Central European Business Review 2015, 4(3):48-59 | DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.132

Finding the Link between CSR Reporting and Corporate Financial Performance: Evidence on Czech and Estonian Listed Companies

Ji�� Strouhal1, Natalja Gurvit�2, Monika Nikitina-Kalam�e3, Emilia Startseva4
1 Dr. Ji�� Strouhal, Associate Professor, Department of Strategy, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics Prague, W. Churchill Square 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic, [email protected]
2 Dr. Natalja Gurvit�, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected]
3 Monika Nikitina-Kalam�e, Lecturer, Department of Accounting, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected]
4 Emilia Startseva, Ph.D. student, Department of Accounting, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected]

Despite the fact that obligations to publish reports on corporate social responsibility will come into force in the European Union from 2018, an increasing number of companies are starting to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy into their everyday business practices, and as a result the information of this activity is disclosed in CSR reports or within annual reports. As the disclosure of such information is currently voluntarily based, we believe that the growing popularity of CSR leads to a direct link between the sustainability of the company and its financial performance. The purpose of this paper is therefore to determine the linkage between CSR and financial performance within two countries in the CEE region - Czech and Estonia - using data from 2012 - 2013. We compare return on assets and normalized market value added of listed companies. Based on the results, we can state that the implementation of a standalone CSR report does not have any direct linkage with the financial performance of the tested companies.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR reports; sustainability; annual reports; management report; corporate governance
JEL classification: G30

Received: May 22, 2015; Revised: August 27, 2015; Published: September 30, 2015  Show citation

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Strouhal, J., Gurvit�, N., Nikitina-Kalam�e, M., & Startseva, E. (2015). Finding the Link between CSR Reporting and Corporate Financial Performance: Evidence on Czech and Estonian Listed Companies. Central European Business Review,�4(3),�48-59. doi:�10.18267/j.cebr.132
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