PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of the characteristics of the chief executive officer (CEO) on the association between CEO power and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper conducts multiple regression analyses to empirically test the proposed hypotheses based on a sample of US-based publicly held companies. The sample period extends from 2000 to 2018. Firm-level CSR ratings are obtained from the Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini (KLD) database (currently known as MSCI ESG STATS). Financial data and CEO data are retrieved from Compustat and ExecuComp databases, respectively. Additional test and robustness analysis are performed.FindingsThis paper shows that firms with more powerful CEOs are less likely to engage in CSR activities. The negative association between CEO power and CSR is found to be exacerbated by CEOs who are younger, more competent and overconfident; however, this negative association is mitigated by CEOs who are female. This paper also finds that gender plays a more important role among CEO characteristics. Collectively, the findings highlight the potential opportunities to better understand the role of various CEO characteristics that jointly affect CSR.Originality/valueFirst, this is the first study providing a comprehensive empirical analysis of how various CEO characteristics jointly affect CSR. Prior studies that focus on standalone CEO characteristics offer an incomplete picture of the relation between a single CEO characteristic and a firm's CSR performance. The current study thus extends the research field by examining the association between seemingly unrelated CEO characteristics and CSR performance. The results also highlight that gender is the critical factor moderating the relationship between CEO power and CSR performance when it is compared with CEO age, ability and overconfidence. Second, the authors add to the literature on employee selection by showing that female CEOs mitigate the negative effect of managerial power on CSR performance. Although the currently available empirical research in management control systems focuses on ex-post analyses of moral hazard mitigation for incumbent employees, both the economics and management literature acknowledge ex ante evidence suggesting that employee selection is even more important. Our findings may provide insight into the selection of CEOs.

The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of a physician incentive plan based upon treatment of patients in a large private non-for-profit hospital in Taiwan. We examine the relationship between physicians’ bonuses and departmental performance to assess the impact of the physician incentive plan in the case hospital. The multiple regression models are used to examine the relationship between physicians’ bonuses and departmental profitability. In addition, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to measure the operational efficiency of each department in the case hospital. Then, a multi-factor tobit model is used to examine the relationship between physicians’ bonuses and departmental efficiency. The results indicate that physicians’ bonuses in the case hospital are negatively correlated with departmental profitability and efficiency. That is, the performance measurement of current incentive plan may not be appropriate and it does not induce physicians to increase departmental profitability and improve efficiency. Our results suggest that the incentive plan is flawed and might fail to hold physicians accountable for improving departmental performance in the case hospital.

We examine how country-level labor market characteristics affect corporate environmental disclosure practices and the environmental impacts of firms’ operations. Using a sample of firms from 36 countries over the 2005–2016 period, we show that firms domiciled in countries with more developed labor markets have higher levels of environmental disclosure and less damaging environmental impacts than firms in countries with less developed labor markets. In addition, we find that firms operating in countries with better-developed labor markets tend to reduce their environmental impacts through the purchase of goods and services rather than through substantive changes to their own operations. Taken together, the findings suggest that better-developed country-level labor market institutions play an important role in improving firms’ environmental disclosure and in reducing their environmental impacts.

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