Top Management Teams’ Academic Experience and Firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Disclosure
基于中国上市公司数据，研究发现有学术背景的高管团队更倾向于自愿披露企业社会责任信息，且这种效应在非国有企业、非大所审计及分析师关注度较低的企业中更为显著。
ABSTRACT Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is becoming increasingly important for modern corporations. Focusing on voluntary CSR disclosure and drawing on upper echelons theory, we propose that voluntary CSR disclosure is the manifestation of managerial preferences (e.g., managers’ professional ethical values and standards). Specifically, we argue that top executives with an academic background tend to have higher professional and ethical standards than their non-academic counterparts. These standards lead them to act with self-restraint and to perceive CSR disclosure as an opportunity rather than a threat. Compared with non-academic executives, therefore, top executives with an academic background provide stakeholders with more CSR information. Based on a sample of publicly listed firms in China, we find a significant difference in voluntary CSR disclosure between firms led by academic executives and firms without academic top executives. This difference is smaller for firms that are state-owned, firms that are audited by large audit firms, and firms with greater analyst coverage. We contribute to the literature on CSR voluntary disclosure by providing an in-depth analysis of the effects of top management teams’ academic backgrounds.