M21, G32