Top Management Teams’ Academic Experience and Firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Disclosure

Zhiming Ma, Hong Zhang*（张鸿）, Weiguo Zhong, and Kaitang Zhou

摘要：Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is becoming increasingly important for modern corporations. Focusing on voluntary CSR disclosure and drawing on upper echelons theory, we propose that voluntary CSR disclosure is the manifestation of managerial preferences (e.g., managers’ professional ethical values and standards). Specifically, we argue that top executives with an academic background tend to have higher professional and ethical standards than their non-academic counterparts. These standards lead them to act with self-restraint and to perceive CSR disclosure as an opportunity rather than a threat. Compared with non-academic executives, therefore, top executives with an academic background provide stakeholders with more CSR information. Based on a sample of publicly listed firms in China, we find a significant difference in voluntary CSR disclosure between firms led by academic executives and firms without academic top executives. This difference is smaller for firms that are state-owned, firms that are audited by large audit firms, and firms with greater analyst coverage. We contribute to the literature on CSR voluntary disclosure by providing an in-depth analysis of the effects of top management teams’ academic backgrounds.

关键词：academic background, analyst coverage, audit firms, corporate social responsibility disclosure, ownership, top executives

本文于2020年4月刊发于Management and Organization Review, 2020, 16(2), 293-333，主要作者及通讯作者张鸿助理教授为本中心成员。该期刊为学院B⁺类奖励期刊。