M14 - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social ResponsibilityReturn

The study explores a relationship between divergence in ESG scores (measurements of a company's performance in environmental, social and governance issues) and excess stock returns on the European equity market. The sample consists of 851 European stocks in the period from January 2015 to May 2022. It is concluded that, despite previous findings on the US stock market, a similar effect is not observed for equities in Europe. Even though the stock portfolios with the most and the least divergent ESG scores bear excess returns, the effect disappears when it is adjusted for Fama-French factors. The effect is not relevant for any specific industry, nor does it depend on the level of ESG awareness of the issuer's country. Deeper exploration of the nature of ESG score divergence, specifically by decomposition of the individual elements of ESG scores, could further contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the quality of non-financial disclosures and stock performance.

This study provides evidence on the probability of adopting an accounting approach for emission allowances and greenhouse gas emissions as a function of each company's GHG emissions performance. The different accounting treatments adopted by national standard-setters and the lack of specific guidance from the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) allow identification of the use of multiple accounting approaches. Based on a sample of 85 companies registered with the Portuguese, Spanish, and French National Plans of Allocation, data collected from the annual reports were analysed for the period 2008-2014. The results suggest that the probability of adopting omission strategies is positively associated with better GHG emissions performances. It addresses the importance of introducing the transactions of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in financial reporting as the visibility of the costs of polluting is one of the purposes of the market mechanism.

This article analyses the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance at the level of a panel of 62 Romanian companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The first challenge was measuring of the social performance. A new social performance measurement system was developed based on which the CSP Index was obtained. The GRI criteria for reporting, the channel of communication chosen by the companies, as well as the level of detail of the published information were taken into account. The estimation of the regression model was made using the CSP Index as the dependent variable and the financial indicators (return on assets, return on equity, sales growth, average number of employees, total sales, market value added, PER index) as the independent variables. The panel regression analysis done to highlight the fixed or random effects at the company level indicated a relatively weak causal relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance. The social performance may also depend on other variables that are not included in the model, although, the general conclusion was that the social performance of Romanian companies is relatively low, but in an ascending evolution.

The paper presents results of the research conducted in the area of CSR in the Czech Republic in 2013/2014. We focussed on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Correlation between the size of the enterprise, awareness, commitment and the number of used CSR activities is evaluated. The paper follows the involvement of SMEs in specific activities within the social, economic and environmental pillars and suggests possibilities for further development of the National Action Plan (NAP) for SMEs. The results of the statistical analysis show that engagement of organizations in the CSR activities growths with the size of the organization. Only 30% of micro and small enterprises in the Czech Republic know and make use of the CSR concept comprehensively and are active in all three pillars of CSR. Approximately 30% are involved in only one pillar - mostly in the economic one. 30% do not apply the CSR concept within their business at all. SMEs are not sufficiently engaged in activities primarily in the environmental pillar and activities aiming towards outside the organization.