企業社會責任與財務績效之關聯性分析：獨立董監事專業背景的影響

Abstract

本文探討具有專業背景之獨立董監事是否可以貢獻其專業知識於董事會決策，進而加強企業社會責任績效與財務績效之連結。本文採用2007年至2015年天下公民獎以及企業社會責任負面事件來衡量企業社會責任績效，檢視企業社會責任績效與財務績效之關聯性，並假設相較於非財會專業背景獨立董監事，財會專業背景董監事能運用其專業知識，分析企業社會責任決策所帶來的成本效益，進而加強企業社會責任與財務績效的連結。實證結果顯示，企業社會責任績效無論是用天下公民獎或是負面事件衡量，均與財務績效呈顯著正相關，亦即履行企業社會責任有助於財務績效，但無法支持具有專業背景之獨立董監事可以加強企業社會責任績效與財務績效之正向關係，推測有可能係因專業背景之獨立董事對於非財務面的企業社會責任專業知識尚有不足，因此本研究建議主管機關推行董監事持續進修課程可以增設企業社會責任相關主題。

This study examines whether the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and financial performance (FP) is moderated by the expertise of independent directors on the board. I posit that independent directors contribute expertise to the board’s decision with regard to CSR. Firms are considered better CSR performance if they won CommonWealth Magazine's Corporate Citizenship Awards and if they were not involved in the socially irresponsible news events within TEJ database during 2007-2015 periods. I hypothesize that independent directors with accounting expertise, relative to those with non-accounting expertise, provide relevant suggestions for the firm’s CSR decisions to better FP. The empirical results indicate that CSR performance is significantly and positively related to FP. However, independent director’s expertise is empirically insignificant in moderating the association between CSR performance and FP. I suspect the insignificant results could arise from the directors’ insufficient knowledge of CSR to assess its impact. The policy implication is that the securities authorities should promote the continuing education of CSR among independent directors.