Investee peers and corporate social responsibility: evidence from U.S. listed firms
Peer effects are a powerful driver of firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Extending beyond existing research that primarily focuses on industry and community peers, we propose that firms sharing a common institutional investor form a distinct and influential group of peers, which w...
| Authors: | ; ; ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2026
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 2026, Volume: 203, Issue: 1, Pages: 141-163 |
| Further subjects: | B
Corporate social responsibility
B Common institutional investors B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift B Investee peers |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Peer effects are a powerful driver of firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Extending beyond existing research that primarily focuses on industry and community peers, we propose that firms sharing a common institutional investor form a distinct and influential group of peers, which we term investee peers. To secure a favorable position in the common institutional investor’s portfolio, firms are likely to benchmark against their investee peers for behaviors valued by the investor. Accordingly, we hypothesize and find that a firm’s CSR performance is positively related to the CSR performance of its investee peers. Furthermore, this relationship is more pronounced when the focal firm is more heavily invested by common institutional investors committed to CSR or when the investee peers are more visible. However, this peer effect on CSR is weakened when the focal firm exhibits stronger financial performance. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10551-025-06030-9 |
