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Board interlocks and the diffusion of CSR reporting practices: The role of market development
Author(s) -
Sun Weizhang,
Li Xuan,
Geng Yanli,
Yang Jinfeng,
Zhang Yifei
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
corporate social responsibility and environmental management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.519
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1535-3966
pISSN - 1535-3958
DOI - 10.1002/csr.1887
Subject(s) - interlock , corporate social responsibility , business , accounting , extant taxon , perspective (graphical) , affect (linguistics) , marketing , public relations , psychology , political science , artificial intelligence , communication , evolutionary biology , computer science , electrical engineering , biology , engineering
Although traditional studies concerning the diffusion effect of board interlocks stress the influence of mimetic pressures, extant studies increasingly emphasize board interlocks' communication role. From the perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, this paper seeks to investigate the validity of the two views by introducing market development as a moderating variable. Based on samples of Chinese listed companies between 2008 and 2015, we find that board interlocks positively affect firms' CSR reporting. Consistent with the communication mechanism view, the impact of board interlocks on CSR reporting is relatively weak in developed regions. With this study, we contribute to the literature concerning the diffusion effect of board interlocks and the institutional literature related to CSR reporting.