The Impact of Media Reputation on Stock Market and Financial Performance of Corporate Social Responsibility Winner

We investigate the ways in which the reputation of a firm created by the media can affect its stock market and financial performance during 'corporate social responsibility' (CSR) award announcement periods in Taiwan. The CSR 'winners' in this study are selected from the Global Views and CommonWealth Magazines, with content analysis being used to capture the information implied in the media reports. Our empirical results show that since media coverage can provide stakeholders with a superior image of CSR firms, non-CSR firms are provided with sufficient motivation to try to manipulate the media coverage and the overall level of news sentiment degree in the firm, in order to close the gap between their image and that of the CSR winners. Our results also indicate that media reputation relating to CSR winners is found to be higher than that for non-CSR firms and that the stock returns of CSR winners are likely to be significantly higher than those of non-CSR firms for a period of four to five months after CSR announcements. We argue that when investors are making investment decisions during periods of CSR awards announcements, they can be guided by the signals of CSR awards and media reputation.