上市公司发布社会责任报告能够实现市值管理动机吗?

Can Listed Company Realize Market Value Management Motivation by Releasing Corporate Social Responsibility Report?

社会责任报告作为上市公司自愿性信息披露的重要形式,其市值管理潜能日益得到重视。本文利用2008—2018年A股上市公司数据,检验了上市公司发布社会责任报告是否具有市值管理动机以及这种动机能否实现,并探究了其背后的原因。研究表明:上市公司发布社会责任报告已经表现出强烈的市值管理诉求,但由于投资者对社会责任的负面看法以及缺少对社会责任信息的理性解读,公司的市值管理目的经常难以实现,发布社会责任报告反而激发了市场消极反馈。进一步的分析发现,市值越被低估以及财务业绩越优的上市公司,其发布社会责任报告的市场消极反馈越能够得到弱化;而提升社会责任报告质量以及分析师对于社会责任报告的解读,却不能明显弱化市场的消极反馈。据此,提出提高投资者的社会责任意识,鼓励投资者进行长期价值投资,推动上市公司树立正确的社会责任理念,创新和完善社会责任报告的信息披露形式等建议。

Since the non-tradable share reform,market value management has been attached great importance by Chinese listed companies.More and more companies start market value management using various methods,among which releasing corporate social responsibility report plays an important role.In recent years,corporate social responsibility(CSR)is popular around the world.A company’s behaviors influence not only its own benefits,but also the nation,the society and the environment.Most stakeholders argue that a company should fulfill social responsibilities during the life cycle.So by releasing CSR reports,a company can show intention and power on social responsibility,thus gain good reputation among stakeholders.In addition,as a means of voluntary information disclosure,the CSR reports mainly disclose non-financial information,which is different from financial reports.This can improve information transparency and give investors a deeper understanding of the intrinsic value of the company.However,others hold that social responsibility take up economic resources of the company and increase unnecessary cost and risk,which may be opposed by shareholders.What’s more,because of the emergence of pseudo-CSR,many investors doubt the true purpose of corporates releasing CSR reports.As a result,it’s not clear whether the CSR reports can help a company realize market value management.Few literature studies the relationship between the CSR report and market value management.This paper aims at testing the market management motivation and effect of the CSR reports and find out the reason.Based on the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2018,we find that Chinese listed companies show great market value management motivation on releasing CSR reports.The lower a company’s market value is,the more likely it is to release CSR reports,and the higher the report quality is.Nevertheless,issuing CSR reports fails to help market value management,yet even reduces long-term stock returns.To find out the reason,we further study the heterogeneity of the effect.The results show that,only market value underestimation and good accounting performance can reduce the negative effect,high CSR quality and analyst participation cannot do the same.These results indicate that investors regard the corporate social responsibility as a behavior contradict with shareholders’benefits,and give negative reaction to it.According to the findings above,it comes to the conclusion that the CSR report,because of the lack in investors’rational interpretation,cannot effectively help listed companies realize market value management.Investors emphasize market sentiment over corporate social responsibility,which may lower companies’enthusiasm on CSR and cause more pseudo-CSRs.So it’s valuable to increase investors’sense of social responsibility,promote listed companies to establish the correct idea of social responsibility,and encourage more complete form of CSR reports.This article contributes to extant research in several ways.First,previous literatures have verified the political rent-seeking and internal management motivation of the CSR report release,while the results in this paper find that listed companies intend to use CSR reports to improve market value.Second,few literature examines the effectiveness of market value management measures.This paper examines the effect of market value management of social responsibility report,which enriches research in market value management field.Third,this paper explains the market reaction to CSR reports from the prospect of investors’irrational behaviors,rather than the management’s opportunistic behaviors,which is different from extent literatures.