Financial experts of top management teams and corporate social responsibility: evidence from China
研究中国上市公司高管金融背景对企业社会责任绩效和报告的影响，发现金融专家高管能提升CSR表现，尤其在非国有企业和现金充裕公司中更显著，且这种提升能增加企业价值。
Abstract This study examines how the financial experience of senior executives influences corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and reporting activities. With a sample of Chinese listed companies over the period 2009–2018, we find that companies with senior executives with financial expertise are associated with higher CSR performance and tend to issue lengthier sustainability reports than companies without; in addition, the percentage of financial experts on the top management team (TMT) is positively related to CSR. We next find that such improvement in CSR is mainly driven by senior executives who have work experience in regulatory-oriented financial institutions. By examining the role of the TMT’s latitude of action, we find that the positive influence of senior executives’ financial experience on CSR is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and in cash-abundant companies. Last, further analysis demonstrates that the enhancement in CSR driven by financially sophisticated executives drives firm value. The results are robust to alternative measures, sensitivity tests, and various controls for endogeneity concerns.