Board attributes and corporate social responsibility performance: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

Nowadays, there is increasing attention on corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters after some serious CSR-related scandals happening around the world. However, most of the research is carried out in developed countries, but not developing countries where environmental issues and firms’ unethical behaviors are always serious problems. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand and contribute more about the CSR issues in Vietnam, focusing on the effect of board attributes, particularly, board size, board independence, CEO duality, and board gender diversity, on CSR performance under the support of agency and stakeholder theories. The data is taken from CSRHub and companies’ reports. Based on the sample of 68 companies at the beginning of October 2019, board size and board independence are found to positively affect CSR performance while CEO duality and board gender diversity exhibit a non-significant relationship with CSR performance.