Bias in composite indexes of CSR practice: An analysis of CUR matrix decomposition

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to propose the best aggregate index of corporate social responsibility practice at the organisational level. To achieve this, we analyse the consistency of the different aggregated measures that researchers use in their analyses through a robust statistical technique, the CUR matrix, framed in the big data environment for selecting individuals. Accordingly, we use an international sample of 2,675 large listed companies. The results show that the CUR leverage identifies greater consistency of the different aggregate measures of CSR, confirming its coherence with a correlation analysis. In this sense, it is possible to affirm that the composite indexes used in academia do not introduce any bias into the analysis of CSR practices. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of this technique to identify the most powerful companies, analysing their CSR commitment at the country and industry levels, namely, Norsk Hydro in the metal and mining industry in Norway, Stora Enso in forestry and paper in Finland, Akzo Nobel in chemical products in the Netherlands, BMW in automobiles and parts in Germany, Generali in finance in Italy, Novartis in pharmaceuticals in Switzerland, the BT Group in telecommunications in the United Kingdom and Inditex in textiles in Spain. Moreover, the results of the CUR study confirm that companies adapt to the demands or pressures from the stakeholders in different areas of interest, which are specific to each country and industry. The availability of these data allows the identification of the structural drivers of their growth and the establishment of priorities that allow the design of more effective sustainable development momentum policies.

Philanthropy and the Contribution of Andrew Carnegie to Corporate Social Responsibility

“…This statement is consistent with the general tendency of recent works to consider CSR as a context-specific and socially constructed concept [86,87]. Furthermore, the abovementioned Dahlsrud [2] claims that while there is unanimity among the scholars in identifying social, environmental, economic, stakeholder, and voluntariness dimensions as foundations of CSR (see [44,[88][89][90]), heterogeneity springs up in the context of defining CSR as a "socially constructed" approach [91,92]. As such, it is not possible to construct an unbiased and all-encompassing definition of CSR, because what CSR is depends on context-specific elements and on the relations of an individual organization with its stakeholders [93][94][95].…”

Are institutional investors “in love” with the sustainable development goals? Understanding the idyll in the case of governments and pension funds

“…The result of the addition of all the values generated the score (SDG variable). This procedure does not entail biases with respect to other more complex procedures (Amor‐Esteban et al, 2020).…”

Trends in the dynamic evolution of board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility

“…There is no single approach to CSR (Gulzar et al, 2019), perhaps as a reflection of the different initiatives that firms have implemented (Shaukat et al, 2016) to meet stakeholder expectations for economic, environmental and social responsibility (Zhuang et al, 2018). This multidimensionality has led academics to use different constructs to measure (Zhang et al, 2013) and name it (Lu & Herremans, 2019), although the patterns are common as they are oriented towards sustainable development (Amor‐Esteban, García‐Sánchez, & Galindo‐Vicente, 2019), which means that this diversity does not imply heterogeneity in the results achieved (Amor‐Esteban, Galindo‐Vicente, & García‐Sánchez, 2020).…”