The Relationship Between CSR Engagement and Firm Risk in Polish Public Companies

Abstract

The paper deals with the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on firm risk. The first part of the study concentrates on theoretical descriptions of the relationship between CSR and firm risk in the light of former research concerning this issue. The second part of the paper presents our own analysis of the situation of Polish public companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange. For quite a long time, CSR engagement of firms has been an important issue in developed markets whereas in Poland this problem has not been sufficiently examined so far. The econometric model used in the article is the result of our study of the extant accounting and finance literature as well as of data availability. The results show that CSR engagement is not significantly related to firm risk in the Polish public companies we analyzed. Perhaps the data that we used were not sufficient to construct a reliable model. It is also possible that the CSR idea itself is not important enough on the Polish market when it comes to evaluating firm risk. Thus, it must be emphasized that the present paper is only a preliminary study and the problem requires further analysis.