Pattanaporn Chatjuthamard, Pandej Chintrakarn, Pornsit Jiraporn, Weerapong Kitiwong and Sirithida Chaivisuttangkun
Exploiting a novel measure of hostile takeover exposure primarily based on the staggered adoption of state legislations, we explore a crucial, albeit largely overlooked, aspect of…
Abstract
Purpose
Exploiting a novel measure of hostile takeover exposure primarily based on the staggered adoption of state legislations, we explore a crucial, albeit largely overlooked, aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, we investigate CSR inequality, which is the inequality across different CSR categories. Higher inequality suggests a less balanced, more lopsided, CSR policy.
Design/methodology/approach
In addition to the standard regression analysis, we perform several robustness checks including propensity score matching, entropy balancing and an instrumental-variable analysis.
Findings
Our results show that more takeover exposure exacerbates CSR inequality. Specifically, a rise in takeover vulnerability by one standard deviation results in an increase in CSR inequality by 4.53–5.40%. The findings support the managerial myopia hypothesis, where myopic managers promote some CSR activities that are useful to them in the short run more than others, leading to higher CSR inequality.
Originality/value
Our study is the first to exploit a unique measure of takeover vulnerability to investigate the impact of takeover threats on CSR inequality, which is an important aspect of CSR that is largely overlooked in the literature. We aptly fill this void in the literature.