Does Media Attention Drive Corporate Social Responsibility?

Abstract

We investigate the impact of media attention on a firm’s CSR “strengths” and “weaknesses.” Drawing on social and organizational identity and stakeholder theory literatures, we develop and test two hypotheses concerning the influence that media attention has on these aspects of CSR. We find that increases in media attention are associated with increases in CSR strengths, but not with CSR weaknesses.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Performance, Advertising, KLD, Media Visibility, Panel Data Regressions

JEL Classification: L15, L21, M14