Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Value : the Moderating Effect of IT Investment

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies are widely initiated to bolster brand images and firm performance. However, previous research shows incoherent results between CSR investment and corporate performance. We posit that the inconsistency may be due to the missing component of IT, which serves as an important moderating factor to help firms develop better infrastructures to realize their CSR objectives. Drawing from the strategic alignment model, we theorize that the alignment between CSR initiatives and IT investment is important. Strategic fit between IT and CSR initiatives can improve firm performance whereas misfit may lead to inferior performance. We plan to test our theorizing with firm-level panel data of the S&P 500 companies. We hope that we can enrich the literature on business values of CSR by identifying IT as a significant contingency. We also hope to provide extensive insights into the IT-business strategic alignment theoretically and practically.