This research aims to analyze the role played by firm visibility in moderating the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Firm Financial Performance (FFP). Based on the legitimacy theory, a firm’s responses to stakeholder’s expectations would be affected by its public visibility; we hypothesize a positive link between CSR and firm visibility. Moreover, visibility is expected to moderate the CSR-FFP relationship. We applied a Moderated Regression Analysis using the aggregate ESG scores as a CSR proxy on a panel data of listed French Companies (SBF120) over the period 2008–2017. Our findings are in line with legitimacy theory, suggesting that social initiatives would be mean to strengthen the legitimacy and to secure “license to operate”. Furthermore, firm visibility would be a contingency variable that moderates positively CSR-FFP relationship.

In this chapter, we address the following question: Does board gender diversity affect global risk? Drawing on agency theory, upper echelon theory, and human capital theory, we hypothesize that gender diversity on the board of directors will decrease the volatility of firm risk. Applying fixed effect estimation on a panel data of listed French companies (SBF120) for the years 2011–2018, the results show a negative link between the percentage of female directors on the board and the standard deviation of monthly stock return as firm risk proxy suggesting that the inclusion of more women on corporate boards could improve financial stability. Our findings contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence from France occupying the first place at the European level with the most female presence on the boards of directors.1

This study aims to present a literature review of recent studies on the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) and to provide a path for future researches. Using content analysis method, a total of 88 papers published in renowned journals, over the period 2015-2021, were selected in the review. Several findings have been made: first, the majority of researches have focused on the CSR’s “social impact” hypothesis on CFP; the reverse relationship seems to have been overlooked. Second, the contested results are likely to be attributable both to differences in research contexts and CSR’ laws but also to biases relating to the operationalization of CSR concept and CFP proxies retained. Finally, several arguments are advanced arguing for an indirect link between CSR and CFP. Future research should, therefore, pay attention to the different contingent variables that are likely to affect the studied relationship.

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