企業社會責任揭露與股票崩盤風險

Abstract

本文旨在探討企業社會責任揭露與股價崩盤風險之關聯性，股價崩盤風險肇因於企業與投資人之間的資訊不對稱，其對企業現有股東及潛在投資人而言皆有一定重要性。若正派經營之企業透過企業社會責任揭露忠實表達與分享更多企業相關資訊予投資大眾，合理推斷其應有較小之股票崩盤風險；反之，若企業進行企業社會責任揭露僅為行銷宣傳抑或美化其形象，其企業社會責任揭露分數理應與股票崩盤風險無關，甚至可能因過度美化而有更高之崩盤風險。本文結果支持企業社會責任揭露可降低股票崩盤風險之觀點，此結果在企業擁有較多進行研究之分析師、公司治理分數偏低及財報易讀性不高時更加顯著。上述特性分別支持以下假說：分析師於解讀企業社會責任揭露資訊時佔有重要角色；內部監督機制較弱之企業較得以藉由增強外部監督得利；非財務資訊為財務資訊之補充。最後，在企業社會責任慣用之環境、社會、公司治理三領域中，尤以公司治理類資訊揭露最受重視。

This study investigates whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is related to stock price crash risk. Crash risk captures the information asymmetry between firms and investors, and is important for both existing and potential shareholders. If firms with integrity share more information with the general public through CSR disclosure, they shall have a lower crash risk. On the other hand, if managers use CSR disclosure simply for advertising and greenwashing, more CSR disclosure shall have no significant effect or be associated with higher crash risk. The finding here supports the mitigating effect of CSR disclosure on crash risk. I find that CSR disclosure is negatively related with crash risk one year later. Furthermore, I find the effect more prominent when firms have more analyst following, less effective corporate governance or higher financial reporting opacity. These are consistent with the hypotheses that analysts play a vital role in interpreting CSR information, firms with weaker primary monitoring mechanism shall enjoy more from the outside monitoring, and that nonfinancial information is complementary to financial reports. Upon all above, corporate governance disclosure is viewed to be the most crucial, among the three conventional categories of environmental, social and corporate governance.