'Walk the Talk'—How Symbolic and Substantive Corporate Social Responsibility Actions Affect Firms' Sustainable Financial Performance Depending on Stakeholder Proximity

摘要

Whether firms' attempts to gain legitimacy in front of their stakeholders by merely talking about their CSR activities are rewarded or whether and under what circumstances "walking the talk" is required is subject to this study. In other words, we investigate whether and how a firm's symbolic and substantive CSR actions, alone or combined, affect its sustainable financial performance depending on the notion of stakeholder proximity. Although some studies find a positive impact of a firm's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities on its financial performance, this link and the underlying mechanisms remain equivocal (Anguinis and Glavas 2012; Margolis et al. 2009). Few prior studies from the environmental domain, aimed at attaining a better understanding by separating the effects from symbolic ("talk") and substantive ("walk") actions using single-country and industry specific samples (Gelabert et al. 2009; Hawn and Ioannou 2012; Kim and Lyon 2012; Walker and Wan 2012). However, these studies find inconsistent results.