企業社會責任與信用評等及股權結構之關聯性研究

Abstract

本研究主要探討公司的企業社會責任表現與信用評等之關係以及機構投資人與高階管理階層的持股對於企業社會責任活動投資所產生的代理問題之關聯。以1992年至2014年北美S&P 500以及Russell 3000之企業為研究樣本進行分析。研究結果顯示：當公司有較好的企業社會責任表現時，信用評等也會提高，降低資金成本，此實證結果符合本研究之預期。 本研究接著測試企業社會責任投資與所有權結構之間的關係。過去的研究指出：高階管理階層可能會過度投資企業社會責任活動以獲得個人的利益以及公司的聲譽，因此形成的代理問題。本研究測試機構投資人以及高階管理階層持股與企業社會責任投資的關係。根據過去的研究假設當公司有較好的企業社會責任評等，代表其企業社會責任活動的投入越多。實證結果顯示：機構投資人以及高階管理階層的持股與企業社會責任評等呈現負相關，與本研究的假說一致。這也代表著當機構投資人以及高階管理階層的持股增加時確實可以降低利益衝突以及代理問題。

The objective of this research is to investigate the relation between corporate social performance and credit rating and between the ownership and corporate social performance. This research includes the annual reports of the S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies in North America, from 1992 to 2014. The empirical results show that firms with better performance in corporate social responsibility(CSR) are granted better credit rating and lower capital cost. Also, this study investigates the relation between CSR and ownership structure. Managers may seek their private benefit and companies’ reputation by overinvestment in CSR. It causes the agency problem. This study argues that managers and institutional investors may mitigate the conflict between managers and investors while managers’ and investors’ shareholding increases. Following to past literatures, this study assumes that the better rating of CSR, the higher expenditure level of CSR. The empirical results show that the institutional and managers’ ownership is negatively related to the firm’s CSR rating. This result supports the hypothesis that the increment of institutional ownership and managers’ ownership may alleviate the conflict between managers and shareholders and mitigate the agent problem.