Zeroing in on the Zeroes: CSR/ESG Inaction as a Choice
本文指出CSR/ESG研究中常被忽视的零值（无行动）并非缺失数据，而是企业不作为的信号，忽视它会扭曲实证结果并掩盖企业对社会环境问题的回避，为学者提供了审视零值的方法论建议。
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) empirical scholarship overwhelmingly relies on a few archival datasets to examine firms’ action : strengths, concerns, and controversies. Yet persistently overlooked are salient issues with no current corporate action, represented by zeroes. These zeroes, in Morgan Stanley Capital International/Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini (MSCI/KLD) data, are not missing data. Rather, zeroes signify a lack of observable action on salient issues (which we term, inaction ). Persistently ignoring zeroes, we argue, distorts empirical findings and masks corporate inaction. When aggregated across companies, overlooked zeroes can legitimize firms’ failure to address salient social or environmental issues. We discuss the importance of scrutinizing zeroes, explain how scholars inadvertently ignore them, explore implications, and provide alternative modeling choices. Our goal is to highlight conceptual and methodological blind spots that may meaningfully affect environmental, social and governance (ESG) research. We conclude by exploring how theoretical attention to these potentially information-rich zeroes can illuminate corporate behavior, including inaction on salient ESG issues.