Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Investment in Company Stock

81 Pages Posted: 25 Jul 2022 Last revised: 6 Nov 2024

See all articles by Maxime Bonelli

Maxime Bonelli

London Business School - Department of Finance

Marie Briere

Amundi Asset Management; Paris Dauphine University; Université Libre de Bruxelles

François Derrien

HEC Paris - Finance Department

Date Written: July 15, 2022

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects employees’ investments in their company stock. We document this finding exploiting unique data on firm-sponsored savings plans in France. Following a CSR-related incident involving their employer, employees’ propensity to buy their employer’s stock drops by 26 percentage points. This effect is primarily driven by social incidents directly affecting employee working conditions. In contrast, environmental incidents exhibit no impact on these investments. Our findings cannot be fully explained by pecuniary motives and are not driven by CSR-conscious employees. Overall, our results point to employees considering their own well-being when making these investment decisions.

Keywords: employee stock purchase plans, ESOP, CSR, retirement savings

JEL Classification: G11, G41

Suggested Citation

Bonelli, Maxime and Briere, Marie and Derrien, François, Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Investment in Company Stock (July 15, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4164062 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4164062

Maxime Bonelli

London Business School - Department of Finance ( email )

Sussex Place
Regent's Park
London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom

Marie Briere

Amundi Asset Management ( email )

90 Boulevard Pasteur
Paris, 75015
France

Paris Dauphine University ( email )

Université Libre de Bruxelles ( email )

Brussels
Belgium

François Derrien (Contact Author)

HEC Paris - Finance Department ( email )

1 rue de la Liberation
Jouy-en-Josas Cedex, 78351
France
33 1 39 67 72 98 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.hec.fr/derrien

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