Executives’ Educational Level, Corporate Social Responsibility and “De-noising” Financial Performance-- Empirical Data from Chinese Listed Companies Disclosing Social Responsibility Report

Abstract

Based on the upper echelons theory and stakeholder theory, and applying the System GMM method, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of executives’ educational level and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on “de-noising” financial performance, with the research samples collected from the A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges that disclosed their social responsibility information reports within the period of 2009 to 2015. Research results show that the corporate social responsibility lagging two phases has a significant positive effect on the current financial performance, the executives’ educational level lagging two phases has a significant positive effect on the current corporate social responsibility and executives’ education level plays no regulatory role in the impact of corporate social responsibility on financial performance.