董事連結與確信服務專家對企業社會責任績效之影響

The Impact of Board Interlocks and Specialized CSR Assurance Providers on Corporate Social Responsibility Performance

本研究旨在探討董事連結對公司企業社會責任（CSR）績效的影響。本文認為當公司董事同時兼任其他公司之董事時，其他公司所選擇的企業社會責任揭露策略將藉由此一網絡連結影響公司自身之策略選擇，進而影響其企業社會責任績效之表現，文中以是否獲得企業社會責任相關獎項作為公司企業社會責任績效之替代變數。研究結果發現，公司之企業社會責任績效與其董事連結至高績效表現公司的程度呈顯著正相關，此一結果說明企業社會責任績效可以透過董事社會網絡的連結而產生資訊外溢之效果。此外，當董事對外所連結的高績效表現公司，其企業社會責任報告是由該產業之確信服務專家所提供確信者，相較於連結至由非確信服務專家所提供確信之高績效表現公司，前者對公司企業社會責任績效的影響效果更為顯著。再者，當公司與董事連結之高績效表現公司聘用同一產業確信服務專家時，董事連結所傳遞之企業社會責任績效的外溢效果更為明顯。上述結論即使改以類似KLD方式衡量企業社會責任績效時，董事連結所揭示的資訊外溢效果仍然維持相當的穩定。整體而言，本研究提供了董事連結的特徵對公司企業社會責任績效表現具有相當重要影響的證據。

This paper investigates the influence of director interlock on firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. We argue that firm managers will follow their interlocking partner's CSR disclosure practice when managing their own disclosure strategy and then affect their CSR performance. Using board interlocks to proxy for network connections and CSR award-winning as a surrogate for CSR performance, we find that corporate CSR performance is positively related to its ties to high CSR firms. Such finding indicates that CSR performance can spread across firms through director interlock. In addition, board ties to high CSR firms assured by a specialized CSR assurance provider have more influence on the focal firms' CSR performance compared with ties to high CSR firms assured by a non-specialized CSR assurance provider. Further, board ties to high CSR firms are even more influential when the focal firm and its interlocking partners hire the same specialized CSR assurance provider. Our results are robust to alternative measure of CSR performance based on KLD ratings and remain essentially unchanged under alternative model specifications. Taken together, our findings suggest that the character of a firm's board ties plays a role in the effect of those ties on the firm's CSR performance.