The link between CSR and CFP in the financial sector. A literature review (1995-2017)

Abstract

The paper proposes a systematic-narrative literature review, as a new study in the scenario of the literature on the linkage between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) in financial sector. Based on a hand-collected dataset regarding remarkable studies published from 1995 to the first half of 2017, the study reviews and codes 39 relevant papers investigating the topic. Then, the study realizes, first, an explorative analysis of the papers in the sample, with descriptive synthesis of principal evidences; secondly, a statistical analysis, with evidence from quantitative results reported in the selected papers, that are considered as observations of the relationship between the CFP and CSP (Corporate Social Performance). The variability of the estimates is investigated by means of the inferential statistical techniques. Both descriptive and inferential analyses show that CSR is linked to financial performance and, in particular, that CSR has a positive influence on financial performance.

Keywords

• corporate social responsibility
• corporate financial performance
• csr and cfp variables
• descriptive and inferential analyses
• economics
• finance