Director ownership, outside directors and commitment to corporate social responsibility

Chen Ying; Sidney Leung

doi:10.22495/cbv7i1art6

Author(s)

Chen Ying
Sidney Leung

Related Research Unit(s)

Department of Accountancy

Detail(s)

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	66-78
Journal / Publication	Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition
Volume	7
Issue number	1
Publication status	Published - 2011

Link(s)

DOI	DOI https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv7i1art6 Final Published version
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Attachment(s)	Documents 5767803.pdf Final Published version, 462 KB, PDF Publisher's Copyright Statement This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
Link to Scopus	https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84901338949&origin=recordpage
Permanent Link	https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/publication(40cc5a87-39a9-4e2f-af50-b60c4fef7946).html

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of director ownership and the proportion of outside directors on firms' commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a sample of 453 Hong Kong listed companies for 2005, we find that there is a non-linear relationship between the level of director ownership and firms' engagement in CSR behavior. Commitment to CSR first increases as the proportion of director ownership increases up to 50% and then decreases as that proportion of ownership grows higher. Further, the proportion of outside directors on the board exhibits a positive relationship with the level of CSR commitment. These results provide explanations for firms' commitment to CSR from the corporate governance perspective.