企業社會責任對於創新與績效關係之探討 - 以台灣上市櫃電子業為例

Abstract

本研究以2010年至2018年台灣上市櫃電子業企業為樣本，分析企業社會責任 (Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR) 表現對於企業創新活動邊際效益之影響。由最小平方法 (Ordinary Least Squares, OLS) 迴歸分析的實證結果，企業社會責任績效較佳之企業，其創新投入及創新產出與市場價值之正向關係較弱，顯示當企業分配較多資源於社會責任活動時，可能因為代理問題等因素，造成內部資源配置不當，最終導致其創新邊際效益較社會責任表現不佳之企業為低。 本研究OLS分析的實證結果也發現：就創新投入與企業績效之關係來看，成長機會較佳及創新效率較高之企業的CSR對於創新投入之邊際效益有較大的減損；而就創新產出與企業績效之關係來看，屬於研發密度前五大產業、營運表現佳、以及董事長持股較高之企業的CSR對於創新產出之邊際效益有較大的減損。 本研究也進行兩階段 (Two-stage Least Squares, 2SLS) 迴歸分析，以控制CSR績效可能為內生 (Endogenous) 變數的問題。實證結果顯示，控制內生性問題後，上述負向關係大多轉為不顯著，顯示OLS迴歸的結果可能高估CSR對創新活動邊際效益之負面影響。但對於創新效率較高的子樣本來說，在2SLS迴歸分析中CSR對於創新邊際效益之影響仍為負向顯著，這代表對於科技產業中創新重要性高之企業而言，CSR對企業創新有顯著的不利影響。

Using the data of publicly traded firms in the electronic industry in Taiwan from 2010 to 2018, this thesis examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the marginal values of corporate innovation inputs (measured by research and development expenses) and outputs (measured by the numbers of patents and citations). The empirical results from the ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions show that CSR performance reduces the positive effect of innovation activities on firms’ market values, implying that the marginal benefits of innovation activities decline when corporations contribute more resources to CSR. A possible explanation for these results is that they are driven by poor resource allocation due to agency problems. The results from the OLS analysis also show that CSR is more detrimental to the marginal benefits of innovation inputs for firms with higher growth opportunities or higher innovation efficiency. In addition, for firms in industries with higher research and development intensity, with higher ROA, or whose chairperson has higher equity ownership, CSR negatively impacts the relationship between innovative outputs and corporate performance. To control for the potential problem that a firm’s CSR performance may be endogenously determined, this thesis also conducts a two-stage least squares (2SLS) analysis. It finds that many of the results become insignificant after the endogeneity issue is considered, suggesting that the results from the OLS regressions may overestimate the negative effects of CSR on the marginal benefits of innovation. Nonetheless, for the subsample with higher innovative efficiency, the results of the 2SLS analysis still show that firms’ marginal benefits of innovation become significantly lower when they have better CSR performance, implying that CSR does reduce the marginal value of innovation under certain circumstances.