A number of studies have looked at the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. Corporate social responsibility, although without a strong consensus on the definition [7], generally refers to a firm's engagement in activities that benefit the firm's stakeholders besides shareholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the like. It often goes beyond serving the interest of the firm's shareholders solely and also beyond what is required by law. Researchers have adopted different views of corporate social responsibility, some believing it to be a burden of a firm, while others arguing that it can lead to a competitive advantage. Besides the conceptual work, there has been a rich body of empirical studies that examined the relationship between a firm's social responsibility and financial performance. Unfortunately the existing findings regarding the social-financial performance link have yet to converge. There has been evidence of both negative [1] and positive effects [3][8] of corporate social responsibility on a firm's financial performance. Therefore the question as to whether it pays off to do good has not been answered in an unequivocal way.
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