Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Company Financial Performance: Empirical Evidence from Listed Companies in Romania

The increased attention of companies' managers towards the benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has led many corporations to integrate CSR practices into their business strategy. Consequently, the literature has examined the relation between CSR and firm performance. Although CSR is adopted by companies on a voluntary basis, more heated discussions regarding the effects of CSR on company financial performance has lead various authors to different results. This chapter empirically analyzes the CSR effects on company financial performance in developing countries, especially Romania. As empirical method we employed univariate analysis to investigate whether the company financial performance of companies which implement CSR (considered experiment group) is higher than non-CSR companies (considered control group). T-test is used to find out if there is any statistically difference in mean company financial performance between ROA, ROE, ROS, PBV, PER, and EPS of experiment group and control group. The sample used included 68 companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) for the 2011 fiscal year. The empirical research reveals that there is not a significant difference in mean company financial performance between CSR companies and non-CSR companies.