A Look at the Financial-Social Performance Nexus when Quality of Management is Held Constant

This research note advances understanding of the possible link between social and financial performance by using a financial-halo- removed measure of quality of management as control variable, along with more traditional controls of size, risk, and industry. The control, quality of management, is found to be highly associated with financial performance. Corporate social performance, measured both as a single indexed variable and as treatment of separate primary stakeholders (product/customer, employees, environment, and community), produces negligible or insignificant relationships with financial performance.

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