HCBE Faculty Articles

Reexamination of the Relationship between Institutional Ownership Horizon and Corporate Social Responsibility

ORCID

Kershen Huang0000-0002-7141-3668

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

SSRN Electronic Journal

ISSN

1556-5068

Publication Date

2017

Abstract/Excerpt

Institutional investors are increasingly short-term in their orientation. While the increasing prevalence of short-termism has gained the attention of global forums and policy makers, the case for the long-term investment among institutional investors is far from settled in the academic community. Just like classic agency and stakeholder theories offer opposite views, empirical research on the relationship between institutional ownership and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has produced contradictory results. In this paper, we show that institutions with longer (shorter) investment horizons promote (discourage) CSR at the firm level. In addition, firms with higher proportion of long-term (short-term) investors have higher (lower) buy-and-hold returns in the long-term (short-term). These findings are consistent with the view that short-termism on the part of institutional investors places short-term pressure on companies, and therefore discourages long-term investments that create value.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3056847

Comments

Unpublished version of journal article.

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