Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Financial Performance: An Exploratory Study of Measurement-Approach Selection Issues

This paper examines the various approaches used in a number of empirical studies for measuring Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) to find out measurement challenges. This study also investigates alternative strategic approaches for measuring CSR and CFP. In this study, various empirical research papers are intensively reviewed to investigate which measurement approach is appropriate to incorporate in future research. It was found that CSR is being strategically utilized in many ways such as unidimensional to multidimensional in the empirical literature. Besides, multidimensional CSR measurement approaches, employed in different forms like reputation indices, questionnaire-based survey, content analysis and unidimensional approach have been used in various studies. Accounting based variables and market-based variables have been utilized for measuring firm performance. The findings also show that no CSR measurement approach is without limitations. In addition, most of the approaches face two problems, namely, researcher’s subjectivity and biasness in selection, which may affect the nature of CSR-CFP relationship results. This study suggests that potential measures should be taken up to overcome these limitations.