Corporate Social Responsibility and Institutional Investors: Evidence from Emerging Markets

Abstract

This study investigates whether foreign institutional investors consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) while making investment decisions. Drawing on a sample from 21 countries, the study took 8756 firm-year observations from 650 non-financial firms over the 2002-2018 period. The study used generalized least square (GLS) regression along with other statistical techniques to analyse the data. The findings show a negative association of poor environmental and social performance with foreign institutional ownership (FIO). The findings also reveal that foreign institutional investors invest even less in poor CSR performing firms when these firms are located in countries with low disclosure requirements. The findings reveal that FIO has positive association with market turnover, economic development, free float, and firm size while negative association with financial leverage. The findings of the study have important implications for investors, regulators, and corporate managers in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs). The research is limited on CSR and institutional investors in emerging and developing economies. Therefore, this study contributes to existing CSR literature, aiming its importance for both foreign institutional investors and emerging and developing economies.

Keywords: CSR; institutional; investors, ownership, environmental and social, foreign institutional ownership, financial leverage.

JEL Classification: M19; M20