摘要

Academics and practitioners have long wondered whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice is beneficial for Asian firms. To better understand the relationships between CSR and business performance, we use meta-analytical techniques based on 31,773 East Asian firms reported in 28 empirical studies to provide cumulative evidence for the value of CSR. Meta-analytic results indicate a general positive association between CSR and business performance. We find that environmental CSR has a stronger impact than social CSR on business performance, and that CSR practice has a stronger positive effect on operational performance than on financial performance. Further meta-analytic evidence indicates that several moderating issues explain significant variances in the effect size across studies, including economic development stage (developed vs. developing), firm size (SMEs vs. non-SMEs), organizational form (public vs. private), and measurement methods (archival data vs. self-report). Moreover, we find that CSR importance in East Asia has not varied over the past 15 years. We conclude with theoretical contributions and practical implications.