CSR Inflections: An Overview of CSR Practices on Financial Performance by Public Listed Companies in Malaysia

Abstract

Of late, there has been growing demand for companies to intensify its corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is no longer one of the responsibilities of the companies but has become the responsibility of companies to give back to the society in which it has been operating and making huge profit. Unfortunately there appears to be a wide gap between the level of CSR awareness between companies from developed countries and those from the developing companies. Companies from developed countries have higher CSR level of awareness and faced no difficulty in disclosing their CSR activities relatively to the companies in the developing countries (including Malaysia). Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the level of CSR disclosure of consumer products and trading and services industries from Malaysia. In addition, the study also would like to ascertain if the level of CSR disclosure influences the performance of the company in terms of its return on asset (ROA) and firm value (Tobin's Q). The study starts with the development of CSR disclosure index and using the index to determine if company's performance is related to its contribution to the society. Panel data is used to achieve the second objective. Findings of the study provide positive, negative and insignificant results between CSR activities on the company performance.